NFL Draft Part 2: Who HASN'T said racist things on Twitter when they were a teenager?!?

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

A) Fair enough.  Just wanted to clarify the often-propagated depiction of NFL fans as predominately "patriotic" or flag-waving conservatives is inaccurate. 

B ) In actuality, they most closely reflect the entire population in terms of partisanship.

A does not contradict B, if by ‘entire’ you mean ‘American’. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

They have to be talking about blackballing Kaepernick for it to make a difference, just talking about the anthem issue and Trump, I don't see how that helps his case.  

Not exactly. Kaep's team can point out how Trump was calling for athletes who knelt to be fired in public while privately coercing the owners to ban the protests, and then the owners spoke with each other about it. It's not a smoking gun, but it does help his argument. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 hours ago, dmc515 said:

This is a good point.

According to a 538 article last year, this isn't really true.  The NFL is actually the least partisan sport (whereas the NBA/MLB/NHL are more popular in Democratic leaning markets while NASCAR - big surprise - plus college football/basketball are more popular in GOP leaning markets), and a SurveyMonkey poll they commissioned showed NFL fans identify more as Democrat than Republican by a 6 point margin.

I'm surprised MLB is more popular in Democratic markets given the age of the average fan. 

[DMC]

32 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm surprised MLB is more popular in Democratic markets given the age of the average fan. 

Yeah that surprised me as well - while the NBA and NHL leaning Dem did not.  The data was from google trends, so maybe older (and thus conservative) fans are underrepresented.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Yeah that surprised me as well - while the NBA and NHL leaning Dem did not.  The data was from google trends, so maybe older (and thus conservative) fans are underrepresented.

Alternately, the MLB and NHL both have Canadian teams, and those are so incredibly super-liberal that they kill the spectrum. 

[DMC]

Just now, Kalbear said:

Alternately, the MLB and NHL both have Canadian teams, and those are so incredibly super-liberal that they kill the spectrum. 

Considering their method was comparing the google trends data to Trump's vote share in each media market, no, that'd be impossible.  Although it does raise a good point that they must have omitted the Toronto, and for NHL many other, markets.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

Considering their method was comparing the google trends data to Trump's vote share in each media market, no, that'd be impossible.  Although it does raise a good point that they must have omitted the Toronto, and for NHL many other, markets.

Well, Trump's voting share in those markets is zero

HAHAH SCIENCE WINS AGAIN

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Well, Trump's voting share in those markets is zero

HAHAH SCIENCE WINS AGAIN

Touche.

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not exactly. Kaep's team can point out how Trump was calling for athletes who knelt to be fired in public while privately coercing the owners to ban the protests, and then the owners spoke with each other about it. It's not a smoking gun, but it does help his argument. 

I thought the poll they commissioned, assuming the reports are correct, that it asked questions specifically about Kaep being signed would be more helpful, although I don't think he will win the case.  "Banning the protest" is different than blackballing kaep, especially since he said at one time he was going to stop kneeling.   Goodell is stupid when it comes to a lot of things, but probably not quite that stupid as to leave a trail of evidence for this.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I thought the poll they commissioned, assuming the reports are correct, that it asked questions specifically about Kaep being signed would be more helpful, although I don't think he will win the case.  "Banning the protest" is different than blackballing kaep, especially since he said at one time he was going to stop kneeling.   Goodell is stupid when it comes to a lot of things, but probably not quite that stupid as to leave a trail of evidence for this.

A quick Google search shows several articles about the internal poll, and the few I read argued that it will help Kaepernick’s case. Furthermore, Kaep has become synonymous with protesting during the anthem, so banning protests during the anthem is in effect banning Kaep’s protest, and it can be easily argued that blackballing him is the net result of the owners’ actions. As far as Goodell leaving a paper trail goes, it’s irrelevant. This isn’t a criminal court case, so Kaep’s legal team just has to argue that it’s more likely than not that he’s getting blackballed, which shouldn’t be that hard to do. All you have to do is display the obvious collusion amongst some owners combined with Kaep’s QBR versus some of the scrubs that have been signed since he’s been a free agent. Honestly I don’t get why some team doesn’t just offer him a lowball contract to make this all go away, but most NFL owners and the league office just aren’t that smart. As we’ve been discussing in the U.S. politics thread, wealth does not equate intelligence.

