The Unknown Poster

Well I think you just sort of know. Hindsight being 20/20 last year wasnt the right time...being swept in round one. On the other hand, they did guess correctly that it was the right time to make the playoffs and try. Maybe if we dont make the Kane trade, bring in Tlusty and Stemp we dont even make the playoffs. They knew they had the chance.

That makes sense. Yeah we only add the raises to this years total but if we start at $30m lower, then add the whole thing in for next season. They need to clear one top end salary I think. Even if they want to keep everyone, one top end salary needs to go. The easiest targets are Ladd & Buff. Enstrom is a potential if the rumors they were shopping him are true.

How about traditional drinks? Im not a big drinker and the gf doesnt drink at all so I dont partake when Im home. But I've often spent Christmas Eve at a buddies place with his family and we'll just have the usual Egg Nog and rum (Last year it was Crown and Nog or as we called it Eggnog Royale).

I didnt see it that way. They made the point of showing him being badly injured. He whooped Finn. And he was beating Rey (and Im not sure he wasnt toying with her in much the same way Vader was somewhat toying with Luke in Empire while taunting and suggesting they turn). She clearly "used the force" to over come him. I think the point was to show how strong in the force she was and once she let herself go, she was able to either use the force or call upon repressed memories of Jedi training. Kylo, injured and surprised, was overcome. I was okay with it. My biggest issues were the monster chase scene when the Falcon was reclaimed by Han (thought it was irrelevant) and Poe immediately telling Finn the Resistance's master plan of finding Luke. If Finn had been a double agent, Poe just told him the plan and where the map was hidden.

Are you sure we have $30m in cap space next season? Regardless, we still have to sign players on expiring contracts or replacement players and the majority of expiring contracts will see raises. There are some minor RFA's and UFA's but assuming we re-sign everyone currently under contract (and the ones we'd walk away from would be minor and still likely need to be replaced) we are in the same situation as this season PLUS needing raises for Ladd, Buff, Scheif, Trouba, Lowry, Hutch. My point is the same, are the Jets going to spend near the cap for a team that isnt consistently making the playoffs?

That is a good point. I've seen that speculated too. That Luke training Kylo and him turning to the dark side might tell Luke that the Jedi way of training young force sensitive kids is a path to the dark side. That you can tell a kid is force sensitive but you cant predict their future. In The Phantom Menace, Mace Windu and Yoda both sense Anakin was dangerous. But they gave in to Qui Gon and Kenobi's desire to train him. Luke gave in to Leia's desire to train Kylo. Perhaps he left to be in exile until the force brought someone to him. Perhaps his surprise at the end is that the "chosen one" (argh) was Rey. One thing I really enjoyed was the film makers conscious decision to give us some information while keeping so much back. Its fun to speculate and will be more fun to see the answers. Another idea is that Rey is a Kenobi. When she touches the light saber, she hears many voices but its Obi Wan's voice that speaks directly to her. Not Anakin's.

Kylo's swordplay was pretty basic too. Lots of clubbing swings. In some respect similar to Luke who never seemed to be a very expert swordsman either.

A lot of people.

Ofcourse. And if there werent 29 teams that valued those guys then 1) there would be no point in trading them 2) their ask would be a lot less. The issue isnt whether they make the Jets better. Ofcourse they do. The issue is whether its worth it in the long run. Trading them both makes the Jets a lesser team. But it provides assets. Its possible they end up a bottom 5 team next season. Its possible Chevy signs a couple of veterans to 1-2 year deals in the off-season, Lowry, Trouba, Petan, Ehlers all get better and the team isnt worse off. But to me, the more important question is, what does this commitment to those two guys mean for Years 3-7? Are we trading Wheeler in two years because we have Ladd under a poor deal? Do we fight with Trouba because we have Buff under a bad deal? If you trade Ladd & Buff you are saying "rebuild". It doesnt have to be a ten year rebuild. Wheeler, Little, Scheif, Perreault, Trouba, Myers, Enstrom are a good "core" when you're adding Lowry, Ehlers, Petan, Morrissey, Connor, Roslovic.

I think last season was their attempt to go for it. They saw they could make the playoffs and had talent. Once in the playoffs, anything can happen. I think management thought they were better than they were. Everyone predicted the Jets would beat the Ducks. They brought in some veteran depth and went for it. Now they are at a cross roads. If Ladd and Buff had another season under contract, so be it. But they dont. What does re-signing Ladd and Buff give you? There is no way the Jets are going to be a cap team UNLESS they have a reasonable expectation of Playoff success. Because going a couple of rounds at least provides the income needed to off-set being a cap team. Chipman said they would not be a cap team unless they saw an opportunity to truly compete and then they would go for it. Is there anything about this team that makes them a "go for it" proposition? Its why the kept Frolik and risked losing him for nothing last year because they were all in. They wont make that same gamble this year. So it comes down to a matter of what does paying Ladd & Buff do for you? Does it allow you to compete for a playoff spot that you can win? Maybe. But it really hasnt yet. If you cant win with Ladd & Buff, then dont bother. Why be the 17th best team when you can recoup assets and be the 25th best team, assemble more assets and take a run at the right time? Jets either believe they have a chance or they know they dont. And thats the same answer to the question of signing Ladd & Buff.

Is it just me or are there less Christmas specials on TV? Maybe its that we have way more channels but as a kid, it seemed every night there was a Christmas movie/special/cartoon. And about 8 different versions of A Christmas Carol. I havent seen one "A Christmas Carol" on TV this year....am I just not looking?

Apparently in the novel when Rey Force calls Luke's saber near the end, Kylo turns to her and explains "it IS you". So that act confirms to him that she is who he suspected. Which means he knew her all along. The word is, whatever is in the novelization was originally in the script. They cut a lot out when they decided to save Rey's back story for the next film. The question is, why doesnt Luke sense she is alive? Is it because Kylo repressed her memories? When he's mind screwing her he refers to an island and ocean, foreshadowing where Luke is found. Luke isnt in any sort of defensive posture when she arrives. Surely he has sensed her arrival. To me his expression is either at seeing HER face (ie. he sensed someone but didnt know it was her) or he knew it was her but the surprise/emotion was in seeing his light saber and what that means. If Obi Wan is speaking to her, cant we presume he'd be speaking to Luke? Unless there is an explanation for why Obi Wan, Yoda and Anakin stop appearing to Luke.

Lucas showed us Anakin from a point we didnt care about and stopped right when we started caring. Seems JJ and KK are showing us Kylo from a point we do care about and perhaps will show us his evolution from "Ben" to Kylo in a way we never saw with Anakin becoming Vader. There are rumors of Hayden Christiansen in Episode VIII and if we are going to see Kylo trained in the Sith way and Rey trained in the Jedi way it would make sense to see some Force Ghosts. I still think Kylo speaking to Vader is important. He said something like "show me again" or "show me one more time" the power of the dark side. When the camera panned around I half expected to see Kylo watching old video of Anakins bad deeds. It definitely hints that Vader is guiding him. I think Snoke is either manipulating Anakin's ghost or making an Anakin vision appear to Kylo. Kylo calling him Grandfather shows an emotional connection. What would turn Ben against his Uncle? Well, if he was seeing visions of Anakin showing him the dark side perhaps...

I hate to be Mr Negative but Im not sure the answer isnt to trade all the high priced expiring contracts and go "rebuild". Wheeler is 29. Little is 28. Those are your key veterans. Lets say we signed Ladd, Buff, Scheif, Trouba (and Lowry/Hutch, not to mention Stafford and Perrault are UFA's after next season). With $12m in cap space that will put us pretty close. Assuming the Jets arent anxious to be a cap team at any time let alone being a non-playoff team and that is simply not realistic. The Jets arent re-signing all those guys. So someone has to go. Trade Ladd for picks and prospects and our forward core is depleted. Trade Buff for picks and prospects and our D is depleted. If we trade them both, we accept taking another step back to take two steps forward in two or three years. So if we accept that, then why keep either? Stafford isnt a concern because we likely dont re-sign him (making him another piece to turn into other assets as a rental next year) or re-sign him cheap if he likes it here and Jets like him. Jets will want to keep Perreault. Perreault-Little-Wheeler Ehlers-Scheif-Stafford Take the picks and prospects, get a high first round pick this year. Embrace the youth. Give Wheeler the "C". Move on.

I do think Kylo's character was intentional. He was portrayed as weaker than you'd expect and angry and prone to outbursts. His saber skills were lacking. He twice trashed his room out of anger/frustration (temper tantrum). He was spoken down to by Hux (in somewhat of a nod to Vader/Tarkin) and seemed all pouty/angry when talking to Snoke at one point. I think we're supposed to take this as him being immature and "torn apart" inside. He was calm when speaking top Vader. The "Kylo" character is what he wants to be..."Ben" is who he really is. And he had to make a choice at the end. I wonder if we will see him grow in power next film or if he will always show the "human" insecurities. In some ways he had a lot of Anakin from Revenge in him (which I assume is by design) and a bit of Luke from ANH. I think its possible he never becomes the Vader-like bad guy. We might see that transformation or we might see him struck down/turned back at some point where Snoke is the bigger evil (keep in mind Benicio Del Toro is cast as a "villain" in the next one too). And I agree about fun. Had a smile on my face the whole movie...from "Luke Skywalker has vanished" (what a way to summarize the series...I could see JJ using that line to pitch the films) to the final scene of Luke & Rey. Magnificent.

Word is Harrison Ford got paid $16m plus 0.5% of the gross. Nice money. Also read an interesting new theory about Rey. She *is* Luke's daughter but it was Kylo that hid her. In her vision she sees Kylo and the Knights of the Ren slaughter a bunch of people. Let's assume that is the Jedi Academy. It appears Kylo also kills one of his own people during that period and Rey is laying before him. So they go to slaughter the padawans, perhaps even Luke's wife but Kylo cant bring himself to kill Rey. Either because he loves her or because he wants to use her later (the idea the Sith are always planning to screw their master). Kylo leaves her on Jakku. When he later hears Finn and BB-8 escaped Jakku "with a girl", he flips out. There was a line heard in the trailer but cut from the film where he says to her (I think it was him or perhaps someone else) "Is it true, are you really just a scavenger?" Luke's expression is hard to read at the end but its emotional. Is it a sense that he's seeing his now grown up daughter he thought was dead? Would also explain why Snoke wanted Kylo to bring her before him (in much the same way Palpatine wants Vader to bring Luke before him) and why Kylo offers to train her in the ways of the Force. He was probably quickly realising that she wasnt just a little girl he hid for her own protection...the force was strong in her. If the film keeps the idea of Jedi Padawans being trained from a very early age, she was old enough to have begun training. And perhaps the fact she became pretty adept at using the Force once Kylo "triggered" something in her with the attempted mind screw could be because she was trained and those memories/skills were repressed. She referred to Luke Skywalker as a "myth" and recognized Han Solo as a "smuggler" when Finn recognized him as the Rebel General. I love the speculation. Only 17 months to go...

I was thinking about this as I began watching Christmas Vacation last night. Anyone have any interesting traditions or films they consider Classics in their family? Aside from Vacation (which is hilarious), Im in the camp that considers Diehard to be a Christmas Classic.

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN)Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton in vulgar terms Monday night, saying that her bathroom break during the last Democratic debate was just too "disgusting" to talk about and then stating she "got schlonged" by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race. "Even a race to Obama, she was gonna beat Obama. I don't know who would be worse, I don't know, how could it be worse? But she was going to beat -- she was favored to win -- and she got schlonged, she lost, I mean she lost," Trump said. Earlier, Trump started to criticize Clinton for not returning to the ABCNews debate stage on Saturday night in time, but then said he didn't want to talk more about it because it was "disgusting." "I know where she went, it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it," Trump said. "No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting, let's not talk, we want to be very, very straight up." Fired up by a raucous crowd, Trump unleashed on a slew of political opponents -- starting with Sen. Lindsey Graham, who dropped his presidential bid earlier on Monday, and finishing with Obama.

Is that the third goal Stu has scored on Helle?

How many more games do I have to read about Ladd not being good enough before we move on from him? buff is dynamic but Ladd and buff as UFA's give us the best chance to stock the cupboard. Let Wheeler and Little be the grizzled veterans leading a young rebuild.

Have to win these games. They have three games against Nashville in January which is their one saving grace. Maybe.

Too much perimeter play.

He might even play tonight

Yup, Hutch to start tomorrow.

Arash Madani @ArashMadani Per #CFL sources: The BC Lions are hiring Marcel Bellefeuille on their offensive coaching staff in 2016. He was Winnipeg's OC last season.