unclevlad

JONATHAN TAYLOR!!! BOOYAH!!!!!!!!

In college, yes. In the pros, ehhh.... Plus, we only have an allegation of kicking a player. That is not sufficient cause.

Fill in the blank..... UAB __________________

Hey, fire them all and let Goodell sort it out. Speaking of firing...Jags are asserting with-cause termination of Meyer's contract. Ergo: guarantees do not apply. Which means the lawyers get to pad their billable hours. But it's also curious in that I heard one of the talking heads...one of the football ones, not the pure bloviators...say that Meyer really didn't want/care about the job, he just wanted the money. I have NO clue the degree to which this is real, but it's amusing. Especially if the Jags' termination for cause is considered justified. (A big factor will be that little debacle in the club in Ohio, I would think...but flip side, they may have waited too long to take action based on that.)

Prior to the title game, FCS games are played at the home field of the higher seed. Good thing NDSU has a dome. It's quarter to 11 in Fargo right now, and the temperature outside is a balmy 13 degrees, with 1-3 inches of snow expected before sunrise. Good game, tho. I've liked catching these games for a while now.

So does Cartier, it seems.....

So the cure is worse than the disease.... Granted, the bar was pretty low there....

When does someone start to remember? If you're setting that date as per Kitty Hawk, then you can strike "probably." The oldest living person at this time, was born in January of 1903...so would've been less than a year old. But the first *commercial* flight was 1914. That would be a reasonable latest date. BTW: that person is the ONLY one. The next oldest was born in early 1904, according to Wikipedia.

The Outback Bowl is only giving $25 Outback gift cards? To FOOTBALL PLAYERS? The gift suites are at least Pick Your Own, but yeah, the gift cards would be the most flexible. The PS5 is a good choice, *but* how many players have one already? My favorite nickname's playing right now. The Coastal Carolina Chaunticleers.

The Bronco situation last year wasn't the same thing. A point some of the commenters made was, it's also a safety issue for the *replacements*. We're talking 20 players on a couple of these teams. The taxi squad isn't that large. So you'll have grossly underprepared players, and that's just begging for serious injury. These are, I believe, the highest number of players on the list...period. Including last year. For the 3 most-affected teams. I do get it. It's NOT fair, but it's also a case where nothing they can do is fair.

That's a point that's being spread...the rules changed. The counterpoint is, the situation's changed. When those rules were put in place, the goal and intent was to get people vaccinated so that an outbreak like this could not occur. Guess what? They're vaccinated. Most of em. And the outbreak is still occurring. This didn't target the Raiders or favor the Rams...because it was applied to all 3 teams that've been *crushed* with positive tests. I'm not saying I agree with the decisions, mind, but there was no good decision. As has been the case consistently for the last 20-odd months. There are some other aspects where the testing messed up. If games have to be postponed, then EVERYONE TESTS EVERY DAY until the situation subsides back again. A team forced to test more often gets hammered, and we now know...that's despite probably doing as much as they can. So test everyone. Point on the analytics...ESPN's win probability favored going for it on 4th down on *each* Chargers play last night. That said: it was by small margins. And win probability assessments are by no means exact. So it's close. (That was pointed out on Around the Horn, where it was one of the topics.)

Beat me to it, I just saw this as well. Very likely an idle hope, but maybe these will be the only ones.

To quote Charlie Brown.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!! But hey, if I hadda go to a meaningless bowl like this, this'd be one of my first choices. Mid December in Toledo...or the Bahamas? EASY choice. Plus, it's over plenty early enough to not disrupt my holiday season overall. Tomorrow's one of the.......less favorable ones. The New Mexico Bowl. Weather will at least be fairly clear, but rather cool...45 for the forecast high. And...it's Albuquerque. Not exactly on my list of tourist destinations...at all.

