RedRamage

I would agree and that's definitely not something I want to see. Honestly I think it would be very interesting in football to go backwards and not have O- and D-teams. I think catcher is the next most "specialized" position, but I also think that it's isn't that far removed from other positions, like SS and CF for that matter. If catcher ever gets a DH I wouldn't be surprised to see the rest start falling as well. So, the question is: Is pitching different enough from catching that we can accept a DH there but still logically refuse a DH for catcher? I don't think the argument should hinge on pitchers being traditionally bad hitters. I'd rather argue that a pitcher's skill set (and therefore what he should practice and perfect) is significantly enough different that it warrants special treatment.

I've recently read a couple of books on "old timey" baseball and it's interesting to read about pitchers hitting. I think it was Auker who argued that a DH was silly because once you start going down that road, where do you stop? Obviously we haven't moved beyond pitchers yet and it seems like there's a reasonable argument that pitchers are a different animal. Every play (when their team is on defense) starts with the pitcher. They have a very specialized skill set they need to hone. They cost a lot of money and a teams success hinges heavily on how well they play. The argument would then be that because they have to spend so much time on pitching they don't have time to learn proper hitting. Because they are involved in every play, they have a bigger impact on the game than position players who also bat. And because they cost so much money and are so important to the success of the team it's reasonable to not want to add extra risk by having them hit. That seems like a pretty reasonable argument... but couldn't you pretty much say the same thing about Catchers?

How old were you when you realized that the D on the Tigers hat and jersey used to be different?

Anyone else listening to/watching this? linktr.ee/DetroitCityofChampions I'll admit I'm a little biased cause I particularly enjoy this event in sports history, but I do think it's an important time period... the year that really transformed Detroit into a sports town. The podcast is Jamie Flanagan with Charles Avison who's wrote three books detailing the events. Now, I'll readily admit that Charles is not always easy to listen too... he's definitely not a radio trained speaker, but the wealth of information he has about the players and teams and events from the 1935/36 season is just amazing to listen too.

https://www.mlive.com/sports/2022/02/detroit-native-byron-allen-preparing-bid-for-denver-broncos-could-become-leagues-first-black-owner.html

The science of scouting... 🙂

I actually turned on the game for a (very) short period of time last night and right away turned it off. This is an interesting idea, but does the winner or the loser get the first pick? If it's the loser than I anticipate it being a pretty dull game as well. My suggestion, years ago, was that pro-bowl nominee get to pick any college player of the same position to play for them in the pro-bowl. They mentor the player for the week or so leading up to the game. The benefits: College Players get a chance to show of their skills to more NFL coaches/front offices. Pro-Players get a chance to showcase people they believe are deserving (either from their college or hometown or highschool or whatever). My hope would be that these wouldn't be the star players that everyone is talking about but rather players who might be 3rd day draft picks or even UDFA types. This will probably be semi-self regulating in that the top name players will not want to play in the game for fear of risk of injury. Pro-players get a small taste of coaching and are able to show up their potential future coaching skills to NFL front offices The game will hopefully be more entertaining. It may not be hugely popular with the fans, but I doubt it'll be any less popular that it is right now.

I take issue with that though because I think this says people are looking at the problem wrong. The question shouldn't be: "Why aren't there more Black Head Coaches?" The question should be "Are minorities getting a fair shot at being hired?" And I totally get that the first question is a much better sound bite and far easier to provide "evidence" to support it and that the media is gonna go for the low hanging fruit... I get that. But in a situation where there are only 32 jobs... that sample size is so small that minor fluctuations can easily alter things. I'm sure that you agree that it's entirely possible that a team could go out and interview 10 people and pick the best candidate and the best candidate for them happens to be white but that race played no part in the decision, right? But by merely saying: "Wow... look at that... yet another white guy gets hired..." while rolling your eyes implies that the team was motivated by racism. Could there have been racism? Sure... could there not have been racism? Yes. But every team now that hires a white guy will have this cloud over them that they were racist.

