Is Clowney done?

Why not let’s see the rehab?

AP was supposed to be “done”… and he went out and dropped 2k on the NFL.

Some guys surprise out of rehab. These guys are special athletes.

zn wrote:

Manziel might improve.

In fact I am holding my breath on it.

Breathe. Now. It’s not worth it, man!

I think “sucks” is really strong and, in my humble opinion, should be reserved for the really poorest performing players…

You know… like Scott Wells, who by almost any metric is about the worst starting Center in the entire NFL. Actually, he’s ranked 39th out of 40 and has spent time at the very bottom.

Were it not for a couple of decent games, Davin Joseph would be right there with him.

Hill, isn’t in that “sucks” Tier. Not as I define suckitude ™, anyway.

Now, if you wanna just lash out at the QB who should be able to make plays no matter how the OL plays…well, then that’s just fandom stuff without much rational basis. It’s perfectly fine, but where you go, I cannot follow…

wv wrote:

If the Rams decide to go with a rookie QB
next year…let us hope it does
not look like this:

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2014121404/2014/REG15/bengals@browns#menu=gameinfo|contentId%3A0ap3000000443236&tab=recap

’bout what I expected. He wasn’t ready at any point to be a starting NFL QB.

I know they play different positions, but to think, there’s no place for Michael Sam, but this guy’s gonna get chance after chance after chance…

znhater wrote:

So now we are comparing Hill to Rodgers? Not a good comparison.

Now, that’s not what I was saying and you know it.

I was saying that if you are going to Grade a QB by how he performs against a D that routinely doesn’t allow QBs to perform well, then you’re going to get a skewed picture.

I mean if Defense A allows opposing QBs an avg QB rating of only 56 and none higher than 63, than that means that they’ve been pretty successful at mitigating that position from having much success. So, grading ANY QB based solely on how they perform against THAT defense will give you a skewed outlook because very few defenses can accomplish this.

My point in bringing up Aaron Rodgers was that he just happened to come up on one such defense. And it would be silly to judge HIM based on HIS performance against the Bills defense.

I wasn’t saying that Rodgers and Hill were equals or even in the same Tier of QB. I was saying that REGARDLESS of Tier, QBs can and do have bad games against good defenses and to judge them solely based on THAT, when the entire league isn’t made up of such defenses is a bit disingenuous.

Or to put it in your terms, if last week showed us how bad Hill can be, well okay, but it also showed us how bad Rodgers can be.

The difference is that Rodgers has far more upside than Hill so that one game isn’t being over-considered. Hill has more talent than most fans give him credit.

He has a winning record as a starting QB, for instance. Those same teams when not starting him? Badly losing record. He clearly improves those around him. So, Hill is a capable starter. Which he has proven again and again.

Now, is he a franchise QB? No. But he’s certainly not worse than Trent Dilfer, for example, with whom the Ravens won a Super Bowl.

Hill’s problem on Thursday night wasn’t Hill. It was exactly two people… Davin Joseph and Scott Wells. Had those two guys held up, we win that game.

It’s really that simple. No QB wins with that much pressure in their face that often. Hill took shots that reminded me of Warner back there. He’s double tough. So I don’t really fault him for throwing a duck or two at the end of the game. The fact that he was standing at all should shock and amaze Rams fans.

When was the last time we had a QB who could play even a lick who could take that kind of abuse? I mean since Bulger?

Well, styles make fights and Davin Joseph (and Wells) struggles with power. It wasn’t just Rucker giving him fits, either…

What a time to have a terrible game…

I can’t believe you guys are forcing me to post this, but…

Well, as always, this is academic.

Much will depend on which junior QBs declare and how their post-season workouts go. Some QB could just “get hot” and just have the light go on and start throwing lights out. It’s happened before.

Also depends on how the first and second rounds are shaking out. I figure we will be drafting around 15 or so…

Which either puts us in a nice position to trade down for a sweet interior OL and then pick up a QB in the 2nd or to maybe pick up a BPA player sliding or grab a QB that we really like for our system that others don’t.

Lots of options, but far too many variables this early.

The pants are a little faded, but damn, those jerseys are just so… VIBRANT!!!

LOVE THEM!

Mayock: He’s right. The Rams are a defensive nightmare right now. I’d wager even Green Bay wouldn’t want to face us…

I’ll add to this as I listen to the others…

yeah… on Chrome now… watching that is like watching a 3rd grader explain in front of the class why he didn’t do his book report.

The only thing missing is the class bully running up and kicking him and all the other kids laughing.

I didn’t think it was possible to feel sorry for him, but I kinda did. As a person. He signed a hyper-performance based contract and if he keeps playing like he is, he won’t even be in the league in three years, let alone be on that deal…]

Edit: oh and that 3 years includes the 2nd chance team…

• This reply was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by Mackeyser.

