unclevlad

Seems some others think the same. https://www.milehighreport.com/2022/11/21/23470689/the-2022-denver-broncos-have-an-accountability-problem They also push for firing Hackett now. There is no reason to wait. More of the same... https://www.denverpost.com/2022/11/20/broncos-fire-nathaniel-hackett-ejiro-eviro-russell-wilson-raiders-mark-kiszla-column/ They have winnable games ahead...ok, not Baltimore or KC, and probably not the Chargers, but the other 3 are Rams, Cards, and Panthers. They've favored against Carolina Sunday, which tells you a lot about Carolina. (But were I to bet, I'd take Carolina and the points, unless Hackett is fired. I simply can't see the situation improving as long as he's still coach. Carolina is at home, too.) They can try to start righting the ship in those games, but that can't happen with Hackett...I wanted to type "in charge" but realized...of what? As the nominal head coach, then. DARN sure lame duck, too. Odds he's the Denver coach when training camp opens next year? 1000 to 1 or so...?

Well, that more or less clinches the AFC West. Broncos and Raiders are trash, of course, and no factor. Chiefs are now 3 up AND have swept the Chargers, with only 7 games left.

Speaking of boneheaded plays...just now. Chargers score TD to take a 17-13 lead. They get a personal foul penalty, advancing the ball. High, pop-up style kick that's angled...too much, actually. BUT the Chiefs return guy oh so carefully positions his feet inbounds, then catches it...lunging, and takes himself OB. After catching it inbounds. At the 6. Ball was going OB almost regardless...but it's that reflexive, braindead "oh I gotta catch this" and that "oh I gotta keep inbounds or the catch doesn't count." <SIGH> And you see things like this ALL the time. Young athletes are trained to NOT think situationally. And another one just now. DB hits Herbert when he's OB. Don't look where you are, don't think...just hit. Granted, the hit wasn't hard, but the DB utterly lost track of where he was. 15 yards, and the Chargers are poised for another TD.

How about FIRE HACKETT!!!! Seriously, while I didn't see any of it, there IS a limit. The offense is less than incompetent...and ok, to a point it's been a combination of things, but when it's gone on THIS LONG, I have to start with Bad Coaching. And IMO, this coaching job is far worse than even 2010. This Bronco defense is REALLY good. They're #3 in points allowed per game...by less than half a point a game. But they're still -24 on point differential...the only team in the top 14 in points allowed that's in the negatives. The 2010 team...that was Tebow's rookie year. What did anyone expect? IIRC, those last few years under Shanahan, ok, they had a .500 record, but they weren't even that good. I remember a lot of good starts then complete fades. This defense should ensure at least .500, so what this coaching staff has done to this offense is a travesty.

And very likely...like many facilities built for the Olympics...they'll sit idle once the event's over. A league in Qatar? The whole country has less than 3 million people. It probably covers less ground than the Los Angeles metro statistical area; it's smaller than Connecticut, altho bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

Well it is in Denver, so we could try invoking the Ghost of Bill McNichols... (Christmas eve blizzard of 1982. Totally unexpected, completely paralyzed the city. McNichols was a, IIRC, 6-term mayor, and he lost due to the poor response. It was 'only' 24 inches in about 18 hours.) EDIT: OH MY!!!! I'm typing that up, not watching the gamecast...BOOM, BOOM, OUT GO THE LIGHTS!!!!! 2 big plays and the Raiders win!!!!

Well, since neither team deserves a win, I suggest the Raider/Bronco OT period should be cancelled.

Meanwhile, the Cowboys are pretty systematically dismantling the Vikes. The bookies are smiling. Up 20-3, BEAUTIFUL sideline catch by Lamb to set up a 60 yard FG attempt, after gaining 40 or so yards in 25 seconds...and they get the ball to start the 3rd. ARGH. I hate...I loathe...I detest replay sometimes. They take TOO <BLEEP>ING LONG to decide to stop things, and to make the calls. The Cowboys were in no rush, they got set up, they snapped it for the kick...the kick's good. OH, BUT NO!!! We're gonna check the catch!!! Oh, and the ruling is "call stands." HATE that. It's like a batter trying to step out and call time when the pitcher's already in his motion. Well, good thing is, Maher nailed it. Ball don't lie.

