Quotulatiousness

January 6, 2020

Vikings upset New Orleans Saints 26-20 in wildcard round

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The Minnesota Vikings visited the home stadium of the NFC’s #3 seed the New Orleans Saints for a wildcard game as heavy underdogs. The game started poorly for Minnesota, as wide receiver Adam Thielen fumbled a reception and the Saints recovered deep in Vikings territory. The Vikings held New Orleans out of the end zone and forced the Saints to settle for a field goal to open the scoring. The Vikings responded with a field goal drive of their own to end the first quarter with the score tied 3-3.

In the second quarter, Minnesota punter Britton Colquitt finally did something he hadn’t done all season long — punted the ball into the opposing team’s end zone for a touchback. While the Vikings seemed to have figured out how to defend against future hall of famer Drew Brees at quarterback, they were left without many answers when the Saints used tight end/quarterback/gadget player Taysom Hill under centre instead, and he started with a long pass to Deonte Harris to put the ball inside the Vikings’ 5-yard line. He then threw a block to free running back Alvin Kamara for the go-ahead score. The Vikings responded with a drive capped with a Dan Bailey field goal to stay within one score. On the following Saints drive, Brees had a long pass picked off by safety Anthony Harris and the Vikings turned that into a touchdown on a five-yard run by Dalvin Cook.

In the third quarter, the Vikings added a touchdown on a drive that featured long passes from Kirk Cousins to Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs, capped off with another Dalvin Cook rushing TD.

The Saints got back into contention in the fourth, leading to a tied score at the end of regulation. The Vikings won the toss and elected to receive the kickoff to start overtime and drove down the field, scoring the winning touchdown on a Kirk Cousins to Kyle Rudolph corner of the endzone pass. Minnesota advances to the divisional round of the playoffs to face San Francisco next weekend.

Andy Carlson offers his winners and LOOOHOOOOHOOOOOSERS for the game:

At the Pioneer Press, Chris Tomasson says Kirk Cousins has answered his critics:

Enough of the talk that Kirk Cousins doesn’t step up in big games.

In the biggest game of his life on Sunday, the Vikings quarterback rose to the occasion when it mattered most.

Cousins led the Vikings to a 26-20 overtime victory over New Orleans in a wild-card playoff game at the Superdome with a decisive nine-play, 75-yard drive to open the extra session. The Saints never got the ball in overtime, and all future hall of fame quarterback Drew Brees could do was watch Cousins in action.

Cousins showed Brees-like poise in overtime, completing 4 of 5 passes for 63 yards. The Vikings won it on Cousins’ 4-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kyle Rudolph with 10:40 remaining.

“He got the game ball in the locker room,” Rudolph said. “He deserves it. All we’ve heard is Kirk Cousins this, Kirk Cousins that. Playoff games, big games on the road, so much nonsense. It takes 10 other guys on offense, and I said that all year long, and (Sunday) 10 other guys stepped up huge to allow Kirk to go out there and play well.”

Among the stats attached to him, Cousins has a career 0-9 record as a starter on Monday Night Football. His latest loss was 23-10 to Green Bay at home on Dec. 23, his last action until Sunday since he sat out the meaningless Dec. 29 regular season finale against Chicago.

Against the Saints, Cousins completed 19 of 31 passes for 242 yards and a touchdown as the Vikings advance to Saturday’s divisional playoff game at San Francisco. In overtime, he hit Adam Thielen with a 43-yard pass down the right sideline to the Saints 2 before Rudolph scored three plays later.

It was the first playoff win for Cousins in his eight-year NFL career, the first six with Washington. With the Redskins, he got into one playoff game as a reserve as a rookie in 2012 and another as starter in 2015.

At SKOR North, Judd Zulgad explains the impact Dalvin Cook had in the first half:

Dalvin Cook got only one carry on the Vikings’ opening series of their playoff game Sunday against the New Orleans Saints, but it was an important one. After missing two games because of a shoulder injury, Cook took a handoff from quarterback Kirk Cousins and gained 9 yards to make it second-and-1 at the Minnesota 39-yard line.

Wide receiver Adam Thielen’s fumble on the ensuing play turned over the ball to the Saints, but Cook’s initial carry provided optimism that one of the Vikings’ biggest offensive weapons was back. Cook would carry the ball four times for 16 yards on the Vikings’ next possession that ended with Dan Bailey’s 43-yard field goal that tied the score at 3.

