Hapless Bills Fan

They're a legit "heavy hitter" law firm, and Flores approached them. They're apparently typically in it for the $$ But several upthread who sound knowledgeable have questioned whether they have the clients interest at heart - in general, and in the way this case was framed. Typically when you have a lawyer and his client doing the talk-show rounds, it's because they don't necessarily want to try the case, they want the "court of public opinion" to force a settlement.

Or for that matter, McDermott or Pegula

In this video it said his agent called and asked "do you want to play in this?" and he said "absolutely, can't say no to it"

Well.....I, as an adult, don't like most of the same stuff I liked when I was 8 My kid, as an adult, doesn't like most of the same stuff she liked when she was 8 (in fact, she wouldn't touch pizza of any kind then) Sure there are family favorites like Grandma's cheesecake that still rule Dunno what to tell you

In English, I don't think it means what you think it means. I think the translation is more like "I'll see you in court with my proof, Beeyotches" Although there's a lot of space in the word "aware" Linky?

When he's a kid, c'mon man

Er... You do realize there's snow in California?

Watchu talking about? Mongo? Jon Feliciano? Davie, Florida. Not Long Island.

It doesn't mean the process is racist by intent. But when there are reportedly ~40% black assistant coaches and only 3-9% black HC, something about the process is leading to a racially biased hiring result. And the Rooney Rule, while well intentioned with the current changes, ain't doing ***** to create change. My take. 🤷‍♂️

OK, we disagree then.

I think that's a very stretched interpretation of the texts in Flores lawsuit, and just because Belichick texts it doesn't make it true. Black owners, great. Flores hiring practices for his own coordinators might not have been transparent and included minorities, so there's that. I think the NFL should be sponsoring graduate assistantships in college for Black players who want to start coaching and also raise the pay for the entry-tier of assistant coaches. My understanding is the lowest rung don't pay enough to support a family but work them too hard to have a 2nd job. Pay them so that anyone with an interest can take the job and make it, and you'll wind up with a more assistant coaches to choose from. My second dumb idea would be work to create opportunities for the coaching assistants and management to interact off season when there's more time. I believe like "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" said, "some people are apples...some are pears..underneath it all, we're all fruit!" and if people get together enough to find that commonality, then it's easier to evaluate them fairly.

Wasn't there a lot of crap about Brady going to Tennessee in the 2020 off season, supposedly because his kid was touring a private school there? It was all debunked.

Well, Now. Pederson also made Wentz look like hot crap in 2020, and never as good as he looked in 2017 In hindsight, one line of thinking is maybe Frank Reich and John DeFilippo made Wentz look like an MVP, and after they left, he started a slide....and hit bottom the year Pederson took over as OC. Time Will Tell

See my story upthread on the Pizza Hut crust experience at one franchise

You 100% need to drop that into the twitter replies. "new 13 second rap song about Tops > Wegmans" 😂😂😂 Oh, Yeah. Hot Takes by the ton, all season long. #76 deep down the Conspiracy Rabbit Hole. His perogative of course, but... Yikes and Yowza.

So I had a good friend in graduate school who worked as a Pizza Hut shift manager while he was in college. Champaign/Urbana IIRC. There were several in the area at the time. One time, he had the closing shift one night and the opening shift the next day. At closing, the procedure was they would put oil in the pans for the deep dish pizza and stack them up, ready for the rush. They would work their way down one stack, then the next, then the next. So. That night, unbeknownst to him and with no precautions to cover the cookware or to wash it afterwards, the Hut had bug exterminators in. The next day, a leaden-faced customer came in with deep dish pizza that had one slice cut from it and the piece tossed back in the box, and asked to see the manager. He flipped the pizza over and told my friend to take a look. There, baked into the crust, were 4 and 20 cockroaches, baked into a pie. Needless to say, my friend was very apologetic, refunded the guy's money, and offered him anything else he wanted - a new pizza, a gift certificate? The guy didn't want anything. He was Done with the Hut. Friend went to check the top pan in each stack - every one full of dead cockroaches.

Was a response to Reid Ferguson tweeting about Pizza Hut returning to WNY: (he meant BWW) And @YoloinOhio, when you're right: you're right! ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- and finally.... Yep. Mongo, your time here is Through. Nice watchin' ya.

If, in fact, a hiring decision was reached before he walked into the building, he was not given a fair shot. But the Giants contest that. And talking to former employers/seeking their input does not constitute undue influence. Forming an impression of who the lead candidate is based on initial interviews/recommendations does not constitute a hiring decision either. If the former employer gains an impression about the status of the process and procedes to share it around, that also does not constitute a hiring decision.

