MichiganCardinal

While a huge deal is made every April about how far superior QBs X and Y are, sometimes a Z too, and how you have to get one of those QBs or there is no point... seldom do those QBs actually turn into the best QBs in the NFL. If we look at the top ten QBs (ranked arbitrarily and rather poorly IMO by Sports Illustrated) 1. Aaron Rodgers (1.24 in 2005, 2nd taken) 2. Patrick Mahomes (1.10 in 2017, 2nd taken) 3. Matt Stafford (1.1 in 2009, 1st taken) 4. Russell Wilson (3.75 in 2012, 5th taken) 5. Joe Burrow (1.1 in 2020, 1st taken) 6. Josh Allen (1.7 in 2018, 3rd taken) 7. DeShaun Watson (1.12 in 2017, 3rd taken) 8. Lamar Jackson (1.32 in 2018, 5th taken) 9. Dak Prescott (4.135 in 2016, 8th taken) 10. Justin Herbert (1.6 in 2020, 3rd taken) Only two of them were taken in the top five of the draft, and they are also the only two who were the first QB taken (both at 1.1). More than half of them were the 3rd QB taken off the board or later. If we extend this to all QBs in the NFL currently, the others still starting in the NFL who were taken in the top five are Matt Ryan, Kyler Murray, Trevor Lawrence, Baker Mayfield, Tua Tagovailoa, Trey Lance, Zach Wilson, Jared Goff, and Carson Wentz... A group with many flaws. My point in all this being, if your scouts are good, you'll find your guy without a top five pick.

I have faith that if Holmes wants someone who slips into Mahomes territory (I'll define that loosely as 8-16), he will be able to go and get his guy. He worked magic to get Jameson Williams. I'm not worried too much about where we land. A package with our 1st, the Rams 1st, and a 2024 1st will give us a lot of latitude.

Just so long as he doesn’t start bringing girlfriends home. 🤣

Has there been talk of that? I haven’t seen it. Randy said above that he’s a favorite in Vegas for awards. I don’t think his seat is even remotely warm after the way the team ended the 2021 season.

It’s about time he starts pulling his weight around here.

I see the Bears having a hard time finding 3 wins, let alone 7.

On topic though, Tigers ownership has not made a decision in the interests of fans since 2015, I see no reason why they would start now.

Hearing that the Nationals refused to charter Juan Soto a flight to the All Star Game after extension talks failed is my favorite Petty Betty news is quite some time.

I agree. I don’t think they will capitalize further on BB/BCS if they don’t see a winner on level with these shows. They don’t see the type to make something just for the sake of monetizing on a brand, they would want it to be really good. I don’t think there is any way they’re out of ideas for shows generally though….. even if it’s not in this universe.

He aborted the extraction, I don’t think that necessarily means he’s staying in Omaha. He’s doing something. I think it must have to do with Kim.

I think it would burn in the two weeks before the Super Bowl

One day...

Notre Dame likely won't be left with a choice at the end of this. That might be tomorrow, might be five years, and might be ten, but when the dust settles, Notre Dame will find themselves independently irrelevant if they dig their heels in. In a 20-24 team conference, with Stanford, Cal, USC, Michigan, MSU, Ohio State, and so on, there will likely be a 9-10 team conference schedule that is more difficult than the conference schedules of past. Those schools will have no incentive whatsoever to schedule a non-conference game against Notre Dame while their conference partners schedule Central Michigan, Connecticut, or Hawaii. Notre Dame would be left with the rest, to schedule games against TCU, West Virginia, Pitt, and Iowa State, hoping to be able to go 12-0 and not find themselves shut out of the CFP anyway after a pair of thrilling B1G and SEC Championship games.

I could see this happening. In conferences of 20-24 teams, you're going to have some overlapping marquee matchups. The NFL has their mega-deal with FOX, but they also have their deal for MNF with Disney, SNF with NBC, and TNF with Amazon, not to mention NFL Network. Right now, B1G has their mega-deal with FOX and a secondary with ESPN, but that's it. In the days of six games on a Saturday, you could taper the games with Fox taking lead and ESPN taking secondary, with B1G Network just taking the non-conference games or the Illinois/Rutgers type games. As we move to 10-12 B1G games on a Saturday, you could see NBC entering the conference with some sort of "game of the week" agreement that would leave ND without a paddle.