The Saints’ defense knew at that point that one of the top running backs in the NFL, at least when healthy, was going to be a handful and had to be a focus of their attention. That was good news for everyone in purple, especially quarterback Kirk Cousins and play-caller Kevin Stefanski. It also was an important part of the reason the Vikings were able to depart the Superdome with a 26-20 overtime victory that set up a second-round meeting against the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday in Santa Clara, Calif.

“I’m excited. We won our first playoff game, I won my first playoff game and there are some guys in the locker room that won their first playoff game,” Cook said when asked about his emotions. “It’s big for the organization. I just want to do everything my team needs me to do and do it at a high level. We’ve got some guys in that huddle where when they’re locked in, we can play some good football.”

Cook played his best football in the first half, rushing for 84 yards on 16 carries and a touchdown and catching one pass for 19 yards. The touchdown came on a 5-yard run with 27 seconds remaining in the second quarter that gave the Vikings a 13-10 lead and followed safety Anthony Harris’ interception of a Drew Brees pass.

Cook also had the first touchdown of the second half, scoring on a 1-yard run to give the Vikings a 10-point lead, but the Saints slowed him in the final two-plus quarters. Cook had only 10 total rushing yards on 12 carries (in part because of a couple of plays that lost yardage) and caught two passes for 17 yards. But Cook played a big role in overtime, gaining 11 yards on a carry before Cousins completed a 43-yard pass to Thielen at the Saints 2 that set up the winning touchdown.

Paul Allen and Ben Leber have tried, manfully, to keep their exultation down to a dull roar in their “Between the Lines” post-game show:

At the Daily Norseman, Ted Glover gives us his Stock Market Report on the Saints game:

Junk Bonds
No one. Seriously? You want me to be “that guy” today? Sorry, I don’t have takes that hot. Let’s enjoy one of the biggest wins in franchise history, and focus on the 49ers starting tomorrow.

Buy/Sell
Buy: There was contact on the Rudolph touchdown. Hi, welcome to the NFL, both players were jockeying for position. If you want to say there was a foul on Rudolph there, you could just as easily say there was defensive holding while Rudy was still on his route. Honestly, I thought that although there were a few bad calls in the game, they weren’t tilted to favor one team or the other. For all the complaining we rightfully make about NFL officiating, I thought the ref crew did a good job and let the players play.

Sell: It was offensive pass interference. Just shut up with that weak ass sauce. Like I said above, if you call PI on Rudolph, you HAVE to call either defensive holding or PI on the linebacker covering him, because you can make a strong argument Rudolph was creating separation because he wasn’t allowed a clean break on his route by the defender.

Buy: Stefon Diggs, wide receiver. Loved the passion Diggs had on the sideline, and it seemed weird that the Vikings didn’t look his way more today.

Sell: Stefon Diggs, running back. But…you know, let’s not look at him as a running back. That play never feels like it’s going to work…and it didn’t again today.

Buy: The Saints season is over. I can’t tell you how much pure, unadulterated joy it gives me knowing that smug jackass Sean Payton had his season end three years in a row, in heartbreaking fashion, and two of those came at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings.

Sell: The Vikings season is over. It is far from over. The Vikes showed a ton of fight today and punched the Saints in the mouth while punching their ticket to San Francisco. The 49ers present another huge challenge, but if the Vikes can continue this kind of play, they’re going to be a tough out.

Quote of the Week
My wife doesn’t watch a lot of sports. She’s not a big football fan, but she’s sympathetic to my plight as a Vikings fan. Today, for some reason, she decided to sit and watch the game with me. There were the usual twists and turns, the peaks and valleys, and when it looked like Dalvin Cook had fumbled and the Saints returned it for a TD (which was overturned), she looked at me and said “I can’t take this” and went upstairs.

Two minutes later, when she realized it wasn’t a fumble, she was back, watching the game, all the way to the end. When it was over, she turned to me and said:

“Honey, why do you put yourself through this every week? I don’t know how you do it.”

Me either, baby. Me either.

So, Vikes win and we’re on to San Francisco. Let’s do it all again next week.

August 13, 2019

Vikings trade for P/K Kaare Vedvik, release LS Kevin McDermott

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It had been an uncharacteristically quiet training camp for the Minnesota Vikings so far this year, with very little in the way of drama or even news. Until Sunday, when the team sent their 2020 5th-round draft pick to Baltimore to acquire punter/kicker Kaare Vedvik and then released their veteran long snapper Kevin McDermott.

