PA Ram wrote:

There’s uncertainty at QB and a woeful offensive line.

Injured.

It’s different.

Replacing 2 interior linemen is not this huge challenge.

In fact, as a study I posted once shows, since 93 and the era of the cap and free agency, every NFL team changes OL starters at the rate of 3.5 every 2 years.

In that environment replacing 2 is nothing.

Agamemnon wrote:

A poster that works hard on scouting, from Ram Stalk. They use blue font.

Except there, blue font is code for “while I am mildly puzzled, I am also a bit intrigued.”

I think.

It’s interesting that Ryan and Fisher seem to prefer the same kinds of coordinatators.

What people say is true, though…Rex needs a qb.

Texts to sideline raise questions

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12142088/nfl-investigating-whether-text-messages-were-sent-cleveland-browns-sideline-games

The NFL is investigating whether text messages were sent to the Cleveland Browns’ sideline during games, league spokesman Michael Signora told ESPN.com on Friday.

Texting would be a violation of the NFL’s rules prohibiting electronic communication during games.

Signora did not elaborate except to say the league is looking into the matter.

“We are reviewing internally and will fully cooperate with the NFL on this matter,” the Browns said in a statement.

Though it’s not clear who sent the messages and who received them, a team source said the messages were subject of discussion among some players and coaches late in the season.

Cleveland.com originally reported the text messages were sent and said it was one issue in former offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan leaving the team. He perceived it as interference from the front office regarding coaching decisions.

Though no texts have become public, the messages regarded personnel decisions and play calls, the source said.

The league’s electronic devices rule states:

“This prohibition … applies to the use of any electronic communication devices, including but not limited to a cell phone, smart phone, tablet device, or any type of computer, whether online or stand-alone, including laptop and hand-held computers, in the coaches’ booths, on the sidelines, in the locker room (after kickoff), or in any other club-controlled area on game day beginning ninety (90) minutes prior to kickoff and continuing through the end of the game, including halftime (with the exception of League-issued tablets used for coaches’ still photos).

“Team doctors and members of the athletic training staff are permitted to use tablet devices, cell phones, smart phones, or similar devices within the bench area and locker room to communicate player injury information, but may not communicate competitive or strategic information.

“Club football operations staff members are permitted to use cell phones outside the coaches’ booths, bench areas, and locker rooms only when handling non-competitive and/or non-strategic communication.”

Mueller report criticizes NFL’s handling of Rice incident

Associated Press

Thursday, January 8, 2015

NEW YORK — The long-awaited Mueller report was released Thursday with no unexpected findings: the NFL initially botched the Ray Rice case and had a weak domestic abuse policy, but investigators found no evidence league officials saw tape of Rice hitting his fiancee before it was released.

Owners and executives were quick to say the league had learned from its mistakes and is solidly behind Commissioner Roger Goodell and changes he has made.

The report from a former FBI director hired to investigate said the league’s investigative system relied too much on information from law enforcement after the former Ravens running back knocked out his fiancee in an elevator at the Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J.

The 96-page report by Robert S. Mueller III said NFL employees might have been able to view the video of Rice hitting Janay Palmer before handing down the suspension had they tried harder.

“The NFL should have done more with the information it had and should have taken additional steps to obtain all available information about the Feb. 15 incident,” Mueller said in a statement.

The report said a review of league phone records and e-mails showed no evidence that employees had seen the video before it hit the Internet in September.

A law enforcement official showed the Associated Press videos of the incident and said he mailed a DVD to NFL headquarters in April. The officer played a 12-second voice mail from an NFL office number dated April 9, in which a woman verifies receipt of the DVD and says: “You’re right, it’s terrible.”

The league’s private investigation, without subpoena power, did not contact that law enforcement official. The official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to share the evidence, said Thursday he didn’t speak with NFL investigators.

Mueller found the NFL’s deference to the law enforcement process involving Rice “led to deficiencies in the league’s collection and analysis of information during its investigation,” essentially a de-emphasis on understanding precisely what happened.

“League investigators did not contact any of the police officers who investigated the incident, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, or the Revel to attempt to obtain or view the in-elevator video or to obtain other information,” the report said.

Agamemnon wrote:

wv wrote:
Well in any of Fisher’s gazillion years
in Tennessee, did he use a predominantly zone blocking scheme?