Is anyone watching Pats-Jets? AFAIK the weather's OK...cold, but clear...so why is it 3-3 approaching the 2 minute warning? Jalen Hurts runs a QB draw to finally take the lead for the Eagles. NOT pretty but a win's a win...and looks like, move 2 up on the division. Giants have scored to cut it to 13 but there's only 4 minutes left. EDIT: never mind. Saw enough as CBS switched to Jets-Pats. Jets, at least, had nothing to threaten, and their D is pretty good. So of course the game's decided on an 84 yard punt return for 6. THE FIRST PUNT RETURN FOR A TD OF THE SEASON. With less than 30 seconds left in the game. No editor would buy the story of this season. No way. Ludicrous. Beyond plausible. No one's gonna buy it.....

Whatever for? Even in bite-size chunks, it's far too hard to chew...

One local supermarket sometimes has bacon-wrapped sirloins. Sounds fine, right? It's wrapped around the outer edges. How is it gonna cook??? I just figured, fine. Unwrap it, then wrap round the top and bottom. THEN cook it normally. Yeah, the bacon's still undercooked...so don't eat it. I just take it off and save it until I've got enough to use in something else. The sirloins are usually sold as a pair, so it won't be long. 2 slices will be fine for a bacon-cheese frittata.

Think I saw Colorado was 1-9 ATS, so...that would be a no-brainer. Going into yesterday, Colorado had the, IIRC, 5th worst scoring offense at 15+ per game. They had the worst scoring defense at 41 a game. Both got worse. Hard to do. The Buffs were last in scoring margin...by over 5 points per game. -26. Yeah, the 2 points above show that. After yesterday, it's a 6 point spread. The Buffs also have the lowest rating among Power 5 conferences by Football Power Index...at #122, out of 131. Despite the fact that the Pac-12 has 6 in the top 30, which normally helps raise their weak teams. They're down with, for example, the Mountain West...Nevada, CSU, New Mexico, and Hawai'i are a combined 9-36, and all below CU. (All four of them were in CBS' bottom 10 last week...where the Buffs were #2.) Utah has to wish they could've pulled out that game last night...if you missed it, not surprising, since it ended just before midnight Mountain time. Win that, and they'd be 7-1...with the Buffs only left. They could've booked the plane tickets with very high confidence.

I saw about 30 seconds of that, and was glad I did so *before* dinner. It was bad. My thought was, wow, can I get a cut of the bribes you've taken?

HOW MUCH?????? From Accuweather: Emphasis mine. The Bills were lucky to get out at all, and getting back Sunday won't be a whole lot better. Cleaning out THIS MUCH snow takes a while.

2 minutes to go, and South Carolina just added insult to injury. 63-31 over Tennessee. Vols collapsed in the 4th. Another one bites the dust Another one bites the dust And another one gone and another one gone Another one bites the dust Hey I'm gonna get you too Another one bites the dust So we get a little chaos, as Tennessee was generally favored to have that last playoff slot even without playing in the title game. Now? Who knows.

Good golly Miss Molly. Our resident boneface must be ecstatic. Bedlam is Gash, Slash, and Beatdown, it would appear...Sooners have 300 yards and 28 points *in the first quarter*.

Was thinking about that just now, too. Some of it may also be that all four of em have big, fat targets on their backs at this point. The games meant less to them than to their opponents. And I haven't looked but...perhaps the backups played more for Georgia? Their title berth is locked in. Or somewhat more cautious playcalling? I did see that Alabama ran the ball 45 times...against Austin Peay, to be sure, and they did throw a 34-0 whitewash. But it's a good way to protect their NIL Star, and get the backs some good work. But they all won. NO fun so far today.

Arrrrgghhh....sooo close. Baylor stops a 2 point conversion to retain a 28-26 lead late. TCU kicks deep; Baylor can't manage the first down, has to punt the ball back to TCU. They move it 40+ yards in less than a minute and a half, and kick a 43 yarder as time expires. TCU 29, Baylor 28. Chaos averted. DRAT! EDIT: was watching the gamecast rather than the game. I mostly thought they kicked on 3rd...but no. Ran a play that was stopped in bounds, had to run a scramble drill to get the kicking team on. That's easy to mess up...line doesn't get set, someone moves, anything like that and it would have been Game Over, because there would've been a 10 second runoff. Game Over. NOT a smart play, IMO, but the coach got away with it. Meanwhile, I'm watching Illinois continue to lead Michigan. 17-16 inside 3 minutes. Less chaos here, more just the sweet, sweet feeling of Jim Harbaugh crashing and burning...again. That said, Michigan's about to get the ball back, probably in good to VERY good field position...yep, basically midfield. Sigh. So many hopes looking to be dashed...

