dpberr

I've been learning a lot about Canadian politics watching the daily debates in their Parliament. Trudeau nor any of his useful morons have brought up COVID once in their justification for ending the blockade. They haven't even bothered to explain why the mandate makes any sense.

I think from a cost perspective, going all in for a 1-3 year window will be less expensive than floating an "above average" team for a decade. The GM and coach don't care - they will be gone by the time the team is terrible. For the Rams, the trophy will guarantee years of great ticket sales in a brand new stadium and lucrative TV and advertising deals, even when the team ultimately gets terrible. For the owner, just sit back and watch the money be wheeled in while you make even more money by saving on expenses fielding a crap team that people, being the fools they are, will still spend gobs of money to watch. If you're the Bills, you want to get to the Super Bowl and win it the year before your new stadium opens so you have that peak interest. From the Pegulas standpoint, who cares if you never win another one. You want the team close to a championship, but not quite there yet while you're locking up all that public financing. A dark view of sports, but trust me, some highly paid consultant lays it out just like that.

There's no un-ringing that bell. That's a casus belli for people. Aggressive government action always brings out the people itching for a fight. Always. It's why if you're the government, it's literally the doomsday option.

I gotcha. I was thinking - has he performed at all since his last work which I thought was 2015 or since his aneurysm?

I gave it an "ok" although I enjoy all of these artists - Dre, the most, Lamar the least. Snoop is a great performer because he's kept performing since he hit it big. Same for MJB. You can tell their voices are in shape. Dre certainly showed the rust - I don't think he's performed in *years* - at least since 2015 probably. Same for 50 Cent. He's more actor today. Their voices weren't there. I like the variety of the SB halftime shows. Post Janet, the NFL mined the elderly rockers for too long.

Biden will join Trump as a one-term President. I don't think he'll hang on for all four years, he will gut it out for three. The nightmare scenario, however, is Kamala Harris trying to manage a country in recession (inevitable, as it's the only way to put the inflation fire out). She's barely serviceable as a do-nothing VP. Trudeau will be booted out. I'm not an expert on Canadian political science, but this trucker protest has ended his political career, because people won't stand for it seeing images of law enforcement and the military taking action against their own citizens. He's such an absurdly fearful coward of a personality, almost a cartoon character. I can't imagine any US President reacting the way he has to this situation.

My take: He got lazy after getting paid, and this team is not going to suffer a Dareus situation. Even with COVID, I'm sure these guys had to check in with the team on working out, weight, etc., and there was something there that did not sit well. Some guys only perform when they feel "disrespected" or with something to prove. Jordan Phillips comes to mind.

Today's Republican party is a mirror image of the today's Democrat party. Many of them belong to the uniparty of they have, and you don't. Over half of Congress are millionaires. Half! The other half are there to become millionaires. Almost all of them are feckless opportunists, solely there to enrich themselves, that won't stand up for the average American, ever. Both parties have noisy fanatical fringes that the media fixate on because it gives their highly paid talking heads something to talk about instead of real news. ACO is irrelevant. Trump is irrelevant (he is). The media desperately wants to keep people like them happening because people get emotional over them. Both have few moderates that want to do practical things.

That's because of highly paid consultants, who earn money from doing deals, telling them England is so incredible. Khan (the Jaguars owner) isn't stupid, he isn't moving the Jaguars to London without income guarantees from the NFL, and the NFL isn't stupid because they know they will pay out the nose to put a franchise in England, so they will wait for a sucker to come along and try to do it that isn't bright enough to ask for that, however unlikely, as it violates the first rule of being rich - never spend your own money. England was, and remains a terrible developmental market for the NFL.

The NFL keeps trying to make NFL Europe a thing on the cheap. IMO, the OG NFL Europe that was in operation from 1991-2007 would have been more financially successful if they kept all the teams in Germany. The Germans enjoyed NFL Europe and watched the games and grew real fan bases.

I give him credit - he looks out for #1 100% of the time and doesn't apologize for it.

The OG Wink Martindale is alive, which was a surprise to me. He's 88. Would have lost that trivia question.

To me, the convoy story is about a complete breakdown in leadership and how feckless the Prime Minister and that entire government is, including the legislature. The Canadian Prime Minister has been hiding for over a week from his own people. He literally fled the capital.

I feel like Mike Love has been a Bills futures contract player for like a decade.

Amazon ignores people at their core, are cheap and are in perpetual search for a "deal". If Amazon made you pay for shipping, or made you pay for the app monthly, a majority of its base would no longer use it. People think they get a "deal" with free shipping, so they use it. Some will pay Amazon for a product they once received for free, but not nearly enough.

My personal NFL conspiracy is that the owners get together and each has the option of buying into an auction where the playoffs are auctioned off to the highest bidders, but you can't bid cash. It has to be art, yachts, cars, property, gold, airplanes, stock, whatever. If you win the Super Bowl, you get your property back. If you pay for a playoff spot and don't win the Super Bowl, your property goes to "the" fund. The fund is a hedge fund that makes money for "contingencies" such as a government anti-trust crusade, lawsuit on the level of big Tobacco or some cataclysmic event that threatens their personal fortunes. I envision it goes down exactly like the James Bond Casino Royale film.

This particular restaurant (it's just outside Bensalem) often requires security guards. True story. The police know it well. It's what you could call...a "nuisance" buffet.

I'd have no interest in trading for him. Spend your money on healthy players.

I think the rotation idea is one of those "looks great on paper" concepts that sucks in practice. I don't think Edmunds is well suited to handle defensive play calls. I really wish they'd give that responsibility to another player and let Edmunds just play linebacker. You'd see a better player. They've taken way too much weight off Epenesa. Sure he's a little faster, but now he's not strong. Now is he a DE or a LB? Ed Oliver gets into the backfield. That's what he did at Houston, that's why he was drafted highly. The Bills have tried fitting the round peg into a square hole here making him be an all-around DT, giving him lots of assignments, and not prioritizing quarterback pressure. This is due in part to the issues at the other DT position. Rousseau and Basham are rookies with limited pass rushing strategies. Experienced OLs know how to defend the one-trick pony. The key to more production from them next year is developing their portfolio of strategies to evade and get pass the linemen.

He'll waive the remaining years of the contract and take a job in broadcasting for a year. Saints keep their money and save face. I know the Cowboys are a trendy pick, but Payton isn't a yes Jerry! guy.

So many ancient, old or often injured guys on that list. I still can't believe Justin Houston still plays! What a career. I'd look into Fournette to pair him with Singletary.

When I read columns like this, I think about the history of what I consider Bills "over" reaction. The firings of Polian and Butler were over-reactions to losses and those decisions had long term consequences. The overreaction to the events in Nashville in 2000 set the franchise into the controlled decent into terrain that was the 2000s. I know the loss hurts, but I hope the Bills take a very deep breath before "making changes."

I don't want any retreads. I don't want any curmudgeon old retreads either that come in and throw a whole new system at the team that takes players half a season to get a handle on. We don't need to do what Rex Ryan did to Mario Williams and Marcel Dareus. My vote would be to give Jim Salgado, the Bills Nickel coach, a look. You need new blood that can take the fundamentals of the Frazier defense and make it nastier.

My contribution: Leslie Frazier coaches scared, and frankly always has, and that's why he won't be a head coach. That was a moment in the game that demanded a bold strategic move, and he missed it.

It's off topic but that label makes me laugh every single time I see it. The dopey looking sheep. The need to repeat ivermectin in parentheses. The image you get of someone unleashing a torrent of bitterly cold SHEEP DRENCH on aforementioned dopey sheep.