NFL 2020: Draft

Joe Buck says that piped in crowd noise is coming in the event that FOX broadcasts games that are played to empty stadiums. He also makes reference to them digitally inserting fans into the stands.

The noise, I've been on board with from the start. That's routine on NFL practice fields. Putting virtual fans on the screen, I'm less on board with. Noise will just cover up the silence and generally won't sound too distinct from a real crowd (if perhaps less excited when big things happen). It'll draw less attention to itself than the silence would. But fake fans on the screen, I think those will draw more attention to themselves than empty seats.

Vector wrote:

Uniforms that have a history of team success will also have a large nostalgia hit for a certain group of people.

All the more reason to make sure you aren't wearing some ugly faddish crap when your team's year comes around.

Imagine if the alarm clock unis was the Bucs' Super Bowl winning look.

I had what I think would be a billion dollar idea if it weren’t for the latency.

An app that records your reaction as you watch a game and then sends it off to the Internet to be piped into the stadium along with everyone else’s. So you get real virtual crowd noise.

You could even limit it to 100,00 or something that get to be part of the virtual crowd.

Yeah the latency would be a Female Doggo. I mean you've already got the "7 second" censorship delay for live TV, on top of the transmission delays once the signal goes from the game out through various broadcast technologies (for streaming TV, the Super Bowl a couple years ago was measured at having delays from 30 to 50 seconds).

Even if it was theoretically possible to reduce that to 0, the delay of the video transmission from the fans back to the stadium would be enough to make everything a delayed reaction.

What might be cool though is gathering those reactions from fans during the game so that you can layer them over the big play replays later in the broadcast.

Oh my lordy lord.

Police have issued arrest warrants for Giants CB DeAndre Baker and Seahawks CB Quinton Dunbar.

New York Giants cornerback Deandre Baker and Seattle Seahawks cornerback Quinton Dunbar are each facing four counts of armed robbery with a firearm, while Baker is facing an additional four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, after the two allegedly started robbing guests at a party in Miramar, Florida, the Miramar police department said on Thursday.

Baker, you may recall, was the third of the Giants' three 1st round draft picks last year.

Dunbar was traded to the Seahawks from Washington last month. He went from an undrafted in Washington to a corner on the verge of a big payday, which is why Washington traded him (to get something for him before he hits free agency).

In a tale of the worst possible timing, one hour ago, Seahawks.com posted this story: Seahawks "A Perfect Fit" For Cornerback Quinton Dunbar

MY favorite parts:

1 - The getaway car.... WAS A LAMBORGHINI.

2 - Whoever made this edit to Baker's "Career History" listing on Wikipedia.

Prederick wrote:

1 - The getaway car.... WAS A LAMBORGHINI.

That usually only happens in GTA Online.

And is equally as stealthy.

Vector wrote:

Uniforms that have a history of team success will also have a large nostalgia hit for a certain group of people.

Counterpoint: People like the Browns uniforms.

Baker reportedly ordered another accomplice to shoot someone. They didn't do it, but damn we're close to Aaron Hernandez territory here.

Baker was so bad last year he knew he'd be cut soon and decided to get out in front of it while folks still thought he was rich.

Two NFL cornerbacks are facing multiple charges after an incident at a party on Wednesday night in South Florida.

Defy common sense sheltering-in-place logic for the 'Rona only to get robbed at gunpoint.

garion333 wrote:

Baker was so bad last year he knew he'd be cut soon and decided to get out in front of it while folks still thought he was rich.

Dunbar however was elite in coverage last year and was on his way to a big contract.

For some reason, when Ron Rivera and company got to Washington, the team was no longer interested in Dunbar. I wonder why...

*Legion* wrote:

Not every classic look ages well, in fact many are trash. It's only the ones that DO age well that everyone wants to go back to.

I like clean, sharp jerseys. They're timeless. They age well. I hate seeing uniforms that you can tell from day 1 aren't going to age well.

Like the Jaguars with armpit stripes:

IMAGE(https://assets.sbnation.com/assets/104857/garrardnewuni_medium.JPG)

Or the Jaguars with two-tone helmets, and random teal on the sleeves:

IMAGE(https://content.sportslogos.net/news/2013/04/Screen-shot-2013-04-23-at-14.47.16-.png)

Finally they gave up with trying to get cute with "unique" design elements and made something clean, and they work. They're not the league's best, but they look fine now and they'll look fine 20 years from now.

The problem is, designers trying to come up with "new" designs seem hell-bent on trying to be novel at the expense of the design's longevity.

I don't love Seattle's modern uniforms and do prefer the AFC West unis, but there's nothing in Seattle's standard home and away uniforms that's going to age poorly. The feather pattern on the numbers and on the helmets is unusual, but they use it consistently to make it a design identity. It coincides with other "feather" elements in the uniform, all of which tie directly to the team's name. There's nothing about a yellow-to-white gradient that says "Rams", it says, "this is a thing in Photoshop so I'm going to use it".

Also I give bonus points to Seattle for having their lines consistent across all of their uniforms:

IMAGE(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Seattle_seahawks_uniforms.png)

Even though the little feather shoulder-to-chest stripe isn't my favorite design element in isolation, it's both part of their larger bird identity and it's kept consistent. That's well executed design.

What these uniforms don't have is a gigantic "PNW" in block letters above the numbers, they don't have S E A H A W K S printed down the side of the pant, they don't have a squiggly line above the team name patch on the chest, they don't have anything coming out of the armpits, and everywhere that they do break from standard uniform design, they do with an element that looks purposefully designed (eg. the feather patterns) rather than something that looks like they were browsing Photoshop plugins.