I’ll be honest, I rarely glance at news for those 31 other, less-important NFL teams, so Vedvik was a total unknown to me, but apparently he’s already been annointed as the saviour for the Chicago Bears, according to his Wikipedia entry:

It’s not clear whether Vedvik will be competing for the role of kicker (against Dan Bailey) or punter (against Matt Wile) or even both. The moves make sense financially for the Vikings, as they’re one of the worst-off teams against the salary cap this season: they gain $119,742 in cap space for releasing Kevin McDermott (with $200,000 “dead” money). Rookie Austin Cutting will earn $513,644 for the season.

And while I’m looking at Vikings coverage, I’ll include Ted Glover’s Buy/Sell ratings from his belated Stock Market Report on the New Orleans game:

Buy: Sean Mannion has the inside track for the backup QB job. Mannion had a nice night, and didn’t play himself out of the backup job, like a lot of us felt Trevor Siemian did last year. His TD to Johnson was a bit underthrown, but he stood tall in the pocket and delivered the ball right as he was getting hit. He did make at least one throw that should or could have been picked, but overall it was a respectable night for Mannion.

Sell: Kyle Sloter has lost the backup QB battle. His first drive in the second half was impressive. He made two great throws to Conklin and Khari Blasingame for over 40 yards, and hit Blasingame for a two yard TD pass to cap the drive. Sloter just looks like a guy that could be the backup, and if nothing else, I’d like to at least see him get some work with the second team.

Buy: There was some encouraging play from the rookie class. I gotta say, there’s a lot to like from this draft class so far, at least in the somewhat limited action. Garrett Bradbury looked very much like the real deal in his only drive, and we’ve already talked about Mattison, Smith, Blasingame, and Johnson.

Sell: It was all unicorns and rainbows for the rookie class. Still, it was and up and down night for these guys. Smith had the untimely penalty, Mattison never really got it going on the ground, and other than the two catches Johnson had in the second quarter, he didn’t do anything else. Fourth round pick Dru Samia had a holding penalty called on him and graded out very poorly per PFF, but I don’t recall any horrible missed blocks or assignments, though.

Buy: Nate Meadors pick six. Heck of an effort by Meadors to pick the bobbled ball out of mid air and take it to the house. It was a tough adjustment on the bobble, and a really nice play.

Sell: Nate Meadors made the roster with that play. I still don’t know that was enough to get him ahead of a guy like Kris Boyd or Holton Hill and his doghouse on the back end of the roster, though. I mean let’s face it, if the Saints tight end holds on to the ball, it’s a seven or 8 yard gain, more than likely, and a very routine play.

Buy: Preseason games are inherently sloppy. Young players are trying to learn the game at the NFL level, veterans haven’t played in seven months, and with all the substitutions constantly going in and out it and at times, it almost looks like a hockey game when lines are shifting. Both teams were bumbling and stumbling, and the referees are throwing more flags as they are wanting to highlight what the league is emphasizing in terms of fouls this year.

Sell: The amount of penalties can be excused because it was preseason. Eric Wilson had a nice TFL erased, Ifeadi Odenigbo had a sack that was almost a strip sack nullified, the first team defense had a penalty on a third and goal that gave the Saints a fresh set of downs … and that was all in the first half. The Vikings had 13 penalties for 176 yards, which is unacceptable for any game, preseason or otherwise. That has GOT to be cleaned up, as no team in the NFL can overcome that many mistakes and win consistently.

August 11, 2019

Vikings ruin Saints’ preseason home opener, 34-25

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

It’s only the preseason, so there’s no real “need” to win, aside from the natural urge to beat your opponent that comes with any competitive activity, but it’s always nice to win at someone else’s home field. The Minnesota Vikings visited the New Orleans Saints on Friday night, coming away with a comfortable victory.

As is typical in the first preseason game, the presumptive starters only play for a limited time in order to both limit injury possibilities and to provide more snaps for players further down the depth chart. Chris Tomasson reported on the game for the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Kirk Cousins was close to perfect to start the preseason last year. On Friday night, he was perfect.

At least according to the NFL’s passer rating.

In a 34-25 win over New Orleans at the Superdome, the Vikings quarterback completed 4 of 4 passes for 65 yards and a touchdown for a perfect passer rating of 158.3.

In last year’s preseason opener at Denver, Cousins completed 4 of 4 passes for 42 yards and a touchdown with a passer rating of 150.0.

