Hapless Bills Fan

So apparently Allen made the cut! and will play tomorrow https://golf.com/news/2022-att-pebble-beach-pro-am-tee-times-round-3/ Tee time 1:30 pm on Pebble Beach Tee 1. A bit confused: 1:31 p.m. – Keith Mitchell & Josh Allen (9), Kevin Streelman & Larry Fitzgerald Jr (7) Is the # in parenthesis his handicap? Because people up thread are saying he's a (7), but it seems he's a (9)?

Yes

NY times article on the lawsuit: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/sports/football/brian-flores-giants-discrimination-lawsuit.html?searchResultPosition=1 Includes a link to the full text of the lawsuit, for those who like their sources primary But they note:

So CMC only played like 7 games in 2021, Olsen's been gone for 2 years, and yet this guy's targets have not increased. If Brady wasn't designing plays to target this guy in Carolina while he actually played 60-65% of the snaps, why do we think they want to bring him here? Sweeney may get the chance to come into camp, but unless he has a fantastic off-season and comes into camp lighting it up, he's gone. It's possible Beane induces the Giants to swap a low draft pick or a low-end of the roster player if Daboll considers him useful as a player-coach to teach the system

I don't know about the "only allowed in" bit. I think more owners are concerned about having a coaching hire make them look bad, than are truly concerned about winning consistently. How do you assure a coaching hire won't make you look bad? 1) hire someone who has done it before with some success 2) hire someone related to someone who has done it before with success if they have been coaching and groomed for success 3) hire someone who is working under a HC who is currently successful (or was recently successful) McDermott was hired the year after the Panthers/Rivera won the NFCCG and lost the Superbowl.

According to one source given above, 40% of assistant coaches in the NFL are black. So 3% or even 9% is still disproportionate. The skillsets are not necessarily the same but football-knowledgeable folk who become coaches are almost all former players at the college and pro level. NFL players are predominantly black. I believe college players today are 50% black. So that's the relevant pool for comparing the number of coaches, not the general population.

I think the idea is he agreed to a day on a yacht and the owner of the Dolphins just happened to be another guest and had brought his HC along and if they happened to talk a little shop about plans for the 2020 season, well who could blame them? It's not as though Brady didn't know Flores, they worked in the same building from 2004-2018 and Flores in coaching from 2008-2018

https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/nfl-draft-2022-northern-iowa-tackle-recalls-rugged-workouts-with-bills-spencer-brown/article_dc9d1bda-8445-11ec-9717-7b147498f2ab.html?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter_TheBuffaloNews Sounds like a dear friend. What have you got to say about your teammate now starting in the NFL? "He pukes a lot"

https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/sports/bills/bills-still-interviewing-offensive-line-coaching-candidates?utm_campaign=sharebutton&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=WGRAM The others reported in this article are 60 yr old George Warhop, last coached for the Jaguars, and Bills Assistant OL coach Ryan Wendell. Another interesting point made is: In truth, I'm uninspired by any of these choices. Edit: OK after watching the video linked in @Jim Bob's post, I feel a bit better about Rauscher.

Untrue

That ..... looks like sauce and cheese served in a bread bowl. We had a pizza in Colorado recently. It wasn't nearly that awful, but it wasn't good. It was like lower-tier ordinary pizza. But it wasn't at a noted pizzaria or anything, just a local grill. I think that was SnapFlow69 's point, to which Mongo replied that Buffalo pizza is "vomit" (implying Pizza Hut pizza is better). Mongo is dead to me now.

"League sources" LOL We comprehend this, but on a message board having no basis, or choosing not to share it, are functionally equivalent.

I thought they had the option to travel to the city where the SB is played? They chose to depart for Los Angeles next Tuesday So it's their choice But overall, yes, there's a huge disadvantage. Isn't that the reason Carson Palmer finally revolted about playing for the Bengals?

Sir, you admit to ranch on your wings. You show no evidence that you'd recognize a better palate if it nipped you on the posterior Truth. I live in St Louis. St Louis Style Pizza is beloved by the natives. People who have actually eaten decent pizza regard it as undeserving of the term "Pizza". We ordered one after we moved here, we threw it out, and the dog didn't even try to pull it out of the trash.

Oh Boy. This is Not going to End Well. @Chandler#81 passed me his gift for predicting these things.

@JGMcD2 there's your cue! Virgil: how do you know he wants to sign with the Falcons? Just a note that Spotrac has come in high on a number of contracts last year due to the cap dropping, and that while it's gone back up the residual impact rolls into this season because a lot of teams renegotiated contracts and kicked their cap hits forward. So Berrios was on IR at the end of the season with a quad injury. Anyone know anything about how serious this is?

