philibusters

If I am trading our two second rounders to get back into the first round I think the guys I would consider are Brock Bowers, Olu Fashanu, Troy Fantanu, Laiatu Latu, Quinyon Mitchell. I would also consider a lesser trade, maybe 36 and 67 to get into the late first round if a player like Amarius Mims.

It seems like you are high on Brian Thomas. The NFL PFF podcast hate as both those hosts don't have him the first round. They think he is a deep threat only guy (and routes that work off the deep route like comebacks). He doesn't have a lot of short or immediate route running skills so those will have to be developed. They think his drop percentage is a bit too high for him to be an elite deep threat. They don't hate him, but they both have him more in that 8-10 range. How do you see him? He is a rich mans Quan Martin. Probably best as a safety or slot corner, but does have the ability to play on the outside. If you play him on the outside you probably want him in press coverage. He could be a versatile piece. An outside corner in a bump and run situations and a slot corner on off coverage.

I am going to buy into whoever we chose because I am not an expert and I am going to trust our front office, but I definitely like Maye at the second pick.

For the past four years he has gotten starter reps and the two years before that he got 600 to 700 snaps so like 3rd corner snaps. So there is a decent sample size. During those 6 seasons, his best PFF grade was the 2022 season when he had a 72.7 grade. His lowest PFF grade was 2021 when he had a 54.0 grade. So all 6 years he was between a 54 and 72.7. His natural variation seems to be year where he has good variation he is a mid level starter, an ideal #2 corner. His weaker seasons he is a low level starter who verges on being quality depth. If you average out the past 6 years, he averages out to a low level starter. Maybe what you expect out of your third corner.

I read a book called The Perfect Pass about how Hal Mumme and his O-Line Coach and later OC Mike Leach developed the Air Raid. I don't know if a pure Air Raid system could be effective in the NFL. It was mostly built upon simplicity and being able to outexecute the defense. It only had like a dozen pass plays and about 5 runs and the plays were not reversible. Now in the early days it was not clear to DC's that there were only a dozen pass plays because all 12 pass plays had at least one option route and sometimes up to three receivers had option routes, so if you are just watching game tape it seems like a lot more than 12 pass plays. But Mumme teams just repped those 12 pass plays over and over and over and it was about out-executing the defense. It adopted tricks to keep the defense vanilla (it was arguably the first system to really use tempo--a bunch of offenses by the early 1990's including a couple NFL offenses were using the no huddle offense, but they were still only snapping the ball with maybe 15 seconds on the play clock whereas Mumme's team snapped the ball with between 20 to 25 seconds on the playclock much like a true two minute offense)--and the QB called the play at the LOS on most plays--and the tempo offense worked because there were only 12 plays to choose from and they repped them all so often they knew them really well--it was also one of the first offenses to just let the QB make the playcall at the line (you cannot play tempo as fast if the OC is calling the play). The system was also an early adopter of the shotgun. But the key to understand about the Air Raid's success as a pure system is that it worked because the offense outexecuted the defense. Because there were only 12 plays and they practiced the heck out of the 12 plays, they could outexecute the defense. Especially in college, where practice time is maybe half as much as in the NFL (I made up that number, but NFL teams can get in more practice than college teams), that was enough. I don't know if that simplicity would work in the NFL. NFL defenses can execute at a high level. That said, most of the Air Raid plays, such as Mesh, Y-Sail, et cetera are in the NFL playbooks. So NFL has incorporated the 12 or so passing plays from the Air Raid, without picking up some of the other key aspects of the system like the Tempo and simplicity.

I think Forbes is a much better prospect than Noah Igbinoghene. Noah Igbinoghene highest PFF grade in 4 seasons is 52.2. Forbes had a 50.9 last year so whether he can become a starter remains a question, but Igbinoghene is probably the last corner on your team who makes it due to special teams if he makes it at all. He was a developmental prospect that didn't really develop. He was only 20 years at the start of his rookie season with decent physical tools. But he is a case in point of why it can be dangerous to take players who were not great in college and assume you can mold them in the NFL in the first round. Day 2 it makes sense, but day 1, it is a gamble. A gamble that did not pay off in Miami's case.

