NFL 2020: Draft

I'm skeptical, but HOLY HELL that's not something I expected from Goodell. Truly shocked.

So Trump tweeted about Brees saying he shouldn't have apologized for his comments.

Brees responded on Instagram (and cross-posted to Twitter), telling him it's not about the flag, and all the other things he apparently learned yesterday.

Trump gave Brees the biggest gift, the most golden get-out-of-the-doghouse opportunity possible. Brees went from "part of the problem" to lecturing the President in 24 hours. I haven't seen a character arc so rushed since the end of Game of Thrones.

DSGamer wrote:

Removed unhelpful comment. If Roger Goodell actually stands his ground and doesn't cave to his racist fans and the president this will be good for the country.

Would anyone care to wager on this? I know which side my money would go on.

*Legion* wrote:

So Trump tweeted about Brees saying he shouldn't have apologized for his comments.

Brees responded on Instagram (and cross-posted to Twitter), telling him it's not about the flag, and all the other things he apparently learned yesterday.

Trump gave Brees the biggest gift, the most golden get-out-of-the-doghouse opportunity possible. Brees went from "part of the problem" to lecturing the President in 24 hours. I haven't seen a character arc so rushed since the end of Game of Thrones.

*chef's kiss*

Will give lots of credit to Bree’ PR team. That’s an impressive shift to pull off.

*Legion* wrote:

So Trump tweeted about Brees saying he shouldn't have apologized for his comments.

Brees responded on Instagram (and cross-posted to Twitter), telling him it's not about the flag, and all the other things he apparently learned yesterday.

Trump gave Brees the biggest gift, the most golden get-out-of-the-doghouse opportunity possible. Brees went from "part of the problem" to lecturing the President in 24 hours. I haven't seen a character arc so rushed since the end of Game of Thrones.

Is Bunker Boy Ramsay Bolton?

I feel like he's Ramsay Bolton.

Surprised by the NFL's sudden about-face in messaging?

Turns out that it was a "rogue" NFL employee in the social media department who was behind the idea of the video the players made that put the pressure on the NFL. He reached out to Michael Thomas on Instagram with the idea, and Thomas spearheaded the effort to reach other players to contribute.

Minter disclosed the plot to his boss on Thursday morning. Bosses told their bosses, and news filtered up through the NFL’s hierarchy. Within 30 minutes, Minter says, he was invited to a Zoom call with superiors. “And I was ready to lose my job on that Zoom,” he says.

By that point, he had videos from five players, and buy-in from many more. Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson were in. Odell Beckham Jr. and Saquon Barkley were in. Lamar Jackson, he says, was in as well — but never ended up sending videos.

NFL execs chose to reckon with the final product rather than retaliate. Minter went back into his bunker, with Thomas working tirelessly to feed him roughly 100 clips from more than a dozen stars. Minter edited them into 71 seconds that could change the league for good.

Another tidbit in the article is that many employees felt "frustration" with the league's handling of these issues back in 2016 as the league responded to Kaepernick and players kneeling:

The public shift, in reality, began with employee frustration that dates back to 2016. That’s when Kaepernick first took a knee to protest racial injustice and police brutality. The aftermath, Toney says, was “crazy and scary at times.” The league, in many ways, attempted to suppress protests. Internally, some employees weren’t happy with its response.

On a different note, Hue Jackson has figured out a way to use the conversation to try and continue the Hue Jackson Reclamation Project, saying he wanted Kaepernick in 2017, and that "it just didn't work out", citing finances and the draft and that he wasn't the GM.

Now I'm always up for some good ol' Sashi Brown blaming, but as the article points out, Hue's talk in 2017 on the subject was very different.

Also mentioning "finances" is pretty amusing. The Browns had $58.9 million of unused cap space in 2017 that they ended up rolling over into 2018. There was zero cap issues that would have prevented signing Kaepernick to a short-term deal with average starter's salaries. (And that's *after* they committed $16m to the dead money pile by trading for and then cutting Brock Osweiler in exchange for Houston's draft pick).