I will always long for the classic Seahawks blue and silver, but if these designs were brand new and I was ranking them with the other redesigns of this year, they'd be no worse than Tier 2. Better than the Patriots uniform with the aborted stripe.

This is a fantastic breakdown. I would like to see teams be allowed to use any old uni 1x/year. Would definitely buy a Russell Wilson AFC West blue jersey to erase memories of Rick Mirer in #3.

And maybe you've finally given me a silver lining to the 05 loss to the Steelers? No awful 02-11 jerseys winning the Super Bowl!

Baker signs a 10 mil contract and this is how this dumb thug idiot goes about his business. Apparently he lost 70k Gambling recently. Waste of a first round pick...again.

That 5th round pick the skins got for Dunbar doesn't look so measly anymore, ha.

ukickmydog wrote:

That 5th round pick the skins got for Dunbar doesn't look so measly anymore, ha.

Yep! Maybe they knew something. Riviera is a no joke coach. Which makes me wonder what the Giants knew and didn't know about Baker since the organization has been trying to weed that stuff out.

whispa wrote:
ukickmydog wrote:

That 5th round pick the skins got for Dunbar doesn't look so measly anymore, ha.

Yep! Maybe they knew something. Riviera is a no joke coach. Which makes me wonder what the Giants knew and didn't know about Baker since the organization has been trying to weed that stuff out.

Rivera wants character guys in his locker room. Carolina's locker room was a drama-free zone during his tenure in Charlotte. I expect DC to be the same.

Yeah, Legion was being cagey below. The team knew Dunbar wasn't the most upright dude.

*Legion* wrote:

For some reason, when Ron Rivera and company got to Washington, the team was no longer interested in Dunbar. I wonder why...

You know it's a slow news cycle when Aaron Rodgers is going to talk is a story in itself. Before he even talks.

Maybe he will retire even. I'm half kidding as he has said he wants to play into his 40s but who knows. Once you have a certain amount of cash in the bank if any health concerns creep up why risk it.

Rat Boy wrote:

Friday's The Draw Play is going to be another crack about the Rams discovering the gradient filter in Photoshop, right?

Close! It's about the poo-flinging monkeys who designed the Rams' new unis!

Link; NSFW (lots of really bad language bc Draw Play Dave is disgusted by this)

Edit: TIL there's a blog about nothing but sports unis, and of course it dissected the Rams' new look:

" I think the helmet is fine — not great, but fine. Everything else, though, is a mess. Gradient numbers should be reserved for the Pro Bowl, I don’t care at all for the dishwater color, the chest patches are embarrassing and the back patches aren’t much better. What a disappointment, especially for a team with such a proud uniform heritage."

Ouch.

garion333 wrote:

Yeah, Legion was being cagey below. The team knew Dunbar wasn't the most upright dude.

*Legion* wrote:

For some reason, when Ron Rivera and company got to Washington, the team was no longer interested in Dunbar. I wonder why...

Yep. That's my read on the situation at least.

Dunbar had apparently been in contract extension discussions with the previous regime. And as we know, Bruce Allen does not care one bit about character. (Scooped Reuben Foster right up when the Niners cut that mistake loose)

Then Rivera gets to town and suddenly there's no more extension talk, and they ship him out of town for a 5th rounder.

Granted, there was also a little bit of a scheme fit question, as Dunbar's biggest strength is press man and that's not what the Rivera/Del Rio style defense really asks of corners, but he was certainly still good enough in off coverage to be an asset. (He would have been absolutely perfect for Seattle "Cover 3 Press" though.)

So it's hard to see a reason for Dunbar to be shipped out of down unless there was an issue other than football performance. And it sure seems like there was and Rivera sniffed it out immediately.

Re: Dunbar

I literally saw an ad for his Seattle media session online yesterday afternoon.

Then, armed robbery!

2020 ain't joking!

Griggsy is back, baby!

The Browns have hired Ryan Grigson to a full-time player personnel position, though they have not yet worked out his job title.

Grigson had been contracting with the Browns as a consultant, and they've now brought him fully into the fold.

That title, however, won't be "vice president of football operations", as the Browns also hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah from the 49ers' analytics department to fill that role, because Baseball Paul and analytics.

The Niners will apparently deal with this stunning, debilitating loss by promoting someone from within, eventually, when they get around to it.

Browns happy to steal from Jr.

Washington WR Cody Latimer arrested for assault and illegal discharge of a firearm.

Someone call up Ron and let him know he missed one.

Ed Oliver arrested on DWI and unlawfully carrying a weapon.

Wonder who will be arrested tomorrow? Maybe even someone else today, since it's early. I guess stay tuned!

#nflpandemicarrests

NFL attorneys to players:
IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/5xtDarzp5at2qwSTYoo/giphy.gif)

Quinton Dunbar's attorney has submitted 5 sworn affidavits from victims/witnesses claiming Dunbar was not involved in the crime.

These are the same 5 individuals who provided sworn statements to the police (in recorded interviews) which put things in motion in the first place, and produced the arrest warrants.

Dunbar's attorney claims this recanting is the truth and that the initial statements were due to malicious policing by the Miramar PD. The PD has invited witnesses to return and add or change anything from their original statements, but none have come forward to do so.

Some suspect this "recanting" is from a pay-off or some other means of inducing witnesses to change their story. I'm in this camp. Not that I don't conceive the PD could be capable of some Central Park Five sh*t. But the statements from the lawyers of each of the players are just dripping in sketchiness.

The whole thing was sketchy from the beginning.