I have no idea what "that parlance" means in this context. Let's start here, and maybe we can at least see where we disagree. 1) 57.5% of NFL players are African American, 9.4% identify as "two or more races, and 24.9% identify as white (source: Statista) 2) According to this source, 35-40% of assistant coaches are black 3) Last year, only 3/32 head coaches were black (9%) and now 1/32 (3%) So of the relevant population - those who know the most about playing and coaching American football - more than half of the players are black, more than 1/3 of the overall coaching population is black, but 3-9% of the top level HC are black. I don't think you have to be a stats genius to realize that something non-random, something systematic, is probably at work there. But what? Is it that owners are sitting around saying "we don't want to hire black guys"? I personally and strongly doubt that. I could be wrong, but I think the overwhelming majority of folks aren't prejudiced in their thinking, and that would include NFL owners and execs (some are - we've seen some flashes of it here in these threads). I think if you hooked them up to a lie detector test and asked them "do you believe a black coach can have all the qualities needed to coach an NFL team to a Superbowl win?" they would say "yes" and the needle wouldn't waver. (Maybe 1 or 2 would). The challenge is that unlike the athletic qualities and demonstrated in-game abilities that showcase a player's talent, the qualities that make a winning HC are a lot more subjective, and harder to measure. A partial list could be made - inspires people to follow him, able to hold people accountable, very well organized, great football mind, able to lead and coordinate the activities of a group of people, great communicator, able to work well with peers (like the GM and FO), etcetera. How important each of those qualities are, and how well a specific individual exemplifies them would probably be seen as variable. So it becomes a subjective process, and to some extent governed by "gut feeling" - Russ Brandon/Doug Whaley's "you'll just KNOW" advice to the Pegulas - rather than measurables. The GM wants a guy he feels comfortable with. The Owner doesn't want to look like a fool, so he doesn't want to hire someone who will crash-n-burn (unless he wants the team to tank). So then you ask, who are these people who elicit the feeling of "he's right, I just KNOW" or "I can really work with this guy" (from the GM) or "I'm confident this won't be a mistake" (from the owner)? They are typically going to be either people who have been head coaches with some success - the "coaching carousel" that gives fired head coaches like Gase or Rivera a fast track to a second chance - or people who have connections with and "click" with the hiring team so that they feel comfortable. And who are those people? Typically, they're people who we "click" with, or feel akin to - because they are "like us" in some way. It's not that the hiring team is consciously prejudiced. It's that when you have a subjective process, your unconscious beliefs and assumptions become part of the process - get "baked in". OK, that's my best effort to reprise. Not saying the owners are racists or making consciously racist decisions. Saying that the results indicate some form of biased decision making is almost certainly at work. Using my own experience as a hiring manager/interviewer and a bystander to higher-level decisions to give understanding of how bias gets into decisions without conscious intent.

By league rules, a minority not currently employed by the club had to be interviewed in person before a hiring decision is made. That would be Flores and Frazier. I think we're both in Dunning-Kruger land at understanding the legal picture here, but it seems like a good bet that employers have to follow the procedures they establish to promote fair hiring practices, or it's no bueno. So hiring decision made after Thursday, when Flores (the first external minority candidate) interviewed = complies with NFL (employer) procedure Hiring decision made Monday, before external minority interview = does not comply with NFL procedure The thing is, the hiring decision isn't made when someone tells Belichick "Bill, thanks for your input...it sounds as though Daboll's our guy". The hiring decision is made when all the decision makers agree to actually extend an offer to Daboll. And even then, the job is still open until Daboll says "yes" and signs the contract.

I'm sorry, I'm 100% all in that the NFL has some hiring practices that need to change. But Flores just needs to cash a Reality Check. He just jumped the Shark 1) Belichick gave information about Daboll's tenure as his employee...that's called a reference, Flores. We all get them (good or bad) from our current and former employers, and yes, sometimes they influence whether or not we get the job. 2) Belichick undoubtedly did the same for Flores when he was a relatively inexperienced Safeties and LB coach for NE, with NO coordinator experience at any level....and yet got hired by Miami and received the opportunity to coach for 3 years So when Belichick influenced the hiring decision on Flores behalf (which had to have been a strong factor, given his lack of coordinator experience), it's great....but if he does it for Daboll (where it was probably a slight factor, given that Daboll just worked 4 years as OC for another team and went to the playoffs 3 years in a row and contended for the AFCCG), now it's undue influence and it's bad? SMDH.

I dunno about that 450x representation in the population figure, but let it pass. As for the bolded, I don't think that's what happens. I don't think that's what most people believe happens. I don't think NFL owners and senior executives are by and large racists who explicitly believe black coaches are less capable, either. But that doesn't mean there isn't racial bias baked into the selection process inadvertently. I put up some of my thoughts on what happens earlier in the thread.

Welp, Then. HA! If both sides of an issue agree....there is generally something to it. I think there's a problem with minority hiring in the NFL, at the level of coordinators and HC. AND I think the Rooney Rule seems to suck at addressing it.

That's actually not what I read: "Regardless, Williams seems like a candidate for a pay cut above all else" (then he goes on to say the Bills might cut him" He was also wishy-washy about keeping Beasley: "Like Williams, Beasley seems like a distinct candidate for a pay cut. Beasley’s impact, snap count and trajectory do not add up to a nearly $8 million player, but the player has to agree to those terms. Whether Beasley would do so is unknown. My guess is that Beasley will be back next season if he’s playing in the NFL." He forcasts that we'll move on from Lotulelei, but the savings from cutting him are meagre, only $1.5M. That's not much above vet minimum, and might cost us more to replace him. So I suspect whether he stays or we move on, will depend upon where we think he is health-wise and what he wants to do. The most positive part of it was at the beginning, the quotes from Schoen and Beane: Probably the most interesting part was at the end: Beane seems to like to start negotiating with important players the year before their contract is up. Renegotiating Diggs contract to extend him and lower his 2020 cap hit would actually give us more space than cutting a lot of these guys. Working on an extension for Edmunds would also accomplish this, though it seems like 3/4 of TBD would choke on their Cheerios if that happens. Overall, I thought it was pretty wishy-washy and vague from Joe B.

It didn't sound that way as of Beane's end of season presser. He referred to our OL as "something to build on" I think Brown played well enough as a rookie that he'll be given a chance to lock down the job in his second season. I think we keep Williams to backstop him and/or play G, but if Williams feels strongly that he's a RT and he wants to play RT, Beane might try to trade him. I'd like to see us draft the best C/G we can manage, and sign a strong FA G to compete.