While I mostly agree, I think it's also a problem to elude that every time a white coach gets hired it's because of racism. There's a clear issue with the Rooney rule. In theory it's a good idea, in practice I suspect that many minority coaches are really often wondering if team is only interviewing them to check the box. The spirit of the rule is to this gives minorities a chance to change minds... to get their foot in the door and convince teams that they are the guy. But in practice I'm certain that there are plenty of situations where teams are going through the motions but no matter how impressive the interview is, they'll never get the job. Look no further than Quinn hiring Patricia. There is no way anyone was going to interview so exceptionally well that Quinn didn't hire Patricia. One could argue that the mere chance to interview is worth something (practice, get your name in the media as a potential HC, maybe impress someone who'll mention it to someone else who's hiring...) but I don't know if that would out weight the negatives of feeling like you're just being used. It's the double edge sword of something like the Rooney Rule. Prior to the rule if a minority was interviewed for a job it's very likely that that candidate is being seriously considered. Now it seems like any time a minority who is interviewed people wonder: "Is he really a candidate? Is he really qualified and in the running or are they just checking the box?"

Valid point... There's actually a link in the original story that points to another Freep.com story that has some direct quotes from Austin and he does make some comments that I considered questionable, including this: “There is no pipeline (for Black offensive coaches),” Austin said. “You know, you can count on your hand how many Black quarterback coaches, how many offensive coordinators, how many offensive line coaches in this league are people of color.” Austin is right. I looked at coaching staff for each team and recorded minorities for various offensive positions. I went purely on appearance and if it was questionable I assumed white, so there' room for error but... in terms of OC (3), OL (3), and QB (4) coaches (out of 31... Giants don't have any coaches listed except for HC) there's not many. However I think it's a bit disingenuous that Austin didn't mentioned RB (28) or WR (19) coaches. Also FWIW, if there was an offensive side coach that was also listed as Assistant Head Coach I recorded that as well... 0 white coaches were in the category but 6 black coaches were.

FWIW, (this assumes the allegations against both are true) I would thing that covering up sexual assault by a team is a greater crime (from an organization's stand point) than committing sexual assault.

To be fair, this is Austin's Agent making the claim, not Austin himself.

This should come as a shock to absolutely no one. Everyone knew that Quinn wanted Patricia every more than everyone knew that Millen wanted Mooch. This is one area where the Rooney Rule just isn't going to fit and you're checking the boxes to say that you did it. Looking, Austin wasn't hired because he wasn't white, he wasn't hired because he wasn't Patricia. Skin color had nothing to do with it. I don't think there would be any evidence that race was a factor and if the team followed the rules of the Rooney Rule there should be no negative consequences from that. Austin got and interview and had an opportunity to change their minds... he might argue that no matter how well he did in the interview he was never going to get the job, but any white coach not named Matt Patricia would have been in the same boat. It may (snort) for Quinn to do that, but it was stupidity, not racism that made that happen.

