OCinBuffalo

That's because clearly, reading comprehension isn't your strongest skill. I am not holding out much hope for your skills at data analysis either. "Talking football" is precisely how the Fire Lindell assclownery started. How did you think it started...on a message board? Pantomime? Yes, we are in early June, which is typically between OTAs and Minicamp, and before training camp. Thank you. When can we expect your remarks on the wetness of water? Having nothing to talk about in June, is also one of the key contributing factors to how Fire Lindell got stated. Did you comprehend anything I wrote? Add to that: we had a similar QB situation that created a constant, unspoken anxiety, and we have the same conditions today. These are facts, and you don't get to avoid them, just because you don't like them. You clearly know nothing about me as a poster, on the football board. Data points? Like I said: nothing. I am still debating how I want to handle this. I can go the humor route, or be straight up. I debating whether hilarity, or tamping down silliness before it spreads, is the bigger priority here. Doing both requires more time than I have today. But the real question you have to ask yourself is: do you really want to end up being like the Fire Lindell guys? Right now, in June? Or is it better to calm down a little, and realize that it's more likely than not that 90? 95%? of this issue exists only in your mind, because it's better than thinking about "who's the starting QB against the Pats*", and because it's June, and WGR needs something to write about...in June.

I really don't think any of these media !@#$tards, or liberal !@#$tards have any earthly idea that this scandal criminal investigation, is just getting started, and that this is actually going to be a 16 month thing, at the minimum. There's already enough to send people to Federal Pound Me In the Ass Prison, for 5+ years, because there's already evidence that multiple felonies have been committed. These media fools should ask themselves what happens when it's: doing a stretch in Federal Pound Me in the Ass Prison, or telling what you know, and doing a smaller stretch, for one or more of these people? That's what these idiots don't seem to get. No amount of "This is 1998 all over again" wishful thinking articles...is going to stop people from taking a plea bargain. And, as Slate, of all places, said yesterday: It's almost impossible for the Republicans to overreach, because the American people want to know WTF happened, exactly, and most don't believe Obama's story. That's why these "the Republicans are going to overreach", "this is 1998", "This is going to be great for Ds in 2014" columns... ...are merely exercises in FUTILITY. I think I will bring back that Avatar, as the Sabre Tank is getting old.

Yes, yes, yawn. But are they justified in that position? Or what about this administration, pre scandal or post, indicates that they are capable of administering it? Especially when they have Big Gay Hollywood, Big Union, and Big College, their constituents, constantly trying to prevent them? (As if any of those constituencies have the first f'ing clue about foreign policy.)

What makes you think my second statement doesn't directly inform my first?

Oh yeah...this is nothing really, we are just a little rough here, nothing you can't handle, I'm sure.

See, I tried to tell CornerBlitz, that this is how we roll here, and he thought I was kidding. If he keeps this up, he is headed straight for ...lybob status.

See? You are already wooting at men. I told you 3rdnlng was trying to make you gay, but did you listen?

Oh, 3rdnlng, bless your heart. What on earth makes you think that in that relationship, I'd be anything but the dominant one?

No, you will meet them this time, clown. Now hop to and explain to me why you think any of this will stop the next revolution, or what makes any of that funny. Last warning. Your new name will be Wednesday, and that's because you are stereotypically lazy. And, I assure you, I am not a ladyboy, that looks like a hottie in a thumbnail, but you find out is a man when you click to enlarge the image. Don't listen to 3rdnlng...he's the one trying make you gay.

Michelle Malkin is rarely wrong, empirically. However, few people in history have needed to learn the "it's how you say it" lesson more than her. Twitchy could be 3x more hilarious, if it wasn't done in Molson_Golden's writing style.

When we tell you to explain/show your work here, you either do it, or you get made fun of for being: 1. conner 2. an idiot(not mine) 3. an unmitigated moron(that is mine, and you can't use it) 4. a Wednesday(debatable) and many, many other things. You can walk, quickly and in an orderly fashion, back to TSW, or, you can explain. Your choice.

Poor 3rdnlng, bless your heart. What on earth makes you think I don't want him to be one?

Explain yourself. We require detail here at PPP.