This is at least framed as a legitimate question and doesn't include dufus crap like "albanian dwarves", so it deserves an attempt at an answer instead of being kicked to the curb. I'm not a lawyer, just a refugee from HR presentations on equity in hiring practices, so rate this accordingly. Equity in hiring does not mean you have a quota from every "protected class" in the general population. It means equity from the qualified candidate pool. For example, if you're trying to hire electrical engineers, you aren't looking at the general population, you're looking at the candidate pool of properly qualified electrical engineers. If there are no female electrical engineers applying for your job, you are not required to hire a woman who lacks relevant education and experience. If there's a transsexual electrical engineer or a veteran electrical engineer who isn't being hired for jobs for which they appear qualified, expect questions. If there aren't, you aren't required to go out and find an unqualified member of that protected class and hire them. There are now a few low-level female assistants in the NFL, but no women with the coaching background (position coaches, coordinators) and experience (coaching or playing the game) that are generally considered precursors to having enough knowledge to be hired. If and when there are, then that question may be considered. In contrast, the majority of players in the NFL are black or other minorities, and one source I found says that 40% of assistant coaches are black. So clearly there is a statistical disproportion relative to the overall candidate pool, in the highest ranks of coaches with only 3% black head coaches at present. That's why the issue arises with respect to black coaches, but not with regard to women, sexuality, disability, and veterans. With regard to age, when both young coaches are hired and elderly coaches continue to coach or are re-hired, that doesn't seem to be an issue for the NFL.

I think you've cited this statistic several times. Can you point us to a source for it? Because I'm not sure it's correct. Thanks! One contention is that the reason there are no longer 8 black coaches is that black coaches are given a "shorter leash" and less time than white coaches with comparable records (Joseph vs Florio) and that "retread" white coaches are rehired and given 2nd chances more often than former black head coaches. So the fact that there were, and now there aren't, may be part of a picture of disparate treatment. I agree with all of this. In particular, as someone else pointed out, the trend seems to be to hire offensive coordinators as head coaches, and there are not many black offensive coordinators and fewer who call plays. And as you point out, the one who does (Leftwich) seems to feel confident enough that he can sit back and dictate his terms. Culley absolutely got hosed IMO. He did a very good job developing Davis Mills and leading a terrible team to 4 wins. Firing him then considering McCown is a joke.

I don't think the Rooney rule is a good thing in case that isn't clear When one looks at an NFL where failed retread coaches and Josh McCown are being offered coaching positions on a regular basis while highly-regarded and experienced coordinators and coaches are passed over, it also seems clear that factors beyond talent and experience are going into coach and coordinator hiring decisions.

On issues like this, Florio is worth listening to because, as he puts it, he's a "recovering litigator" who actually practiced employment law for a couple decades, eventually representing both sides (employer and employee). This is 100% his lane, and he knows his ***** when he's talking about stuff like arbitration clauses But, one needs to learn to separate out when he diverges into opinion, and IMHO there's a disappointing amount of that here. They also don't do a good job separating out the parts of the lawsuit which have a good chance of being arbitrated (anything to do with the Dolphins when Flores was under contract there) vs. parts which may be unlikely to be arbitrated (Flores was not under contract to the NFL or an NFL club when he interviewed for the Giants job) I listened to the whole thing, and I did not hear him say or imply that Schoen's prior working relationship with Daboll would be a "strong argument" . If you can point me at where in the somewhat long interview you heard that, I'd be obliged. What I heard, was Florio saying he had a bull#### filter, and implying that the Giants statement "we would never hire a HC based on a 20 minute phone interview" hit his bull#### detector. He said if they did make a hiring decision, they made it based on Schoen's prior relationship with Daboll, not on a 20 minute phone interview, and that Schoen walked in as GM with a list of names he wanted to hire as HC and it would be interesting to know who was on it and in what order. This is where I personally think Florio gets some stuff wrong. There was an article about the Vikes coaching search in the Athletic (it's linked in that thread) where they said all of the GM candidates were asked "if you get the job, who would you want to look at for HC?" I would bet that's a very common and standard GM interview question. I think Mara and Tisch added Daboll and Frazier to their list at the point where they interviewed Schoen and considered him a strong candidate (that's when their phone interviews with Daboll and Frazier were set up). Why wouldn't you pick the brains of the people you interview and harvest their learnings on potential coaches? Florio implies that when Schoen walked in the door as the new hired GM, he had a list with Daboll's name at the top and that was that. Given what's been out there about Mara and Tisch, they are NOT the guys to hand 100% of the decision making authority over to their new hired GM, so I find that implausible. Even if Schoen has something in his contract that gives him the final say on the HC hire, if he's smart (and all signs point to "smart"), he would want Mara and Tisch to buy in. Safe bet that Mara and Tisch wanted to meet with Daboll for an in person interview and also, yes, talk to people he's worked with in NE and in Buffalo, before a hiring decision was made. Schoen should want that too, even if Schoen has something in his contract that gives him the final vote. If Daboll stumbles out of the gate (he may), Schoen doesn't want to feel his seat getting warm. It's in his interest for Mara and Tisch to buy in to the hire and accept that a new HC may stumble. So no, "we would never hire a HC based on a 20 minute phone call" doesn't twinge my bull#### filter. It's true that wouldn't be Schoen's hiring basis, but it would be Mara and Tisch's hiring basis, and I'm pretty damned sure they still have a lot of influence. Florio implies the information about Daboll being hired may have come during an "information seeking" phone call between Mara and Belichick - seems likely, but unless Florio has inside gouge (unlikely) it's speculation. "Why wasn't Schoen on the call?". In hiring processes I've been involved in, the idea is the reference will speak more frankly talking 1:1 with the person they know. So Mara calling Belichick solo doesn't seem odd to me. And Mara could very well have signed off with "thank you for that, Bill, sounds like he might be our guy!" Which commits him to nothing, and does not constitute a hiring decision. They play a Flores clip where he talks about "back channels". Flores was hired from being a LB coach with NE, to being HC of the Dolphins, without coordinator experience - an unusual step. Does Flores think that happened without "back channel communication" (aka, a personal recommendation) from Belichick influencing the hire in Miami? Give. Me. a Break. You can't benefit from part of the hiring process in one hiring cycle ("a recommendation") when it works in your favor, and then assert "back channel" conversations (aka recommendations) should stop when you think it may have worked against you. In any event, why would Belichick's word about the TE coach in 2016 be considered to outweigh National Championship coach Saban about his OC from 2017, or recommendations from the Buffalo FO and HC Daboll has worked with for 4 years as OC? It's not logical IMO. Also, Belichick is said to have pushed for Mara and Tisch to hire Joe Judge ahead of Josh McDaniel in 2020 - how did that work out? Wouldn't you think that down-rates Belichick's influence with the Giants? The most interesting part of the clip starts about 9:30 (back up a bit for the background). Peter King calls Florio out on making assumptions and says that even if Schoen came in with the intention to hire Daboll, it seems likely that Mara and Tisch said "look, if we hire you, you're going through a coaching search". At 10:20-ish, King and Florio go back and forth "who would you rather have?" with legitimate arguments pro and con Daboll and Flores, which highlights that this is definitely not a case where a less-qualified coach got hired over a more-qualified coach, but one where two coaches have different strengths and question marks about them, and it becomes a question of which qualities are most important to the hiring committee.

