We will get a better read on Snead now. But there are two things working. Finding talent and finding fit for the coach’s scheme and maybe attitude?

I like Wade. Good. 😉

That takes care of the defense, as far as I am concerned.

I would like to see Fassel back and I am not worried about OC.

wv wrote:

Whats the earliest life-form that we have Fossils of ?

w
v

I assume what you want is the Cambrian Explosion.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_02.html

The Cambrian Explosion:

For most of the nearly 4 billion years that life has existed on Earth, evolution produced little beyond bacteria, plankton, and multi-celled algae. But beginning about 600 million years ago in the Precambrian, the fossil record speaks of more rapid change. First, there was the rise and fall of mysterious creatures of the Ediacaran fauna, named for the fossil site in Australia where they were first discovered. Some of these animals may have belonged to groups that survive today, but others don’t seem at all related to animals we know.

Then, between about 570 and 530 million years ago, another burst of diversification occurred, with the eventual appearance of the lineages of almost all animals living today. This stunning and unique evolutionary flowering is termed the “Cambrian explosion,” taking the name of the geological age in whose early part it occurred. But it was not as rapid as an explosion: the changes seems to have happened in a range of about 30 million years, and some stages took 5 to 10 million years.

It’s important to remember that what we call “the fossil record” is only the available fossil record. In order to be available to us, the remains of ancient plants and animals have to be preserved first, and this means that they need to have fossilizable parts and to be buried in an environment that will not destroy them.

It has long been suspected that the sparseness of the pre-Cambrian fossil record reflects these two problems. First, organisms may not have sequestered and secreted much in the way of fossilizable hard parts; and second, the environments in which they lived may have characteristically dissolved those hard parts after death and recycled them. An exception was the mysterious “small shelly fauna” — minute shelled animals that are hard to categorize — that left abundant fossils in the early Cambrian. Recently, minute fossil embryos dating to 570 million years ago have also been discovered. Even organisms that hadn’t evolved hard parts, and thus didn’t leave fossils of their bodies, left fossils of the trails they made as they moved through the Precambrian mud. Life was flourishing long before the Cambrian “explosion”.

The best record of the Cambrian diversification is the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. Laid down in the middle-Cambrian, when the “explosion” had already been underway for several million years, this formation contains the first appearance in the fossil record of brachiopods, with clamlike shells, as well as trilobites, mollusks, echinoderms, and many odd animals that probably belong to extinct lineages. They include Opabinia, with five eyes and a nose like a fire hose, and Wiwaxia, an armored slug with two rows of upright scales.

The question of how so many immense changes occurred in such a short time is one that stirs scientists. Why did many fundamentally different body plans evolve so early and in such profusion? Some point to the increase in oxygen that began around 700 million years ago, providing fuel for movement and the evolution of more complex body structures. Others propose that an extinction of life just before the Cambrian opened up ecological roles, or “adaptive space,” that the new forms exploited. External, ecological factors like these were undoubtedly important in creating the opportunity for the Cambrian explosion to occur.

Internal, genetic factors were also crucial. Recent research suggests that the period prior to the Cambrian explosion saw the gradual evolution of a “genetic tool kit” of genes that govern developmental processes. Once assembled, this genetic tool kit enabled an unprecedented period of evolutionary experimentation — and competition. Many forms seen in the fossil record of the Cambrian disappeared without trace. Once the body plans that proved most successful came to dominate the biosphere, evolution never had such a free hand again, and evolutionary change was limited to relatively minor tinkering with the body plans that already existed.

Interpretations of this critical period are subject of lively debate among scientists like Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University and Simon Conway Morris of Cambridge University. Gould emphasizes the role of chance. He argues that if one could “rerun the tape” of that evolutionary event, a completely different path might have developed and would likely not have included a humanlike creature. Morris, on the other hand, contends that the environment of our planet would have created selection pressures that would likely have produced similar forms of life to those around us — including humans.