Challenge accepted. Everyone in this thread is an unmitigated moron...... There. Moving the thread is now validated, BuffaloBill. .....for thinking that their phone records are anywhere near as important as their internet behavior/social media tattling on themselves being related to their personal info, as well as any other relevant dimensional data, and thrown into a analytics DB. Then they can basically predict what you are going to do before you do it, and either record it and use it against you, or, prevent you from doing it, without you even knowing how. And, if they want to surveil you, arrest you, or kill you, there's nothing like telling them where you are going to be, and what you'll be wearing, and doing. But keep thinking your phone records are what matters. Keep fighting the last war, you dolts. Don't prepare for the next one. Yeah, keep posting every stupid thing that goes on in your life, and wondering how the credit card companies, health insurance companies, and the government, know so much about you. Like I said, unmitigated morons. There BuffaloBill....that should fully qualify this thread as belonging at PPP. Oh wait....was that said to...Tom? YES! Awesome.

I'm starting to think that birdog = US general in Viet Nam. Birdog: "They blow up the bridge, we rebuild it. They blow it up, we build it again. We can afford to do it, and we are Americans, so of course we can do it." Hooray! Birdog is proud that they keep building the bridge, and tells everybody that resources we are wasting are worth it, because its the moral victory that counts and lots of people depend on the bridge. But, if you ask him why he doesn't do something about the people who keep blowing up the bridge? He tells you that's not the mission. And nothing else. Ever.

But, Tom IS the big bully. ............... The only other thing I would add is: when it comes to the political, Obama is amazingly efficient. Is he not? Just saying, it might be worth considering that if it involves politics and politics only, Obama seems to light a fire under his own ass, never mind other people's. The man could probably move mountains, if he were a real problem solver, and not merely a rabble rouser, who is the more satisfied as the AntiPresident. It's a waste of talent, and therefore a sin. Obama is the Leon Lett of leadership. Proven potential for greatness, wasted on pettiness, stupidity, and failed ideology.

Nice job here guys. Thanks

This O line thing seems headed towards golf shot range of the famous "Fire Ryan Lindell" hysteria here in 2005. And yes, I'm being serious. It's not in throw a baseball range, or throw a dart range. But, I am starting to wonder if this is going to be another "we'd rather talk about firing the kicker, than Losman, because Losman sucking worse then Bledsoe is disaster, especially after so many of us demanded Bledsoe's head after last season". (Btw, uncertainty means "we don't know, we could have an All pro, or a bust". It doesn't mean we know our QBs suck/will be mediocre at best. "Uncertain" is Chris Brown speak for "we suck".) Ergo, it was 25+ pages of "Fire Lindell, all day, all the time"! And, IIRC it started in early June as well. (Why I say that is a long story that involves Philly, booze, lobster, Russians and cougars, that concludes with: It was June.) We we're right about that. Or, we weren't right about Bledsoe or Losman :bag:, and we knew it, so we took it out on Lindell. As I see this O line thread hit 7 pages, I remember the epic Lindell thread. However wrong posters were about the QBs, nobody has ever been as wrong here as the Fire Lindell people. That remains the standard for absolute wrongness on this board. We have other standards for extreme wrongness on the other boards. (An average of 3.5 of them). There are obvious, undeniable data points available that suggest our O line is not a concern, as there were for keeping Lindell in 2005. And, we have real uncertainty, properly defined, at QB, just like we had in 2005. Just a coincidence?

I think the best approach to this, is what ESPN/NFL network did, I forget which: Mt. Sackmore With Reggie White, Bruce Smith, Lawrence Taylor, and Deacon Jones's face at each spot. One thing I assume 99% of us can agree on, is that nobody else belongs on that monument. And, just like with Mt. Rushmore, they aren't listed in any real order. Well, I thought it was a smart approach anyway.

