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  • October 31, 2020 at 1:07 pm in reply to: RIP Sean Connery #123632
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    Andrew Siciliano@AndrewSiciliano
    Give me a ping, Vasily. One ping only, please.

    October 31, 2020 at 1:04 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123631
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    October 31, 2020 at 11:22 am in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123627
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    Steve

    Whit says: “But both (OL Austin) Corbs (Corbett) and (OL) David Edwards have been, I think their power shows up their pure strength.”

    Corbett took Hicks from the Bears one on one with no double teams on that TD drive that ended with Brown up the middle. I was shocked at how he so easily directed Hicks and disposed of him. J.Brown and Blythe (at guard) couldn’t have done that (though Brown might have gotten a stalemate). Corbett clears the hole.

    This is huge, because if Corbett can do this consistently, then the center or RT can go get a LBer much easier and the line will be great. If he can do that in Seattle, the offense might be able to control that game.

    Seeing Corbett last year—I never thought he would be a power guy.

    October 31, 2020 at 10:48 am in reply to: press sets up the MIAMI game #123626
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    October 31, 2020 at 10:06 am in reply to: press sets up the MIAMI game #123623
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    October 31, 2020 at 9:58 am in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123622
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    from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/lists/rams-cam-akers-trade-deadline-ideas/

    John Johnson will most likely hit free agency and leave the Rams for a big contract elsewhere. As hard as that is to swallow, it’s probable. The Rams have Jordan Fuller, Terrell Burgess and Taylor Rapp all under contract, giving them plenty of depth at the position

    Brian Flores was the defensive play-caller for the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII when the Rams were held to only three points. Now he’s the head coach of the Dolphins and he’ll definitely draw off some of that success he had in the Patriots’ championship win two seasons ago. I think McVay will be more prepared this time around, however, and Miami doesn’t have the overall defensive talent that New England did.

    Unless Reynolds gets hurt or traded, I don’t know that he’ll overtake him as the No. 3 receiver. Les Snead and McVay both talked about Reynolds’ experience giving him an edge, and that it’s nothing Jefferson has done to cause his limited role. Reynolds is playing well and stretching the field for the Rams, so I don’t see that spot changing right now.

    The Rams clearly like what they have in those two running backs, and there simply aren’t enough snaps to go around for a three-headed attack. Akers has potential, but Henderson is PFF’s top-graded running back right now and Brown is reliable in pass protection and in goal-line situations.

    Malcolm Brown will be a free agent next offseaso. After drafting Henderson and Akers the last two years, I can’t see the Rams bringing Brown back – or him wanting to return. I think it’ll remain a close competition between Akers and Henderson, with Akers possibly pulling ahead as the favorite on early-down work.

    October 31, 2020 at 9:48 am in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123621
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    October 30, 2020 at 10:03 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123617
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    October 30, 2020 at 8:12 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123614
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    October 30, 2020 at 8:11 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123613
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    October 30, 2020 at 8:10 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123612
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    October 30, 2020 at 5:18 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123609
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    Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
    Sean McVay calls Kai Forbath’s work on field goals in practice this week “automatic”.

    Lindsey Thiry@LindseyThiry
    When asked if he anticipates any moves ahead of the trade deadline, Sean McVay says that Aaron Donald has been traded.

    But then McVay adds that he’s joking, obviously.

    McVay says “I’d quit” if that happened.

    Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
    Tyler Higbee will be a game-time decisions Sunday. McVay also isn’t sure if A’Shawn will play this week

    Lindsey Thiry@LindseyThiry
    Jalen Ramsey says Aaron Donald should win NFL Defensive Player of the Year every year, “People sometimes don’t look at it like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing’ because they’re getting used to it.” Ramsey likened Donald’s play to Kobe and LeBron, whose greatness became expected.

    October 30, 2020 at 1:08 pm in reply to: press sets up the MIAMI game #123608
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    Prediction: Rams over Dolphins, 28-24

    Eric D. Williams

    https://www.si.com/nfl/rams/news/la-rams-prediction-win-over-dolphins

    Heading into a bye week and facing the 3-3 Miami Dolphins starting a rookie quarterback in Tua Tagovailoa, could the Rams be a bit complacent in this one?

    Not a chance, according to head coach Sean McVay, particularly with his offense facing one of the best defenses in the NFL in the Dolphins.