And once again the Vikings won an exhibition opener. Head coach Mike Zimmer is now 6-0 in such games since taking over in 2014.

It initially looked Friday as if Cousins had hit Adam Thielen for a 35-yard touchdown pass after the receiver made a diving catch. However, a replay showed Thielen was down just shy of the goal line, and Cousins connected on the next play with rookie running back Alexander Mattison on a 1-yard touchdown pass for a 7-0 lead.

For the Saints, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater also impressive, and he played a lot longer. With starter Drew Brees held out, the former Vikings quarterback went the distance in the first half, and completed 14 of 19 passes for 134 yards and a touchdown.

Bridgewater, who played for the Vikings from 2013-17, suffered a severe knee injury in August 2016. He said on Wednesday he is fully recovered, and it certainly looked that way against his former teammates.

Cousins had expressed hope earlier in the week that the Vikings would score a touchdown on his only possession, and they delivered. Cousins also helped out with his legs, running for 10 yards on third-and-9 at the Minnesota 25 for the initial first down of the game.

At the Daily Norseman, Christopher Gates mentions some players who might have been buried in the depth chart before the game, but who materially changed their chances for making the final 53-man roster with their work on Friday night:

Bisi Johnson, WR – With the competition for the Vikings’ #3 wide receiver spot still pretty wide open, the seventh-round pick from Colorado State may have just jumped himself up to the top spot. He had two very nice catches on Friday night, including an 18-yard touchdown catch on a throw by Sean Mannion into very good coverage. He also got an opportunity as a kick returner in this one.

Nate Meadors, CB – I’m not sure what his odds of actually making the roster at this point are, but there’s no scenario where a pick-six is going to go down as a negative, so he pretty clearly helped himself. As we’ve said all offseason, with Mike Hughes’ status up in the air and Holton Hill’s status very well-known, there could be some room at the bottom of the cornerback depth chart in Minnesota, and Meadors is making his case.

Tyler Conklin, TE – Fellow tight end Cole Hikutini has been one of the hot names at Training Camp so far this year, but if the Vikings are going to keep four tight ends, it looked tonight like Conklin is comfortably in the lead for that spot at this point. He led the Vikings in receiving yardage on Friday, despite having just two catches. He averaged 28 yards/reception, and showed some nifty skills after the catch on a screen pass in the second quarter.

The Vikings’ young defensive linemen – With both the Vikings’ starting defensive tackles out of this one, some of the younger players up front got some chances to shine, and both Hercules Mata’afa and Jalyn Holmes did just that. Ifeadi Odenigbo also made the most of his opportunities on Friday night. There are going to be some very, very difficult decisions that have to be made among the defensive linemen on cutdown day, as has been the case the past few years.

October 29, 2018

New Orleans Saints 30, Vikings 20, as the turnover bug bites hard

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:40

Even the hardcore Minnesota Vikings fans were getting tired of the replays of last year’s “Minneapolis Miracle”, as it turned up so often in media and social media coverage coming up to Sunday night’s rematch between the Vikings and the Saints. This time, largely thanks to Minnesota mistakes, the Saints got the win.

Both teams had turnovers, but New Orleans earned 14 points off Viking errors and Minnesota didn’t capitalize on Harrison Smith’s interception, as Matthew Coller explains:

At 13-10, with the Vikings in front, the much-anticipated contest appeared to be shaping up as expected. A Sunday Night Shootout in front of a crowd that was ready to drive Brees crazy all night.

Then the Vikings caught a break. An overthrown ball by Brees right into the hands of Harrison Smith set Minnesota up to take a double-digit lead into the half.

Instead the Vikings committed back-to-back mistakes that would turn out to not only shape the game but become the trend in the second half.

With 3:03 left in the second quarter, Cousins began dicing up the Saints’ defense again, hitting on two third-and-long conversions, one to Kyle Rudolph and the other to Aldrick Robinson. On first-and-10 from the New Orleans 18, the flung a quick pass to Thielen on a play the Vikings have used with great success throughout this season.

After four yards, the Vikings’ star receiver was drilled by a Saints linebacker, sending the ball tumbling into Lattimore’s hands. He returned it to the Minnesota 33, which might have made it possible for the Vikings to hold the Saints to a field goal, but Laquon Treadwell inexplicably took a 15-yard penalty, setting up an easy touchdown for New Orleans.