Published on Jun 2, 2016

Four and a half billion years ago, the young Earth was a hellish place—a seething chaos of meteorite impacts, volcanoes belching noxious gases, and lightning flashing through a thin, torrid atmosphere. Then, in a process that has puzzled scientists for decades, life emerged. But how? Mineralogist Robert Hazen as he journeys around the globe. From an ancient Moroccan market to the Australian Outback, he advances a startling and counterintuitive idea—that the rocks beneath our feet were not only essential to jump-starting life, but that microbial life helped give birth to hundreds of minerals we know and depend on today. It’s a theory of the co-evolution of Earth and life that is reshaping the grand-narrative of our planet’s story.

New evidence emerges on the origins of life
http://phys.org/news/2015-06-evidence…

7 Theories on the Origin of Life
http://www.livescience.com/13363-7-th…

The Origin of Life on Earth: Theories and Explanations
http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-o…

Can Science Explain the Origin of Life?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgQLy…

This is basically a mainstream view.

Published on Sep 6, 2015

The Cambrian Explosion Mystery explores the great mystery of the history of life:
The sudden appearance of most of the major complex animal types in the fossil record, without any trace of gradual transitional steps that Charles Darwin had predicted, calls the evolutionary theory into question.

Frequently described as “the Cambrian Explosion,” the development of these new animal types required a massive increase in genetic information. The big question that the Cambrian Explosion poses is where does all that new information come from in a geological instant?

This might be more entertaining?

Published on Aug 27, 2015

For most of the Earth’s history, life consisted of the simplest organisms; but then something happened that would give rise to staggering diversity, and, ultimately, life as complex as that which we see today. Scientists are still struggling to figure out just what that was.

The short version.

I am OK, as long as the choice is not McDaniel. I do like the idea of Phillips as DC.

Billy_T wrote:

Thanks, Mods.

Thing is, I used the KISS method when I posted everything. Simple Copy and Paste for the link, and then I went back to the images, right-clicked, and got the “copy link location” from them, used the editor tag for “img” here and that’s it.

No tinkering on my part at all. Very, very basic WordPress, html and php stuff.

And I’ve had my own website since 2007, with full admin rights and no “boss.” It’s mine, lock, stock and two smoking barrels.

So, anyway . . . .

Thanks. I hope people read the excerpt after all of your work!

As far as I know, you did everything right, Billy. That popup thing is a new one for me. Somehow an active link generates the popup. I believe it comes from the site and has nothing to do with how it is posted.

np, it is all good now.

Billy_T wrote:

Folks, sorry about the Bill Moyers login popping up. I didn’t know that would happen when I copied the article.

It is probably the way the software handles the link. I will try to fix it or just delete the stupid link.
.
I had to disable the link in 3 places. It is coming from the moyers site. You will need RM for more expertise.
.
Do a copy and paste of a valid link if you wish to visit the site or I can put it back the way it was.

Just a thought. Maybe Donald can play ILB. He runs a 4.6-7. He can do just about anything. He could still pass rush, but from anywhere.
I moved past moving Quinn to OLB, because everybody already does that. But, then, could he move to ILB?
At first glance, it appears that we need LBers, but there are a lot of combinations that might work. imo
But, how much of the time will we be in Nickel or Dime coverage?
I am more inclined to look for good man-to-man CBs.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Agamemnon.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/13501687/denver-broncos-one-best-defense-nfl

Broncos’ D could be among NFL’s best
Aug 24, 2015
John ClaytonESPN Senior Writer

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — John Elway’s signing of Peyton Manning moved the Denver Broncos into Super Bowl contention for the past three seasons.

But it could be the Denver defense that carves the team’s path back to the Super Bowl this season. To see this defense up close is to be surprised by the speed, like a televised horse race in which the tape speed is one-and-a-half times reality. It’s pretty clear the Broncos’ defense is under the radar. With Wade Phillips in charge as the defensive coordinator, the group is primed for improvement, and potentially the better unit on this team.

As I watched last Tuesday’s practice, linebackers were shooting through the blocking scheme so fast that they reached Manning twice before he was able to get the ball out. On another play, the pressure was instant, and Manning scrambled to his right and tossed the ball away to avoid the sack. Of course, a “sack” in camp is merely an obvious case of a defender being there before the ball would come out. But because you can’t hit the red jersey, defenders can slow up, and make the offense look better than it is. In this case, the speed with which Denver defenders could be near Manning was striking.

