Beck Water

I think it's already been pointed out that the "time when women had more babies than thoughts" originated as satire, and not from Butker. However, as was also pointed out in another post, there are some "tea leaves" indicating that Butker may be an Opus Dei supernumerary or cooperator. And the founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaría Escrivá, did write that "Women needn’t be scholars—it’s enough for them to be prudent." Good satire is effective because it's an exaggeration of the plausible Also, it's one thing for women who are married or about to be married, to discuss with their partners if they together want children (for traditional Catholics, that's pretty well mandated), and how they want to handle the household finances and raising the children It's another thing to tell young women who are sitting in an auditorium about to be awarded degrees they have worked towards for 4 long years, that "the majority of them" should be more excited about their marriage and the children they will bear". EDIT: OMG, I missed it in my first read-through of his transcript- HE ACTUALLY QUOTES ESCRIVA in his speech "St. Josemaría Escrivá states that priests are ordained to serve, and should not yield to temptation to imitate laypeople, but to be priests through and through......" (this is in the part where he's saying Catholicism has always been counter-cultural when for literally more than a thousand years, Catholicism WAS the predominant driver of culture for Western Europe, then goes on to harshly criticize parish priests, parishes, and bishoprics.) Oh yeah, he's 100% in Opus Dei or wants to be. For those who don't know what is Opus Dei

Now there's a guy who knows how to appreciate fans! I attended my first US MLS game earlier this spring. I loved it! The energy level was amazing. The fan club section was LIT - those guys do NOT skip "arm day" or they wouldn't be beating drums and waving those large flags so enthusiastically all game long. Stadium food was pricy but good. Overall 8 out of 10, strongly recommend. (the 2 points off are for this stadium's policy of disallowing empty aluminum or plastic bottles to be brought in by fans. I feel in midwestern heat, water is a life essential and fans should be able to fill a bottle from the fountains)

Thanks for your response. You duplicated posts, by the way; NBD but you might want to delete one. As far as hard to believe, no, it's not hard to believe that individually, they can improve. In the post you're responding to, I laid out the jump in production by Beasley, Brown, and Diggs upon joining the Bills and having Allen as their QB. What I think is wishful thinking, is that we'll get the number of improvements we need to sustain an elite passing offense. Even Kansas City struggled through the season offensively and finished with the 15th ranked offense, though Mahomes did pass for 4,183 yds - and their offense still had Kelce as its linchpin. Fortunately for them, Rice "got it" and took off towards the end of the season, and the rest is history. So something similar could happen with the Bills, although, KC was carried through the season by great defense and I'm not sure our defense is gonna be there this year.

I'm trying to stay out of a lot of this, but I think it's very possible Butker is an Opus Dei supernumerary. I thought there were various tells - the focus on vocation (Opus Dei is about finding sanctity through an ordinary life of work), the criticism of parishes and parish priests (Opus Dei have their own priests who are regarded as superior), the strong preference for mass in Latin. Opus Dei is a secretive organization, and supernumeraries can not disclose their membership without permission from a superior or discuss their actual beliefs, but fundamentally it seems any changes to the church from the '50s on are anathema. In America (dunno about elsewhere) they seem to align quite a bit from fundamentalist evangelical Christian beliefs and to have similar goals for promoting legislation and influencing public policy. Formally Opus Dei is "committed to the equal dignity of men and women", and female numeraries and supernumeraries have careers. BUT, care for the family and the home are regarded as "eminently feminine" - for example, there's a category of "assistant numeraries" who clean and care for Opus Dei centers, and they are all women. Opus Dei was founded in Spain in 1928 and steeped in the social attitudes of that time and place. The founder, Escriva, wrote, "Wives, you should ask yourself whether you are not forgetting a little about your appearance. Your duty is, and will always be, to take as good care of your appearance as you did before you were married—and it is a duty of justice." Escriva similarly stated that "Women needn’t be scholars—it’s enough for them to be prudent." Anyway, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, no, Butker would probably not see being a stay-at-home dad as an appropriate role for a man.

The legitimate question is: are all 4 guys in fact capable of delivering 900-1000 yds? 2023 (career best) Kincaid 673 (same) Shakir 611 (same) Samuel 613 (851 in '20) Coleman rookie MVS 315 (690 in '20) It can happen - Diggs output jumped 36% in 2020; John Brown 48% in 2019; Cole Beasley 16% in 2019 then another 24% in 2020. But expecting it to happen simultaneously for 4 or 5 guys seems a bit improbable to me.