At the Daily Norseman, Ted Glover provides his Stock Market Report on the game:

(more…)

July 3, 2018

The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

José Antonio
Published on Sep 3, 2010

By José Antonio…. Because the original version of this video, has low quality in both audio and video, I took the trouble to improve with better sound, better image quality, better zoom and better edition with the best of intentions, thanks.

En vista de que la versión original de este video, tiene baja calidad tanto en audio como en video, me tomé la molestia de mejorarlo con mejor sonido, mejor calidad de imágen, mejor zoom y mejor edición con la mejor de las intenciones, gracias.

January 16, 2018

Vikings-Saints Stock Market Report by Ted Glover

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Due to the later finish in Sunday’s Vikings-Saints divisional round game, I didn’t get to include the Daily Norseman‘s Ted Glover assessing the game in his patented Stock Market Report format. Belatedly, here’s the Buy/Sell section for this game:

(more…)

January 15, 2018

Vikings beat New Orleans Saints 29-24 in improbable finish to advance to NFC Championship game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The first half played out pretty much exactly as Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer game-planned it, allowing the New Orleans Saints no chance to score and reaching halftime with a 17-point lead. The second half didn’t go as anybody game-planned it, right down to the so-improbable-that-no-movie-director-would-ever-script-it last-second winning touchdown to clinch the game for Minnesota:

(more…)

January 12, 2018

The wisdom of Zim Tzu, pre-divisional round edition

Filed under: Football, Humour — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

This Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings will host the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Divisional round. By league rules, the head coach of each team must address the media at least once before the game, and despite his deep revulsion for all things media-related, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer held the obligatory press conference earlier this week. As always, Zim Tzu does not dispense his wisdom lightly or to those who are incapable of comprehending the totality of his vision. For those benighted souls, the Daily Norseman gets their only black belt Zim Tzu disciple to provide an informed and educated translation of the guru’s brilliance, appropriately interpreted for the unwashed masses:

(more…)

September 12, 2017

MNF – Vikings beat New Orleans Saints 29-19 in season opener

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

One of the bigger story lines coming in to Monday night’s game between the New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings was the return of running back Adrian Peterson. After spending his entire career with the Vikings, he was clearly relishing the chance to play against his former team and provided lots of juicy quotes to the media about his plan to “stick it” to the Vikings. It didn’t quite work out the way he was hoping…

The Vikings’ expensively re-tooled offensive line — who didn’t play a single down together during the preseason — did a great job of protecting Sam Bradford. Right tackle Mike Remmers was responsible for one sack by Cameron Jordan, but otherwise the line largely kept the pressure away from Bradford. Without the need to constantly check down or run for his life (like most of the 2016 season), Bradford put in a very impressive performance, 27 of 32 for 346 yards and three touchdowns. The most impressive was a lightning-quick three play drive late in the first half that covered 74 yards and ended in a touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs.

(more…)

August 31, 2017

“Harvey is not Katrina”

Filed under: Economics, Environment, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Nicole Gelinas on the crucial differences between the situation faced by New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and that currently faced by Houston after being inundated by Hurricane Harvey:

The Houston region has received record rain, more falling in less than a week than it usually does in a year, and at least 30 people, including a Houston police officer, have died. Harvey, however, is not Katrina. One measure of this difference is in electricity provision. After Katrina, New Orleans was almost entirely without power for weeks. In Houston, by contrast, 94 percent of customers still had power as of early Wednesday.

Though we won’t know for sure for a while, the fact that Houston has kept the power on is likely in part a legacy of infrastructure investment after previous storms. Five years ago, Hurricane Ike actually cut power to 95 percent of Houston. But, as NPR reported after the storm, the city’s power company, CenterPoint, took steps after Ike, as well as after Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, to upgrade the grid, spending $400 million. Houston, helped by $50 million in federal money, cut down tens of thousands of trees along power lines and outfitted poles with the ability to re-route electricity away from damaged routes toward undamaged ones.

With power, hospitals can continue to operate; even Ben Taub Hospital, surrounded by water, kept the power on. Stores, too, have quickly begun to reopen. Power also means that people whose homes didn’t flood can stay put, lessening the burden on police to keep neighborhoods safe from looters. If the power stays on — as it should, now that worst of the storm is over — Houston should do well. If it goes out, the city will have far more serious problems.