Bob Odenkirk deserves an Emmy for that scene.

We may see the first cracks in the foundation, I don't think we see the tower that's been built over the course of so many seasons fall in one fell swoop of an episode though. I too like the theory about Burnett being Hamlin's mother.

Notre Dame has Marshall, Cal, Stanford, UNLV, Clemson, and Boston College as their home NBC games in 2022. NBC is also carrying the BYU game, which is being hosted at a neutral site in Vegas. Only one - maybe two - of those games even deserves national broadcasting. Marshall may well get kicked to Peacock as it is. But yes, tell me more about how that somehow warrants a tripling in payout to over 10MM a game just to Notre Dame LOL Let's "shoulder" UNLV/Notre Dame with a good barnburner like Kansas/Baylor or TCU/Kansas State though... that'll make up the difference.

Their egos are getting in the way of their brains on this one, which is not surprising. Notre Dame will not be able to independently match what can ultimately be distributed in a mega-conference with 20-24 schools. Even if they can come close, they will eventually find doors being shut on them when it's no longer in USC, Ohio State, and Clemson's interests to schedule non-conference games against them.

I think he’s here to do both. You don’t hire a university president for a short-term gig. He’s here for a sense of stability post-Schlissel, but he’s also here for the next chapter, whatever that brings. He’s not James Hackett, here to make you forget the errors of Dave Brandon, usher in Jim Harbaugh, and gracefully bow out. I think Harbaugh will find ways to spend money and use resources in positive ways should Ono provide him with such.

I think it goes to what your expectations are. Michigan will never be Bama, nor should they aspire to such. Michigan has way more going for it as an institution than football. Alabama would change their name to the University of Football and cut research funding in half if they thought it would guarantee them another win each year. I don’t want to win football games at the expense of everything else the university is doing. I think it does say that Michigan will take the step forward necessary to compete in the upper echelon of the sport rather than being left in the dust of transition.

Speaking to athletics, it seems like he's invested (despite the recent history at UBC). A school like Cincinnati doesn't become a powerhouse without a hefty amount of administrative backing. He was there until 2016, leaving a few months before they hired Fickell and really turned that ship around. We'll see if he puts his money where his mouth is, but I think it's an encouraging sign for the Athletic Department.

Haha that was confusing. I mean to say that it seems even with a great manager in Hinch, 0.500 is likely the ceiling for what the roster under Avila could possibly accomplish through the rebuild in my eyes. Not to say that they’ll end around 500 this year or are competing for it actively.

I worry about the Tigers. Illitch stumbled into a winner with Stevie, and I think Yzerman will have the Wings competing at a high level in the next five years. It would be sooner if the top of the East weren't so stacked at the moment. Some questionable moves today were brought up here, but I think he's brilliant and making more right moves than wrong, and I think with hockey's salary cap he's likely given free rein over the direction of the team. The Lions seem to be moving in a truly universally positive direction for the first time in most of our lives, so expect the meteor to kill us all at any moment. The Pistons (though I am admittedly least knowledgable about) seem to be getting a little lucky and making smart moves that will get them out of the basement sooner rather than later. And then there are the Tigers. They just seem destined to be in purgatory for the next 10+ years. They have one of the best managers in baseball and he's struggling to get a team that should definitely be competing by now to 0.500. Ownership completely dismantled a team that should realistically still be competing for championships with the sheer amount of talent they had, nonsensically fired a HOF caliber General Manager in the process, only to hire his assistant to fill his role ever since? Worse, there is really no end in sight, short of Hinch pressing the issue about Avila and Illitch getting incredibly lucky in identifying a replacement (or outsourcing the search to Hinch). And the possibility of that sequence occurring (not to mention Illitch opening the checkbook a little wider) seems incredibly remote considering there is no HOF legend of a player/executive just waiting for a call to join this team. It's sad to think we could be in another 1988-2006 run here. (not really Wings offseason related, but came to mind and it's a free country dammit! Lol)

Live look-in at the University of Michigan Board of Regents:

I thought the look Mike gives Howard as he lies in the grave was interesting. Almost foretelling that he knows this is how they will all end up in a business like this.