I'm not going to say that racism isn't/hasn't ever been involved. I'm not in the hiring rooms or the minds of the people making the decisions. I suspect that there very much was racism in the past and I wouldn't be at all surprised if current decisions weren't at least influenced by racism. I wouldn't shock me if some of the old owners at the very least didn't lean in the direction of favoring whites. I don't doubt that you can find many, many examples of white guys who seemed to get hired without a good track record or retained longer than you'd expect... but I'd also argue that you find white guys who were seemingly passed over as well. And there very well might be legitimate reasons why someone like Bieniemy goes get hired other than passing gas in the interview. There was a time when I was accused of racism for questioning a certain activity with a customer at my work place many years ago. The individual was black and felt I singled him out for further "inspection" because he was black. The reality was that there was a very specific red flag that showed up that prompted me to further investigate. When he complained to my boss, my boss explained why I did what I did and the customer rejected that reasoning even though I still stand behind that reasoning, as did my boss at the time as did his boss at the time. I know I'm going off on a tangent here a bit, but what I'm trying to say is there MAY be very legitimate reasons why a candidate is passed over, fired, whatever that doesn't involve racism. Given the very small sample size it's not valid, in my mind to assume any specific action is because of racism. Now, on the flip side, given past history combined with the reality that (right now) there's only one Black HC in the NFL that it's fair to wonder if racism is involved and it's far to call on the NFL to take measures to ensure that racism isn't involved. The NFL has done that to some level (The original Rooney rule, changes and improvements to the Rooney Rule, incentivizing the develop of minority coaches and executives, Minority Coaching Fellowship Program) but I, for one, would like to see more efforts. A few of the hirings I've been involved with have included an "inclusion advocate." This is always a minority who is involved and who's job it is to ensure that the hiring process gives minorities a fair shot. I would say that the NFL should create an office, staffed by minorities, that dispatches people (again minorities) to sit in on an HC, OC, DC, GM, and maybe other select staffing position hiring processes. This could provide an independent, yet still confidential, way to ensure the process is fair.

I not sure I 100% agree with this. I think you're saying that because black college players are more likely to become players in the NFL that white college players have to look at other options, which includes coaches, and therefore are more likely to end up coaches. While I see some logic in that thinking the assumption is that aren't more black players in college as well. What I mean is if, to make the math easy, we say there are 500 black college players and 400 white college players and 100 "other" players... Black do better over all, so we'll say 20% of black players make it to the pros. White players don't do as well, so we'll say only 10% of them make it to the pros. That means 360 white players aren't NFL bound and may choose to go into coaching. But that also means that 400 black players are also not NFL bound and may go into coaching, so (obviously depending on where the actual numbers end up) there still might be more blacks who played in college but didn't make the pros than there are whites. All this said I DO think that it's wrong to point to the 70% of black players and say the pool of potential coaches is therefore 70% black because it assumes that all players equally want to be coaches and would make good coaches and that ONLY former players are NFL coaches.

At this point I'm rooting for Stafford. There's not really much difference between 31 and 32. Hope he wins.

Point 9 is interesting. It points out that the NFL used race-norms when determining if retirees suffered from various brain injuries and paid out accordingly. This is bring brought up, I'm sure, to show that the NFL has long standing policy of racism. The problem here is both sides of the original suit that instituted this money for retires agreed to this (one could argue a couple of different ways on why hurts of doesn't hurt Flores' claims) but more importantly is that as of Oct '21 the NFL has agreed to stop doing this and allow past minority retirees to get retested. Point 11 argues that less successful white coaches are often retained while black coaches are quickly fired. Again here I'd argue that the sample size is just too small to draw large conclusions from this. For example, Campbell was clearly less successful on the field this year than Flores was, but the circumstances surrounding these two teams is vastly different. Point 13 says the Rooney rules isn't working... which I agree with, but it again wrongly points to the percentage of black players vs. black coaches as proof. Points 14 and 15 talk about why Flores was fired by Ross... but the claim isn't that Flores was fired because he was a minority, rather that Flores wouldn't cooperate with Ross's directives that were against league rules. Assuming this is true that's very bad for Ross, but NOT proof of racism.

I haven't been able to find any details on that. Do you have a source?

I'm reading through the lawsuit... Now I'm not a lawyer so I might misunderstand a lot of things here, but FWIW, here's my thoughts: Points 5 and 6 I see an a glaring issue. Point 5 makes the claim that many players desire to coach or get into management level positions in the NFL and then cites the relatively low number of black executives, HCs, and coordinators. The first problem here is the "many players." I'd expect that court would want evidence of this. Point 6 though makes the claim that these low numbers come from a player pool that's 70% Black. This is a glaring issue in my opinion because it assumes that former players are the only source of coaches and executives. This is patently untrue. Points 7 and 8 (NFL execs admitting to issues with diversity) are some good points, but seem weak on facts. Particularly pt 7 referencing three fired Black Coaches... way too small of a sample size to draw conclusions imho.

