WhiteWonder

It's entirely possible. They were never going to draft him at 3. We won't know who they really wanted. They will claim it was Carter. Many people will think it was Hunter. If it was Hunter, they could have been hoping to trade back. But teams do attempt to smoke screen quite a bit. Even if it has no realistic chance of impacting anything. Plus, as already noted, they have a terrible GM. I don't know if Sanders spent more time with the Giants than anyone else. Some of that could be because it was pretty clear he wanted to go there. Wasn't he hanging out with Nabers early in the process? and that wasn't any sort of official Giants visit.

usual suspects doing their best to ruin a football thread. classic

Then again, even with all that being said, Daboll and Schoen have no business still having jobs so who the fock knows what the Giants are doing

ehh, i'm not making any claims about Sanders. I think the more we had leak from teams and sources the more obvious it was that he would fall out of the first round (compared to early chatter that he wouldn't make it past 9). but this comment screams not knowing anything about the NFL. Teams host or visit players they have no intention of selecting all the time. Or players they have some interest in but may not be highest on their draft boards. Teams absolutely play games if they think it can throw other teams off. It's also possible that Sanders was 3rd on the Giants QB board and that they liked him but liked Dart more. If Dart gets picked by New Orleans or Pittsburgh or someone trades up higher than the Giants were able to, maybe they make a move for Sanders. If you think theres a chance you might pick a player, even as your second or third preference, why wouldn't you have him in for a visit?

I was all in on Dart as the #1 QB in this class.... closer we got to the draft i'm not so sure, but still like him quite a bit and the Giants didn't give up much in the grand scheme to get him. Love our Membou pick. I would have probably been okay if they decided to go TE but I think solidifying this offensive line makes the most sense and Membou is the best OL prospect in this draft, imho. Most prototypical RT and most upside. Nice to get visions of that OL circa 2010. Fashanu, Simpson, Tippman, AVT and Membou. Shades of Nick, Brick, Brandon Moore, Damien Woody and Matt Slauson. TE and WR are still needs. And additional help in the secondary.

when in doubt..... orange man bad

I mean I can easily spot where you left out a key word in a sentence, likely because you were deleting and retyping to make your post sound more concise

To quickly answer your last point, more often than you think, imho. The pressure from the public on teams like the Redskins and Indians was not as big as you’d like to believe. TIA @TBayXXXVII Teams lose sponsors and there are new sponsors lined up who can’t wait to get a piece of the NFL pie. I’m not saying the threat of certain lost sponsorships doesn’t play a role but on the flip side, the optics of hiring a minority head coach can also open up new avenues. These teams analyze what optic will lead to the biggest boost in merch sales, sponsorships, ticket sales etc. so do you not think the hiring of Ron Rivera right at that crucial point of abandoning the name Redskins for WFT and eventually commanders was premeditated?

This probably took you hours to put together. I think you just wanted to put Magaverse in a thread title and say things like Dark Maga. I can tell you spent a lot of time on this post, deleting things and retyping them.

I mean, sure... but might as well just say what does one self absorbed celebrity see in another? At least Kanye has some talent to credit for his fame.

It's all business. Each NFL team is a business and just like any business, generally tend to care about optics. They may not have to pretend to the same degree as a typical, publicly traded company, but I think they care. .. just think about the teams in sports who have changed their name or logo recently. Winning trumps everything, but if a few candidates are close I can easily see a team going minority to be able to say they went minority. It's a good look for a struggling team. Think Commanders and Ron Rivera. You don't think after all the Dan Snyder and Redskins stuff, that hiring a minority head coach was not a somewhat planned move?

Well, DEI was mentioned a few times in this thread, including the OP and I would disagree with your last sentence. We have no way of knowing but I feel pretty confident that some teams have hired black or hispanic for the optics.

I realized I was only naming relief pitchers, which kind of makes sense. I think they are most likely to bounce around. Then I did remember Steven Vogt who after playing 18 games for tampa had stops in Oakland, Milwaukee, San Fran and Arizona before Atlanta in 2021. He had some pretty solid exclusive years for me until 2020

I liked Herm a lot with the Jets. Jets fans tend to forget we were making the playoffs at about a 50% clip under him, before playoff expansion obviously... so that's a lot better than a lot of NFL teams could say. I don't really remember what he did or how he was with KC but he was a passionate guy and I usually favor those types over the wet blanket Eric Mangini types.

