Dammit, would have really preferred for Golden Tate to be traded out of the conference (unless Seattle would have ponied up a reasonable price - less than what Philly paid - to get him back).

Poncharello, you'll enjoy the hell out of him.

Maybe, but I’m not sure he is what the Eagles needed. Especially considering their position in the years to come. I would have been happier with a WR that stretches the field.

The Eagles are already over the cap for next year and that doesn’t count the money that will be spent to resign Wentz. The last thing they needed was to throw away another draft pick.

No actual nudity or anything, but I probably wouldn't watch this at work:

Speaking of "wouldn't watch at work," in my old age my primary form of gambling is doing something like showing my boss this clip:



(She thought it was hilarious.)

Not being able to see Dinesh's most reliable metric for stamina is a real kick in the balls

It's strange to me that Lisa Simpson enjoyed/enjoys Itchy and Scratchy.

You would think she wouldn't based on the content.

Lisa is intelligent enough to recognize it as "just a cartoon/television show."

Also, she didn't become a vegetarian until likke season 6

She was already flexing those activist muscles early in season 3 with the essay-writing contest that sent her to Washington.

But beyond any moral consideration, it just seems super low-brow for her.

Well you also have to remember from "Lisa's first word" that she idolized him when she was little and that he and Homer were watching an episode when she was a baby, so during that time of her being a toddler she hung out with Bart while he watched it. Was ingrained into her long before her activism

Dvo,
A Spotify playlist I just opened up shuffled quickly to LFO's "Summer Girls."

You should be happy to know that you're probably permanently associated in my mind with that atrocity of a song.

You know I’ve always wondered, if Chinese food makes you sick, well, no one is forcing you to eat it.

I once got food poisoning from eating a sandwich from a Subway that I had frequented for a couple of years. I fearlessly ate again at the same location within a week of recovering.

Also, worst of luck to Notre Dame today. As my team is loitering in the "Just Visiting" section of the playoff chase, I'm able to actually take an interest in a bunch of games that I wouldn't otherwise.

Just re-upping this. Officials have a lot going on and have to judge things in real-time; mistakes will happen here and there. You, professional commentator whose entire job is to offer worthwhile analysis of what you just saw, do not get to have the benefit of time and several slow-motion replays and still demonstrate beyond all question that you have no ****ing clue what you're talking about. Go **** yourself.

I watched one episode of the latest season of House of Cards and quickly gave up. It just felt like the show was neutered without Spacey. Did anyone else get further and have any thoughts as to whether this final season is worth a full watch?

Ugh my buddy said this almost verbatim

Incidentally - and I'm of no mind to argue for WSU as being a top four team regardless, as I'm not a dumb Husky fan who misrepresents his own team's strength - the world should be embarrassed by the fact that OU can win by one as a 21.5-point favorite and won't take even a slight hit with the voters because it was 49-48, whereas if it were 13-10 it would be treated as a strike against them and might threaten to move them down in the rankings.

A team's defense can puke all over themselves for four quarters and voters nod approvingly as long as they win because the game was more enjoyable to watch. Everyone accepts this and nobody demands that the voters apologize and resign their positions for processing things this way.

My wife watched the whole thing and hated it. I on the other hand only caught bits and pieces and it felt like the whole thing was someone’s fever dream acted out on TV

The hill I will die on is the one where I try to explain that the goal of the CFB playoff committee is not to determine the four best teams but rather to find the four teams that will result in the highest ratings. Better ratings = more ad $ = more $$$$ and that is the only goal.

There is obviously a threshold of "how good this team is" for them to make it since nobody cares to watch the 4-7 USC Trojans and so in that sense the games matter, but once you reach that threshold they are going to pick the team with the highest potential for ratings.

The selection process they provide is entirely subjective and arbitrary. They cite things such as conference championships, strength of schedule, best loss, how they finished, where they were ranked previously, eye test, etc but they list all of those things because CFB by nature is hard to compare conference to conference (it's too large to get any meaningful understanding of where each conference is compared to each other before bowls) and they will almost always be able to point to one of those things to explain why big name school should get in over less big name school.

Let's have some examples:

2014: First year of the playoff. TCU and Ohio State are both 12-1. TCU's loss was @ 12-1 Baylor by 3 on a last second field goal. Ohio State's loss was against 6-6 Virginia Tech by 14. TCU's strength of schedule was the 9th hardest in the country while Ohio State's was 33rd (source. TCU went into the last week of the regular season ranked #3, won 55-3, and dropped two spots. The committee took Ohio State and cited "Conference Champions" as their reason.


2015: Oklahoma and Iowa end the year with 1 loss. Oklahoma ends 11-1 while Iowa ended the regular season 12-0 before losing 16-13 in the Big 10 title game to #5 ranked Michigan State. Oklahoma's loss was to 5-7 Texas. We have established last year that the Big 12 conference "champion" doesn't count because it's not a title game. So these two teams - by the committee's definition the year before - are on equal footing on that front. The Iowa loss is significantly better than Oklahoma's but it doesn't matter. Oklahoma gets invited instead.

2016: A clean cut year where no arguments can be made for anyone other than the 4 conference champions with 1 loss.

2017: Alabama loses to Auburn 26-14 to lose their division. Auburn goes on to lose the SEC championship game to Georgia. Suddenly "Conference Champions" doesn't matter. Ohio State, who was coming off of a Conference Championship victory against #3 Wisconsin, was left out. Meanwhile, UCF went undefeated. They were the only team in the country to do that. If "Conference Champions" were such a massive factor that they overwrite a better SOS, a better loss, and finishing the season better, then when Alabama gets picked over Ohio State the only thing that can mean logically is that number of losses - even just one when you don't have to play a conference title and the other team does - overrides them all. Except the only undefeated team was left out as well.

So what's the answer? Well, ratings. Ohio State gets more viewers than TCU. Oklahoma gets more than Iowa. Alabama gets more viewers than Ohio State and UCF. It's the only common denominator among the picks from the committee year to year. We shifted from an emotionless algorithm to a subjective group of people that still rank LSU high because "losing close at florida is like a win".

The NCAA trails only FIFA in the "this **** is obviously corrupt and ****ty but it's an institution now and we can either enjoy the sport with it's obvious bias and flaws or not get to watch it at all" category. We always choose the first.

Yeah that’s all correct.

Really I’m just salty that WSU wins an ugly 19-13 game last week as a 7.5-point favorite and the takeaway is “yeah, see, they’re not very good,” and they barely deviated from the spread (that after starting the year 8-0 ATS). OU underperforming their line by 20.5 is obviously far worse, but will not be seen that way because yay touchdownz.

I get that this is a name-brand thing too where OU’s brand plainly crushes ours, but the “lit up the scoreboard, therefore couldn’t have played that badly” thing is very real in both college and pro perceptions and it’s very tilting.

The college football hobby is a weird one because I basically accept that that’s the one sport where my team will never win the championship. On a long enough timeline, the Mariners should eventually do it. Hell, the currently non-existent Sonics should too. WSU just won’t ever. Way too difficult to ever keep up with the big boys in recruiting given our location.

It’s also a weird sport to follow because there are no likable big programs, and the big games are all about picking the lesser evil to root for.

Dude.....the IOC.

Cosign this entire post

I cut the cord earlier in the year and didn't feel it until football season. With football here, I've taken a tour of various services by taking advantage of one-week free trials so that I could watch my teams' games legally.

Among Sling, YouTube TV, fubo, PS Vue, and DirecTV Now, I think YouTube TV was actually my favorite. I think I've run out of free trials, so that service might pull a month's subscription out of me when my Sling subscription runs out later in the week.

reddit + chromecast