Frankly, if Jake Long wasn’t our LT, this season may have been very different.

We really underestimated how complicated the Gregg Williams’ D is and how long it would take for our young D to pick it up.

Even with losing our starting QB, we’ve discovered even more outstanding young talent and the D is really starting to GET William’s D showing it with quality wins over 3 of the 4 Conference Champions from last year in the span of 5 weeks which shows we have a star bright future.

I’m really on board with this trade…

if you look at how many 1st rounders are on this Rams team… it’s staggering. And it’s not like we collected everyone else’s 1st round busts… losing + draft manipulation + heads up pro evaluations has lead to some pretty stout roster building.

I’m stoked going forward.

I’ve posted a few things about this… of course, it’s me, so it’s long:

****
(Responding to a concern that it would be hard to believe that the DA had a remotely prosecutable case, but just decided to shelve it) Well, yeah, that’s pretty much what happened. As I quoted in the football thread, Justice Scalia in 1992 laid out very clearly the role of the Grand Jury and the presentation of evidence.

“It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.”

I’m quoting from an article on Alternet, but there are several good articles out there on this very topic. The article goes on:

The passage was first highlighted by attorney Ian Samuel, a former clerk to Justice Scalia.

McCulloch allowed Wilson to testify for hours and made sure the grand jury was aware of every possible piece of evidence that could exculpate the cop. In his rambling press conference Monday night, McCulloch explained that the refusal to indict resulted from the combination of contradictory eyewitness testimony and other exculpatory evidence. But it was immediately obvious to legal experts that the way the prosecutor presented the evidence virtually guaranteed that there would be no indictment, and therefore no trial. As the cliche goes, a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. But, it should be added, the prosecutor has to want the ham sandwich to be indicted. (emphasis mine)

There was so much wrong with how this went down that books will be written about it. McCulloch should have recused. He didn’t. He should have actually presented the charges to the Grand Jury. He didn’t. Not in the same manner as every OTHER Grand Jury. Normally a DA will actually present the charges and then essentially make his Prima Facie (or first facts) case as to WHY the Grand Jury should indict. It’s the whole point. His office functioned as de facto defense attorneys in the Grand Jury for Officer Wilson, a breach of the duties of his office before the Grand Jury. Other than giving the Grand Jury a list of charges, the Assistant DAs, NOT the DA himself, did NOT make any case for the return of any of the charges. As the Grand Jury was not sequestered, they KNEW they were in on the biggest case in the country and for the DA to not be presenting the case for indictment sent a STRONG signal to them that he didn’t expect an indictment. DAs are political animals and you will NEVER see a DA pass up a chance to get an indictment on a high profile case before the Grand Jury because if it goes to trial, he will want to ensure that everything before the Grand Jury is perfect. As an example, if this were going to trial, there’s NO WAY Wilson goes before the Grand Jury because the DA would want to tear into his inconsistent testimony on cross examination. Why the different distances? Why was his testimony from that day so different from the subsequent testimony a week later? How does he reconcile the testimony of the other person with Michael Brown who says Officer Wilson actually opened his car door and slammed it into Brown, which also puts everyone and the DNA in the right place, but puts Wilson on the aggressive and totally contradicts his account? NO ONE has put Wilson on a stand and cross-examined him. EVER. And now, it can’t happen. Which…was pretty much the plan all along. It had to be. There are just simply too many affirmative actions (no pun intended) taken to come to any other conclusion.

The shocking part isn’t that Officer Wilson wasn’t indicted. It was that it went to the Grand Jury at all and that they went to all the trouble of trying to cover for Officer Wilson when the outcome was predetermined. There is NO WAY after the release of that information that a discerning person can say that the DA sought justice or even the unvarnished truth.

The DAs office’s intent was to ensure that Officer Brown was NOT indicted. And they ensured that successfully.

I totally agree that any looting and burning is sad, unnecessary, counterproductive and wrong. What I appreciated were folks in the crowd wearing black hoodies with “Peacekeeper” on it in white letters and phone cameras and rather than videoing the cops, they were taking footage of the people. And whenever a crowd gathered, you’d see folks get there and try to start talking to people. Didn’t always work, but there were and are a lot of people who want to see this turn into positive change. MOST (easily 99+% of the people there throughout the months of protests) are looking to see positive changes… like community policing, body cams on police and a host of other things to make their community a better place.

One thing DA McCulloch DID say that is very true. If we want different outcomes, change the laws. Don’t burn things down. Now, with gerrymandering and all the political shenanigans all over the place, that’s a tough row to hoe, but if we as a people can deal with all we’ve changed from only white landowners participating in the political process to where we are today, we can certainly move even farther toward our founding ideals where we state that all men are created equal (and thus are treated equally under the law).
****

DA McCulloch misused the Grand Jury. Plain and simple.

