MichiganCardinal

Why does this start so late? Trying to stay up…

Now that it’s all over, don’t forget to cancel your AMC+ subscriptions before they renew! What, too soon? 😁

The salary cap isn't something that really concerns me to a very large degree when it comes to making moves. It's on the radar, but not very close to the center of my thought process. Maybe I'm naïve and it should concern me more (no one confused me for being an NFL GM), but it never seems to bother big spending teams. Every offseason you seem to hear about the Packers, Saints, and Rams being in some form of salary cap hell.... and then they go out and sign big name players and are immediately back in contention. To be clear, I'm not advocating going the Jaguars route and spending money for the sake of spending money. I don't think the Lions should be 'at' the cap year-in and year-out just for the sake of being there. But if you feel that Roquan, or whoever, puts you in a position where you a legitimate contender - for the NFC North title and beyond - both now and into the future.... I wouldn't allow concern for the salary cap stop you from making that move.

I'm satisfied. Part of me was disappointed when he came clean, because as the con that led to an offer of seven years was being played out, I wanted to see a 2022 scene shot in color to finish. Where we see a new alias for Jimmy/Saul/Viktor/Gene be born. Leaving the door open in a sense, to Jimmy being out there in some way. At the same time, upon further reflection, I think this finale offers better closure to the universe. No one wins, and no one should win. I also don't think I would want to see AMC try to re-boot the series in ten years without Gilligan or Gould the way they did Dexter without James Manos Jr.

I would wait until the trade deadline to assess the risk and reward of sacrificing assets for Roquan Smith, or any premier linebacker. There is a lot of hype around the team right now, and I’m even on the train that believes the Lions could potentially make the playoffs this year…. but I want to see it materialize before I commit to being a buyer off a 3-13-1 season. If we reach late October at 4-3 or so, have a timetable on JaMo’s return, and like our chances to compete for the North or a wildcard spot, but can tell the LB spot is holding us back? Go for it. On the other hand, if Goff goes down or injuries otherwise hamper us, or if Aaron Glenn isn’t able to work the magic many of us are hoping for with the DL and DBs, and we are clearly more than one guy away, then pass. Save the draft capital and use it to get your guy in the draft.

That was sexy. It was against one of the worst teams in the NFL. But that’s how good teams look against bad teams in the NFL.

Chris will offer him three Hot N Readys and a 2 liter of expired Mug Root Beer, best he can do.

I’d be fine with that! He might accept such an offer too. I don’t think he’d come close to the job of GM though. If he came back he’d want a checkbook that I don’t think Chris is handing out.

Chris has zero experience selecting an outside GM. Hell, the Tigers as an organization haven’t done it in 20 years. He might not think of himself like that, but I think he should. He stumbled into a generational talent in Yzerman that will likely save his behind with the Wings. I don’t think he’ll be as lucky with the Tigers unless he relies on some people with experience he doesn’t have.

I never said their history is something to strive for, of course it’s not. I’m just saying that their recent history in the process by which they select a replacement GM is along the lines of what I’d like to see the Tigers do. It might work it might not. Same with the Lions. I think it’s a better recipe for future success than Illitch selecting whomever he arbitrarily thinks is the best candidate.

The alternative is having Chris Illitch handpick a replacement for Al. I’m not exactly bursting at the seams to see who he has in mind. His qualifications for being owner of the Tigers are being born rich. The Lions suck and WCF was a dreadful owner, but Sheila chose Holmes and Campbell the right way. By letting smarter people than her complete practically the entire process.

If you expect a new front office to come into this franchise and have instant success I have bad news for you. They’re rebuilding the rebuild and it’s still probably three years out minimum, short of some dramatic and miraculous improvement from the bats.

In a phrase seldom uttered around these parts, he would probably be wise to take a page from the Lions (very recent) book here. Admit that he doesn’t have a clue about how to find/hire an external GM, and outsource the search process.

I suppose - but if you’re confident he won’t be returning, why let him execute maneuvers at the deadline? His track record doesn’t exactly instill confidence that he would be any better at making moves than having a lame duck interim front office without any real authority to make deals. Without being behind the scenes, I suppose it’s possible that Chris wasn’t going to authorize any significant trades anyway and effectively had already eliminated his authority, without making it public.

I am surprised this came after the trade deadline but before October.

I didn’t play it out game by game, I just don’t think they’ll run the gauntlet. Not Michigan though, if that’s what you’re asking. I would guess one of Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Iowa, or Penn State could upset them.

Absolutely. The question is whether the powers that be care enough to do something about it.

