gehringer_2

In college it's hard to seperate failures in scheme vs recruiting. People have been talking about OSU's secondary being down almost since Odukah went to the NFL. It's maybe a little odd - you might expect a team to be able to defend what they do well on offense because they have to go against those guys in practice, but the OSU secondary made a lot of mistakes and their technique was poor when they were where they were supposed to be. But there isn't much in the way of great passing teams in the B1G to exploit that weakness.

It will be more like $150-175M when they are done, but yeah I hope we do too.....

Like I said, I think the reality is that Harris is going to spend the budget he has been given. He cut the guys he cut because he thinks he can make more effcient use of the saved resource somewhere else. The thesis you are positing is that Harris is going to throw back unused dollars to Ilitch for a pat on the back. Even Al Avila didn't do that, he always spent his full allotment by the time the season started and I'm guessing Harris will try as hard as he can to do likewise.

You can talk about business priorities but I'm not sure how you apply that concept to the way the Tigers actually operate. Chris is not vetting each move by his GM based on some set of his own priorities. The Tigers have been pretty transparent that the way they actually operate is that Ilitch and his GM come up with a budget for the season and from that point on, it's the GM's show. Now I think we both doubt Aaron Judge is in that budget this year, but beyond that, I don't think it's particularly meaningful to think in micro terms of how Ilitch business priorities drive specific Tiger management moves. Whatever priorities there are all get subsumed into a budget number. Once that is established, they no longer have any specific applicability to team management. If you believe that the mere fact of having a budget immediately precludes being a competitive organization, that's fine, but I don't find it determinative.

well, one was a bad tip by his receiver. There's no doubt he throws really well, gets the right amount of touch and air on his throws, but physical skill isn't what makes great QBs great - it's how they process the game. I'm not a big enough OSU fan () to have watched enough of Stroud to venture any guesses about that.

I think the non-tenders did send a signal that he wants to raise the bar that is a lot louder than just the expected rhetoric when he took the job. Of course, now he has to orchestrate some acquisitions to back that up. And a lot that is directly on his plate as opposed his staff. He's the guy other GMs will be calling and vice versa) to explore possible deals and it will be his creativity and command of every other team's situation that will serve to generate any deals that move the Tigers forward.

Of course to me it's stil an open question whether M is that much better or if OSU is just coming back to the pack. We'll see how they do in the playoff assuming no disaster next Saturday. One big difference is that the last two years he has finally had a QB. For all his limitations, McNamara was still head and shoulders above what Harbaugh had been sending out there in the way of transfer pick-ups, and JJ is now a step up from McNamara. A competent QB makes everything work better.

Yup. The only comp I ever thought was close for Henson's pure throwing ability was John Elway. Unfortunately for Drew, it takes more than the arm to make a successful QB.

OSU has been coasting defensively pretty much since Day took over and it's beginning to show. Maybe Knowles can turn it around, or maybe not, but they don't play D the way OSU teams used to.

Lloyd Carr's handling of Henson was not his finest hour.

Indiana with the lead on Purdue in the 1st and then their QB goes down.

It was an ironic win though. OSU was able to sell out and stop the run when they choose to so it was JJ's passing that broke the game into M's favor. It was pretty much after M got the lead and forced OSU to overplay that it opened up the big runs for Edwards. I'll give Harbaugh credit for not being stubborn - when he had to go pass he went pass and stuck with it even after JJ missed a few early. Also have to credit the officiating crew. The OSU corners were not playing the ball and those were good PI calls but it's all too easy to imagine a universe where they were not called.

well, that was certainly unexpected.

a moderately class move by Day not to take his last two TO's

Baddoo is still around because he had a 340 OBP the last two months of the season is one of the few baserunners that pressures the other team. Baddoo's good luck is that you might be able to teach him to be a more adequate fielder, which is currently is not, but you can't teach slow guys to run fast.

or go for it. If you are going to risk giving them the ball in that field position you might as well try for the 1st. Then again, he had the leg.....

Remember how Avila loved to make deals the very first day he could? Remember how most of them turned out?

It's a theory, but I think what it runs up against is that every drive in an NFL game is important enough you have to put your best shot to score out there. No matter how you start a platoon out, sooner or later you will be forced to conclude you have a better chance to score with one guy compared to the other and the platoon ends. I think it might almost work if you looked at it based on the opposition - so for instance if you are playing the Lions and you have a mobile QB you start him in preference to the drop back guy. Again, seems sensible but you run into all the intangibles issues about 'who is my starting QB' and which players support which guy and a lot of misc noise the coach might rather not deal with.

And making final decisions.

the problem is you probably don't get anyone that has had success (at least recently) on a one year deal, which is why I'm guess they may have to settle for something more along the lines of a reclamation project. Of course if Harris isn't very high in Mize long term, then sure, I suppose we could see a bigger signing.

It's partly Lalonde's system. He has them playing mostly dump and chase, which means that 5 on 5 a foward has to normally be the first player to touch the puck in the offensive zone. Hronek seems to be the only Dman with license to rotate deep in the offensive zone, the rest are mostly all staying back. Dman goals have been there but mostly on special teams and trailing D-men hopping on lose pucks in the slot. On the PP they are also playing differently - the Dmen are taking fewer long shots looking for deflections - now you have more forwards other than Larkin with the skill to manage the PP from the lower corner with less emphasis on the point (Kubalik, Perron). And maybe the other more subtle thing is that Larkin doesn't look for Sieder as being the only other competent guy on the ice with him as much as he did last season because he has Kubalik. Larkin is still by far the #1 facilitator on this team and whoever he is looking to feed is going to get points.

Of course look at JJ at Michigan. He was leading the world in completion % as long as they were running a short passing ball control air game. Once they tried to start stretching the field and throwing over the D, his % plummetted. Same QB, same receivers. Tougher opposition probably also , but mostly just the change in game planning. So it's a number that's going to have a little context to it.

Harry Nilsson, the Point, 1970. The Rock Man - "You see what you want to see, and hear what you want to hear." That was my sig line before the forum SW changed and did away with them. The only other avatar I ever used was the Queen of Diamonds - every day that Trump was in office - in salute to the fact that he was the realization of Frankenheimer's Manchurian Candidate.

The defensive failings tonight were mostly forwards not pursuing in their own end, not the D men. Seider did make a blind clearing attempt that led to the 2nd Coyote goal, but otherwise played a strong game.

serious question or am I missing something obvious?