The offense's job is to move the ball. Points are a common, but not implicit, side effect. Defenses are also often built around "bend but don't break." Generally because they can't do more...everyone would love an '85 Bears or 2000 Ravens defense, but those are outliers. Particularly with the rules favoring the offense. The field goal is always the glass half full, barring of course, special circumstances like the end of the first half or game. When time and score are the drivers, the FG can be the clear win. But in most other cases, it's glass half full. So who treats it as empty...not getting enough...or full...got something positive? MORE often, the defense is fine with giving up the FG, and the offense feels something of a letdown. The closer the offense is to scoring the TD, the bigger the letdown. Any time the offense gets 1st and goal, the FG is a failure option, NOT a success option. Now, on longer FGs, the math's different. Say the offense has 4th and 1 at the 20, so 37 yard FG, which is around 90-95% I believe. Going for the first down *has* to be downvalued because getting it does NOT mean you'll score the TD. First down at, let's say, the 18? Not easy to punch it in. You have to start looking at the probability of making the first down...THEN the probability of the TD after that. The combined probability is not very good. The issue isn't the analytics there; it's using them improperly/overestimating the positive side of the first down because going for the first down is the genius move, Or maybe to be a bit more charitable...going for it and failing is now FAR more accepted than not going for it. See it ALLLLLL the time in baseball...strikeout's fine if it comes with home runs. Base running is a total disaster...the number of times a runner's thrown out at 3rd to end the inning is truly mind-boggling. Oh, that brings up a side point. Analytics must also be situational. One we see ALL the time is, whether to go for 1 or go for 2 after the TD. If the 2 point play is 50%, then there is a *very slight* edge to going for 2 because the kick, in the NFL, is not a near-certainty. The kick EV is about 0.95, while if the play is really 50%, then its EV is 1. But that's nothing, and ignores side issues such as tipping your current *and future* opponents about what you like to do when going for 2. That's info they can use when the situation becomes crucial, like the end of the game. One of my major pet peeves is, offense is down 15, but punches it in for the touchdown. OK, so down 9. In my book, you *always* kick, barring conditions that impact the kicking game. Because the impact of failure is MUCH more damaging than the impact of success. Make the kick or 2 point...1 score game. Fail: still 2 scores. That's a massive difference late in the game. At 2 scores with 5 minutes left, say, the losing team probably can't afford to kick away and let the other team just run it 3 times. (IF they will. A huge issue with so many NFL offenses is, they'll still throw it 2 or 3 times.) It'll take off too much time. So maybe you have to onside kick, which is VERY low probability when it's expected, and if that fails, you're in a world of hurt. Kick the XP, it's 8...but that's 1 score, and the other team has a *great* deal more pressure on it. So if I hear an analyst say "well the analytics say go for 2"...yeah, right. Based on...what? Yes, they'll need to....but that doesn't mean they have to do it *now*. The upside is, ok, yoiu do need to go for 2, and if you kick the first time, then go for 2 if you get the chance...there won't be time to adjust and recover, most likely. But that's far less impactful, IMO, than the added value of maximizing scoreboard pressure.

I think this is overplaying it. But hey, it's CNN writing the headline so it's not surprising. The judge declined to dismiss. Dismissing before discovery would be saying that filing the case in the first place was a move worthy of a Giuliani Award.

Except that's never the lesson taken. The offense NEVER *wants* to kick the FG, they ALWAYS want to go for it unless it's completely unreasonable...like 4th and goal at the 15, or when the game situation demands it. Kicking the FG, when going for the TD or first down is plausible, tells the offense "you can't get it done." The offense's job isn't "move the ball so we can kick the FG" it's "get the ball into the end zone."

Pakman hadn't been paying attention, then. The split's been written about extensively. And he's even starting with citing infections, hospitalizations, etc. having a partisan split. So why does a vaccination rate gap surprise him in the slightest? There's a story in this morning's NYT Briefings (email) about the threat omicron raises in the red states...because it is much more infectious, and because *vaccination rates are so much lower.*