[James Arryn]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

A quick Google search shows several articles about the internal poll, and the few I read argued that it will help Kaepernick’s case. Furthermore, Kaep has become synonymous with protesting during the anthem, so banning protests during the anthem is in effect banning Kaep’s protest, and it can be easily argued that blackballing him is the net result of the owners’ actions. As far as Goodell leaving a paper trail goes, it’s irrelevant. This isn’t a criminal court case, so Kaep’s legal team just has to argue that it’s more likely than not that he’s getting blackballed, which shouldn’t be that hard to do. All you have to do is display the obvious collusion amongst some owners combined with Kaep’s QBR versus some of the scrubs that have been signed since he’s been a free agent. Honestly I don’t get why some team doesn’t just offer him a lowball contract to make this all go away, but most NFL owners and the league office just aren’t that smart. As we’ve been discussing in the U.S. politics thread, wealth does not equate intelligence.

About someone offering him a ‘make it go away’ deal, I think the issues are that for many owners this is a sincere ideological issue, they really do see him as a ‘traitor’ and their vows that he’ll never play for them when this story first gained attention weren’t idle. 

So, why not one of the others? Well, I think we need to look at things like the past MLB collusions or the leaked meeting with the players, and what we see is that getting 30 something billionaires to agree to do something in concert is pretty difficult and doesn’t afford a lot of nuance. So I think the message is pretty simple, ‘we are all in this together, we are a team, we need to stick together’ etc.

That or some version of that was what the owners kept coming back to whenever players brought Kaepernick up, the need for unity. So, I don’t think it’s as simple as some team acting individually and making it go away for the rest, I think that acts against the kind of single point theme they are using to get mistrustful men with large egos to act in concert on something...I think it’s too fragile to afford that kind of solution, no matter how obvious it might seem from the outside. 

 

[dbunting]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

A quick Google search shows several articles about the internal poll, and the few I read argued that it will help Kaepernick’s case. Furthermore, Kaep has become synonymous with protesting during the anthem, so banning protests during the anthem is in effect banning Kaep’s protest, and it can be easily argued that blackballing him is the net result of the owners’ actions. As far as Goodell leaving a paper trail goes, it’s irrelevant. This isn’t a criminal court case, so Kaep’s legal team just has to argue that it’s more likely than not that he’s getting blackballed, which shouldn’t be that hard to do. All you have to do is display the obvious collusion amongst some owners combined with Kaep’s QBR versus some of the scrubs that have been signed since he’s been a free agent. Honestly I don’t get why some team doesn’t just offer him a lowball contract to make this all go away, but most NFL owners and the league office just aren’t that smart. As we’ve been discussing in the U.S. politics thread, wealth does not equate intelligence.

Actually Kaep's legal team does have the burden of proof and a internal poll or rumors aren't enough. There needs to be legal proof that either two teams or one team and the NFL office conspired to specifically keep him out.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 hours ago, dbunting said:

Actually Kaep's legal team does have the burden of proof and a internal poll or rumors aren't enough. There needs to be legal proof that either two teams or one team and the NFL office conspired to specifically keep him out.

They have the burden of proof, but it's just 50.1%, and I think a good lawyer could easily make the case. 

[DMC]

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

They have the burden of proof, but it's just 50.1%, and I think a good lawyer could easily make the case. 

I'm rooting for him, but I think you're underestimating how hard it will be for Kaep's team to provide evidence that demonstrates much of anything.

[sperry]

The deck is stacked against Kaep. He has almost no chance of winning this lawsuit.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 6/1/2018 at 8:57 PM, dmc515 said:

I'm rooting for him, but I think you're underestimating how hard it will be for Kaep's team to provide evidence that demonstrates much of anything.

 

On 6/2/2018 at 1:22 PM, sperry said:

The deck is stacked against Kaep. He has almost no chance of winning this lawsuit.

 

Why do you say that? He doesn’t have to prove that all the owners are colluding to blackball him, just two parties. The news about Trump pressing the owners over the anthem combined with the story about the meeting between the owners and players paints most of the picture. All Kaep needs at this point is to flip one party who can fill in the missing picture.  

[unJon]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

Why do you say that? He doesn’t have to prove that all the owners are colluding to blackball him, just two parties. The news about Trump pressing the owners over the anthem combined with the story about the meeting between the owners and players paints most of the picture. All Kaep needs at this point is to flip one party who can fill in the missing picture.  

I don’t think it would be easy to “flip” an owner. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, unJon said:

I don’t think it would be easy to “flip” an owner. 

Not an owner, just someone who would have been in the same room at the right time.

[Week]

Such an asshole. 

https://deadspin.com/flag-humping-president-disinvites-eagles-from-white-hou-1826553127

[James Arryn]

5 hours ago, Week said:

Such an asshole. 

https://deadspin.com/flag-humping-president-disinvites-eagles-from-white-hou-1826553127

He’s not an asshole once you accept the simple fact that everything is about him at all times for all people. And he has the nuclear arsenal, rabbid violent supporters, virtual carte blanche from his party and off the charts narcissism to make anyone who forgets this simple fact pay dearly.