Not just coordinators, but starting right at the lower-level assistants, and providing mentoring to prepare them for a step (mentoring for all). As I understand it, mentoring for the next level is kind of hit and miss and depends on whether an individual guy finds people to take him under their wing. The success that relatives of former coaches have is likely due (in part) to having built-in mentoring advising them what skills they need to build or improve and how to position themselves for the next step. (provide more consistent mentoring for all the assistants of any race or background, of course).

Right. And then you get to things like the rumor the Texans will hire Josh McCown, a former QB with like NO coaching experience at any level: Really? You can't find a better choice with more experience at ANY level? He would be like the poster-boy opposed to the concept that owners want to win at all costs and hire the best coaching talent they can get. Or the hiring of re-tread coaches like Doug Pederson - and he's far from the most egregious example, as he did win a Superbowl with Nick Foles and got a single amazing year out of Carson Wentz. After which his OC was hired by the Colts as HC, his QB coach was hired by the Vikings, the team exited the playoffs early, and Wentz fell apart and now seems irreparably broken, which casts some doubt (in my mind anyway) as to who was most responsible for that, but I digress The point is, by the time NFL teams hire relatives of former coaches, retread coaches, offensive coordinators of current playoff teams, and the occasional Whisky Tango Foxtrot? hire like McCown 1) it's pretty hard to argue that some kind of process based on coaching experience and results is going down 2) there aren't a lot of openings left to give promising, well-qualified coordinators a shot.

I'm not sure. I think lawsuits can be broken into chunks and different parts addressed. IMHO the serious thing for the league is Flores claim that Ross offered him money to lose games and then Jackson saying similar of the Browns. The league needs to dig into that on its own, fast, and put it to rest as quickly as possible. Maybe take action against Ross like forcing him to sell the team if there's any corroboration. I don't know what Flores wants as far as the other claims. It would be nice if there were a constructive plan of how to improve things, but like I said, this reads to me like "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more" lawsuit so I doubt there are well-thought constructive ideas to effect change attached to it. But two prominent NFL owners have come out saying "we have to do better, we can do better". If the NFL comes out with its own plan for improvement (and gains some support for it), it can pretty much do an end-around without "caving" or acknowledging that Flores specific allegations are true. I'm not a lawyer and these are just my thoughts.

What I see is people jumping to conclusions on both sides of the issue. Pat McAfee (surprise!) did a show which basically took everything the lawsuit alleges as fact. Others, like you, are assuming it "completely unravelled" there's nothing there. I believe that the lawyers wouldn't have filed the case if there weren't more substance to it than has been revealed so far, so I think "wait and see what the evidence actually is before forming a conclusion" is the right call. Belichick's texts alone are hearsay, but who he spoke to on the Giants and Bills, and what he heard, still matter. Overall, I stand by what I said upthread: it reads to me like the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this any more" lawsuit, not something that is carefully researched and constructed to hold up well in court.