Speed. That’s the buzzword for the Broncos’ defense. DeMarcus Ware, Von Miller and Shane Ray fire through and into gaps with speed. The inside linebacking corps has range and speed.

“You just think about the guys in general — me, Von, Shane, Derek Wolfe and others,” Ware said. “We have guys who are very athletic. We don’t have the typical 3-4 guys who are doing two-gap. We are more of a pass-rush, dynamic 3-4. I am amazed how guys are hustling and getting to the quarterback.”

In the preseason opener, the Broncos sacked Seattle Seahawks quarterbacks seven times and forced Pete Carroll to make two changes along the line to fix the problems created by the Broncos. In two preseason games, the Broncos have a total of 12 sacks.

Because of the star power of the Broncos’ offense, the defense often gets overlooked. Under John Fox, who used a hybrid 4-3 scheme that dabbled a little with the 3-4, the Broncos finished third last year for fewest yards allowed and had 41 sacks.

Phillips thinks they can get better.
Shane Ray could be used in a rotation with DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller, making this a deep pass rush. AP Photo/George Bridges

“The sky is the limit for us,” Ware said. “We are trying to be the best defense in the NFL. That is testament to what Wade brings to the game and how he plays guys. We have those types of guys who run and get to the quarterback. We shoot gaps. And the linebackers are fast and quick.”

Ware is probably the biggest benefactor of the Phillips hire. Ware had 60.5 sacks in the four seasons Phillips was with him in Dallas. At 33 and in incredible shape, Ware might be ready to return into the 16-to-20 sack level for at least another season with Phillips calling the defensive plays.

“It’s a comfort level,” Ware said. “Those were some of my top years playing in Wade’s defense. You can see it with Von now. He’s 100 percent healthy. Wade knows how to stunt guys and when to drop them in coverages. For offenses, you don’t know who is coming.”

Miller should be a candidate for defensive player of the year in this scheme. He has 49.0 sacks in his first 56 games in the league. He looks natural in Phillips’ 3-4 pass-rush scheme. Miller is a unique talent. Ware compares him to Derrick Thomas, the former Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame pass-rusher.

“Von comes off with so much speed and tenacity trying to get to the quarterback,” Ware said. “He has so many different types of rushes. He can spin. He can duck underneath blockers. He’s a short box guy, but he just has so much power. He can get his body so low. That’s what the coaches always like. He can get around the corner and still keep his stability.”

Don’t underestimate Ware’s ability either. He has 127 career sacks and has eight trips to the Pro Bowl. Those qualifications alone make him a candidate for the Pro Football Hall of Fame down the road. The Ware-Miller pass-rush tandem ranks among the best in football. And don’t forget rookie Shane Ray. Considered one the top pass-rushers in the NFL draft, he fell to the Broncos and could allow more of a rotation, keeping Miller and Ware fresh.

Phillips is arguably the best coach in football when it comes to taking a base 4-3 defense and converting it to the 3-4. Transitions in San Diego and Houston dot his NFL résumé. He laughs off the idea that it’s a complex transition, saying the only difference in the schemes is whether one defender plays with a hand on the ground or not.

Some 3-4 schemes force defenders to handle two gaps. Phillips stresses the one-gap approach and players love shooting those gaps in trying to get to the quarterback.

“When players in Wade’s system come to the games, it’s not like it’s, ‘OK, I got to butt this tackle or butt this guard or I’ve got to play the A-gap and the B-gap,'” Ware said. “You know you are playing one gap and there are 10 other guys who have their own gap responsibility. Bill Kollar [the defensive line coach] came in here and said we aren’t two-gapping anymore, we aren’t going to be sitting ducks. We are a pass-rush 3-4 team.'”

When they started talking McVay and Phillips, I put McVay as the favorite. Will they wait to interview Shanahan?

Then they probably keep Snead.

I don’t have a favorite, except I don’t want McDaniels.

bnw wrote:

I understand and I agree that different mods jumping in could be very confusing. However that is not the case here since this has been an ongoing thing with only him. Even when I’m conversing with another mod.

I think zn is fair. You are going to have to work this out with him.