Quotulatiousness

April 28, 2016

Vikings draft needs for 2016

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

As I say every year at around this time, I don’t know who the Vikings are planning to draft this year (because I don’t follow college football), but there are some positional needs that the team will probably address between Thursday and Saturday as the 2016 NFL draft unfolds. One position we can confidently predict won’t be high on the list is quarterback: the 32nd pick of the 2014 draft is still the incumbent starting quarterback and (most of us hope) Teddy Bridgewater will continue to develop in his third season in the league. Which leads to the first few draft needs most fans can readily identify:

  • Wide receiver. The Greg Jennings experiment didn’t yield the results the team had hoped for in 2014 (even though Greg Jennings is always open). The Mike Wallace experiment likewise failed to live up to eleven-million-dollars-worth of expectations in 2015. Will the (fill-in-the-blank) experiment finally energize the Vikings’ passing attack in 2016? The mock drafts this year are pretty insistent that the Vikings will draft TCU receiver Josh Doctson with the 23rd pick, unless Laquon Treadwell (Ole Miss) is still available … or (fill-in-the-blank).
  • Offensive line. Teddy Bridgewater apologists can reasonably point to the fact that the Vikings’ offensive line was … sub-optimal in 2015, which translated into Bridgewater being pressured more than any other NFL quarterback last season. Shoring up the line is a pretty good way to give the QB enough time to finally find his downfield receivers. Veteran center John Sullivan and right tackle Phil Loadholt should be back from serious injuries that kept them off the field for the entire 2015 regular season. Free agent additions of guard Alex Boone and tackle Andre Smith provide depth and flexibility (particularly in allowing Brandon Fusco to return to his natural right guard position after a terrible season at left guard). It wouldn’t be surprising to see the team add a high draft pick to the OL group this year.
  • Safety. While Harrison Smith has been establishing himself as one of the best safeties in the league, the team hasn’t been able to provide him with a complementary player to allow Smith to fully exploit his opportunities. While there’s still a chance that the “other” safety is already on the roster (Andrew Sendejo?, Antone Exum?, Anthony Harris? free agent addition Michael Griffin?), a number of players have rotated through that position without really establishing a legitimate claim. According to several stories, this isn’t a draft that is deep in potential safety help, it wouldn’t be surprising to find the Vikings drafting a safety during the first three rounds this week.
  • Linebacker. Much has been written over the last few months about the Vikings’ need for another linebacker, but with the team having used a first (Anthony Barr, 2014) and a second round pick (Eric Kendricks, 2015) on the linebacker position in the last two years, it would have to be a phenomenal player falling unexpectedly to tempt Spielman and company to draft yet another linebacker this high.
  • Defensive tackle. On first glance, this is a strength of the team, but injuries exposed some unexpected weaknesses in the depth chart in 2015 (Linval Joseph’s turf toe, Shamar Stephan went to IR, Sharif Floyd had multiple injuries, and Tom Johnson turns 32 this year). Adding a developmental player here makes a good deal of sense in this year’s draft.
  • Punter. It would not be a huge surprise to see the Vikings draft a punter this year. It would be a surprise to see them draft one before the sixth round, however. Incumbent Jeff Locke hasn’t been covering himself in glory since he was drafted in the fifth round of the 2013 draft.

Wargaming at the Marine Corps War College

Filed under: Gaming, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Professor James Lacey explains why he introduced commercial wargames into his curriculum for USMC officers at the war college:

As every team plotted their strategic “ends,” students soon realized that neither side had the resources — “means” — to do everything they wanted. Strategic decisions quickly became a matter of tradeoffs, as the competitors struggled to find the “ways” to secure sufficient “means” to achieve their objectives (“ends”). For the first time, students were able to examine the strategic options of the Peloponnesian War within the strictures that limited the actual participants in that struggle.

Remarkably, four of the five Athenian teams actually attacked Syracuse on Sicily’s east coast! As they were all aware that such a course had led to an Athenian disaster 2,500 years before, I queried them about their decision. Their replies were the same: Each had noted that the Persians were stirring, which meant there was a growing threat to Athens’ supply of wheat from the Black Sea. As there was an abundance of wheat near Syracuse, each Athenian team decided to secure it as a second food source (and simultaneously deny it to Sparta and its allies) in the event the wheat from the Black Sea was lost to them. Along the way, two of the teams secured Pylos so as to raise helot revolts that would damage the Spartan breadbasket. Two of the teams also ended revolts in Corcyra, which secured that island’s fleet for Athenian purposes, and had the practical effect of blockading Corinth. So, it turns out there were a number of good strategic reasons for Athens to attack Syracuse. Who knew? Certainly not any War College graduate over the past few decades.

All of these courses of action were thoroughly discussed by each team, as were Spartan counter moves. For the first time in my six years at the Marine Corps War College, I was convinced that the students actually understood the range of strategies and options Thucydides wrote about. In the following days, I was stopped dozens of times by students who wanted discuss other options they might have employed, and, even better, to compare their decisions to what actually happened. A number of students told me they were still thinking about various options and decisions weeks later. I assure you that no one even spent even a car ride home thinking about my Thucydides lectures.

[…]

At the end of each wargame, students walked away with a new appreciation of the historical circumstances of the period and the events they had read about and discussed in class. And even though all wargames are an abstract of actual events, I am sure that no student exposed to historical gaming will ever again read about the Peloponnesian War without thinking about Sicily’s wheat, the crucial importance of holding the Isthmus of Corinth, or what could have been done with a bit more Persian silver in the coffers of one side or the other’s treasury. Similarly, the next time one of this year’s students reads about Lee and Grant in 1864, they will also be thinking about how the truly decisive actions took place out west. For, as it was during the actual conflict, in every game the students played, Grant’s role was to pin down the Army of Northern Virginia, while the western armies ripped out the economic heart of the Confederacy.

In fact, I was astounded at the number of students who approached me after the Civil War exercise to mention that despite having studied the Civil War before, this was the first time they realized that the war was won in the west. I could go on for another few thousand words discussing other revelations students experienced through gaming and simulations, but the key point is that these experiential learning experiences linger in students’ minds for a very long time. I once asked my seminars how many of them had discussed the games and their results with their spouses. Every hand went up. I am quite sure that very few of them ever discussed one of my lectures with their spouses.

QotD: That’s why they call it “Sex Education”

Filed under: Education, Health, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I’m on the road in Thailand, speaking at a U.N. conference on sustainable A development in the Third World. Earlier today I listened to a presentation on the effects of sex education for women. The presentation mentioned some cultural value conflicts about sex education, but it occurred to me that it didn’t touch the biggest one. To wit: worldwide, the teachers want the kids to learn abstinence, but what the kids [want] to learn is technique.

Eric S. Raymond, “That’s Why They Call It ‘Sex Education'”, Armed and Dangerous, 2002-05-20.

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