As Justice Scalia points out, the Grand Jury is NOT the venue for exculpatory evidence. Moreover, Officer Wilson’s testimony was RIDDLED with inconsistencies that should have been subject to cross-examination at trial.

The purpose of the Grand Jury is NOT to convict. It’s to INDICT. And there was enough to indict. There just was.

Now… especially because Officer Wilson is a Police Officer, because the eyewitness testimony was inconclusive and because the forensics were also inconclusive and there was no video evidence, it’s pretty unlikely Officer Wilson would be convicted. At least of a higher crime like murder. Depending on what happened at trial, a REALLY good prosecutor might get him on a lower charge of a lesser manslaughter if he were able to establish better about the distances because Officer Wilson’s testimony didn’t match the forensic evidence…EITHER. That part gets glossed over by his defenders.

I’m not arguing that Officer Wilson is guilty…or innocent.

I’m not arguing that Michael Brown is guilty of anything since he’s not on trial (and he shouldn’t be PUT on trial in some BS equivocation nonsense).

I’m arguing that the Grand Jury process was subverted and, thus that justice was denied.

You don’t seem to argue that fact, but seem to rationalize it.

I wholeheartedly, to the marrow of my bones, respectfully disagree. The law is the law and we should follow it for all.

Officer Wilson was denied his day in court by this and thus was denied justice as well. Not to the degree that the Brown family was, obviously, as they lost a son. My point is that in subverting the Grand Jury process for a political outcome, justice was DENIED to all involved.

And anyone pointing to the Grand Jury process in this case as a vindicatory process simply doesn’t understand what happened.
****

(regarding the contention that the evidence dump was rigging the process)
the accusation that giving the jury all the evidence is the VERY DEFINITION of rigging it.

I’m sorry if you don’t understand that.

It is NOT, absolutely NOT the job of the Grand Jury to adjudicate the merits of guilt or innocence or to exonerate a person.

I’ve posted probably half a dozen times the standard articulated by Justice Scalia. That is NOT what McCulloch did. Moreover, what McCulloch did isn’t just kinda, sorta outside the norm. It’s SO UNUSUAL that it borders on the “unheard of” and people struggled to find precedent for it…anywhere.

Further, your statement that “it means there was no evidence of a crime” is just not correct. We don’t know that because the DA never ASKED the Grand Jury for an indictment. They put the Grand Jury in a very difficult position, a position that no trial jury is in because evidence there has the benefit of scrutiny by opposing counsel. They were asked to “figure it out” when the DA essentially created reasonable doubt by presenting all of the exculpatory evidence.

And let me be clear here. The ONLY evidence the DA SHOULD have presented was that evidence necessary to obtain an indictment. The DA before the Grand Jury functions in a prosecutorial role. Many veteran prosecutors have come forward (and they tend to lean pretty conservative) and said that they’ve never seen or heard of a DA or their office NOT presenting a case, only presenting the evidence AND presenting exculpatory evidence before the Grand Jury.

So, the only evidence the Grand Jury should have seen were those pieces of evidence that supported the charges AND THAT’S IT.

That’s the function of the Grand Jury. They perform a preliminary function in the judicial process.

It’s not exactly basic civics, but we can’t conflate juries.

And what DA McCulloch did sets a potentially disastrous precedent for DAs around the country to pawn off cases where they don’t want to indict onto the Grand Jury and then subvert the Grand Jury with these tactics.

It’s just really, really bad from a process standpoint. The Grand Jury is really important for a lot of reasons and its misuse by prosecutors should be heavily scrutinized and sanctioned.
****
I wanna say one thing.

The Grand Jury not indicting Officer Wilson does NOT mean he was innocent or guilty.

The Grand Jury not indicting Officer Wilson also does NOT mean that Michael Brown was guilty of anything (he was never on trial. Remember… he was the victim and he’s a dead human being).

What it means is that the Grand Jury returned No True bills on the charges presented.

I’ve read several people post things like “the evidence exonerates Officer Wilson” and stuff like that.

Well, no, it doesn’t. While there was a LOT of evidence, much of it including Officer Wilson’s testimony was NOT subject to Cross Examination nor secondary examination AND much of it was contradictory. All the more reason it should have gone to trial, really.

My point is that there was still a lot of work left to do and that SHOULD have been done at trial. Just the fact that Officer Wilson’s testimony was so grossly inconsistent from his initial statements to his later statements and how the distances didn’t match should have been enough to indict considering that enough distance would have put his other testimony in question.

But, basically, that’s it. The Grand Jury coming back didn’t “acquit” or “exonerate” Officer Wilson.

It may have exposed a very flawed, biased system and it certainly exposed a misuse of the Grand Jury by DA McCulluch (as defined by Justice Scalia), but all the Grand Jury finding did is say that the process wouldn’t continue. It didn’t express innocence or a lack of guilt.

Of anyone.