[…]

Empty neighborhoods and business districts invite looting. Houston had already arrested 15 people as of late Tuesday for allegedly trying to steal everything from liquor to an ATM, and for attempted robbery, as well. These arrests, plus a nighttime curfew, are a good sign; after Katrina, New Orleans police officers failed to keep control over the city, both because of the severity of the damage, which left most of the city empty and dark, but also due to their longstanding poor performance. Harris County district attorney Kim Ogg and Houston police chief Art Acevado have already set the right tone to deter wrongdoing. Ogg said Tuesday that thieves “are going to feel the full weight of the law,” and Acevedo said he would push for tough sentences for people convicted. In New Orleans, by contrast, state and local officials’ apocalyptic invocation of “martial law,” rather than calm reliance on the rule of normal law, only exacerbated the sense of chaos.

With some, though not most, Houston neighborhoods now deserted, state law enforcement have a role to play here, as well, with federal support. A competent local police force will be busy, after a storm, in helping still-populated areas. In turn, state police and the National Guard, who have less experience interacting with people on a neighborhood level, can help by patrolling and securing empty areas. To that end, Texas has already activated the National Guard, adding 12,000 people to safety efforts, as well as for rescue and food distribution.

Oh, and as Caroline Baum points out, don’t be misled by idiotic claims that hurricane damage is somehow good for the economy:

You will no doubt hear assertions that the rebuilding effort will provide a boost to contractors, manufacturers and GDP in general. But before these claims turn into predictable nonsense about all the good that comes from natural disasters, I thought it might be useful to provide some context for these sorts of events.

The destruction wrought by a hurricane and flooding qualifies as a negative supply shock. Normal production and distribution channels are destroyed or disrupted. Producers have to find less-efficient (i.e. more expensive) ways to transport their goods. The net effect is lost output and income, and higher prices.

Over the years, I’ve observed a tendency among economists and traders to view such events through a demand-side prism. They see lost income translating into reduced spending on goods and services, which might even warrant some largesse from the central bank.

Of course, that is precisely the wrong medicine. Supply shocks reduce output and raise prices. The Federal Reserve’s interest-rate medicine affects demand. Lower interest rates will increase the demand for gasoline, among other goods and services, but they have no effect on supply. An easing of monetary policy under such circumstances would increase demand for already curtailed supply, raising prices even more.

But wait. What about all the new construction and investment necessitated by the devastation? Homeowners will have to rebuild. Businesses will have to replace destroyed or damaged plants and equipment. Pretty soon, we should start to hear about a boost to GDP growth.

In the short run, yes. But focus on the prefix, “re,” as in re-building and re-placing. After a natural disaster, housing starts are bound to increase, but there will be no net addition to the supply of homes. Capital spending will increase as well, but it will not expand the nation’s capital stock.

She also provides a link to this very topical essay by Frédéric Bastiat: That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen. In short, we see the spending caused by the need to repair damages (in this case from the flooding), but we don’t see what might have been done if the money hadn’t needed to be spent just to replace existing stock.

April 26, 2017

Former Viking Adrian Peterson to sign with New Orleans Saints

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Former league MVP to sign (a much smaller) deal with the New Orleans Saints for the 2017 season. Minnesota declined his option for this year partly because it carried an $18 million pricetag — significantly more than any other running back in the league. Chris Tomasson reports for the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Adrian Peterson finally has a new team.

The running back, who became a free agent March 9 after 10 seasons with the Vikings, told ESPN on Tuesday morning he will sign with the New Orleans Saints.

Peterson won’t have to wait long to run into his old team. The Saints open the season on Monday Night Football at Minnesota.

NFL Media reported on Monday that Peterson was close to deal with New Orleans. Peterson on Tuesday morning confirmed that, and gave ESPN contract details.

Peterson said his deal will be for one year with an option for a second year. He said he will make $3.5 million in guaranteed money in 2017, with $2.5 million being a signing bonus and $1 million guaranteed base salary. He said his 2018 option would include $3.5 million in non-guaranteed salary, with $2.4 million of it possible in roster bonsuses.

“I am excited to be joining the New Orleans Saints,” Peterson told ESPN. “I’m really looking forward to this opportunity. Most importantly, I chose this team because it just felt right within my spirit. Additionally, my wife and family added their confirmation with the same feelings.

The NFL’s marketing department quickly fired up their copy of Photoshop to show AP in his new colours:

August 31, 2015

Ten years later – how the media covered Katrina

Filed under: History, Media, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

W. Joseph Campbell describes the media’s role in contributing to — and sometimes inventing — the persistent myths of what happened in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina made land-fall:

I call it the “myth of superlative reporting,” the notion that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught 10 years ago, journalists bravely held powerful officials accountable for their inept responses to a storm blamed for the deaths of 1,800 people.