Ultimately I agree with your point that nuclear is not going to be an answer for anything in the next 10 years, maybe even 15 years. I don't know the details of nuclear power plants and if there is such a thing as a cookie cutter design. I watched an interview though where they asked what went wrong with one of the plants that was scrapped because it was so far behind and over cost and the answer was it was a new design that had never been built before and maybe not a great design at that. The person being interviewed said if they had followed the design of a plant already built they would have avoided most of the delays and over costs. That said I support nuclear power as a long term investment. Once it is operational it safe and does not pollute the environment. Looking at the long term natural gas while the cleanest of fossil fuels is still a fossil fuel that is still going to contribute to global warming and while natural gas has an abundant supply for next few generations it is still a finite resource that will eventually exhaust.

No matter it is going to probably take around 10 years to get a plant online. I believe if they just went with cookie cutters designs that have already been used before rather than trying to improve it and build something innovative, you can avoid the disaster that happened in Georgia with the costs overruns and super slow progress. You never want to discourage innovation, but if new designs are risky, go with a cookie cutter design. I think some of the failures of the past 20 years of nuclear power could have been avoided with that strategy.

PFF gave a Williams a 59 grade last year. That indicates a low end starter/high end back up. However, in his four year career that was the lowest grade Williams ever had and two of the four years he has had grades above 70. So it depends on how much emphasis you put into the most recent results vs the entire sample size. If you look at the entire smaple size you could say he is a mid level starter, but if you just look at last year, he is probably a lateral from Wylie and downgrade from Leno.

I think other than QB's it almost always the non-exclusive. You get to pay marginally less by using the non-exclusive and if another team signs the player they have to give you two first rounders. Now for a franchise QB, I think a team would absolutely give up two first rounders, but for any other position, unless its like the best player in the league at that position (Myles Garrett or Justin Jefferson), you probably don't have to worry about other signing the player because the two first rounders is just too expensive. Brian Burns is very good, but he is not Myles Garrett and its unlikely a team would be willing to give up to first rounder's to sign him (though you never know, supposedly the Rams offered two first rounders for him at one point but that was when he still had a couple years on his rookie deal).

That is a bummer. I kind of associate Chris Mortensen and the late John Clayton with ESPN football reporting during the aughts.

You make a lot of good points. Without knowing the numbers, there is going to be some speculation involved, but I think most of the more expensive DEI programs don't justify their costs. As an example, lets say flagship state university spends 10 million on its DEI department (which is probably a fairly normal number, though some like Cal Berkley will drop 36 million on it and others probably spend 2 or 3 million on it). Lets say every class there are 2000 minority students the program is designed to help. If it produces a 10% graduation rate in that population, that is an additional 200 minority students the college is graduating that year. 10 million divided 200 equals $50,000. That is a lot of money to spend to get a student to graduation. I do think in the coming years we will see minorities graduation rates go up. I think some of it is likely due to DEI programs. I also think some of that will be due to the recent Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action. I think minority students will be slightly better matched academically to the schools they attend which will create slightly better graduation rates. I think both sides will claim credit for it and I think both sides will be partially correct. In regards to DEI programs making people feel like they belong...I think that is a goal at the most expensive DEI programs. I think state flagships spending 4 or 5 million on DEI are probably focused on fairly practically goals like making sure minority students get the support they need to graduate. I think some of the elite universities that have money to spend (Cal Berkeley 36 million, Michigan 30 million) are spending that money hoping for more. They are essentially trying to create support groups for their minority students, giving them safe places and events for only minorities. I think is likely where you see money getting the least bang for the buck. I do think you are right that there likely are DEI programs that are decent investments from the university's perspective, but they are probably the less expensive (say 4 or 5 million dollar per year programs ) that are focused on practical results. I think DEI programs have the same problem that administrative staffs in general have and that is they tend to protect their own interests. Even before DEI, college administrative staffs were growing at an alarming record and we hear of the same problem in other settings where the business can push some costs to consumers (such as at hospitals who people feel have administrative staffs that are too large to give you much bang for your buck). So I kind of see the DEI debate within that bigger debate to some degree.

