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OT: Other LA Sports: Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, Clippers, Rams, USC, UCLA, Fantasy, MMA etc #2

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Ziggy Stardust said:
Passing on acquiring Verlander in favor of Yu Darvish cost the Dodgers a World Series.
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Verlander wasn’t exactly a prime target that deadline. He was an August deadline acquisition for the Astros. People may forget, but he had some bad years at the end of his run with the Tigers. It’s wholly hindsight to say he was the right acquisition that deadline.
 
Chazz Reinhold said:
Verlander wasn’t exactly a prime target that deadline. He was an August deadline acquisition for the Astros. People may forget, but he had some bad years at the end of his run with the Tigers. It’s wholly hindsight to say he was the right acquisition that deadline.
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Verlander had better numbers than Darvish and had the postseason experience than Darvish lacked. Many were hoping that the Dodgers would get Verlander because it was well known he was on the market and he was a name that was linked to the Dodgers prior to the Darvish trade, and even after the Darvish trade.

Dodgers Dugout: Yu Darvish, Justin Verlander or Sonny Gray could be in Dodgers' future, but should they be?
https://www.dodgersnation.com/shoul...-verlander-over-yu-darvish-kl0292/2017/09/07/
Justin Verlander could have been a Dodger, instead he can win World Series with Astros
Dodgers Should Look to Add Justin Verlander

Should've listened to Walter White.
 
Verlander was the better option even at the time. Darvish was the booby prize and I hated that the Dodgers bit on him. He sucked when he got here too. He had a couple good games early in the playoffs, true, but he never should have started Game 7 after his first outing in the WS.
 
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kingsholygrail said:
Verlander was the better option even at the time. Darvish was the booby prize and I hated that the Dodgers bit on him. He sucked when he got here too. He had a couple good games early in the playoffs, true, but he never should have started Game 7 after his first outing in the WS.
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I still think Roberts is the main culprit. Hes just an awful manager.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
Verlander had better numbers than Darvish and had the postseason experience than Darvish lacked. Many were hoping that the Dodgers would get Verlander because it was well known he was on the market and he was a name that was linked to the Dodgers prior to the Darvish trade, and even after the Darvish trade.

Dodgers Dugout: Yu Darvish, Justin Verlander or Sonny Gray could be in Dodgers' future, but should they be?
https://www.dodgersnation.com/shoul...-verlander-over-yu-darvish-kl0292/2017/09/07/
Justin Verlander could have been a Dodger, instead he can win World Series with Astros
Dodgers Should Look to Add Justin Verlander

Should've listened to Walter White.
Click to expand...

kingsholygrail said:
Verlander was the better option even at the time. Darvish was the booby prize and I hated that the Dodgers bit on him. He sucked when he got here too. He had a couple good games early in the playoffs, true, but he never should have started Game 7 after his first outing in the WS.
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Darvish was striking out more batters, walking fewer batters, and had a (slighly) better fielding independent ERA and home run normalized ERA (both of which are more reliable going forward than actual ERA). Verlander had better ERA, which is not an evaluative tool of as much use these days. Going to the Astros made it look much better because they are quite good at getting the best out of their players with their stellar analytics department (which, fairly, the Dodgers also have). Just look at the difference in his numbers before and after the trade in 2017:

[Stat: Before/After]

K/9: 9.21/11.38
BB/9: 3.51/1.32
ERA: 3.82/1.06
FIP: 4.07/2.69
xFIP: 4.41/2.94
HardHit%: 35.2%/29.6%
SwingStrike%: 10.1%/14.2% (!!)

The Astros also changed his pitch usage. He threw his fastball slightly more and his curveball less, which he replaced with more slider usage. He threw the slider slower with the Astros and made it much more dangerous than it was. Going specifically to the Astros made him an objectively better pitcher than he was at the time with the Tigers. Again, there’s a reason he was a waiver deadline acquisition and the Tigers had to eat part of his remaining contract.
 