Dan Rather, the former CBS News anchorman, gave voice to the “myth of superlative reporting,” describing Katrina coverage as “one of the quintessential great moments in television news,” ranking “right there with the Nixon/Kennedy debates, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate coverage, you name it.”

A quintessential great moment is was not.

The reporting of Katrina, as I wrote in my 2010 media-mythbusting book, Getting It Wrong, “was in important respects flawed and exaggerated. On crucial details, journalists erred badly, and got it wrong” in describing horrors the storm supposedly unleashed across New Orleans after making landfall east of the city on August 29, 2005.

Journalists reported snipers firing at medical personnel, I noted. They reported shots were fired at helicopters, halting evacuations from the Convention Center in New Orleans. They told of bodies being stacked like cordwood inside the Convention Center.

News reports also spoke of roving gangs that terrorized occupants of the Louisiana Superdome, where many people had taken shelter. The reports said children were victims of sexual assault, that one seven-year-old was raped and her throat was slit. They reported that sharks were plying the flooded streets of New Orleans.

None of those reports, as it turned out, was verified or substantiated.

“If anyone rioted,” said a bipartisan congressional report about Katrina, “it was the media.

“Many stories of rape, murder, and general lawlessness were at best unsubstantiated, at worst simply false.”

Erroneous and over-the-top reporting, I wrote in Getting It Wrong, “had the cumulative the effect of painting for America and the rest of the world a scene of surreal violence and terror, something straight out of Mad Max or Lord of the Flies.”

Here’s what I wrote ten years ago, based on the media reports coming out of Louisiana:

(more…)

September 22, 2014

Vikings lose to Saints 20-9 in injury-filled game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

I posted yesterday that I thought the leash on quarterback Matt Cassel might be getting shorter, after the horrible outing last weekend at home against the Patriots. Sunday’s game in New Orleans was starting to look like we had another instance of “Bad Matt” on our hands, but head coach Mike Zimmer didn’t have the chance to decide whether to make a quarterback change, as Cassel left the game midway through the first half with what was originally termed “turf toe”, but was later re-defined as “fractures in his foot”. Teddy Bridgewater came in to play the rest of the game — the Vikings only had Cassel and Bridgewater active, so rather than Christian Ponder, the emergency quarterback would have been next man up … and we haven’t had a definite word on who the emergency quarterback would have been. Cassel is definitely out for a prolonged period (possibly the entire season, if the MRI verdict is bad), and Bridgewater has been designated the starting quarterback for next week.

Aside from Cassel, other players who left the field due to injury included tight end Kyle Rudolph, right guard Brandon Fusco, linebacker Chad Greenway, and cornerback Josh Robinson. So if you’re keeping count, the Vikings are missing their starting QB (injury), starting RB (Adrian Peterson is on the Exempt list and away from the team indefinitely), starting RG (injury), starting TE (injury), backup WR (Jerome Simpson, who was cut this week for his continued legal issues), starting LB (injury), and backup CB (injury). That’s a full season’s worth of personnel changes in only three games.

While the game was hardly a thing of beauty, the team rallied around Bridgewater and the defence put in a much better performance in the second half and might have kept the Saints out of the endzone but for a badly timed penalty on Captain Munnerlyn which kept a scoring drive alive. When you don’t get a win, you look for positives, no matter how meaningless they might seem:

Of course, there were positives that were not meaningless, like the return of the intermediate-to-deep passing game:

Bridgewater’s debut wasn’t statistically eye-popping — 12 of 20 for 150 yards and a passer rating of 83.3, plus 27 yards rushing, but he made few mistakes and generally did everything you want your backup quarterback to do when inserted into a game part-way through. Cassel had not completed a pass longer than 15 yards in the first two games of the season (unless you count interceptions). It’s also interesting to note that Bridgewater didn’t play at Louisville until he replaced an injured quarterback in the third game of his rookie season, now he’s replaced an injured quarterback in the third game of his rookie professional season.

