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NFL Offseason: Trail of Tears or My Cousin Kirky


Manhole Eunuchsbane

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1 hour ago, lancerman said:

No it really shouldn't have. Changing the rule was rewarding stupidity. I knew people who were in the stadium that day. I had family who were at the stadium that day. It was announced to the entire stadium that those players were inelgible. 

The fact that the Raven's staff kept players covering ineligible receivers is on them. Anybody with half a brain should have figured that out. 

Ironically it's play you could probably only run once a year.

It's less about rewarding stupidity and more about mending a loophole. And seriously, it doesn't matter if people in the stands could hear the announcement. I played in a pro stadium in high school and you can't hear anything, and when you consider that the players are actively doing other things, announcing it on the speakers isn't very helpful. That doesn't excuse the mistakes the Ravens made, but it's not a good justification to allow the play to happen going forward.

 

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1 minute ago, Week said:

Per the Herald Jeff Howe - " That’s why the Patriots absolutely will not even consider drafting Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon next month, according to a source. "

Reported on by the Herald and blasted out by ESPN reporting on it as gospel and putting a bee in sperry's bonnet.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/patriots/2017/03/patriots_will_steer_clear_of_controversial_oklahoma_running_back_joe_mixon

 

I think it's hilarious. A franchise well known for cutting corners and picking up morally questionable characters is taking a hard line against drafting a player they had no actual chance of being able to draft.  It's the equivalent of me saying "The NFL is so morally bankrupt that I will absolutely not buy an NFL franchise!"

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Just now, sperry said:

 

I think it's hilarious. A franchise well known for cutting corners and picking up morally questionable characters is taking a hard line against drafting a player they had no actual chance of being able to draft.  It's the equivalent of me saying "The NFL is so morally bankrupt that I will absolutely not buy an NFL franchise!"

It's a fucking nothing-burger. Glad you are in stitches over an unnamed source talking to a Pats-homer beat reporter.

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1 minute ago, sperry said:

Ah, Patriots fan. I would expect nothing less.

Par for the course for virtually every franchise - some of which gets picked up and blasted out by ESPN.

Wow, same thing said by the Dolphins (first). What a bunch of first-rate assholes, right? Why even comment when they already have Jay Ajayi starting next year. Really shady, morally bankrupt shit, right sperry?

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/report-patriots-join-dolphins-and-remove-joe-mixon-from-draft-board/

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1 hour ago, sperry said:

 

To make it more staggering, your valuations are way too low. Minimum franchise values are >$2billion.

Going into last season, Forbes had 1/4 of the NFL under that threshold, with the Bills coming in the lowest at $1.5B. 

With that said, he certainly is low on the Cowboys.  Forbes has that at $4.2B, with the Pats a fairly distance second at a lowly $3.4B. 

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I'm making no value judgments on any team that decides to, or decides not to draft Joe Mixon. I can see both sides. I just think it's hilarious that a team anonymously leaks that Joe Mixon isn't on their draft board, when that team has a draft pick that precludes them from the possibility of taking Mixon in the first place. You aren't exactly sacrificing when you "give up" something that you never had in the first place.

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1 hour ago, sperry said:

 

I think it's hilarious. A franchise well known for cutting corners and picking up morally questionable characters is taking a hard line against drafting a player they had no actual chance of being able to draft.  It's the equivalent of me saying "The NFL is so morally bankrupt that I will absolutely not buy an NFL franchise!"

The one morally questionable character was a Hernandez whose issues in college didn't include getting caught on camera smashing a women in the face. And the minute he was implicated in something he was immediately released without question. A lot of franchises wouldn't do that. Especially going into a season where they let go of their number 1 receiver and had their number 1 TE injured to start the year.

Also Kraft has always taken a hardline stance against violence against women.

Someone just sounds salty. 

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's less about rewarding stupidity and more about mending a loophole. And seriously, it doesn't matter if people in the stands could hear the announcement. I played in a pro stadium in high school and you can't hear anything, and when you consider that the players are actively doing other things, announcing it on the speakers isn't very helpful. That doesn't excuse the mistakes the Ravens made, but it's not a good justification to allow the play to happen going forward.

 

It was announced in the field of play too. The Ravens staff either knew or wasn't paying attention. And all they had to do to adjust was not cover the guy and only cover the eligible receivers. The problem was them not correctly identifying that they shouldn't cover a guy who can't catch the ball. There is no reason for the Ravens to not fall for that other than they just weren't really all that smart.

