Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: Bill Brown on Today at 09:09:52 AMI'm in the same boat as Lenn. A year ago I was diagnosed with bone on bone knees. Before that for a few years I was walking between 15 and 20 thousand steps a day. I'm taking collagen every day and over the last few months I feel that there may be some improvement. I currently get about 5k steps a day and hope I can work up to 10k.

Good luck with your walking program. I'm a believer that it's good for you.

Bill

Very impressive Bill, and I'm sorry to hear about your knees as well. I hope the collagen is providing some relief. And I would add that 5k/day is a hell of a lot better than nothing.

I respect the positive outlook Rich. It is pretty unique, and it is refreshing to read.

My personal thoughts, item by item:

1. I agree here. Too many people I felt were looking to run Daboll out of town because of one bad year. I was not one of them. Daboll won 2022 NFL COY as a rookie head coach for a reason: he is good, and for the most part I think the players like him. Does he have things to work on? Absolutely, as do most professionals in any field. I am still optimistic he is the right man for this job.

2. I tend to also agree here, with some caution around the view given the multiple unanswered question marks on the unit. Ie, is JMS going to get better? Who is our RT going to be? Can Thomas stay healthy? Who are our two starting OGs? I do think we brought in some solid players like Runyan and Eluemenor though, and I like Bricillo, so, like you, I tend to believe this line will improve into something closer to average than bad.

3. Since we have seen Jones do what he did in 2022, we know that he has it in him to at least be that level of QB. I wouldn't call that high level QB play, but "solid" is a fair enough way of putting it. I would also add that it's hard to imagine Jones not playing better than what we saw from him last year before he got hurt. I have said repeatedly that he is a better QB than that. I have never been overly impressed with Lock, but I'm not closed to the idea of him improving into something better than what he has been so far in his still relatively young career.

4. I hope this is true. I hate hearing Schoen say things like "we have a great training/medical staff" when the results have been so incredibly poor. Really makes me think Mara has drawn a line in the sand that Barnes is untouchable, and Schoen is choosing to fight the battles he thinks he can actually win. I'll need to see improved results before I can get comfortable believing this one, but I certainly hope you're right.

5. Firmly agree here. Burns is a stud, and Thibodeaux is a young, improving player coming off a double digit sack year.

6. I'm cautiously optimistic on this one but am unsure as to the extent. I would agree that this one is likely to improve from last season, given you basically have only one way to go from last season in this category. How much it improves remains to be seen. With better O line play and Nabers in the mix I feel like it has to unless our QB play (from either of our two main QBs) is so limited that it just isn't possible.

That's really peculiar.

I would prefer that every single NFL game played every week always be on Sunday. I am sure plenty disagree with me on that including the league and its ratings experts, but it would make things better for the players and coaches, and in many respects for the fans too. I appreciate that it means fans are going to watch fewer games in real time, but serious fans can still watch their team play plus two other games on Sunday if they choose to. I also like having the anticipation build up all week and then getting flooded with information/stimuli on Sundays.

With all of the above said I understand why the league does what it does with spreading these games out more. I'm not going to condemn them for it, but I wish it were just Sundays personally.

Quote from: LennG on May 18, 2024, 07:40:34 PMDave

Unless we are traveling somewhere and we do lots of walking/hiking I really don't believe I do that total in a week. I'm not proud of it but that's the way it is. I have two bad knees and whenever I tend to overdo things, they hurt for a while, so if I can get somewhere riding, that's the way I go. My wife always encourages me to get out and walk. Maybe if I lived in a different environment I would but I hate to ride to a place to walk and I really don't like walking on my town's streets all the time.

I hope you achieve your goal.

Lenn,

I am sorry about your knees. That's a drag. And it's understandable why you do not walk more.

Strands #77
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Florida is pretty stacked. They go four lines deep with talent, and Bobby is a great goalie... probably HOF material. I won't be surprised if this one goes to a game seven.

On the positive side, I think there might be more open ice in this series for Bread and Zibs.

Quote from: Ed Vette on May 18, 2024, 05:44:41 PMReminds me of the videos of NFL players abusing women.

Same here. Made me think of Kareem Hunt and Ray Rice. Not to mention our kicker from several years ago, although there was no video with him. I think there was a 911 call though.

Quote from: Ed Vette on May 18, 2024, 05:40:21 PMIf Jones is ready and healthy, he's the QB. No controversy. 

In week one, yes, 100%. In week eight or later, probably but not automatically.

You can have controversy about the QB position even if you don't want it. Fans and media members can effectively cause it. The same way they can get coaches fired. I'm not saying this will happen this year by the way. Just that it's not impossible.