Despite the road loss, Ted Glover sees signs of life in the Vikings, particularly with Teddy at the helm:

When Matt Cassel was hurt early in the game, my Twitter timeline BLEW UP. Not because everyone was happy that Cassel got hurt (and seriously, if you did, you’re a terrible human being — get well soon Matt) but because it was Teddy Time, the moment we’d all been waiting for. And it was in about the most inopportune time one could ask a rookie quarterback to come in at — on the road in a very hostile environment, against a good team, down 10 points. His numbers weren’t sparkling (12/20 150 yards, 0/0…6 carries for 27 yards) but for a guy getting thrown into the fire, he looked good, and played well. He looked in command, and made some very good throws, including one to Greg Jennings on a frozen rope. It was a hell of an effort for a guy pretty much thrown to the wolves, and yeah, he missed some throws, especially a couple of easy swing passes to Jerick McKinnon that looked promising. And no, he didn’t engineer a touchdown, which was the first time since the Vikings didn’t score a TD in a game since 2010. But there was so much to like in the debut, that you can’t help but be encouraged that the Vikings maybe, finally, have stability at the quarterback position.

Update: A Final Dispatch From The Teddy Bridgewater Underground. ¡Viva la Revolución!

February 4, 2013

CBS Sports fumbles during SuperBowl blackout

Filed under: Football, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:23

In the New York Daily News, Bob Raissman asks why CBS didn’t bother to do any actual “journalism” about the blackout:

The fans inside the Superdome were not the only ones left in the dark when half the building’s power went out in the third quarter of Super Bowl XLVII Sunday night. Viewers were left with unanswered questions as CBS Sports’ sideline reporters, and the rest of the cast, failed to go into a reporting mode.

There was no outrage, no questioning how a thing like this could happen on the NFL’s biggest night of the year.

At a time when they should have been aggressively gathering news, CBS’ crew was satisfied with the crumbs the NFL dropped on them. And they swallowed the scraps gladly. Not once during the 34-minute delay did a representative of the National Football League appear on camera to attempt to explain what caused half the Superdome to lose power. Why should they? No one from CBS put any pressure on them.

[. . .]

Think about it. CBS pays billions for the right to air NFL games. Much of that dough is shelled out to secure rights to the Super Bowl. So, on the big night, there is a major screwup and the NFL won’t put someone on the air — and CBS won’t push the league — to try to explain what’s going on? That’s mind-boggling.

But not quite as wacked as CBS’ laid-back approach to reporting this story, which will go down as one of the more unusual moments in Super Bowl history. All the players were on the field, waiting, stretching. Why not take a camera and microphone on the sidelines for an interview? If they blow you off, fine — at least viewers would have something worth watching.

May 2, 2012

The real NCAA scandal is how they treat the student athletes

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:05

Gregg Easterbrook’s annual post-draft column spends a bit of time excoriating the NCAA for its massively misplaced ethical priorities:

The draft had been in progress more than a day when the Sinners finally chose, having traded their first choice and lost their second in Sinnersgate. New Orleans’s first selection was Akiem Hicks, who played eight-game seasons at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, going there after the NCAA blackballed him for recruiting violations. Nakia Hogan of the New Orleans Times-Picayune describes the deeply shocking abuses of which Hicks was guilty:

“In 2009, Hicks transferred to LSU from Sacramento City Community College. … But Hicks was mired in a minor recruiting violation and never got to play at LSU. The school discovered potential violations associated with impermissible telephone calls to Hicks in the recruitment process, impermissible transportation before and after his arrival at LSU, impermissible housing and reduced-rent at an apartment complex in Baton Rouge in the three months before his enrollment at LSU, and the purchase of one meal by a football office student worker.”

Impermissible telephone calls! Three months of help with rent money! One free meal! Lock him up and throw away the key!

The description of Hicks’ blackballing sums up everything offensive about NCAA hypocrisy. Not only is it theater of the absurd that the NCAA punishes telephone calls. Not only do college kids always need help with the rent — if a kid from an upper-class family who was applying to LSU got trust fund money for his rent and meals, no one would blink. The real scandal is that the NCAA punishes phone calls but could not care less about graduation rates.

In the year Hicks tried to enter LSU, the federal graduation rate for the LSU football program was 42 percent, compared to 56 percent for the school as a whole. (Find any Division I sport program’s graduation statistics here.) The NCAA took no action on that.

College football players are creating hundreds of millions of dollars of value that goes to fund luxury living by coaches, college administrators and NCAA staff, but are not getting educations in return. Each passing day brings more evidence of the Taylor Branch “new plantation” analysis of big-college sports. As big-college coaches and NCAA administrators dine at four-star restaurants, one hungry kid gets one free meal — that must be punished! The horror, the horror!

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress