TrueBlue4ever

No Lady Byng for Connor this year.

Since it wasn’t started yet. Capobiancco in for Logan Stanley. So why do the Jets do about acknowledging Hull’s death? Nothing? Just moment of silence? Video tribute? Tribute but also a team donation to a woman’s shelter?

Then I’ll respond with “OK armchair GM, give me your Jets trade that would have landed Horvat?”

So if one were conspiracy-minded, the Conference Finals in the NFL did little to quiet the skeptics that suggest the refs fix outcomes to get their desired match-up for the league’s Super Bowl cash cow. 11 Niner penalties to 4 for the Eagles, plus a blown call on a 4th down conversion that led to the first Philly TD. Cincinnati gets 5 penalties to KC’s zero (OK, 1 declined) in the 4th quarter after tying the game, including 2 that extended drives after failed 3rd down conversions by the Chiefs, plus a referee do-over call on a “that play didn’t count” decision after another failed conversion. At least two or three of those calls were fairy ticky-tack, when equally bad holds by the Chiefs (one on the final punt return for 30 yards, setting up the game-winning FG) were missed or ignored. Now I don’t blame refs when my team loses, it is a weak whiny argument 99.9% of the time when the fact is the players, not the refs, determine the outcome almost all the time, and bad calls are a product of the human element of the game rather than “they are out to screw us” excuses fans like to throw out. That said, is it time to ask how potentially close we are to pro sports being illegitimate with the growth and acceptance of endorsed sports gambling by the big leagues? Consider: …..Baseball already has had a documented rigged World Series because of gambling, and also caught it’s all-time hit leader betting on his team’s games while managing them. Also doctored baseballs and a blind eye to the steroid era cheating to increase offence and draw fans back. …..Basketball busted a ref in Tim Donaghy for match-fixing with biased calls to enable a gambling ring, but the LA Laker championship that was a direct result of the cheating was never rescinded. …..Hockey has had a ref on hot mike admit that make-up calls are a regular part of how they call the game, and promote gambling sites in commercials featuring not just the best player ever to play the game but also it’s current best player and face of the league. Yet no worry about a conflict of interest? …..Football has our league making an active partnership with a gambling site for profits, while the NFL has expanded it’s embrace of the gambling industry to talk openly about game odds in its broadcasts and now have a halftime Super Bowl event with Rob Gronkowski which is just a glorified sports betting commercial This doesn’t even touch on Olympic corruption and proven rigged judging examples there. So the question is, are sports results at risk of being completely illegitimate when the influence of gambling is growing so fast, and what does that mean for the future of sports? Do the optics of potential unfairness and conflict of interest matter, or will it take another active match-fixing event like the Black Sox scandal for people to care? Or will that even matter with the dollars at stake? And how close are we to seeing that kind of scenario take place again where a team/player/ref deliberately pre-determines the outcome of a sporting event for money gain? Thoughts?

Not really though. 8 rushes all year in 18 games, same as Grant who saw the field a lot less on offence, and less than half of what Demski did. And his production wasn’t great there either (yards gained were 0, 0, 3, 6, 9, 13, 15, and 19). Gadget play sweeps, which were rarely used with him and were unsuccessful as much as not.

Actually not true. Targets in the first 6 games were 5.2 per game, last 12 games was 5.3. He just underperformed. In fact, take away one huge 4th quarter against BC, a good chunk of it in garbage time, where he got 11% of his season’s worth of catches and yards, and 22% of his TDs, and he averaged about 3 catches and 37 yards a game all season. He was pretty much a non-factor in this year’s playoffs (4 catches, 50 yards total). Hey, I like his intangibles like attitude and blocking, he’s a quality class A interview, and many are misled by the “Showtime Scheed” love, but at 125-135K he’d be overpriced by about 15-25K IMO. Money needs to be saved somewhere, and I’d rather extra dollars go to an interior d-lineman than a #4 receiver (placing him behind Schoen, Demski and a healthy Ellingson).

ABC pie!

The Night Court episodes were totally hokey, but it was pretty much the same humour (and laugh track) as the original. So either modern humour tastes have changed or the original was massively overrated (I vote the latter, it was carried by the Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers juggernaut). But turning Larroquette’s character from a sleazy prosecutor to a bleeding heart public defender could be the change that sinks the show.

HNIC was talking about the interest in Jansen Harkins and how “he tears it up when he plays on the AHL” (a bit of an exaggeration IMO), but he may be on the radar for teams looking for playoff depth.

Yes, the generation that invented the Tide Pod challenge has always been known for its discerning taste.

The more I watched how Canucks’ management dealt with the whole Boudreau situation and how much it affected him, the more I admire the way Maurice took control of his own exit.

