JackPMiller wrote:

I heard a rumor that, if the Skins let go of Jay Gruden, as most expect, Brian Shottenheimer may get an interview at the end of the season. Not saying he will get the job, but it would be interesting if he ends up getting the Washington Head Coaching job.

Well, for the sake of continuity on offense with the Rams, and for the sake of Schott as a coach…I hope either the rumor is not true, or that he is smart enough to have nothing to do with Washington.

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

Manziel might improve.

In fact I am holding my breath on it.

Which game is more important to you to win? Giants or Seahawks?

That’s a hard question to answer; I am not even sure it’s a fair question.

I want them to win both.

A loss to the Giants would mean bad things. So you want a win there.

A win in Seattle would mean great things. So you want a win there.

from Dad’s Conversations About Race: ‘Most White Kids Don’t Get This Talk’

Calvin Hennick

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/dads-conversations-about-race-most-white-kids-104952792887.html

Race doesn’t exist for my kids yet. To my 3-year-old son, I’m “blue” or “gray” or “yellow,” depending on the color of my shirt. And my 5-month-old daughter is primarily concerned with whether or not I’m holding something shiny.

Soon, though, they’ll notice that Mommy has dark brown skin, that Daddy’s skin is sort of pink, and that theirs is somewhere in between. Eventually, they’ll figure out that these differences actually seem pretty important – that people who look like Mommy and Daddy tend to live in different neighborhoods from each other, tend to attend different schools, and are often portrayed differently in the media.

And they will have questions.

I have no idea what I’m going to say to my kids about race (or sex, or bullying, or any other number of complicated topics that haven’t come up yet). So I set out to talk to parents of older black and biracial kids, as well as a couple of experts, to get some tips.

…

The ‘Police Talk’ Is Real, and It’s Awful

Every parent of black and biracial kids I spoke with has talked to their kids about what to do if they’re stopped by police. My brother is a cop, and I don’t want to make my kids think that police officers are out to get them. But in the wake of the Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice incidents (among others), many parents view “the talk” as a necessity.

Sandy told her son to do whatever he’s told by police officers “and we’ll worry about justice later.”

“After years of saying you need to stand up for what’s right, it’s heartbreaking to tell your child, it doesn’t matter what’s right, you need to lie down,” she says.

One of Sandy’s friends Askia says she’s told her black son to raise his hands as high in the air as possible if confronted by a police officer. “He was looking at me so sad, like, you’re telling me to surrender. I said, ‘If you put your hands up or put your hands behind your back, they can never say you tried to shoot him.’”

STORY: Texting Acronyms Parents Need to Know

Adrienne, another of Sandy’s friends, tells her 10-year-old son not to act in fear when he sees a police officer, but gives these tips: “Move very, very slowly. Always be respectful. Say ‘yes sir.’”

Now, these might sound like decent guidelines for anyone to follow. But most white kids don’t get this talk. I know I didn’t. And I’m not looking forward to having it with my son.

There’s No Way Around the Tough Stuff

One thing I worry about is making my kids paranoid, so that they’re constantly on the lookout for racism. But again, the parents I talked to said that, for them, their kids’ safety trumps everything else.

After Trayvon Martin was killed, Askia wouldn’t let her son wear hoods for a period. “As sweet as his smile is, they’ll never see it in the rain, in the dark, with a hood on,” she says. “They’re going to see him as a six-foot-tall black man. They’re not going to see him as a baby.”

STORY: Being a Foster Dad Breaks My Heart, and Makes It Whole

Sandy stopped her oldest son from playing hide-and-seek with friends in the neighborhood at night. “I had to explain to him, that even though you’re a child playing a child’s game, you’re man-sized, you’re black, and you can’t run around with your hoodie on in the dark, because people might think you’re a criminal.”

It’s Important to Emphasize the Positive

When I watch the news (or worse, read comments on the Internet), it’s easy to feel like practically everyone in the world sees black kids as a threat. But that’s not true, and it’s not what I want them to think.

“I’m always reminding my kids that good exists, and if they talk to their black father or their black grandparents, they’ll hear how much better things are than they were,” Sandy says. “I want my kids to feel that the world is good and that people are good. So I do tend to focus on progress.”

“When my kid can see that the president is a brown guy,” says Gary, a friend of Sandy’s who is black and has a biracial son, “he should know there’s nothing anyone can say to him to make him feel less-than because of his skin color.”

All of This Might Change

Gary’s father suffered a detached retina at the hands of a white Alabama police officer, and he grew up seeing people hand out Ku Klux Klan fliers. But his son isn’t exposed to any of that.

“Years ago, when I talked to him about the Civil Rights Movement and slavery, he asked, ‘Why would people treat other people like that?’” Gary says. “His question was, ‘What are you talking about? How is that possible?’”

Eventually, I hope my kids (or their kids) will be able to look back at the things happening today – racial gaps in wealth and education levels, largely segregated housing and schools, etc. – and ask the same questions.

If nothing else, the Washington trade got them Robinson. Yeah he’s a bit of a project, and green, but he’s a 10 year solution at LOT.

Cosell once said that as green as he is, you don’t find big men with those kinds of movement skills. He said he would one day be in the conversation for best LOTs of all time.