Also having no bad vibes or controversy about the team in the centennial anniversary year is basically impossible if they're a bottom seven or eight team again. Having no QB controversy in a big anniversary season is nice and all, but who cares about any of that if the team is on its way to another 4 to 7 win season?

Quote from: jimc on May 18, 2024, 10:13:44 AMI believe this is the crux of the issue. Being hyper critical of DJ can and should never be confused with supporting him. You may say being critical does not prevent you from rooting for him, but I disagree. I contend that most folks that are hyper critical are more likely to root against DJ in order to prove they are correct in their hyper critical analysis. 

hyper critical equals "shitting on"
hyper critical not equal to constructive criticism

By this logic then the same accusation can be made against fans who claim Jones is better than what he has been, except these fans are rooting for the offensive line to continue to do poorly.

I believe neither to be true. I firmly believe Giants fans want the team to win. Which means they want areas of weakness to improve or be improved upon, and if they don't they are likely to be critical. That doesn't mean these fans want bad things to happen - it's very much the opposite. There may be some dark corners out there where that is not the case, but there is no doubt in my mind that the vast, vast majority of fans of any team want their team to be good.

Quote from: Ed Vette on May 18, 2024, 05:06:22 PMIt took me months to properly evaluate JJ instead of just the drive up the board hype that some folks here got on board with. He was the perfect fit but they didn't want a QB controversy on the cusp of their 100 year Anniversary.

I don't believe that they would have passed on JJ if they thought he was the perfect fit. I know that you did not quite say that, but that is my view in any case. If that were really true, first off Mara would not have publicly said that he was open to drafting a QB in the first round, and they also would not have been all but confirmed by respected league insider types to have been trying to trade up with the Pats. There has also been a fair amount of smoke about Lock potentially getting a crack at the job at some point, so they may end up with a QB controversy on their hands anyway.

I know there have been exercise threads before, but I'm curious specifically about walking. Everyone knows how beneficial walking is, but plenty don't get enough. I have improved my walking total, but there is still room for improvement. 10,000 steps (the recommended daily amount) is approximately five miles. I'm curious if people here hit/exceed that total on a daily basis.

I wasn't planning on watching this, because I knew it would be disturbing, but I finally did it anyway, and man was I right about the disturbing part. I hope this coward goes to prison for this, plus other terrible things he was allegedly involved in like human trafficking.

Violence towards women is never ok. Nor is seeing it in one's household as a kid an excuse, so I don't even want to hear that. While watching this footage is highly unpleasant, my hope is it will encourage other victims to take action against their abuser.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/entertainment/sean-combs-cassie-ventura

Doesn't seem he really answered the question.

Quote from: coggs on May 18, 2024, 01:20:00 PMYes and no.  The doom and gloom of Rangers fans is just tiring.  Up 3-1, have a bad game and everyone sucks.  The GM sucks for not trading for a top-6 forward (because that worked out well last year).  Rangers fans expect them to win every game by 4+ goals, score the first two goals of every game in the first 5 minutes.  Never allow the opponent to get closer than 1 goal.  Score on every PP, kill every penatly.  Win the Corsi battle 95-5, have every zone entry result in a HDSC and a goal.  I could go on and I am only slightly exaggerating. 

Here are their results this year:  https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYR/2024_games.html

They literally had ONE losing streak of more than 2 games.  It was a 4-gamer that started with a SO Loss.  Aside from that, only 5 times where they had back-to-back losses and in 2 of those cases there was a SO/OT loss. 

I would say this thread has been almost nothing but a cascade of high praise this year, so unless you're referring to other Rangers fans outside of this thread, I would say the above is a misrepresentation or, at best, a wild exaggeration. I can think of a number of occasions this season where the Rangers had a bad night, and people here generally had the attitude of "rough night, but no big deal. Shake it off and move on to the next one."

The bottom line is fans know this team is very talented, and so expectations are naturally very high. Fans also recognize that the top of the Eastern Conference is highly competitive, but regardless, if the Rangers' final game in this postseason is a loss, people are unquestionably going to be disappointed for a period of time. I would not say that makes them gloom and doom mongers or disloyal or unfair fans. It makes them fans that were optimistic about their team given its roster and coaching who didn't quite get the outcome they were hoping for. Nothing wrong with that. They're still loyal, good fans who are not going anywhere.

As a means of comparison, I am also a Knicks fan. I have been nothing but delighted with the season they have had relative to expectations and considering their severely bad injury luck this year, but in no way do I expect them to go any further than the Eastern Conference Finals (if they make it). I just happen to feel the Rangers have a higher ceiling than that.