Any Charger fans out there? Looks like they are putting the screws to #1 RB Melvin Gordon.

Chargers suspend contract negotiations with Melvin Gordon,...

“Gordon will continue to be on the Reserve/Did Not Report designation,” he said, “and with the regular season now here, we have informed his representatives that discussions regarding a contract extension will be postponed until the conclusion of this season. So when or if Melvin reports, he’ll play this season on his current contract, and then we’ll just revisit it after the season.”

So where does that leave Gordon? He has three options:
1. He can return to the Chargers and play this season on the fifth-year option, risking injury without the long-term insurance of a contract extension.

2. He can sit out the first eight games of the regular season before returning in time to honor his contract so he can earn his unrestricted free-agency status when the new league year begins in March.

3. He can hope his camp finds a suitable trading partner and the Chargers oblige by shipping him to a team that will be willing to sign him to the contract extension he desires.

I am thinking the only leverage Gordon has is Option 2.
 
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KINGS17 said:
Any Charger fans out there? Looks like they are putting the screws to #1 RB Melvin Gordon.

Chargers suspend contract negotiations with Melvin Gordon,...

“Gordon will continue to be on the Reserve/Did Not Report designation,” he said, “and with the regular season now here, we have informed his representatives that discussions regarding a contract extension will be postponed until the conclusion of this season. So when or if Melvin reports, he’ll play this season on his current contract, and then we’ll just revisit it after the season.”

So where does that leave Gordon? He has three options:
1. He can return to the Chargers and play this season on the fifth-year option, risking injury without the long-term insurance of a contract extension.

2. He can sit out the first eight games of the regular season before returning in time to honor his contract so he can earn his unrestricted free-agency status when the new league year begins in March.

3. He can hope his camp finds a suitable trading partner and the Chargers oblige by shipping him to a team that will be willing to sign him to the contract extension he desires.

I am thinking the only leverage Gordon has is Option 2.
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Unfortunately for him, Gordon basically has no leverage, Running Backs that aren't of the elite tier are very replaceable, in fact, they have two very capable replacements on the roster now in Austin Ekeler and Justin Jackson.
 
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KopitarFAN said:
Unfortunately for him, Gordon basically has no leverage, Running Backs that aren't of the elite tier are very replaceable, in fact, they have two very capable replacements on the roster now in Austin Ekeler and Justin Jackson.
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send these football posts to Vlasic and Toews, and hopefully they'll see how good they have it in the NHL
 
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That also doesn't really have an NHL equivalent situation, to be fair. NHL would have been able to put the screws to anyone who tried to hold out for a contract extension when they're currently under contract, i.e. if Kopitar would have not reported in 2015 in anticipation of a 2016-2017 extension, I'm pretty sure he would have just been suspended without pay, no? So this is one of those situations that the NHL actually currently does better than the NFL, your star player can't just get greedy and not report a year prior and have any leverage at all.
 
Raccoon Jesus said:
That also doesn't really have an NHL equivalent situation, to be fair. NHL would have been able to put the screws to anyone who tried to hold out for a contract extension when they're currently under contract, i.e. if Kopitar would have not reported in 2015 in anticipation of a 2016-2017 extension, I'm pretty sure he would have just been suspended without pay, no? So this is one of those situations that the NHL actually currently does better than the NFL, your star player can't just get greedy and not report a year prior and have any leverage at all.
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True, not exactly the same situation.
 
KINGS17 said:
True, not exactly the same situation.
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I can imagine it happening though if they were to move to the NFL model a bit, with no guarantees. Players would be scrapping for any security they could get, like the NFL and guaranteed money (instead of term).

I do kind of wonder which hill the PA would be willing to die on. Yes NHL players like/want money and ultimately the longest term deals also have the longest money, but NHLers with families really really really like those NTCs...is their bigger priority to be in one place with security? Or is it just raw money?