I would honestly make that trade. Matthews is a top 3 player in the NHL. Marner is a potential 100 point player and can match Connor points output. Nylander, as maligned as he is for the odd lazy game, can put up points to rival Scheifele if healthy or at least Ehlers, as can Tavares. Dubois doesn’t want to play here I suspect, Ehlers is always a health risk, and the trade value of Tavares back to T.O. or Nylander is higher than what the Jets could get for their players. Cap hit clearly favours Winnipeg, but for one more year only though.

I always remember Jon Stewart’s final Daily Show and his closing monologue about the prevalence of bull **** in the world and how to recognize it. A not-very-veiled attack on modern media and politics. If you can read it in Stewart’s voice and cadence it works better: ”Bullshit is everywhere. There is very little that you will encounter in life that has not been, in some way, infused with bullshit; not all of it bad. The general day-to-day organic free-range bullshit is often necessary, or, at the very least, innocuous: "Oh, what a beautiful baby! I'm sure it'll grow into that head!" That kind of bullshit, in many ways, provides important social contract fertilizer, which keeps people from making each other cry all day. But then, there's the more pernicious bullshit; the premediated, institutional bullshit designed to obscure and distract. Designed by whom? The bullshit-ocracy. It comes in three basic flavours: 1. Making bad things sound like good things. "Organic, all-natural cupcakes", because "Factory-made sugar oatmeal balls" doesn't sell. "Patriot Act", because "Are-you-scared-enough-to-let-me-look-at-all-your-phone-records? Act" doesn't sell. So, whenever something's been titled "Freedom, Family, Fairness and Health America", take a good, long sniff. Chances are it's been manufactured in a facility that may contain traces of bullshit. 2. Hiding the bad things under mountains of bullshit. Complexity. "You know, I would love to download Drizzy's latest Meek Mill diss, but I'm not really interested right now in reading Tolstoy's iTunes agreement. So, I'll just click "Agree", even if it grants Apple prima nocta with my spouse!" Here's another one: simply put, "Banks shouldn't be able to bet your pension money on red" Bullshitly put it's, "Hey, a handful of billionaires can't buy our elections, right? Of course not. They can only pour unlimited, anonymous cash into a 501(c)4 if 50% is devoted to Issue Education, otherwise they'd have to 501(c)6 it, or funnel it openly through a non-campaign coordinating Super PAC, with a quarter- I think they're asleep now, we can sneak out!" And finally, the bullshit of infinite possibility. These bullshitters cover their unwillingness to act under the guise of unending inquiry. "We can't do anything, because we don't yet know everything." "We cannot take action on climate change until everyone in the world agrees gay marriage vaccines won't cause our children to marry goats who are gonna come for our guns" But the good news is this: bullshitters have gotten pretty lazy, and their work is easily detected, and looking for it is kind of a pleasant way to pass the time, like an “I spy” of bullshit. So I say to you tonight, friends, the best defence against bullshit is vigilance. So, if you smell something, say something.”

Funny thing is before the game on the radio, Christian Aumell I believe posited the question to the panel “if you could trade the Jets top 4 of Scheifele, Connor, DuBois, and Ehlers for the Leads top 4 of Matthews, Marner, Tavares, and Nylander, would you?” Every single panelist said no, and not just because of salary cap issues. Wonder if anyone would change their mind after the game?

I’d say it’s totally the coach, and it isn’t. Maurice did not forget how to coach after 2018, any more than Babcock did when he went to Toronto, or Bednar did this year with the Avs. But the players tuned him out, and you can’t fire the players, so fire the coach (or coach quits when he sees that they don’t care to listen anymore). It’s obvious the attitude change is bigger than any radical change in systems (maybe aside from a systems change in aggressive penalty killing). But Bowness has them buying in on back-checking so he can activate the defence more. Same system Maurice had in 2018 when the forwards knew they had to cover for Byfuglien and Trouba and Myers. But then the Scheifele’s and Connor’s and Laine’s couldn’t be bothered to play a 200 foot game and would rather pad their stats. And players only choose to buy in for so long with every coach they have. So the reality is that the players don’t have another coach firing to provide them insulation anymore. If Scheifele drags his ass back to his zone this year, can’t blame the coach anymore because he’s gone. As you can see, I am loathe to blame coaching in many areas. If a coach is truly useless, they will be run out of a league quickly enough and not re-surface (Darryl Rogers for you old time Bomber fans, or Mike Kelly for the younger generation are good examples). But a coach’s shelf life is really based on how much his players want to play hard, and for how long, rather than a lack of ability to coach X’s and O’s. Bowness is the right coach for right now, but maybe the team is doing better because the “give a ****” meter is higher since the players don’t have a scapegoat anymore and know the blame for bad play will now fall squarely on them.

https://www.nhl.com/video/c-14755776

Whew!

FIFY.

Vikes continue their trend of being the most disappointing playoff team in NFL history. Well we may now get Niners-Cowboys next week.

Yotes playing their 28th road game this year. Have only played 15 at home.

Yup.

Also posted in the RIP thread.

A Jets win and they lead the conference. No time to sleepwalk through one tonight.