Thanks for sharing this. I like that the narrator is a college DB coach, so he's used to breaking down receiver film to ID tendencies. I also respect him that he didn't like Coleman, didn't think he was a 2nd round pick, but going through the different phases of the route concedes that Coleman ran a very good route. I wonder who it is who's making fun of Coleman?

That was at Maryland, also

I agree completely on the "going to take time". We didn't turn over most of our DL though. Starters last season were Floyd, Oliver, Jones, and Rousseau with Von Miller and Epenesa playing about 1/3 of the snaps. Point about turning over the safeties and losing the seamless communication and interchangeability of Poyer and Hyde is valid and is why I believe that it will take time. It should help that Rapp played about 40% of the snaps. And Edwards has 5 years of experience, with 30 games and 17 starts in the last two seasons, so he's not without experience.

Snark Snark

Did anyone actually post his contract details? Do we know his salary yet?

It's not just his catch radius that's of concern given his short arms, it's his ability to hold off a DB down the sideline. If the DB has a grip on him with 32" arms, the physical vocabulary to break that grip is more limited ('cuz he can't reach him). You know what they say about Brits and Americans, two peoples divided by a common language. But you know, it's an American football board. If a chap wants to communicate here, works best to use American football lingo appropriately, not debate about whether or not it's nonsensical.

I think it's still stemming from the same incident, a lawsuit filed by a former S&C coach for the Argonauts alleging sexual harassment by Kelly and wrongful dismissal by the Argonauts afterwards. It's not just a 9 game suspension - he's got to undergo "confidential assessments by an independent expert and attend mandatory counselling sessions conducted by a gender-based violence expert. Both must be satisfactorily completed before the CFL will consider Kelly's reinstatement and it reserves the right to modify his discipline." Well....should we kick the tires? *ducking*

Why does that qualify him as a commencement speaker at a prominent engineering school?

No, you got to do penance too For those unfamiliar this is from 1967. Beginning discusses some of the changes in the Catholic church that Butker abhors, such as mass in the vernacular rather than in Latin.

MVS is a good blocker. Someone in the MVS thread quipped that Kelce owes him Christmas presents for life because of all the YAC MVS sprung for him.

So there were several parts of the interview I found interesting. One was what Beane had to say about the change-over from Dorsey to Brady. Beane RAVED about what a great communicator Brady is. Said maybe you don't notice it's missing until you have it. Also said when someone goes out, Brady was like "OK, who we got, we're gonna do this we're goinna do that" The pretty clear implication was that Dorsey was missing communication and energy with the players, and that Dorsey perhaps did show let down when a player went out I don't think he left much between the lines, to be honest with you. Couple other parts I found interesting. In discussing WR, Beane mentioned Shakir, he mentioned Samuel, he mentioned Coleman, and he mentioned MVS (a lot). Chase Claypool as far as I can tell, went unmentioned. So did Shorter and the PS guys. This leaves me feeling Claypool better "show up and show out" or he'll be out.

Correct. They were in Johnson County, Kansas. Marijuana and THC https://www.sportskeeda.com/nfl/news-why-chiefs-wanya-morris-chuck-godrick-arrested-everything-know-nfl-duo-s-transgressions

FIFY Edit: actually, it would appear his specific message was not on-brand for all of his audience. The Benedictine Sisters who co-founded the college objected. https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/melinda-henneberger/article288540845.html

