Two quick, mostly throw away items:
1. I was reading Serious Smith & Wessons the N- and X-Frame Revolvers last night, and ran across something interesting: according to Mullin, S&W designed the X-frame revolvers so that the cylinder was long enough to chamber the .223 Remington cartridge.
Beyond the fact that a revolver in .223 is a wonderfully silly idea (and I’d probably buy one): overall length of the .223 Remington is 2.26 inches. Overall length of the .221 Remington Fireball: 1.830 inches. At least one of my ideas doesn’t sound so silly now…
(And a long overdue thanks to Ygolonac for weighing in. I like your idea, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.)
2. More on the Tom Coughlin firing: it may have been motivated in part by Jacksonville’s record. But another part of the motivation may have been that Coughlin managed to make a lot of people upset.
Like the NFL Player’s Association.
Coughlin changed the clocks because his philosophy is, if you’re not five minutes early to a meeting or commitment, you’re considered late. It’s one of the ways he emphasizes accountability. Another way he does that is by fining players for rules infractions, including for missing doctor and rehabilitation appointments during the offseason.
That, however, is prohibited by the NFLPA, which released a letter on Monday that said former player Dante Fowler Jr. had won a grievance against the Jaguars after being fined 25 times for more than $700,000. The letter also noted that more than 25% of the grievances filed by NFL players over the past two years have been against the Jaguars and that “you, as players, may want to consider this when you have a chance to select your next club.”
That sounds a lot like the old Lombardi time. 15 minutes early, you are early, 10 minutes early, you are on time, on time, you are late.
I think that is close. I read it from Jerry Kramer’s book Instant Replay.
The Detroit Lions renewed Matt Patricia’s contract for one more year. At first, I was amazed, but the more you think of it, the more sense it makes. This was his second year. To move him out and bring in a new coach means bringing in a new system, both on offense, and most likely on defense. The Lions are going to have decent draft picks next year. Probably a better idea to wait and give him one more year to try and get things going. The Lions have got many obvious holes to fill, but the most obvious one is going to be Slay, who is going to be a free agent, and probably won’t get enough money to stay in Detroit, especially with the lousy team they have.
A big part of what hampered the Lions this year, just like every year, is of course, a lack of a running game, caused by an up and down offensive line, caused by injuries. Of course, each team must deal with injuries, and Detroit is no different than the other teams. It just seems like they never can get enough depth on the offensive line. Most teams can have a couple of linemen go down, and cover them with the same quality players. Detroit, if they get more than one or two men on the front offensive line hurt, they are in deep doggie doo.
The defensive line, they played fine, they just played under a crappy system, that most times saw them rushing only 3 men. Even the newest quarterback, given enough time, will pick a secondary apart, and we saw that happen time and time again. Against the elite of the league, those quarterbacks were able to pad their stats. Plus, 3 men can’t be expected to contain one of the quarterbacks who have legs and can run, if nobody’s open. That happened time and time again.
Matthew Stafford, he is a top notch player, and I saw fans wanting him to get benched. The fans didn’t know that he was playing with broken bones, just like he does every year, and is still in the top 7 or 8 of the league. He finally had to sit down when he broke bones in his back, and they forced him to sit out. But he wanted to play the next week. Fortunately, with the record they had, it was an easy choice to put him on injured reserves and let him finally rest. He deserves it.
As we say in Michigan, for both the Lions and the Tigers, wait until next year.