BeginnersMind

How busy do you think corporate HR departments are this week? This moment, given a common voice through the hashtag, and also due to the currently aroused ire of a lot of women over the last year, will result in more executives than Harvey Weinstein out on their keesters.

A lot of harassers are getting burned by the sunlight caused by the fact that so many women are talking openly about this. Thats a worthwhile and real result. Hash tagging is nothing more than a way to run a slogan, except with more power to land in your consciousness due to the delivery platform. #metoo is 2017s give a hoot, dont pollute, (effective) but grass roots, less expensive, and fast spreading. Whether me too Drives harassers out of workplaces and into better behavior is for a follow up study in a decade.

It won't be around long and I Agree. At dinner last night, we were talking about it and my 16 year old daughter was aghast to hear about the #metoo prevalence among women and completely stunned when my wife rattled off 3 stories. Not a bad reminder to everyone how widespread the problem is and how it's OK to discuss it. Bring it into the light and it's more likely to go away. Your average office sexual harasser is definitely having a worse week this week than pre-Weinstein, that's for sure. Unemployment claims may rise this week.

Trying a different tack. Tyrod and every black person get held to a tougher standard by some. Call it the "black people driving in white neighborhoods get pulled over a lot more" standard if you just want to know what almost all black people have to deal with daily, and at the extremes, it gets a lot uglier. Given this, why is it so hard to believe that Tyrod, playing a predominantly white position, would not be held to a different standard because he's black? That doesn't mean he's got the skill of Tom Brady and we're all missing it. He's just noting that racial bias and racism are both real, and he is likely subject to them. It's possible to separate whether he's a good enough QB from the fact that he's the subject of more critical judgments by some people due to his race. Said another way, you can have a debate about his QB qualities separate from a discussion about whether the fan base acts racist. Enjoy the thread.

U17 Team into the World Cup quarterfinals. U20 made it this far last cycle. They will probably play England next. Still, all this younger success speaks well of the Academy system put in place 8 years ago and the 2026(!!!) word cup.

Making an observation that some people are racist makes me racist? That's new.

For some perhaps, and for others merely bias. And many others, it doesn't matter. The point is that it does matter to enough that it makes a difference. Taylor feels it and of course it's real. That doesn't mean he hasn't earned the criticism he gets. But most people outside Buffalo see a guy with 3 penguins for wide receivers giving it his all to grind out improbable wins. Hard not to like a guy like that. And yet the fan base is calling for Nate Peterman because he's going to transform Andre Holmes into Jerry Rice.

And a better runner. And threw fewer interceptions. Neither one was that good, but Flutie was a worse QB. Yet beloved by many. Observe the white people's player jerseys at an NFL game. At a Bills game, you'll see more Alonzo, Spielman, Poz, Paup, Incognito (who outsells Tyrod!) etc than would be warranted given their tenure and quality. There's a reason for that. That's not a situation unique to Buffalo--go to Denver and join the Ed McCaffrey parade into Mile High.

Yet despite Sammy being mostly healthy, and Matthews missing games, their numbers are not all that different. Matthews would be an excellent number two wideout. Hopefully that is what he is next year.

Watkins probably is a good WR. Will occasionally have a very good game. But hes not a top WR. Wish him well. Missing Robert Woods. He was reliable and consistent.

But but but deep balls. Decoy. Making everyone else better. Time to develop chemistry. What other excuses?

Id laugh at you but I felt the same.

And yet the numbers don't lie. Flutie's career numbers are 160 yards per game passing, 18 yards per game rushing, weak TD/INT ratio, 54% completion. Fun to watch but not a really good QB. Objectively, I understand he was the last QB to take the Bills to the playoffs (Miracle season post-season bid goes to him) but he was not a great QB. That Bills era was led by Wade's defense.

Tyrod is a better version of Flutie. (Completion percentage much higher, rushing 60% higher, TD/Int ratio astronomically higher, yards per game only a little less) But somehow Flutie was beloved by many while Tryod at best gets a tepid, "He's OK for now." Not sure it's racism but it doesn't make sense.

In Bills speak, Klinsman was more like a Wade Phillips. Really really good at something (player development, soccer vision) but he hit his ceiling as coach so they canned him. Then they re-hired a guy who had once been a great US coach in Arena, but who the game had passed by. In more Bills speak, the GM Marv Levy moment. I really wish they'd figured out a way to keep Klinsman and left him in charge of the US soccer player development vision, but it's hard to take a demotion.

Exactly this. Klinsman had the right vision for US soccer but was not the best coach.

Arena out. Hopefully just the beginning.

Soccer is wildly popular. Of that there can be no doubt. Jerseys of international teams flourish and it's all over every flat patch of earth all year. I'm your age and agree that there was a belief that with popularity would come success. Basketball is popular on courts all over the US and that translates to success. Shouldn't the same thing be true in soccer? I would have said yes, but the last 15 years have shown it not to be true. Soccer's popularity gave the world some top tier US homegrown talent (not seen in previous generations) and best-ever results in World Cups and in international tournaments, so don't let this year batch of underachieving numbskulls fool you--the USMNT is doing much better. But soccer is more like Hockey than basketball, and it needs a development system, led by people who know WTF they are doing. Popularity alone has only given the US more bodies. And that's been why they have gotten more successful. But until the last decade, no one was organizing that popularity into a strategy. With the successes of the U17, U20, and U23 US teams, you can see what a little longer term vision is doing to convert popularity into world class quality soccer. Those US teams are all top 10 in the world. Time will tell how that looks on the national team level but right now, it looks like nothing we've seen before.