The difficulty for many is in establishing the proper granularity of what you are measuring, or, metrics. Not setting them too high, or too low. They have to be able to be truly informative, and how they inform you must be objective. What you describe: "complete a pass for a first down", involves all 11, and conflates O line play with QB play. It does so improperly, from an analytical perspective. The granularity is set too high. We have to measure the O line as a unit, and QB/RB play individually, but measure both, separately. The QB play, or "hanging in the pocket" says nothing about the O line. Conversely, a QB who gets less than 3 seconds to throw a ball from the snap, 4 out of 5 times, over a game, says either a whole lot about the O line, or, a whole lot about the opposing D line, or, a whole lot about the coaching staff, or some combination of the 3. Stating that we don't "know" which of those last three it is, and we won't know, until we create metrics for them as well, is how this job is done: properly. This is why you won't see a Football Outsiders ranking of offenses, without a dependency included that accounts for the defenses they've played against. The other part of doing it properly: throwing so much data at a model...like QBR does, by including every single QB play for the last 30 years, or whatever it is, ensures that you've standardized the data out to the point that outliers have little chance of skewing your results. Setting the granularity at: O line play as a unit, is not only practical in terms of creating useful intelligence, it is in line with our definition of what an O line actually is. The entire point of an O line is to operate a unit, not individually. It's therefore correct that we measure their results in terms of the unit, relative to the design of the play. Without doing it properly, we end up concluding things like: the RT is partially responsible for the RB not running well on plays to the left. Those are the kind of results Joyner used to produce. And, the emails I sent him said as much. The real skill is creating models who can adjust their granularity on the fly, as business, threats, opportunities, and risks change, but that is unnecessary in football.

The concept of being "the party of the little guy" was explained to me, at age 8 by the elected Ds in my family, in these terms: 1. The Democratic party was there to protect Catholics from Protestants forcing their religious beliefs on us. This was explained using the stupidity of Prohibition as the consequences of what can happen without this protection. 2. The D party was there to protect the little guy from the wealthy bosses looking to exploit him as a worker, and this was explained by the stories of the very real union vs management brawls they knew about, or had been in. 3. The D party was there to protect the little guy from big business, insurance, etc., looking to overcharge the little guy as a consumer, or prevent him from starting a business that might compete with them. 4. The D party was not there to support socialism, or Communism, as that is just another way of screwing the little guy. Various other bits and pieces were explained, but this was basically it. It was about ensuring that nobody was cheated, or taken advantage of. When I asked why we stole signs, etc., at election time, if we don't want anyone to be cheated, I was told "they do the same thing, and this is an election, which we have to win, or the little guy gets screwed. Get it? Now go get me a beer". That was basically my understanding of politics from age 8-16, and the # of beers I fetched is probably in the high 100s. Later, in high school, I heard the same "little guy" thing from my liberal, but fair minded, and truly intellectual, Econ "professor" = I took Macro and Micro in high school. But, he expanded it to include: 1. Protecting the little guy's right to speak his mind, without fearing retribution from his boss or society 2. Protecting the little guy's right to live his life as he sees fit, and not allowing the Moral Majority(remember them?) to force people to live like them, and ensuring that all of our rights were protected 3. Protecting the little guy from predatory credit cards, banks, etc. 4. And the new thing, that wasn't protecting...give the little guy an opportunity, through loans, to get educated, start a business, and give him a helping hand if bad things that were out of his control happened. All of this seemed entirely reasonable to me. I do remember, very clearly, being a supporter of Reagan, even as an elementary school kid, because I "knew" politics. First, politics meant that I could be "bad" without getting in trouble , and I parroted what I heard about JFK and Reagan. But, I learned very quickly, and developed a real understanding. I learned what a leader was, by observing how my elected family members acted, and how other people acted in response. Thus, it was then easy to see that Carter/Mondale simply: weren't. I also learned that being a supporter of Reagan in no way conflicted with any of the above. This why so many of my family, even the elected Ds, had no trouble supporting Reagan. If we move on to today, and use the lists above as a guide, it's become exceeding difficult for me to determine which party represents the "little guy". I'm not saying the Rs do and the Ds don't, arbitrarily. Let's go through the list: 1. Which party has been protecting Catholics, and which party has been attacking them? Which party has been attempting to force their stupid "religious beliefs" on all of us, including Catholics? Which party has been defending religious freedom, and the right to live, associate, and do business based on your conscience, unhindered? 2. Which party is protecting the individual worker? Which party is demanding that the individual worker comply with what they've decided is best? Which party is about creating jobs in general, and which party is about only creating government jobs, and then exploiting those that "owe them"? Which party is out to protect small business and their employees, and which party...is doing the opposite of that, by pushing for endless new regulations and taxes that make it more difficult for the "little guy", because they are written by the big guys? 3. Which party is about protecting the consumer, and which party is about vilifying the consumer? Which party is about lowering the price of gas, and which is about raising it? Which party has caused food prices to rise? 4. Which party is about defending speech, especially political speech they don't agree with, and which party is acting like the Communists my democratically elected Democratic relatives hated so much? 5. Which party is about individual liberty, and which party is about telling us what we can't do/drink/eat/buy...and also think/say, because they've declared all of it is "offensive", to them, and therefore, we must comply. Which party today most closely resembles the Moral Majority of the 80s, in terms of their desire to force their values upon us? 6. Is it possible to determine which party isn't on the side of the banks? Of the credit card companies? 7. Which party is about opportunity, and not entitlement? Which party is about helping hand, and which party is about ensuring the lifelong security of its constituency, thus removing the creation of opportunity, and replacing it with obligation to the hand that feeds? None of the answers to the above questions are easy today. 30 years ago, they were no brainers. This is why, when I hear someone talking about the Republicans "moving to the right", and nothing about the Democrats "moving to the left", that person immediately begins with 2 strikes of idiot. I am curios: how would you answer these questions?