It's not even really loophole. It's just the Patriots adding an unnecessary step in the process that's designed to confuse a team. A loophole implies that it was a way to legally circumvent a rule. They didn't do that. They used the rule in a redundant way to cause confusion. Once you identify it, it should never be an issue again.  Hell a smart coach and player should be able to put two and two together and realize they shouldn't be covering someone who is inelgible. 

90% of the problem was the Ravens failing to adjust. It's funny because the Patriots waited until the second half because they were under the impression that the trick wouldn't work after awhile. Then Ravens kept falling for it and Harbaugh freaked out and had to waste a timeout. 

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5 minutes ago, sperry said:

I'm making no value judgments on any team that decides to, or decides not to draft Joe Mixon. I can see both sides. I just think it's hilarious that a team anonymously leaks that Joe Mixon isn't on their draft board, when that team has a draft pick that precludes them from the possibility of taking Mixon in the first place. You aren't exactly sacrificing when you "give up" something that you never had in the first place.

I know, I just think it's strange how we pick and choose our moralizing in football, a sport that asks grown men to bash their heads together for our entertainment, hides the damage that said head bashing can lead to (the sports equivalent of big tobacco) and encourages it's athletes to take drugs that will have horrific long term effects to numb the pain from said skull bashing. Oh, and did I mention it's run by some of the worst people on the planet? But come Sunday, my team's slumlord owners will still get my money, and worse, I'll beg them to take it from me. If you're going to moralize football, at least have the decency to stop watching it like @Kalbear did. 

 

And now, as I was about to hit submit, I'm reminded of the parent who told their 9 year old kid to stare at the scantily clad women because Cam Newton's dancing was too amoral. 

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15 minutes ago, lancerman said:

The one morally questionable character was a Hernandez whose issues in college didn't include getting caught on camera smashing a women in the face. And the minute he was implicated in something he was immediately released without question. A lot of franchises wouldn't do that. Especially going into a season where they let go of their number 1 receiver and had their number 1 TE injured to start the year.

Also Kraft has always taken a hardline stance against violence against women.

Someone just sounds salty. 

 

They picked up MIchael Floyd literally 24 hours after he was arrested for "Extreme DUI", being passed out with his car in drive at a stoplight. LeGarrette Blount and Kenbrell Thompkins are among recent saints that come to the top of my head.

 

And Kraft's "hardline" stance came after he drafted a guy who had been arrested 7 times, including twice for two different RAPES, and said draft pick groped another woman like a week after the pats drafted him.

 

The Pats aren't any better or worse when it comes to drafting scumbags. Every single other team does it as well. It's just hilarious that they come out and declare they aren't going to draft the guy when they have no chance to actually draft him.

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18 minutes ago, lancerman said:

It was announced in the field of play too. The Ravens staff either knew or wasn't paying attention. And all they had to do to adjust was not cover the guy and only cover the eligible receivers. The problem was them not correctly identifying that they shouldn't cover a guy who can't catch the ball. There is no reason for the Ravens to not fall for that other than they just weren't really all that smart.

It's not even really loophole. It's just the Patriots adding an unnecessary step in the process that's designed to confuse a team. A loophole implies that it was a way to legally circumvent a rule. They didn't do that. They used the rule in a redundant way to cause confusion. Once you identify it, it should never be an issue again.  Hell a smart coach and player should be able to put two and two together and realize they shouldn't be covering someone who is inelgible. 

90% of the problem was the Ravens failing to adjust. It's funny because the Patriots waited until the second half because they were under the impression that the trick wouldn't work after awhile. Then Ravens kept falling for it and Harbaugh freaked out and had to waste a timeout. 

It was a loophole. Have you ever heard in all the years you've been watching NFL football a receiver being announced as ineligible? It's not in the rulebook. Belichick basically said "let's give it some floor time and see if it plays" and the refs didn't call him on it. Again you're right about the Raven's bonehead reaction to it, but it is clearly a loophole. It's not circumventing a rule, it was creating one that didn't exist.

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Just now, sperry said:

 

They picked up MIchael Floyd literally 24 hours after he was arrested for "Extreme DUI", being passed out with his car in drive at a stoplight. LeGarrette Blount and Kenbrell Thompkins are among recent saints that come to the top of my head.

 

And Kraft's "hardline" stance came after he drafted a guy who had been arrested 7 times, including twice for two different RAPES, and said draft pick groped another woman like a week after the pats drafted him.

 

The Pats aren't any better or worse when it comes to drafting scumbags. Every single other team does it as well. It's just hilarious that they come out and declare they aren't going to draft the guy when they have no chance to actually draft him.

They could very easily get a first round pick if they wanted to between Garrapolo and Butler. So the idea that they couldn't draft him is a bit of moot point. If they wanted him bad enough they could easily get him. 