That thought had crossed my mind too. Getting out of town can't be easy...and in fact, it's not. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2022/11/19/23467742/bills-browns-weather-travel-ban-airport-closed-buffalo-snowmobiles This link's also in the story but...wow. Worth a quick look... EDIT: from the story, the flight was scheduled to leave at 3:30 Eastern. Bills were boarding at 4...after spending MULTIPLE hours getting everyone *to* the airport, apparently. And they landed in Detroit about 15 minutes ago. I'd have to look at the line...but were I to bet, I'd be inclined to take the Bengals and the points. There's got to be at least a good chance they won't be at their best.

Worth reading. If you think very high prices == exorbitant profits? Sometimes...but quite often, not true at all.

I'm thinking even more remote...akin to the Marvel Blue Area of the Moon, but this happens to be a full, artificial satellite dome roughly 40-50 km in diameter. Its location is co-orbital with Earth, but about 30 degrees behind it That puts it approximately 30 million miles away; combined with the highly absorptive, very low albedo outer surface, and its tiny size in solar system terms, visual detection is all but impossible. However, detection by other means is merely wildly unlikely. In this case, the Aricebo radio telescope happened to be looking in that area, when the satellite's defense screens flared to pulverize an incoming meteor. This was confirmed by other systems, as this was about a month after one of Earth's more significant meteor shower periods...ergo, just in time for this satellite to be in position. Given the logistical issues, a group of heroes is called upon to make the contact, chosen for their level-headedness. (I'll let you get off the floor before continuing.) (Better now? OK then.) Inventor-types create a small ship fast enough to make the trip from Earth to the satellite in just a couple hours (a light-hour is about 670M miles, so if the trip takes 2 hours, that's 2% of C average velo). As the ship approaches, a window opens, inviting the ship inside. A clear, visual path leads them a couple miles into the interior, until they sight the structure and area of the image. Upon alighting...the air composition is almost identical to Earth, but rather lower in CO2 and a bit higher in oxygen...they are greeted by those who claim to be the founders of Atlantis...a colony they ran on Earth for awhile, but abandoned. They don't say why. They claim to have only studied Earth...and, yes, well, borrowed seeds and animals, but that was all some time ago. Why are they still here? They claim because they're interested in monitoring Earth's supers; such powers are rather uncommon. But there's something a little off about the story. The heroes want to explore a bit more in depth...there's certainly a LOT of terrain, and who knows what might be in other places. Their hosts are...not averse to it; they won't say no, but they're clearly not entirely thrilled with it.

Ronaldo is proving that petty athletes exist in many sports. Man U's trying to get his contract voided; I presume they'd owe him some guaranteed money that he doesn't deserve after his recent stunts. There are also, IIRC, serious grumblings about his play with the national team...selfish, demanding the ball, that sort of thing. Making the team remarkably easy to defend.

The question becomes, what people are saying this? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/18/twitter-planned-to-close-offices-friday-but-musk-asks-engineers-in.html If you're still working for Twitter, it's like you're in a rowboat, caught in a whirlpool, while the hurricane approaches. More or less what I've seen. Security and content monitoring also more or less gone. It's hard to say what the actual situation is, as it's changing. From NYT about an hour ago: But beyond the numbers, it's also who's leaving. Opening para from a letter/editorial in NYT just now: Bold mine. That's either a corporate vice president, or someone directly reporting to said, I would think. These are the big-picture people. Musk's actions try to retain people who might know something about small parts. It seems more likely than not, that Twitter is going to suffer a severe disruption/extended downtime next week, with so many home for Thanksgiving...one would think it'd be a busy time.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/qbr Rodgers is #25, Wilson is #27 in QBR. In PAA, points above average, Rodgers is #27, Wilson #29. BTW: to qualify for that list, the player must have played 20 plays per team game played, so there's no instances of Small Sample Size Theater. The plausible bright side for Bronco fans is, how much of this is Hackett? The dark side? Probably not nearly enough. Buffalo weather report...western parts of the city have 4 feet of snow so far. Bills plan to return after Sunday; I'm beginning to wonder if that's smart, since they go right back for the early Turkey Day game. (That's also why they couldn't delay until Monday.) But the planning for the players, coaches and traveling party would be greatly different, so the later they have that intent, the harder it gets to change.

"It's too late to complain about the food now."