That's a really fair question, Bill, and I think it deserves a thoughtful answer so I'll try. I'll also try to be uncharacteristically brief about it. In part, it comes down to the so-called "paradox of tolerance", in which people who speak out against prejudiced, intolerant speech have it pointed out that they are being themselves intolerant of another person's opinions. Why not just "live and let live", why should you care? To me, one of the best responses is Yonatan Zunger's essay "Tolerance is not a Moral Precept", in which he frames tolerance not as a moral imperative, but as a "peace treaty" which allows different people of different views to live side by side and not be at each other's throats with the belief "that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business." (I think that's what you're expressing above). I recommend it as reading; it will come up with a demand to join Medium, just click on the X and it will let you read. Zunger points out that when viewed as a peace treaty, the limits of tolerance become obvious: a peace treaty applies only to those who are willing to abide by its terms; it is not "a suicide pact" where we are obliged to tolerate people's stated opposition to our lives and safety, or our neighbors’ lives and safety. (It's fundamentally the same principle as "your right to swing your fist, ends at my nose") So if someone says "I wouldn't want to be friends with a gay person because I don't think it's right" (or "I don't think it's moral to sleep around and drink and I don't associate with people who do"), they may be living by the terms of the treaty. They're talking about how they choose to live their life, whatever. If they refer to an LGBTQ person as an "abomination", they're using dehumanizing language - abominations aren't people with the same fundamentally human feelings and experiences we all share, right?. IMHO not only a gay person, but all people should care then, because historically, dehumanizing language has accompanied systematic discrimination and even systematic atrocities. Where Butker went, referencing "dangerous gender ideologies" and "the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it", he is verging close to dehumanizing language. If a person lives their life with "dangerous gender ideologies" or "deadly sin", are they a person with the same human feelings and experiences and right to live their lives and talk about their experiences? If something is dangerous and deadly and I live by it, do I have the same rights to live in our communities peacefully? I dunno, but that's why my ears pricked up. That's why I care, and feel concern for things like this being said. If no one speaks up, it can become normalized. And if it becomes normalized, then historically, too often, it doesn't end with words but with actual impacts on people's lives and safety. As far as Butker's comments about the true vocation of wives and mothers towards which ladies should feel most excitement: the same principle applies. Is this an indication that the speaker is expressing his personal beliefs, which I should tolerate? If I were one of the young women who just worked my ass off for 8 semesters to earn a degree only to hear from my college's chosen and endorsed commencement speaker that my true vocation is as a wife and mother, I would feel PISSED because it would seem to be devaluing my efforts. But whatever. My daughter, and likely your daughters, have been able to pursue whatever career or vocation and hobbies they freely chose. They have been able to receive whatever health care they choose, including reproductive health care. The real concern I feel is, are these beliefs part of an organized attempt to impose a set of restrictions on me, my daughter, your daughters? And there are documented cases where they are. Brief as I can be, Peace Out!

It doesn't surprise me, but it ..... disappoints me? I probably have an idealized or romanticized idea about the acceptance and tolerance levels of an NFL locker room. Say more, please? Presumably because they knew he would say things they wanted their student body to hear, based on last year's speech at Georgia Tech. Why Georgia Tech would pick a football kicker is a better question.

I initially read that quote as "start her vacation as a wife and a mother" I know very well that raising children and keeping a home is challenging work, not a vacation. But when your husband makes millions of dollars and you can afford a home, as much help with housework, yardwork, cooking, and laundry as you choose, as much childcare as you choose - life is a little different than if you're trying to make ends meet on one income and worrying about what you'll do after your old, but totally functional car was totaled by a drunk driver and the insurance payout is much less than the cost to buy a comparably maintained and reliable car. Or how you'll afford a new furnace if yours can't be repaired again this winter.

I think regarding MVS as "Davis at a fraction of the price" is highly optimistic, but I'm having trouble articulating why. Perhaps because looked at from a season to season (although not game to game) perspective, Davis was a rather consistent performer and improved his scored drops. He could be counted on for 7 TD and 34-35 1D the last 2 seasons. MVS seems as though his performance as a receiver is more inconsistent even though he doesn't have a lot of reported injuries. In 2020, he had a very good season that netted him a substantial FA contract from the Chiefs, where he didn't return value. In 2022 he approached the same receiving yards and 1D as 2020, but in 2023 his targets substantially declined - like, in half - and it's not clear why. His snaps only fell about 10%, and the Chiefs WR corps wasn't exactly loaded last season.

I thought I had read that Samuel lined up 72% from the slot or something like that, with Brady in CAR? This is what I could find: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5343167/2024/03/14/buffalo-bills-curtis-samuel-free-agency/ concludes and I can't find anything indicating Samuel was used as an outside receiver with Brady in Carolina, much less 70% of the time. Would appreciate learning your source.

It truly surprises me that the % of man coverage the Bills saw in 2020 and 2021 was higher. I would have thought that in 2020 and 2021 we had a group of receivers that DCs would decline to man up against. Shows what I know. Do you know if there are stats about success against man vs zone each year?