Billy Claude

Returning to the original question: Karlos Williams -- looked like a beast the whole 2015 season behind Shady McCoy but especially in two wins against the Dolphins, 21 carries for 220 yards and 3 touchdowns total in the two games.

The Letterman Top 10 List was great. I never saw this one. Loved the replacing Warren Moon by Suzanne Vega line. Surprised no one has ever tried to revise the Top 10 List.

It is a pretty interesting business model. Ticketmaster claims the venues set the fees and then Ticketmaster (and other companies presumably) bid on how much of the fees goes to the venue and how much goes to the ticketing agency and what guarantees are given. They claim that fees are typically 1/3 of the face value of the ticket and on average 2/3 of the fees go back to the venue. Therefore Ticketmaster actually ends up with 7 to 8% of the total cost of the ticket. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but that is what Ticketmaster claims. Here is the version of the story from Ticketmaster: https://blog.ticketmaster.com/the-truth-about-ticket-prices/

I assume a large part of the "fee" goes back to the venue to obtain exclusive rights to sell the tickets. This is what makes it difficult for another company to come in, especially if Ticketmaster is willing to take a loss and increase the payment to the venue to eliminate the competition.

There is zero correlation between the NFL adding a revenue stream (in this case, an extremely small one) and PSL/ticket prices being reduced. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the correlation was negative.

OK. I certainly agree that Kobe believed that you had to work hard to be your best no matter how talented you are. Some of ths stuff he said was probably shade at Shaq who probably was the most talented player in the NBA at the time but definitely did not work as hard as he could.

Sorry for being a PITA but maybe you got Kobe Bryant mixed up with someone else? Kobe was well known for worling hard but it wasn't because he didn't think he was incredibly talented. He was well known for his supreme arrogance regarding his athletic ability. The guy was drafted into the NBA out of high school . A player (especially someone from a well off family) does not declare for the draft out of high school if they didn't think pretty highly of themselves nor does the NBA draft players out of high school because they try hard.

They are playing some of the T20 Cricket World Cup in the US and what is less American than cricket?

He was 3rd among running backs but 6th among all players. He was 450 yards behind McCafferty which is about 30%. He was also about 20% behind Tyreek Hill and Cee Dee Lamb. I would be surprised if Cook finished first in yards from scrimmage. If Cook finishes first it would probably mean McCafferty is injured and a bunch of other things fell his way. It would probably also mean Davis is not getting a lot of touches.

Rodgers claimed he knew he couldn't come back and wanted to be put on IR but the Jets wanted to keep up the illusion that he could come back. https://www.nfl.com/news/jets-qb-aaron-rodgers-says-it-wasn-t-his-idea-to-be-activated#:~:text="I assumed I was gonna,I know how this works. However, that's not what he said while he was recovering: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/nfl-aaron-rodgers-makes-remarkable-172522138.html

So based on the responses, we can conclude (1) There is a lot of older people on this board (at least the ones that responded to this thread). (2) Surprisingly large number of folks with PhDs and/or work in R&D.

I think that is basically correct. Porter did make numerous (13) smaller bets on NBA games including betting against the Raptors but those weren't the ones that triggered the gambling investigation. The bets that he made himself were only discovered during the investigation and he did not play in any game that they know he personally bet on. He made about 20K on 50K of bets. Considering his lifetime NBA income was about 2.7M, it was obviously stupid to risk it for 20K but it was probably as much about adrenaline as the money. The bets that aroused suspicion were in January and March. For the first game, there was an unusually large amount of money bet on Porter making all the unders and also on him making less than the average number of three pointers. In that game, he removed himself after 4 minutes due to injury. Draftking stated that it was the biggest winner on any individual player prop that night. These bets were paid out but I assume that it caused the gambling houses to start paying attention to Porter. I don't believe these winnings were ever clawed back. The 2nd game that triggered the actual investigation was in March when Porter removed himself after a few minutes due to illness. That was the night with the 80K bet and these bets were voided. If he hadn't been so greedy to try it the second time they would probably not have went after him. It is hard for me to believe he is the only player to ever try something like this and it would be only a matter of time before somebody in the NFL is caught.

They definitely paid out the first time and he would have probably not been caught if he didn't get it twice in a few months. But I am not saying it is the smart thing to do but sooner or later there will be players desperate enough or stupid enough to do it.

He didn't make the bet himself. I assume he was paid to make sure the unders hit. There was a lot of money from various sources placed on the unders. That's how he was caught. The biggest single bet was 80k which have pay off 1.1M.

The prop bets parlays are so easy to fix that it is ridiculous that they have them. The Raptor player, Jontay Walker, simply had to take himselft out of the game with an "injury" to make sure the parlay that he wouldn't make his averages in points, rebounds, and assists hit. Payoff on the parlay was a bit under 15 to 1. I was very surprised that the gambling sites allow a parlay on something that is so obviously correlated. He wouldn't have been caught if he didn't do it twice and if fewer people placed bets on him.