Blount was caught in the passenger seat of a car smoking weed. That's about as harmless as it gets. It was decriminalized in the state he plays for back when it happened and now in that same state. If you want to go crazy on that, knock yourself out. 

Thompkins is a tricky case. He definitely had issues. But they were generally confined to way back when he was in high school and most of them when he was a minor. About 4 or 5 years before the Patriots picked him up. And he basically was one of those cases where he found god or something at jr college and was something of a model citizen ever since, who had coaches going out of their to vouch for his character. So by the time he got to the Patriots he was considered a success story of someone who turned his life around. 

Michael Floyd's probably your best example. He has an alcohol problem. He's also never had any violent crime issues and is a far cry away from being caught on camera smashing his fist into a women's face. 

Mixon is going to be a serious public relations nightmare with any team that picks him up. The second he's drafted that video is going to be all over the place and talk shows are going to start relitigating it. It'll be the same thing as Gregg Hardy and Ray Rice. 

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1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

It was a loophole. Have you ever heard in all the years you've been watching NFL football a receiver being announced as ineligible? It's not in the rulebook. Belichick basically said "let's give it some floor time and see if it plays" and the refs didn't call him on it. Again you're right about the Raven's bonehead reaction to it, but it is clearly a loophole. It's not circumventing a rule, it was creating one that didn't exist.

It's not a loophole. It's using a rule to cause confusion. A loophole is finding a legal maneuver to do something that is otherwise prohibited. There is a difference.

A loophole is something like I want to do X but rule #24 says I can't do X. But I can legally do A, F and Y. And doing that effectively allows me to perform X without being penalized for it. 

There was never an intention in the rule book to prevent what the Patriots did. The Patriots just took advantage of the mechanics of a rule to apply it in an outside the box way to give a team a look they weren't prepared for. There was a never priority of the NFL to not have that happen. 

The greater irony of the whole thing is that because of how much attention it got, it likely wouldn't work again for several years. The Patriots weren't even comfortable doing it in the first half because they figured it would be useless if the Ravens had the chance to talk about. So it was almost redundant changing the rule.

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12 minutes ago, lancerman said:

It's not a loophole. It's using a rule to cause confusion. A loophole is finding a legal maneuver to do something that is otherwise prohibited. There is a difference.

A loophole is something like I want to do X but rule #24 says I can't do X. But I can legally do A, F and Y. And doing that effectively allows me to perform X without being penalized for it. 

There was never an intention in the rule book to prevent what the Patriots did. The Patriots just took advantage of the mechanics of a rule to apply it in an outside the box way to give a team a look they weren't prepared for. There was a never priority of the NFL to not have that happen. 

The greater irony of the whole thing is that because of how much attention it got, it likely wouldn't work again for several years. The Patriots weren't even comfortable doing it in the first half because they figured it would be useless if the Ravens had the chance to talk about. So it was almost redundant changing the rule.

Yeah, no it's not. There's nothing in the rulebook that states a player who lines up at a spot that is normally occupied by an eligible receiver (a RB/TE/WR) can report as ineligible. The refs should have nixed the play the second one of these players attempted to report as ineligible. There's nothing in the rulebook that says you can't do this, so I suppose that's where the confusion came from. I don't believe there's anything in the rulebook stating that you can't have a donkey kicking field goals for you, but that doesn't mean it should or would be allowed.

  

 

/Belichick basically flipped the "eligible receiver rule" on its' head. I'm not suggesting it's cheating, but I don't believe any competent ref should've allowed it. It's not in the rulebook.

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 Just to clarify, I can't hate on that play. The end result was awesome to watch. That was a great game overall. And you could almost see it coming, given how confused the Ravens D was. That said, changing the rule so that this can no longer be done was the right call. And it's not a good example of the league changing a rule to fuck with the Patriots. It was the correct reaction to the Pats finding or really creating a gray area in the rules. 

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4 hours ago, sperry said:

 

I think it's hilarious. A franchise well known for cutting corners and picking up morally questionable characters is taking a hard line against drafting a player they had no actual chance of being able to draft.  It's the equivalent of me saying "The NFL is so morally bankrupt that I will absolutely not buy an NFL franchise!"