...I mean after typing that out ultimately it would come down to money haha but still, it's interesting to consider the different landscape, NFLers know they have short careers and are often after the guaranteed money grab over term. They seem to prefer shorter contracts with guaranteed money. Would the NHL do that? Rhetorical question.
 
Fun article from The Athletic. I know @Herby loves him some Woody Hayes.

The art of the unnecessary two-point conversion, a staple of...

Perhaps the most famous example of unnecessarily going for two comes out of the always-simmering-if-not-scorching rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State. Everyone has heard Woody Hayes’ famous response when, as urban legend has it, he was asked why he went for two late in a 50-14 win over Michigan in 1968. “Because I couldn’t go for three,” Hayes allegedly replied.

But that’s not what happened.

Michael Rosenberg, a Sports Illustrated columnist and author of “War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest,” says he could not find any evidence that Hayes gave that infamous quote following the ’68 game. The former players he talked to insisted Hayes had, but Rosenberg needed to corroborate decades-old memories with actual documentation. He searched various newspaper archives and paged through coverage from the days that followed the game, in case it perhaps hadn’t been said immediately following the game. He couldn’t find anything.
 
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Another of my favorite Woody Hayes quotes...

"There are three things that can happen when you throw a pass, and two of them are bad."

It shows you the mindset of almost every coach at a major college at the time. At USC it was student body right. Back in the day Oklahoma ran the most risky running game with the triple option, but they loved to have the fullback lead blocking and hand off to one of the halfbacks.

 
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Interesting read, so many people have mentioned that though, makes me think there is some truth to it. I know Bo put up 50-14 stuff all over the room leading up to the 1969 game and many players from our side like Dierdorf have mentioned the (supposed) quote by Woody.

I'm sure Bo and Woody both enjoyed last nights Packers-Bears game from upstairs, that was their kind of football.
 
Herby said:
Interesting read, so many people have mentioned that though, makes me think there is some truth to it. I know Bo put up 50-14 stuff all over the room leading up to the 1969 game and many players from our side like Dierdorf have mentioned the (supposed) quote by Woody.

I'm sure Bo and Woody both enjoyed last nights Packers-Bears game from upstairs, that was their kind of football.
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Much of that type of football could be attributed to the number of scholarships major college football programs could hand out back in the day. The third string guys for teams like Michigan, Ohio State, USC, Alabama, Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, etc. could probably start at most of the other schools in their conference. Schools could hand out as many scholarships as they could afford, and many had as many as 150 football players on scholarship.

With that much disparity in talent the major football powers played it safe and simply ran over their opponents every Saturday.

Now the scholarship limit for Division-1A football is 85 players and the talent is spread out much more evenly. It's been great for college football.
 
I found this old video on Youtube of the innovative and awesome wishbone offense. No, it's not a salad dressing. :)

 
They finally found a Raiders' helmet that will fit Antonio Brown's head.

s-l640.jpg
 
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KINGS17 said:
Another of my favorite Woody Hayes quotes...

"There are three things that can happen when you throw a pass, and two of them are bad."
Click to expand...

I always thought this quote was a joke. I can say three things happen when you run the ball and two (fumble or yards lost) are bad.
 
Nine teams which have won the most games in college football history.

College football's 9 winningest teams | NCAA.com

Keep in mind @Herby this includes 5 wins over Kalamazoo. :)

Michigan Football All-Time Records vs. Opponents - University of Michigan Athletics

Watching Army play at Michigan today. It is fun to watch the amount of discipline and technique Army displays in running their offense. Love that "ARMY" is on the back of every jersey as well.

...and as I type that Army goes on an 11-play (all rushing plays), 60-yard TD "drive" consuming 6 minutes and 46 seconds of the clock to take a 14-7 lead. That is Army football.

EDIT: Loving this game, tied 14-14. Army makes another 4th down stand and takes over at their own 43-yard line, but with only 2:26 on the clock they probably don't have enough time to get in field goal range. The contrast in styles is fun to watch.

Army is going to try a 50-yard field goal with 2 seconds remaining...no good. OT!
 
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