You'll recall that 2017 was the year the Browns drafted and installed DeShone Kizer as their starter, and went 0-16.

I’m pretty sure if you could see a post from me saying I wanted CK back in an old thread. Probably around the time I was trying to fire Jackson.

Reche Caldwell was shot and killed in his home after being jumped by some folks trying to rob him.

In other news, Brittany Brees writing something that maybe shows they really have seen the light:

Somehow we as white America, we can feel good about not being racist, feel good about loving one an another as God loves us. We can feel good about educating our children about the horrors of slavery and history. We can read books to our children about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X., Hank Aaron, Barack Obama, Rosa parks, Harriet Tubman.. and feel like we are doing our part to raise our children to love , be unbiased and with no prejudice. To teach them about all of the African Americans that have fought for and risked their lives against racial injustice. Somehow as white Americans we feel like that checks the box of doing the right thing. Not until this week did Drew and I realize THAT THIS IS THE PROBLEM.

Damn straight.

To say “I don’t agree with disrespecting the flag “.. I now understand was also saying I don’t understand what the problem really is, I don’t understand what you’re fighting for, and I’m not willing to hear you because of our preconceived notion‘s of what that flag means to us. That’s the problem we are not listening, white America is not hearing. We’re not actively LOOKING for racial prejudice. We have heard stories from men and women we have known and loved for years about the racism that occurred in their lives .. stories that were never shared or talked about because somehow they were considered normal.

Privilege.

Folks are finally waking up.

None of which would be happening without the protests escalating beyond the line of being "peaceful" and comfortably ignorable. None of it.

I dunno, to me it almost seems more like it has to do with the video, which clearly shows a cop being indifferent to a human's plight, and the resulting protests lasting as long as they have.

This is all tied up with Covid though. The pandemic is, I think, partially why this is happening. And #metoo.

Sociologists will likely teach courses on this in the future.

So Brittany didn’t see the video until Drew stepped in it? Because it seems like it took folks making them feel uncomfortable to get it.

In fact, she was pretty clear how easily she could hear stories of racism from friends but never internalized what was really going on.

The clip didn’t affect Drew much. It wasn’t until after folks called him out for his response to the riots that he got clued in.

If the video was enough, the streets would not be full right now.

Jayhawker wrote:

If the video was enough, the streets would not be full right now.

If video was enough, things would have changed when we watched Eric Garner die the exact same way 6 years ago.

Instead, the peaceful, less aggressive protesting that followed that killing was mocked by clowns like this:

IMAGE(https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-01-at-10.35.10-AM-2-1.png?resize=500,452)

I recognize that I'm taking the thread a bit off topic here though, so I won't progress the point any further. Imma get back to making fun of Hue Jackson.

Garner died later, not on camera. Yes, he was put in a choke hold and passed out, but George Floyd was straight murdered on camera. The impact of his body being lifeless when the cop got up was huge.

And I'm not saying the video was enough. A video alone is far from enough, I think this is in part different because this video is different. Not by much, but by enough to cause folks like my mother and stepfather to react differently.

It all adds up, everything. BLM, prior videos, prior protests, prior riots, grassroots actions, everything.

And, yes, Hue Jackson. It's all because of him. Everything is. Dude probably claims he would've taken Mahomes if they had let him.

There actually was more to the Hue story too. Mentioning Kaepernick got the rest overlooked, but apparently, he is writing a book, which "will likely include some pieces about his time in Cleveland". It's due out next January.

I imagine this will be the pièce de résistance of the Hue Jackson Reclamation Project. While I don't trust his portrayal of himself to be anything but revisionist history, I do believe that ownership and the front office gave him plenty of material to work with in his attempt to frame everyone else as the problem. I'm sure there's plenty of tales of ownership/FO nonsense that won't require much massaging to fit Hue's narrative.