Rooney rule is not DEI to me. I am always in favor of equal opportunity. Opportunity being you have the chance to interview for a position and sell yourself and why you are the best choice. The Rooney rule does help with that, imo, and was around long before "DEI" was a buzzword/hot topic. You could argue it's a bit silly and some teams bring in minority candidates just to satisfy the rule, with no intention of hiring them... look at Mike Kafka of the Giants getting a handful of HC interviews this offseason . Giants suck but he's part puerto rican so he counts. But teams are not hiring black or minority head coaches to fill a quota

I view trans as something I don't really care about as long as the person deciding to be trans is not impacting anyone else. If my neighbor is a cross dresser and likes to put on womens clothes and go out on friday night, cool. Good for him. If my neighbor decides he is trans and wans to get breast implants, cut off his junk, start taking hormones, etc... I really don't care. I could pretty much say the same thing about any hobby someone has.... Is trans a mental illness? ... are people who like to have sex with people dressed as furry animals mentally ill? Or is it just a weird fetish? I don't know and I really don't care. the problem with trans is that a group of people (mainly liberals) have decided to make it everyone elses problem. They always need a new group to be marginalized and scream for ________ rights, and trans became one of them. I dont hear anyone yelling about cross dressers rights or furries rights. And it obviously goes hand in hand with men in womens sports. So when you have Brendan deciding he is now Brenda and deserves to play on the female collegiate golf team, now you're bothering other people and pushing your agenda onto others. Now we have to bring science and biology into the equation when it could have just been Brandan's personal hobby to be a woman. So yeah, it's about the trans adults as well.... since those are the ones trying to play sports or the ones going around baiting restaurant employees into calling them the wrong pronoun while filming their fake outrage, etc.

Doubtful with anyone currently. The first that comes to mind is Alex Colome who was a solid reliever for me for a while but is no longer in the league. He was a solid saves and holds guy with SEA, CWS, MIN and COL although he was mainly toast by his Colorado days. Jake McGee also.. COL, LAD, SF, MIL, WSH although MIL and WSH were both just a few games in his final year in 2022. He did have 31 saves in 2021 with SF though. Right now I tend to have a lot of guys who have played with a bunch of unowned teams but then 1 pesky owned squad... Like Stanek was MIA, HOU, SEA before joining the Mets. Emilio Pagan has played for SEA, OAK, MIN, CIN but also San Diego And the great Fernando Rodney who before San Diego and Detroit were owned was always between me and the Angels and in his career played for DET, LAA, TB, SEA, CHC, SD, ARI, MIN, OAK and WSH. His last yeah was 2019 which was before RHR joined with the Padres I think? and before ZT went back to Detroit... so that was 9 other teams Rodney played for and just 1 pesky LAA from being exclusive.

That's part of what makes it so frustrating. At some point, you need to have your best offensive players in the lineup everyday, aside from an occasional rest day. For Tampa, Yandy Diaz, Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Josh Lowe (when healthy) should be everyday players... maybe Brandon Lowe as well since he can still usually hit when healthy. A team that has historically been fine with never getting any offense from catcher, short or center field needs to have all their top hitters in there and stop dicking around. They have already lost 5 one run games this season.

On the subject of OM, i would have expected better. I don't play pretend politics to nearly the same degree as many on this board but when I browse threads, I don't remember ever thinking she was big with the TDS. I also always thought she was able to "give as good as she gets" but that doesn't seem to be the case as I'm pretty sure she'd still be around if Kamala was potus. I'm sure other stuff added to driving her away but 100% she'd still be posting.

have you created "her" username yet?

Rays can be so frustrating. You've got a guy hitting over .400 for an otherwise fairly average offense at best... and he was leading the majors in OPS but lets sit him against an average lefty because analytics. Lets lose the game 1-0. At some point you have to start your best hitters against all pitchers. Maybe sit a guy against an elite lefty

yeah, i hear you. Ideally, owning a really great actual golf course would be wonderful. I just think there is a much higher chance of losing a fortune. so from an actual business perspective, i'd have a lot more fun with an indoor sim business is all.

better off buying or renting a decent sized building and creating an indoor golf space. Trackman simulator bays or private rooms. Putting / chipping green in the middle. $80/ hour for non members, $40/ hour for members. $100 / month membership fee with 24/7 access, a few free hours per month that can roll over. BYO food and alcohol. Have mini fridges in each room or by the seating areas behind each open air bay. Same with TVs that people can tune to whatever they want to watch in the background. If you wanted to you could go liquor license and set up a bar area in the middle with a "cart girl" to go around and take orders.... BYO is simpler though, imho. Little golf shop area at the front check in desk to sell balls, tees, gloves, and other accessories... stuff golfers will impulse buy on their way out knowing they have a real round the next day. the biggest cost of the buildout will be the trackmans, computers needed to handle it, projectors and impact screens. A little more expensive to go individual rooms over open air but the one I go to by me it's just nice to have a private room and only hear your group and what game you have on.

a lot of golfers shoot higher than they say if they were really counting everything. I think its pretty common to hit a ball into the woods / fescue / marsh etc where there are no hazard markers, drop where you think it went in and give yourself a one shot penalty (or none) when in reality its 2 shots OR stroke and distance which no one does to save time. Same with out of bounds stakes. plus what you mentioned about 1 inch duffs etc.