It's more complex than that. On the early plays, the score wasn't a factor. The issue is how to maximize your short-term expected value...not your immediate EV. The kick is 95%; there were no factors arguing against it (generally the weather, sometimes lack of confidence in the kicker). Conversely, if you kick and miss, there's no bonus to your short-term EV because the ball goes out to the 20. You can't heave the other team buried. Going for the TD has a probability of working. If it works, it's nearly 7 points...the extra point has a 95% chance as well. If it *doesn't* work, the other team is left buried at its own goal line, and there's a short-term EV bonus...a safety, a turnover (a la the pass that got batted and picked, after the Chargers' fumble), a 3-and-out forcing a punt giving you the ball back in plus territory. The biggest single issue is, what is the probability of scoring? This is where I think coaches LIE to themselves. ALL the time. They think they're geniuses, and they'll make the magic call. Of course it'll work. They aren't analytical; they're professional optimists. The "analysts" commit a different mistake...the overall probability of a similar play working, is NOT necessarily the best estimator of the success probability. The styles of offense and defense matter greatly. Familiarity matters; does the other team know your tendencies? Your self-knowledge matters...are YOU predictable? Similarly, do you have the right kind of defense, and are playing against the right kind of offense, to capitalize on defense and realize the potential value of leaving them buried? I'll also say: I've seen a ton of games where teams kicked 2, 3, even 4 short FGs and lost, maybe 21-19. Chip shot FGs have *also* been shown to be not great results. So...the play where Parham got hurt, it was 4th and goal at the 5. I *don't* like those odds of working at all, and the short-term EV is lowered a bit. I think it better to kick. End of the first half, it was 4th and 1. Play SHOULD have worked, it was there...but it wasn't executed. That's part of your evaluation, part of the probability of success estimate. Here, yeah, the scoring probability *in general* should be pretty high. Not sure I like the play call tho...but it should've worked so I think this one's OK. Note that there was no potential extra value because the half was gonna end. Another aspect on the Chargers' side was what we saw in the 4th. The Chiefs offense can be SCARY, SCARY good. FGs weren't likely to cut it. Correct point here too, on SVP. The analytics cannot capture how well you *execute*. Mahomes' ball that he mostly pushed, rather than threw? He hadda rush it...and didn't execute. Herbert missed his throw...execution. The analytics actually CAN capture that, but it's greatly obscured. And every coach will ALWAYS assume his team will execute, so their brains if they consider it at all, filter ONLY to the plays where the execution did work. It's a success bias.

Oops. That pretty much slams the door on the division....

Then to top it off, they fumble on 3rd and goal. Bizarre game. Oh, wait, it's TNF. If the Chargers hold on, up 8 now...they and the Pats become the biggest winners. The Chargers will be favored to win their last 3...Texans, Burros, Raiders. Middle game's at home. They've got the tie break, assuming the win, by sweeping KC. The Pats get the inside track for the #1 seed and the bye, altho they do have the Colts and Bill before a Florida vacation. The other big loser in principle is the Steelers; it would've helped *some* for the Chargers to lose. Of course, the joker in the deck is gonna be sheer availability. This is a really ugly list: https://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/analysis/covid-19-list-tracker-for-players-nfl-policies/ Make sure to note the right column...the date players came off the list. Because this list is for the entire season, and many players have been taken off. But there are, as of today, 10 teams with 5 or more players on the list. That almost certainly will change by Sunday tho. Update on Donald Parham...undergoing tests, MRI, listed in stable condition. Saw the replay. Man, you do NOT want to see the head bounce the way his did. Not sure the helmet does any good there, if the top of the spine is what's moving badly. EDIT: quick note on the availability point. Eagles have gone from -4 to -9.5; Browns have gone from -5 to +1.5, and that might get worse because their backup QB got put onto the list. Several other games have seen fairly sizable line shifts.

Ummmm....yeah. The players are bouncing around like it's a 100-flipper pinball machine. There are over 1000 players in the portal. I think that's just FBS, and there's only 130 schools. So that's 8 per team. Here's a breakdown. Just let the page load then look at the scroll bar. https://www.on3.com/news/the-2021-22-college-football-transfer-portal-tracker/

Were I to bet, I'd definitely take the Jags and give the points. It's completely meaningless for the Texans, draft position notwithstanding, but it's no longer meaningless for the Jags, I suspect. As noted, there's the week 1 loss, but perhaps even more, their problem's gone. The Texans' #1 issue is still hanging over their head; they've got no reason to think their front office is going to fix anything. Jags may be able to play loose, but not the Texans.

Sure, but the big aspect is, they're considered *stronger* because he's gone. Well, not entirely true. Could simply mean more people are happy to bet on them now that their kidney stone's been flushed.

Hey, the Jags can try to focus on football rather than an in-house circus. Hopefully that's the last we hear from Meyer, but...probably not. He might be too toxic to put back on-air next year, but after that, it's likely to have faded. But he wasn't very good on TV, that I saw.

The level of churn spiked. Every current player gained an additional year of eligibility, and transfers were made MUCH easier. Considerable player movement. Those relaxed rules are still in place. And the NIL decision, which'll add to that, was earlier this year.