My instinct and I may be wrong is that eliminating all DEI positions is probably a net positive rather than net negative. Admittedly I don't think Florida has overdone DEI in the same way that some of the top schools have. For example, the University of Michigan has 241 DEI staffers and is spending 30 million a year on the DEI department. Cal Berkeley is spending 36 million per year on their DEI department of about 200 staffers. So this is a lot of money and this is tax payer money and the schools are not getting much return on investment. For example Texas A&M is spending 12 million per year on DEI and their black students self reported sense of belonging declined from 82% in 2015 to 55% in 2024. Sometimes having separate spaces for minority students can be nice for them in the short term, but can decrease their sense of belonging in the long term. People complain about the cost of education going up and up and a lot of it not being due to paying professors more, but due to the increase of administrative staffing and DEI is the number 1 driver of that in the last 10 years. If it was a game changer for minority students then I think it would be worth it, but in general minority students sense of belonging has decreased since the spending on DEI has gone up. That is not to say none of these DEI programs are accomplishing anything. I am sure some are doing very productive work and others are accomplishing very little. Like a lot of things, probably the leadership at the top of these departments sets the tone and goes a long way in determining how productive these departments are. I also don't think Florida's policy of eliminating all DEI positions is necessarily a smart policy. Perhaps they was a way to just fund less of these positions. I feel like these scenarios should not be an all or nothing: Spend 36 million at one school like Cal Berkeley or spend nothing like Florida. Probably the best bang for the buck lies somewhere in the middle ground (though perhaps closer to Florida's position). Finally it is important to realize there is a political dynamic. Conservatives are going to dislike these departments because they are going to strongly lean left. And these departments can in some cases lean very left (say at some California schools) where there are a lot of left wing activists in the DEI departments. That doesn't mean the departments are not accomplishing anything, but in does mean conservatives will have a bullseyes on them in the same way leftists are going to really hate institutions that provide a lot of jobs and patronage to conservative activists.

I think scientists probably communicate their findings somewhat effectively. I feel that its the media and activists that are more likely to communicate things ineffectively. For example, the media loves a good headline and will tend to catastrophize findings. Like if a report looked at four scenarios ranging from most mild to most severe, the media story is going to focus on the worst case scenario. Overtime this has made the climate change stories lose creditability. I was in college from 2001 to 2005 and I remember hearing lots of stories and believing them in college that if we didn't do such and such by 2010 this terrible thing would happen and if we didn't do this by 2015, this would happen. A lot of bad stuff has happened over the last year 20 years, but almost none of the worse case scenarios have come in to play so these catastrophizing media reports have lost credibility. Second and this again falls more on activists than on the scientists, the refusal of some activists to consider things like nuclear energy makes me think things are not as bad as they seem. I get that there are some risk with nuclear energy, but nuclear energy emits no pollution in the air (whether that be greenhouse gases or other pollutants). Ultimately green energy is going to be the main clean source of energy but in nuclear can be a good supplement and be the main source in areas without a lot of wind or sun. There is no doubt that green technology has not progressed as fast as we hoped 30 years ago. I think people thought 30 years ago battery technology would improve so we could capture say surplus energy during the daylight when it sunny on solar farms and use it at night when there is no sunlight to capture--that hasn't happened, I think people thought the technology for solar panels would increase faster so we would be to capture more energy in any given unit of area than we currently are for example. The techonology will improve but its not where we needs it to be. So when activists are like "no nuclear" it just makes me think that they have a hidden agenda. For example they are not only worried about global warming but they are naturalists (though solar farms and windfarms take up a lot of space so if that was their hidden agenda at best they would likely be breaking even with nuclear). Likewise when activists immediately deny the potential of carbon capture technology that seems suspicious to me. I do realize carbon capture technology is probably decades away from having any significant effect on climate change, but I think it is something that can still be looked into. None of this probably really changes the opinions of vocal climate change denialists. But there are a lot of reasonably people out there who can be persuaded. And if the media and activists are worried about really opinionated climate change denialists they are focused on persuading the wrong people. They cannot be persuaded no matter what evidence or dire the scenarios. But reasonably people can be persuaded.

I am terrible at reading women. I am married now so I don't have to worry about it, but before I was married I never felt confident I could tell flirting from being friendly. So I sympathize with you.

Medicaid is a hybrid federal and state program. Essentially the feds cover about two-thirds of the cost and the state covers the remaining one-third. I think its usually a bad idea for the states to opt out as they as turning down free money, but I do think they should have the option to opt because the federal government should not be able to make the states spend money they didn't agree to spend.