*Legion* wrote:

I do believe that ownership and the front office gave him plenty of material to work with in his attempt to frame everyone else as the problem. I'm sure there's plenty of tales of ownership/FO nonsense that won't require much massaging to fit Hue's narrative.

I mean, he had two sociopaths coordinators gunning for his job from the start of training camp in 2018 only for Freddie Kitchens to get the job later.

Rat Boy wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

I do believe that ownership and the front office gave him plenty of material to work with in his attempt to frame everyone else as the problem. I'm sure there's plenty of tales of ownership/FO nonsense that won't require much massaging to fit Hue's narrative.

I mean, he had two sociopaths coordinators gunning for his job from the start of training camp in 2018 only for Freddie Kitchens to get the job later.

I'm pre-ordering it because the ultimate truth will finally be revealed:

Hue Jackson was the homeless guy who told Haslam to draft Manziel.

Sure, he was a well-known racist who regularly sexually harassed women, but that wasn't a problem until now, clearly.

I'd forgotten that thing was still there. Saw the head off, open a hole where the mouth is, and put it at the bottom of a toilet where it belongs.

Finally!

Milkman in the 2017 week 16 thread wrote:

May Jerry Richardson’s statue sit next to Joe Paterno’s, preferably at the bottom of a port-a-potty several days into Sturgis.

Al Sharpton called on the league to "repair" Kaepernick, prompting PFT to explore the idea of what would it take to do so. Even if the league stops impeding him, the damage is done, and how do you get a team to sign someone that has been away for 3 years and is going to have rust? And how do you get the team to *keep* him if it takes time to shake that rust?

My solution is simple: grant a roster spot exemption to any team that signs Kaepernick, for the duration of his time on the roster. For the rest of his career, Kaepernick is a free extra roster spot. It's a competitive advantage that multiple teams will want, and if Kaepernick is rusty, there's no roster pressure to cut him.

Roster spots are so valued that the rest will take care of itself. He'll get signed, he'll get the opportunity to work his way back in, and the league won't have to twist a single arm to make it happen.

And anyone that Female Doggoes about it being an "unfair advantage" is implicitly admitting that Kaepernick does in fact have NFL value. Can't have it both ways.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/4DrkQAJ.jpg)

Dwayne Haskins feels “more dynamic” after losing weight.

Hoo boy, the annual "fat QB getting into shape" ritual begins again.

At least now we know who Tampa will bring in once Brady retires.

*Legion* wrote:

Dwayne Haskins feels “more dynamic” after losing weight.

Hoo boy, the annual "fat QB getting into shape" ritual begins again.

At least now we know who Tampa will bring in once Brady retires.

Fun fact; FO's decade in review has a Josh Freeman sighting, I think he's last on the table for top rushing DYAR, of all things.

The worst QB of the decade was, of course, Blaine Gabbert, who is, of course, in Tampa. Still.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

The worst QB of the decade was, of course, Blaine Gabbert, who is, of course, in Tampa. Still.

I've had two root canals and I cheered for Gabbert for 6 years. The relief from the first things ending was nothing compared to the relief of ending the last one.

Nathan Peterman signed with the Raiders. He still has a chance to supplant Blaine Gabbert as the worst QB ever!

Long overdue. Looks like the Panthers took the Silent Sam* approach but didn't wait for the torches-and-pitchforks crowd to actually show up.

* the UNC-Chapel Hill statue that the university removed (and allowed to be removed) in defiance of a state law in order to preserve the damn thing

Update: The Charlotte is reporting that the statue has been removed permanently.

Part of the terms of the Panthers sale was a requirement to keep the statue, but Jerry Richardson (via spokesman) says he has "moved on" and won't seek to legally enforce that part of the deal.

Dude knows he doesn't want to be anywhere near that fight.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eaa96ppWAAEBhgQ?format=jpg&name=large)