Maybe you're a troll--not sure. But assuming you want to discuss this, there has been a sea change in the talent produced by US soccer, with many more top players being international stars. That's why the US team escaped the group stage in the last two World Cups. The unchanging element in US soccer has been the style of play, which reflects a sort of oafish attack-at-all-times attitude, which of course doesn't work in soccer and just gives the ball away to any team with a modicum of defense, in what is a defensive game (soccer being the antithesis of basketball and hockey). When the US players truly learn to play better soccer, they already have the talent to execute on it and deliver results. Sadly, most US youth soccer focuses on winning the game from ages 8-15. So the average dad coach tells the kids to lob the ball long for the tall 10 year old who can barrel in for a goal. This strategy, so successful at ages 8-15, has no correlation to the long term success of US soccer, where that play is a turnover every time. It's changing that mentality that Klinsman took aim at over the last ten years and is making its way through the club soccer curriculum--and is well entrenched in the MLS Academy system.

Lalas wasn't wrong when he called them out. The team played hard for Klinsman, then turned on him for reasons unknown to me (not that I understood his constant lineup and formation changes). When Arena saw this team had no juice, especially against TnT, how does he not put in a guy like Bedoya, who is a full on inspired player all the time. Arena shares some blame for his decisions, but in the end, it's only the players that let the national team down. They played uninspired in this cycle, and seemed to not care in almost every match. This ends up being a crap group. And there was never a top player on defense whatsoever, which just won't ever work in soccer. Perhaps it was leadership that was their biggest failing. Howard, Dempsey, Bradley, Altidore (some others) were all good players, and certainly good enough to carry a team further than they got--but they had no leader(s). No one to grab them by the shirt when they came out flat and challenge them to be better. I really hope they wash out the national team top brass and bring new blood to them for the coming generation, who is really strong. Klinsman put US soccer development on the right path. Club focused. Getting away from big stupid "winning" games in youth soccer and moving to strategy focused small sided passing games. If US soccer sticks with those models, it will pay off. In many respects, it already has with the worldwide success of the U17 team (does anyone remember successful U17 teams in the US?). Those kids just aren't old enough yet to make a difference on the USMNT, but it's coming. Hackworth has those kids lined up to to big things.

Reid is a great X's and O's offensive coach.

National team strength is always about player development. It's common to talk about generational gaps for national teams in every soccer culture. Now get back to worrying about Marquise Goodwin's left rib and Jordan Matthews's thumb.

This is a good exploration of the strange gap in US soccer development (it ignores the foreign born US players) from the kids born in 1990-96. The years before yielded today's best players at a rate of about 2 a year. 1983: Clint Dempsey, Bobby Convey, Ricardo Clark, Chris Wondolowski 1984: Jonathan Bornstein, Michael Parkhurst, Brad Guzan, Eddie Johnson, Justin Mapp, Chad Marshall, Santino Quaranta, Luis Robles, Frank Simek, Heath Pearce 1985: Geoff Cameron, Benny Feilhaber, Robbie Findley, Stuart Holden, Sacha Kljestan, Brad Evans 1986: Maurice Edu, Michael Orozco, Jonathan Spector, Graham Zusi, Lee Nguyen, Edgar Castillo, Charlie Davies 1987: Tim Ream, Robbie Rogers, Alejandro Bedoya, Matt Besler, Michael Bradley, Jose Torres, Chris Pontius, Dax McCarty, Tony Beltran 1988: Omar Gonzalez, Eric Lichaj 1989: Jozy Altidore, Jorge Villafana, Freddy Adu [!!!], Sean Johnson And the years after are stacked with talent. But for a 6 year window (except 1995), look at this who's who of dreck (with a couple notable exceptions): 1990: Darlington Nagbe, Joe Corona, Brek Shea, Bill Hamid, Matt Hedges, Ethan Finlay, Miguel Ibarra 1991: Greg Garza, Kelyn Rowe, Gyasi Zardes, Steve Birnbaum 1992: Bobby Wood, Sebastian Lletget, Ventura Alvarado, Perry Kitchen, Joe Gyau, Juan Agudelo 1993: DeAndre Yedlin 1994: Jordan Morris If you're looking at Brek Shea as the 3rd best domestic player you've produced in 5 years, there's a problem. When you look at the success of the U23 and U17 teams, the future looks bright for 2022, but sadly there won't be a generation of Clint Dempsey's to hand off an identity to the younger players. Pulisic and the gang will have to find out who they are for themselves. 1995: Matt Miazga, Kellyn Acosta, Paul Arriola, Cristian Roldan, Lynden Gooch, Ethan Horvath, Jesse Gonzalez 1996: Emerson Hyndman 1997 and beyond: Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, Jonathan Gonzalez, Josh Sargent, Justen Glad, Erik Palmer-Brown, Nick Taitague Combine that with the academy system set up by Klinsy under MLS's leadership, and the future is bright. I just hope they dump Bradley/Arena and the old guard. They have no place in this future vision.

We are one hit away from Peterman playing. There is no indication that it will be the start of any era.

Can't they both be wrong? Thomas should have run a better route AND Taylor should have thrown the ball. Billsy offense.