Last four books I have read over the last four or so months 1. The American Cultural Revolution by Chris Rufo: I have not completed this book, about half way through. I am enjoying it so far, but its reinforcing my existing tastes. Rufo is a conservative pundit who is best known for his attacks on CRT. This book basically traces CRT and DEI to the New Left of the 1960's and 1970's. While I am a Democrat, I never liked the social justice/woke niche of the party and this book is kind of reinforcing that dislike. Would recommend if you are conservative or you a Democrat and don'tt like the social justice/woke niche of the Democrat party. By contrast if that is your thing I would definitely not recommend this book as it will likely leave you frustrated and annoyed. 2. Love and Hate in Jamestown: I live in Yorktown/Newport News Virginia which is close to Jamestown and I have been to the James Settlement Museum a couple times. I enjoy asking the educators at the Jamestown Settlement Museum lots of questions and I like the museum so I wanted to read a book on the history of Jamestown and this book hit the spot right. This is my first book I read on this topic and I don't know how perceptive the author is, but I was really impressed by John Smith (at least the authority's portrayal of him). I enjoyed the book. Would recommend if you like American history, but by no means a must read. 3. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power: I read a couple biographies on Thomas Jefferson before but wanted to read this one by John Meachum just because it got a lot of buzz. I picked it up when I visited Monticello last year along with the book below (the Hemmings of Monticello). It was a solid enough history book but to be honest I was a little disappointed. Meachum gets so much buzz as a great writer I think my expectations were too high. Definitely a decent book for history lovers, and not a difficult read, but also by no means a must read. 4. The Hemmings of Monticello: I came to this book apprehensive, a bit nervous the author would have too much of a social justice analysis for my taste based on the book's subject matter (as noted in my review of American Cultural Revolution that is not my thing), but was pleasantly surprised. The author, Annette Gordon-Reed's analysis struck me as very balanced. She absolutely explained everything in the context of the time and did not try to impose today's moral world on people who lived over 200 years ago. I thought she had good reads on both the Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson. In general, she struck me as very perceptive and I read a decent amount of history so that is something I appreciate. She also provided just the right amount of context about the culture and society that the characters were operating. I would definitely recommend this book.

He is a former Terp who went to HS at Good Counsel. That local HS class in this area was pretty loaded that year with Christian Darrisaw, Trevon Diggs, and Dwayne Haskins. Both him and Haskins were committed to Maryland at one point but were both poached by Ohio State after the interim HC Mike Locksley was not retained as the HC. After 3 years at Ohio St Keandre Jones ended transferring back to UMD for his last two seasons. Nothing special as a NFL player, but he is made a couple NFL 53 opening day rosters before so he is decent, but realistically an end of the roster guy, not guaranteed to make the team depending on who else we get at LB in free agency and the draft.

Circa 2017 that was true, but as he has aged he has become a really good zone corner. He was drafted in 2016, 8 years ago, and he was never a super athlete to begin with, so at this point his athleticism is a limitation in man coverage.

I actually excited about cultivated meat. I am a vegetarian, but would eat cultivated meat. I haven't ate meat since 2011 (at least not on purpose, I have had a couple accidently bites where I didn't realize meat was in a dish until it was too late), so I hope they develop that technology soon.

I don't think there is a main NYT articles on Wuhan. But Fair. I am not sure I ever read the article, my impression of it was second hand.

I think lab leak is the more likely origin, but until there is a smoking gun either way, we have to admit we don't know for sure. I'd probably put my confidence level in lab leak at somewhere around 80% or 90%, but I would not be shocked if I was wrong. In terms of the NYT in particular, though this goes for other mainstream media, they have covered lab leak but at the same time do have other reporters who completely dismiss it. These big outlets have lots of reporters and they are not always going to agree on anything. So sometimes the NYT's has covered lab leak fairly. Other times, like when the study came out that pretty definitively the wet market was the first super spreader event, they act like its a smoking gun against lab leak, which it clearly was not (it could have been the first super spreader event and still come from a lab leak or there could have been an earlier undetected super spreader event that is not documented because the people did not go to the hospital or get tested)

If he is getting immigrants on the bus with false promises, then I see that as problematic. Otherwise, I don't see it as problematic. Texas does take on a disproportionate burden of the cost of illegal immigration. It makes sense for them to want to help the immigrants reach destinations in other states. And presumably some of the immigrants want to go to these major cities. The problem is if he is convincing a lot of them to go on false promises like that there will be jobs waiting their for them.

Then what was it supposed to address?

Sorry for the incomplete thought. DEI doesn't really address the problems it is supposed to address, which are racial disparities in those organizations. In education that is often racial achievement gaps and in the corporate world, its underrepresentation at management level. The biggest cause of those things are past discrimination which moved the starting line for people and unfortunately its impossible to change the past. The types of policies that could address those are big economic programs and that falls into the political arenea, where they lack support and have no realistic shot of getting passed. Instead, DEI people try to address subtle racism, which probably only play a small role in those disparities, and even there they are handcuffed by not being able to offend the people who pay them (the corporations or school system). So it ends up going nowhere.