No. Edit: (The proscribed # of emoticons, due to the size of this post, is 1)

You might be right. But, if Bruce Smith was allowed to head slap people, how many more LTs and LGs would be suing the NFL today due to concussions? Considering how many times Smith played the Dolphins, wouldn't Richmond Webb = Muhammad Ali?

You are right, I did forget. The only way you beat Bruce in the run game was by running right at him, right next to him, and having an a HOF-level LT who could step quickly into him. This would only work for about 2 plays or so. I recall Jacksoville was able to run, a little...there was one Natrone Means big run play that comes to mind...and I believe that was Tony Boselli playing LT, so there you go. Bruce losing on a run play was so infrequent, that it is: memorable. When he was hurt, and especially when ahole teams like the Ditka bears went after his recently healed knees(I don't forgive or forget that), he may not have had the sacks, but he still stopped the run. The hilarious part about me forgetting? Now that I think about it, this isn't the first time I forgot. Bruce once reminded me about his run dominance, personally, when I complimented(wrong word, gleefully cheered like a girl who just got a pony is more like it) him on his sacks, at the Big Tree. But that wasn't the funniest thing. The funniest thing was my dopey college roommate standing next to me, speaking Swahili, because he was too nervous, and buzzed, to speak English. Bruce just laughed at him, and said something like "I hope you enjoyed the game" so I've always remembered that a little more.

If you look at it from a physical talent perspective, or in terms of what guy could do physically vs. what the others could, consistently, there's no way Jones, or Reggie White compares to Smith. Bruce Smith was able to run, at full speed, while bending his waist to the point that his hand was nearly touching the ground. That means often he was basically unblockable, because there was nothing for the tackle to get his hands on. I've never seen anybody else do that. In contrast, Deacon Jones had the head slap. Not for nothing, I bet most posters could execute a head slap. I don't even want to imagine what Bruce Smith would have been like if he could head slap O lineman . I would expect a whole lot of shattered ear drums. You could argue that Jones "changed the game"...because they changed to rules to stop him. I would argue that Bruce Smith "overcame the game" because he was able to do what he did, in spite of the rule changes that allowed lineman to do what would be called holding in Jones's time. But again, going back to the original point: Bruce Smith didn't need the head slap, or most of what comprised Reggie White's game, because only he, and neither of them, could physically execute the things he could. Bruce's spin move was so fast, that he looked like he was doing a roll dodge in lacrosse, yet he was 6'4" and weighing 80-100 lbs more than your average lacrosse player. The effect of the spin move? Often the pitiful O lineman was left standing there, blocking air, with Smith now a full 2 steps behind him, and hitting full speed just in time to make contact with the QB. The best was spinning through the gap between 2 lineman, leaving both standing there looking like bouncers, or cones. The ability to execute the outside moves, and the spin move to the inside, is WHY Smith was able to get so many sacks as a 3-4 defensive end. You put either of the other guys in that role, in that formation, and they wouldn't be able to physically execute at Smith's level. It's really as simple as that.