MLB.com's story on MLBPA's response to MLB's latest offer. Shockingly the story seems to favor MLB. https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-mlbpa-continue-negotiations?partnerId=zh-20220202-538318-mlb-1-A&qid=1026&utm_id=zh-20220202-538318-mlb-1-A&bt_ee=yNjfECJvGxkGTTxnKrPglOydemIP%2Bcz9iFljK1j%2B533wyRUyDvrGNZ380pWpM4cA&bt_ts=1643811597614 To their credit the story does mention that MLB's offer was a $10 million pool, but I like how they didn't phrase that as minimal movement... going from 0 to $10M. A few other tidbits: I like that personally. I hate the draft lottery myself, but I do understand a need to prevent tanking. I'm just not sure it really works. Plus MLB's proposal of only three teams in the lottery means if you tank as worst you're picking 3rd. That's not much of an incentive to not tank. I do like one aspect of MLB's proposal here: "teams [will be] ineligible to receive lottery selections in three consecutive years." I hate the expansion of the postseason. I'm sure it's gonna happen because $$$$$, but I hate it. I think it cheapens the regular season when more and more and more teams get in the post season. I like the universal DH. I'm sure some will hate it and I understand why, but in the game today pitchers are treated differently and there's no going back. With IL a thing now teams in both leagues should be playing on equal terms.

The thing is that I think coaches who have a track record of some level of success are given longer to make it happen. This probably leans towards white coaches getting a bit more leeway as white coaches have traditionally been hired more frequently... that's shifting somewhat now, but still heavily favors whites. This isn't due to current racism necessarily but past racism, and as such makes a good argument for programs that the NFL could use to try to combat these left over effects of past racism, ie Institutional Racism. This is just my opinion of course... I haven't done any research to back this up so I might be talking out of my backside, but I think it makes sense. As for Flores... I think he kinda has the track record now. He didn't have amazing success in Miami, but he did have some success there and I think that would earn him a bit more leeway in his next job. Of course this could be countered by the rumor that he was difficult to work with (if true).

'manders?? Comms??

I guess I don't consider it dumb if Flores really feels he's been discriminated against. I do think he's got a very uphill battle to prove that he was so you could argue that it's dumb in that regard... that even if he was discriminated against he has a low shot of winning and sacrificing his career on principle could be considered dumb. But if he truly feels he was held back because of racism then I can't fault the guy for standing up for his convictions. He may feel that his career is all be killed anyway because he feels the NFL is racist and he'd never amount to much. Maybe the USFL will need a new coach next year?

Dan Snyder: "Okay people... I've got it... I've got the new team name... everyone ready for this? This is it folks, it's genius: The Washington... wait for it... COMANCHES!" Staffer 1: "Uh... um... ah, Mr. Snyder... ah, I...I don't think that's a good choice." Staffer 2: "Yeah... that might be seen as a bit... um... tone deaf." Snyder: "What? Why? I don't get what you mean..." Staffer 2: "Well, ya know we dropped the old name 'cause Native Americans didn't like it and now you're using a tribe name..." Snyder: "No, you don't get it... it's named after the helicopter." Staffer 1: "Okay, but see that was named after the tribe so it's still referencing a Native American tribe right after we sort were using a racial slur and... I just don't kn--" Snyder: "Oh come one... no one is going to think that!" Staffer 2: "Eh... I kinda think they will." Snyder: "Well damn it... that took me three months to come up with and I really like the way it sounds. WASHINGTON COMANCHES! It's got a good strong sound to it." Staffer 1: "Yeah, well, I still think it reeeeeally won't work." Snyder: "Fine screw it... I give up. What sounds close to that? Washington Commies? No, even I'm not that dumb... um... Fuck it... Washington Commanders. Good enough. I'm going to get a drink and going to bed."