1. It's a dangerous thing to draw a line between the Patriots' willingness to bend gameplay rules and the alleged moral turpitude of their players. One does not follow from the other. You have not presented much strong evidence of the Patriots being the kind of team that goes for violent or despicable people. You have to stretch to find character risk players. I mean, LeGarrette Blount? He stomped a dude's head in college, and yes, that is bad. But he wasn't drafted by the Patriots, he came on as a short-money free agent and even got let go once. He's kept a clean nose since (no, I don't regard smoking weed in a car as something really awful, and it hilariously got Le'veon Bell suspended for one game more than Blount got). Come bitch at me when the Patriots bring on guys like Greg Hardy or Junior Galette or Joey Porter. Or a goddamn wife-beating kicker. The Patriots aren't angels, but they're not the 70s Raiders or 90s Cowboys either.

2. There has been a lot of speculation, perhaps even certainty, that the Patriots will get back into the first or second round this year by trading Handsome Jimmy or Malcolm Butler. So no, it's not outlandishly out of the question for the Patriots to be in position to draft Mixon. And even if they don't pick higher than 72 -- so they're not supposed to have ratings and evaluations on presumed first-round players? Presumed first-round players never slip down? This is a weak-ass point and the fact that you decided to make this the crux of your dogshit complaint says a lot about how much of a bug you have up your ass about this team.

3. The innocuous explanation is that someone asked a Patriots official a question about Mixon and the answer got turned into a story. This tends to happen this time of year because it's the long dull stretch between the first rush of free agency and the draft, and because there were league meetings where a bunch of team officials were hanging out with media people and they generate dumb little stories like this just by their proximity. Other Patriots-related stories that came out around the same time: "Robert Kraft would like to keep Malcolm Butler" and "AFC coaches say nice things about the Patriots' offseason moves." These are all nothing stories, but the giant sports commentary industry needs to keep fresh material churning, so a Herald story gets bubbled up to ESPN and numpties with an axe to grind take notice.

4. Even the most cynical explanation, that the Patriots sneakily leaked this story into the local press, is a nothing story. Literally every NFL team plants friendly stories. You are bitching at the Patriots for playing PR. I mean, do you even NFL, bro?

5. I noticed the Mixon story before this, and shrugged. I think it's good that they won't draft him, fine -- though I sorta think people deserve second chances. But I didn't feel the need to come here and post about it, because I knew only a tedious toolbag would think this story is worth noting one way or the other.

6. The best part of this is that you tried to suggest I'd get some moral satisfaction about this. I think I have been pretty open about my moral conflicts supporting the Patriots and watching the NFL in general. So what the fuck? There are teams I do look down on for being particularly depraved -- the Ravens for the Ray Rice coverup and their glorification of Ray Lewis, and the Giants for Mara's appalling hypocrisy about their goddamn kicker. But I have never been one to claim my team is more virtuous than others. Only assholes and idiots think there's a moral high ground in the NFL (beyond "don't employ vicious, unrepentant criminals"). Let me know where you're coming from.

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1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Just to clarify, I can't hate on that play. The end result was awesome to watch. That was a great game overall. And you could almost see it coming, given how confused the Ravens D was. That said, changing the rule so that this can no longer be done was the right call. And it's not a good example of the league changing a rule to fuck with the Patriots. It was the correct reaction to the Pats finding or really creating a gray area in the rules. 

I don't care that they changed the rule. I get a little bit of humorous satisfaction at it. Like there's some revision history in the NFL rulebook and the change notes about that one will forever remind people about the time the Ravens got hornswoggled with a technicality (multiple times!) and coughed up 14-point leads twice in a playoff game.

The funny thing was that the Ravens ran a more-legal version of the same damn play in the 2015 season. And even funnier that when the Pats and Ravens played this year, Belichick went with an extra lineman as an eligible receiver quite a few times, including the first play of the game. Never say that Belichick doesn't have a sense of humor.

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2 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, no it's not. There's nothing in the rulebook that states a player who lines up at a spot that is normally occupied by an eligible receiver (a RB/TE/WR) can report as ineligible. The refs should have nixed the play the second one of these players attempted to report as ineligible. There's nothing in the rulebook that says you can't do this, so I suppose that's where the confusion came from. I don't believe there's anything in the rulebook stating that you can't have a donkey kicking field goals for you, but that doesn't mean it should or would be allowed.

  

 

/Belichick basically flipped the "eligible receiver rule" on its' head. I'm not suggesting it's cheating, but I don't believe any competent ref should've allowed it. It's not in the rulebook.

I thought the ineligible WR's lined up in a slightly different spot (on/off line) so the 6th OT was actually appropriately positioned as an eligible receiver.  So they weren't "reporting as an eligible receiver" that was the difference, it was merely a player that didn't normally play as an eligible receiver lining up in such a way that he was.  But since humans are lazy, they just assume the guy rostered as a WR/TE/RB will be the one running the route. If the NFL didn't have the jersey number limits on different players, there wouldn't be an issue.  

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