MichiganCardinal

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.

I have no doubt at all that you’ll find the perfect match. There’s a dog out there just for you, no doubt. It sucks it’s taking longer than you’d like though.

I tend to agree that BCS is at LEAST on par with BB. Personally I think it’s better, though I understand that some will be offended by that notion. I feel like BCS is more nuanced, more educated and in depth in a sense. There is a subtle, long-term, and largely secret transformation you get to witness, and it’s masterful - magical almost - how that’s pulled off despite knowledge of so much of the “end”. BB is more mainstreamed. I’m not surprised it’s won more awards. I think it appeals more to the common man that wants to enjoy television, but not have to think all that deeply (nothing wrong with this to be clear!!). It was a very novel concept when it came out, and it was a fun and extremely entertaining ride to watch Walt become Heisenberg. I just tend to lean BCS > BB personally.

I remember on the old site (RIP), there was a lot of resistance to the idea of BCS when it first was announced. People thought it was just monetizing off of BB and I remember people asking how they could possibly pull off something about the lawyer. How far we’ve come!!

What a bizarre and stupid process. Nothing stops him from choosing himself. Or Tony Buzbee for that matter.

Just swap out "4th grade me" for Chris Illitch or Al Avila.

So talk to Tom Brady and Sean Payton = forfeit hugely important picks, get suspended for a number of months, pay a large fine.............. Have 24 women make allegations of sexual misconduct upon you = six-game suspension, no fine I'm not saying what Ross did was okay, but when this punishment came out I automatically assumed that it was found he instructed Flores to lose games, or offered him money to do so (as Flores alleged). That was not substantiated, this is just for tampering with Brady and Payton. I get that Watson is a unionized player and Ross is an owner protected "only" by wealth, power, and insulation, but I could point to Daniel Snyder or Robert Kraft too.... Seems the NFL's priorities may be a bit out of whack.

I could have done without all the cameos to this point. Not that it ruined it for me or anything, but it just felt forced, like they felt they had to show Jessie and Walt to appease their audience, when BCS is doing just fine on its own. If they do something with it, that substantially changes the way we think about BB, that may change my mind.

Alternate title: fringe offensive lineman gets hurt and subsequently cut after being drafted over and not appearing for voluntary workouts; doesn’t like it. If it were to come out that other NFL teams would pay him, in a similar position, that would be one thing. But it won’t, because this is standard business in the NFL. His gripe should really be with the NFLPA if he doesn’t think he’s being suitably compensated for what he put in.

I like this theory. No offense to your other theories.

Putting outside the NFL’s hypocrisy for a moment…. I’m interested to see if the Browns get the QB they think they’re getting. He last played in an NFL game on 1/3/21. His next game will be on 10/23/22 at soonest, and he’s largely been away from all NFL activity through that time… Has he stayed in shape? Has he thrown a football? He’s getting paid no matter what, there’s not much incentive there if he hasn’t been staying active. On top of that it’s worth mention that for being talked about and paid like the best QB in the NFL, he’s 28-25 as a starter.

I was thinking today about what the “end” to all this expansion looks like and this post came to my mind. I don’t think there is necessarily going to be a real end. I don’t see a reason why any given number (be it 16, 20, 24, or whatever) is going to magically cause decades of stability at the college ranks like we see in the professional sports. Even if there is an identified “sweet spot” number of teams, where the B1G and SEC like their chances to maximize revenue while minimizing the number of slices to the pie. Even if they publicly state that they’re officially done expanding. Even if the B1G and SEC change focus altogether, to leaving the NCAA for football and creating their own playoff…… I don’t think we will see much loyalty at all between these piecemeal conferences, which could lead to something of a promotion/relegation system. To engage in a hypothetical… say that Notre Dame joins the B1G tomorrow, and the B1G subsequently invites Stanford, Cal, and Oregon, all of whom quickly accept. The B1G announces they’re done expanding as the PAC 12 folds and its remaining teams join the Big 12. The SEC responds by adding Clemson, Miami, Florida State, and Oklahoma State to get to 20 and also says they’re done. The earthquake seems to be over with two strong conferences and two sub-conferences. Fast forward five years from now, the B1G is making insane amounts of money… so have one or two select ACC and Big 12 teams. Let’s say Virginia, for instance, has maintained their success in basketball, has combined that with some sustained success in football, and have created a pretty successful money-making brand. Meanwhile, Maryland still sucks and is effectively losing the B1G money… And the B1G leaders have the realization that “we are making a lot of money…. But we could be making more!” I don’t think the money making decision makers at USC, UCLA, and Notre Dame would feel an ounce of sympathy or loyalty towards Maryland. I don’t think the money making decision makers at Michigan, Michigan State, or Ohio State care nearly enough about Maryland to stick up for them. We could see a Maryland (or Rutgers or even Nebraska) get the boot for Virginia, if the B1G thinks Virginia can make them more money over the long-term. Now to be clear, I don’t see the B1G OGs allowing the new guys in the room to cut Illinois, Purdue, or Indiana loose anytime soon, no matter how many consecutive 2-10 seasons they put together… And I don’t see Central Michigan, Akron, or even Cincinnati being added to the conference, even if they can put together 13-0 seasons… at the same time, I don’t see an end to expansion/realignment, so long as monetary dynamics continue to develop. Which could lead itself to something of a promotion and relegation system.

This is the last week without football until mid February. HOF Game on Thursday.

The PAC 12 and Big 12 can bitch at each other until they’re both blue in the face. Who survives will depend on what their parents in the Big 10 and SEC decide (plus that 3rd wheel Notre Dame).

I'm trying my best to be cynical about the Lions' prospects, if only to temper my expectations, but I really do see a lot to be excited about. The only question mark on the offensive side of the ball is Goff, and he has shown before that with the right weapons around him, he can perform at a very high level. On the defensive side of the ball, our linebackers are clearly the biggest weakness on the team, and I think it's fair to expect that teams that can run the ball may wear down our linemen and start stuffing it down our throats before dumping quick slants, just picking on Anzalone and Barnes. We have enough depth at the lineman position now that it may take 2-3 quarters to accomplish, but I can envision some really frustrating 90-yard 4th quarter drives where the Eagles, Cowboys, and Bills just kill us by 1000 paper cuts. That said though, our secondary should also be improved with another year of Glenn and Pleasant at the helm. I don't think teams are going to be scorching us like the Bengals and Eagles did last year. On top of it though, and what cannot be ignored, is the 4th place NFC North schedule ahead of us. Picking wins before the games are played is recipe for disaster, but between the Vikings, Bears, Jaguars, Jets, Giants, and Seahawks, there should be a lot of winnable games at face value.