…i wonder if he thinks that ZBS fits Tre Mason better.

w
v

I don’t think it makes much difference. It seems all the teams use parts of different things. Nothing is pure anymore. 4-3 3-4, zone power, west coast not west coast, they all seems to include parts of each other. It is more about philosophy. imo

Well that’s not really the case though with the Shanahan/Kubiak circle. They use predominantly zone schemes, far more than anyone else. It’s not the “mixed bag” you see with most teams. And the Rams under Schott were predominantly a power blocking scheme.

There would be a marked difference. The Shan/Kub circle just runs zone blocking far more than other teams–it’s their thing. It’s their signature.

wv wrote:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/01/09/375418410/why-pygmies-arent-scared-by-the-psycho-theme?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150110

Why Pygmies Aren’t Scared By The ‘Psycho’ Theme

In many ways, music and emotion almost seem interchangeable.

Try listening to the Star Wars’ Cantina Band song without smiling, or to the Psycho soundtrack without feeling a little tense.

But what if you had never heard Western music before. Would these songs still make you feel the same way?

Scientists at McGill University and the University of Montreal got the rare opportunity to answer that question. Their findings, published Wednesday in Frontiers in Psychology, suggest that music isn’t always a universal language.

Deep in the rain forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a group of Pygmies lives in near isolation from Western culture. The Mbenzele Pygmies don’t have electricity, radios or cellphones. Many have never heard a note of Brahms or the beat of Beyonce.

On a trip to Congo, anthropologist Nathalie Fernando of the University of Montreal played 11 excerpts of Western songs to 40 Pygmies. Some songs, such as “Cantina,” trigger positive feelings in Westerners. Others, like the Psycho theme or Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, trigger negative or sad feelings in Westerners.

But the Pygmies didn’t hear the music that way.

The emotional cues in songs, which Westerners pick up on, didn’t mean the same to the Pygmies: They didn’t hear the shrieking strings of the Psycho theme as stressful or the minor chords in Wagner’s Tristan as sad.

“The emotional response to this music was all over the map,” says neuroscientist Stephen McAdams of McGill University, who co-authored the study with Fernando. “The idea of music being a universal language, I don’t really buy it. Some aspects of the emotional response are very specific to that culture.”

Next Fernando had the Pygmies rate their own culture’s music for its emotional quality. Across the board, the Pygmies said all their songs made them feel good — even a song composed for a funeral.

“All of their music is generally upbeat, playful,” says McAdams. The culture just doesn’t have sad songs, he says.

“In the West, we expect to have negative emotions sometimes. We even seek them sometimes,” McAdams says. “When I’m feeling sad, and I really want to enhance it, I’ll put on some sad music.”

But in the Pygmy culture, sad feelings aren’t accepted. “They generally try to get rid of negative emotions by singing happy music,” McAdams says. “One of the main roles of music in their culture is to evacuate bad feelings.”

The Mbenzele Pygmies are known for their rich, complex music. Everyone in the community is a musician, McAdams says. They sing, dance and play instruments, starting at a young age.

“How they think about music is very different from how Westerners think about music,” Fernando said in an email to Goats and Soda. “The Pygmies do not use music to express emotions. It’s not sentimental.”

As hunter-gatherers, the Pygmies depend on the forest for their livelihood. “They feel they have an unwavering relationship with the forest,” Fernando says. “Music is the vital force that links them to the forest, like an umbilical cord.”

That’s why songs must be upbeat, joyful, she says: “Positive energy is used to maintain relations with the spirits that live in the forest. So music should inspire positive energy.”

The Pygmies use music — and positive energy — to help accomplish tasks and overcome problems, Fernando says. “There’s music for each of the daily activities: hunting, fishing, gathering, mourning,” Fernando writes. If there’s a disagreement in the community, music is brought in to fix it.

So are Pygmies always in a good mood?

“They can cry, but not while singing,” Fernando says. “They sing to pass through the tears.”

PA Ram wrote:

My guess is that he ends up someplace.

He may be too old to do that. Lebeau is 78.

To give you some sense of how old that is, he played at Ohio State for Woody Hayes. He was drafted by the NFL in 1959. He went on to play for Detroit, where he was in the same secondary with Night Train Lane.

He be old.