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

Donald making run at defensive rookie of the year

By Jim Thomas

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football/professional/donald-making-run-at-defensive-rookie-of-the-year/article_3f95449b-f49c-5916-bd6d-d1f053b55b8e.html

As Rams defensive line coach Mike Waufle tells the story, you had to see it to believe it when watching tape of Aaron Donald in college and at the Senior Bowl.

“I was sitting there at the scouting combine with (general manager) Les Snead and coach (Jeff) Fisher,” Waufle recalled. “We’re all sitting there together, and we’re going through the interview’’ with Donald.

“The first thing I asked him was: ‘Who taught you technique?’” Waufle said. “I was curious.”

And impressed.

NFL players spend countless hours working on technique, learning how to use their hands to fend off blockers or set them up. But Donald came out of the University of Pittsburgh looking like he’d played in the NFL for several seasons.

His technique came courtesy of Demond Gibson, Donald’s high school coach in Pittsburgh.

Donald already had much of the rest of the skill set required to succeed in the NFL: the strength, leverage and, of course, his quick first step.

“He’s extremely quick. He has one of the fastest 10-yard (dash) times that I’ve ever timed,” Waufle said.

Waufle’s always on the floor at the NFL scouting combine in February running the defensive line drills.

Donald’s 40-yard dash time itself was an eye-opening 4.68 seconds, the fifth-highest time of any defensive lineman at the 2014 combine, ends included.

The first 10 yards of that 40 is what caused Waufle to do a double take.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is unbelievable,’” Waufle recalled. “He has that initial quickness that people have a hard time with. He’s got natural leverage. He’s extremely strong.”

All of that helps explain why Donald has made the transition from college to the NFL without a blink. And why he has to be considered a leading contender for the league’s defensive rookie of the year award.

“No question,” Waufle said. “I mean, he’s one of the better defensive tackles in the league, period, regardless of anything.”

The numbers back that up. With two games to play this season, Donald has eight sacks, more than any rookie defensive player regardless of position. Among rookies, the next-highest total entering Sunday’s games was San Francisco’s Aaron Lynch — with five. And he didn’t have any sacks in the 49ers’ loss to Seattle.

OPPOSITION TAKING NOTICE

Donald’s total already is the highest for a Rams defensive tackle since D’Marco Farr had 8½ sacks in the 1999 Super Bowl championship season. Four years earlier, in 1995, Farr had the highest sack total for a Rams defensive tackle during the team’s 20 seasons in St. Louis — 11½.

Donald also has a team-high 16 tackles for loss, and ranks third in quarterback pressures on the squad with 25. His 64 tackles is second among Rams defensive linemen to William Hayes’ 70.

With that kind of production, there isn’t a head coach, offensive coordinator or offensive line coach on the Rams’ schedule who doesn’t know all about Donald.

“He’s just a relentless rusher,” Washington coach Jay Gruden said prior to the Rams’ 24-0 victory over the Redskins on Dec. 7. “Man, he gets straight penetration, uses his hands extremely well in the pass, and really holds up in the run game.

“I think the concern of him coming out was maybe he wouldn’t hold up in the running game on double-teams and all of that, but he does a good job in the run game also. Very disruptive player, and that’s what you want from your three-technique.

“Everybody wants to talk about (Robert) Quinn and how good he is, and deservedly so. But Donald has a lot to do with that pass rush, also.”

Gruden said he was hoping Donald would somehow fall to Washington in the second round of the draft last May.

No such luck. The Rams took him at No. 13 overall.

Last Tuesday on a conference call with St. Louis reporters, Arizona coach Bruce Arians was asked what concerns him about Donald.

“Ha, ha. Everything,” Arians replied. “I like everything about him, and all of it concerns me. He’s a high-motor, very talented young guy that I was really sad to see go the Rams, ‘cause we’ve got to play him twice every year.”

Keep in mind, Donald has put up the numbers he has even though he was a rotation player for the first four games of the season, playing a fair amount but still playing behind starters Michael Brockers and Kendall Langford.

But in Game 5, the Rams’ 31-17 Monday night loss to San Francisco, Donald made his first NFL start (ahead of Langford) and has been starting ever since.

Entering this week’s home finale against the New York Giants, Donald has been on the field for 607 defensive plays. That’s second only to Quinn’s 694 plays among the Rams’ nine defensive linemen.

SMOOTH TRANSITION

Some observers wondered how the undersized Donald (6 feet 1, 285 pounds) would hold up over the course of a long NFL season. But he has shown no signs of hitting the rookie wall.

“Just the normal things, but just like any other football player,” the low-key Donald said when asked about any aches or pains. “I feel good. The season’s gone by pretty fast.”

This is a man who loves to compete and loves playing football. So much so, that showing up to Rams Park every day doesn’t seem like a job to him.

“Not at all,” he said. “Any time you get to do something you love doing with great guys — always cracking jokes with each other, having fun — it makes the day go a lot faster.”

The transition has been about as smooth as possible from college to the NFL. Of course, it helps when your technique is so good that your D-line coach instructs you simply to “keep doing what you’re doing” when you arrive.

That approach has worked well enough to put Donald in position to become the Rams’ first NFL defensive rookie of the year since linebacker Isiah Robertson in 1971. Even the modest Donald admits —for just a second or two — that’s something for which to shoot.

“That’d be an amazing accomplishment,” he said. “But right now I’ve got more games left. Right now I’m just worried about the season. After these games are over, then that’s when I’ll start worrying about that.”