I'm much less knowledgeable about college ball than I am the NFL, but if I had to stab at it.... EAST #2 Ohio State (12-1) - B1G Champs, National Semifinal #10 Michigan (10-2) - Rose Bowl #24 Penn State (9-3) - Tampa Bay (Outback) Bowl Michigan State (8-4) - Duke's Mayo Bowl Maryland (7-5) - Guaranteed Rate Bowl Indiana (6-6) - Gator Bowl Rutgers (3-9) WEST #22 Wisconsin (9-3) - Citrus Bowl Iowa (8-4) - Music City Bowl Nebraska (8-4) - Pinstripe Bowl Minnesota (6-6) - Quick Lane Bowl Purdue (5-7) Illinois (4-8) Northwestern (2-10)

I think Michigan will find it difficult to replicate their efforts from a season ago without Hutchinson, Ojabo, and Dax Hill on the defensive side of the ball. I do not think they are the #6 team in the country right now, though their cupcake non-conference schedule allows them to walk into Iowa City on 10/1 almost certainly 4-0, giving their young blood some time to acclimate and gain starting confidence. Even after Iowa, it would take a semi-significant upset for them to lose to anyone but Penn State, Michigan State, and/or Ohio State, the former two of which are at home. This is one of the easier schedules in some time. I think MSU is also overrated at #14. Let's see what they can do without Kenneth Walker and then we'll talk about them being the 3rd best B1G team.

If you're asking for how my proposal would handle this, it would be on an individual by individual, and team by team basis. A person who is accused of something they didn't do and is exonerated would likely be handled differently than a person who commits domestic violence, but whose wife or partner chooses not to appear, or assault, and the victim is paid, with the charges subsequently dropped or the grand jury failing to indict. I think it's all nuanced and hard to generalize. In the former, I would expect most teams to stand by their player, be very transparent in what occurred, and not punish the player. In the latter, I'm sure some teams would (falsely) claim that as a full and complete exoneration and others would still give a rat's behind about the court of public opinion and give some sort of punishment. Either way it's better than Roger Goodell spinning a wheel and suspending the player for however many games it lands on.

It's all been a dream. Just as Gene and Kim are about to reunite, Jimmy will wake up as Chuck smacks him with a newspaper. Jimmy is still slumming in the mailroom and fell asleep at the job. Kim rolls her eyes at him passing by, a dream catch he could never get. Walt is just a client dying from cancer, getting his will completed by the firm. Jimmy drempt it all up - both series. Rage ensues the likes haven't been seen since the finale of Dexter. 😉

That's elementary PI work he could have had done. It's also possible it's something Francesca told him in a prior year.

I think you could still have some oversight on the part of the NFL, but it would be just that - oversight - with power being wielded exceedingly rarely. I think more likely than one player murdering someone and getting off, causing anarchy, you could have issues of a large number of off-the-field issues afflicting one single team in one particular offseason (i.e., on the Jaguars player A gets a DV charge, player B gets a DWI, player C murders someone, player D assaults someone at a club, etc.), where it's just chaos in one circle, Khan is clearly in over his head, and it's making the entire league look bad. Akin to how the NCAA can levy "lack of institutional control" or the "death penalty" onto a member school, I can see a clause being that with a certain high amount of owner support (say 24/32 - the same for rule changes and forcing sales of teams), the other NFL owners can request the NFL step into a franchise and provide a higher level of oversight, including the power to themselves suspend players.

Having sat on this for a couple of days I tend to mostly agree with you. Initially I was put off on the concept of Watson “only” getting six games in comparison to Stephen Ross getting more. In hindsight though, there is no perfect formula you can put into a conduct policy. You can’t say “this many games for child abuse, this many for animal abuse, this many for domestic violence, take this many away if the victim doesn’t want us to proceed…” it gets way too convoluted and stupid, and you can see this clear as day with this case, where the NFL hired a former federal judge to rule on it, only to say “just kidding never mind” when they didn’t like the answer they got. To say something I never thought I’d say….. the NFL can take a page from the NCAA on this one. Let the individual franchises (like individual schools) handle discipline for off-the-field conduct. The NFL needs to just stay out of it. If Jerry Jones, Jim Haslam, Robert Kraft, and Stephen Ross want to ‘okay’ their players being moral monsters off the field, that’s their prerogative until/unless the criminal justice system gets involved. If Virginia McCaskey and Sheila Ford want to be leaders of a moral, just, and community-minded organization, good on them. Teams can decide on an individual basis how to handle these issues, because it’s all gray area. Where we differ I think is whether they should receive consequences. If I go out on any given weekend, drink a little too much, and get myself arrested for one thing or another, my employer could fire me or otherwise discipline me. My (imaginary) conduct reflects poorly on my employer. I do think the same should be true for professional athletes, as not only does Deshaun Watson’s conduct reflect poorly on the Texans and Browns, but you also have millions of kids who look up to him as a role model. They *should* be held to an even higher standard, in my mind. Handling that issue though should be the responsibility of the direct employer though - the ones who work with me day-in and day-out, the ones who maybe have all the context, and the ones who ultimately sign the paycheck. Not my boss’s oversight committee, who don’t interact with individual employees except to be this overarching nameless body… Under this system, we would see punishment in terms of games suspended go way down on these matters, but I promise those individual teams fans won’t mind - everyone cares about off-field conduct until it’s their guy. We may also see so-called “restorative justice” (e.g., guys doing community events and service as a part of their ”punishment”) go up, which also isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The NFL should still manage those integrity matters - tampering, cheating, gambling, etc… And those can and should be ruled with an iron fist. I don’t have an issue with Calvin Ridley being suspended a full year for gambling, but I don’t want it viewed in the same context of that entity also suspending Ezekiel Elliot six games, or Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice indefinitely, or not suspending Tyreek Hill. Just my $0.02 though.