This was probably was mentioned before but the rules should be the same as for tobacco; legal but with strong restrictions on promotion/advertising. That would take it out of the NFL's direct revenue stream. and make the situation less hypocritical. It's not like the NFL having an extra revenue stream helps the fans in any way at all. Draftking is required to report net annual winnings of over $600 to the IRS. So you will be taxed. https://help.draftkings.com/hc/en-us/articles/4414347431955-What-are-the-1099-Misc-reporting-thresholds-for-DraftKings-Daily-Fantasy-Sports-Reignmakers-and-Pick6-winnings-US#:~:text=If you have greater than,from the prior calendar year.

Vlad Ducasse - he was only on the team because his position coach wanted him and just seem so incompetent. Also somehow the name didn't help - you expected someone name Vlad to be tough.

Agree. That's why there seemed to be so many of them.

You are right. I did miss that one. For some reason I mistakenly had it listed as being on first down. I have fixed the original post to correct for this. A bit strange that the three "arm punts" all happened with in five games of each other. I wonder if the coaches talked to him about it.

This always come up whenever there is a discussion of turnovers. Bascially -- it doesn't matter because many of them are as good as punts.

Just tired of seeing this idea being repeated over and over again as if it was fact and it is storming outside here.

There's been a lot of talk about how many of Josh Allen's interceptions are just as good as punts. I was curious as to how true this is so I looked at the data for the last two seasons. To summarize, the idea of a "arm punt" is greatly exaggerated, 3 out of 32 interceptions met my criteria as an arm punt. Details are given below: I counted an arm punt as (1) at least 3rd down (2) outside field goal range (outside opponent's 40 yard line) (3) intercepted at least 35 yards past the line of scrimmage (4) at least 5 yards to go. This last criteria is because I find it hard to believe that if you need less than 5 yards to get a first down, the best option is to throw it 40 yards downfield. For the 2023 season with 18 interceptions, 6 were on 1st down, 4 were on 2nd down, 7 on 3rd down, and 1 on 4th down. Out of these last 7, only 2 on the interceptions meet the criteria: Game 1 vs Jets 3rd and 8 from the Bills 31, intercepted 60 yards down field Game 3 vs. Commanders 3rd and 20 from Bills 40, intercepted 41 yards down field (not in original post -- added later when pointed out it was missed). Game 5 vs Jaguars 3rd and 15 from the Bills 41, intercepted 52 yards down field. All the other 3rd down interceptions went less than 16 yards pass the line of scrimmage (2 were with the line of scrimmage in field goal range). The 4th down pass was from the Dolphin 35 and was a 4th and 2. For the 2022 season with 14 interceptions, 3 were on 1st down, 6 were on 2nd down, 4 were on 3rd down and 1 was on 4th down. None of the 3rd and 4th down interceptions went further than 20 yards pass the line of scrimmage and 2 of the 3rd down interceptions. Of course, there are other reasons why an interception is justifiable, for example, 1 of the 2023 interceptions was a hail mary and you can argue you have to force it on 4th down but I don't feel the arm punt excuse is valid.

Obviously the Dolphins are also uncertain about Tua, otherwise they would have already signed him to the new contract he wanted. However, it is unfair to just ignore the injuries the Dolphins offense was dealing with at the end of last season. Yes, Allen can make the off-platform play that Tua can't dream of doing but there is no need to denigrate Allen's teammates to make that point. Allen's oline was pretty decent in 2020 also.

Much of the reason for Tua's and the Dolphins poor play at the end of the season was due to the numerous injuries to their offensive line as well as both Hill and Waddle being hobbled. I'm not saying Tua is all that great but let's be fair. If Josh Allen were facing the same injury circumstances, folks would be making all kinds of excuses and justifiably so.

Here is a data point for folks who want to place most of the blame on Coleman's lack of production on the FSU QBs -- this is the percentage of team passing yards for Coleman vs. the receivers drafted around him. Worthy 1014 out of 4047 (25.1%) Pearsall 965 out of 3111 (31.0%) Legette 1255 out of 3336 (37.1%) Coleman 658 out of 3373* (19.5%) McConkey 478 out of 2749* (17.4%) Polk 1159 out of 5209 (22.2%) Mitchell 845 out of 4047 (20.8%) *Games in which the player did not play were removed from team totals. Note that McConkey, Polk, and Mitchell all had WR or tight ends from their team drafted before them (Bowers, Odunze, and Worthy). None of them were the #1 targets on their teams. The other FSU receiver drafted was Johnny Wilson in the 6th round. It is pretty clear that they drafted Coleman on potential rather than actual college production which is fine, maybe he will hit. That has been Beane's M.O. since he has gotten here.