    “These guys present a lot of different issues,” McVay said. “They’re mixing up their coverage contours, but then they also know what kind of athleticism they have and they play a lot of man. They come up and challenge you, and they do a variety of things up front to cause disruption, where the ball is coming out, but they’ve also have great guys that can hang in man coverage and continue to compete.

    “So, they’ve played really well as of late. I think that’s where we have to be ready to go. You flip the film on and there are a lot of problems. You see a really disruptive defense and one that’s played outstanding, especially each of the last couple of weeks against the Jets and 49ers coming off a bye.”

    Matchup microscope

    With Tagovailoa making his first NFL start, Miami’s offensive line will be tasked with keeping the Alabama product taking his first live action since a hip injury ended his season last year in college. Although the Dolphins have allowed just 10 sacks through six games, according to ESPN Stats & Information research’s pass block win rate, Miami is No. 30 in the NFL. The Dolphins face an L.A. pass rush with 24 sacks on the year, good enough for a tie for third in NFL, led by Aaron Donald’s eight sacks. Miami will have to dial up plays where Tagovailoa gets the ball out quick or move him outside the pocket to keep him clean.

    One to watch

    The Rams moved on from rookie Samuel Sloman this week, so new kicker Kai Forbath’s performance will be under the microscope in his first action for the L.A. native’s hometown team. McVay said one of the reasons they brought in Forbath was his numbers under 50 yards on field goals. Forbath is 90.2 percent (119 of 132) from that distance during his career. Forbath said one things he’s been trying to improve is his kickoffs. He has a career touchback percentage of 39 percent, but it was 65 percent last season.

    Fun to watch

    At 6-3 and 211 pounds, DeVante Parker is a fast and physical receiver that can give defenses problems if you do not account for him. The Louisville product has 29 receptions for 364 receiving yards and two touchdowns on the year. I suspect the Rams will use talented cornerback Jalen Ramsey on Parker at times on Sunday because of his size, speed and length. Watching these two physical specimens battle it out should be entertaining.

    Key to the game

    The Rams need to keep it simple and they should come out with a victory on the road for the third time this season. Defensively, stop the run and force Tagovailoa to execute in second and third-and long situations. The Dolphins average just 3.8 yard per carry, No. 28 in the NFL. On offense, use the play-action game to create chunk plays, grab and early lead and play from ahead, never allowing the Dolphins to believe they have a chance to win this one.

    Prediction

    Rams 28, Dolphins 24

    October 30, 2020 at 1:05 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123607
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    October 30, 2020 at 12:33 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123605
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    Gary Klein@LATimesklein
    Aaron Donald on pace to possibly join Lawrence Taylor and J.J. Watt as three-time NFL defensive player of year winners.

    October 30, 2020 at 12:26 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123604
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    October 30, 2020 at 12:25 pm in reply to: press sets up the MIAMI game #123603
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    October 30, 2020 at 12:23 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123602
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    October 30, 2020 at 12:22 pm in reply to: around the league tweets … week 8 #123601
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    October 30, 2020 at 12:18 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123598
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    October 30, 2020 at 12:17 pm in reply to: tweets … 10/30 & 10/31 #123597
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    Assuming the likelihood that the Rams remain a top-10 defense throughout the remainder of this season, and coaching jobs open up at the end of the season (e.g., Jets), what is the likelihood that Staley ends up as a head coach next season?

    Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
    Although he is the rare defensive coordinator with an offensive background (as a former quarterback), owners are in an offense-first frenzy as the league trends toward scoring, and defensive coordinators are less and less among the more popular candidates. And second, while I don’t doubt Staley wants to be a head coach at some point (and I believe he can do the job), he’s also by nature a very intentional decision-maker. Many of the jobs in current conversation also have a stench of organizational toxicity. We saw this last offseason with Ron Rivera in Washington and Steve Wilks in Arizona a few years ago, and there is such a thing as “taking a bad job” if things are not structurally sound around you. New positions come open every year. If Staley or O’Connell don’t feel set up for success in their respective opportunities, that can kill a long-term career. It has to be the right fit, at the right time.

    October 30, 2020 at 12:04 pm in reply to: animal bits #123596
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    From Facebook

    The owner of this cow used to hear dogs barking at night so he put one CCTV camera. And saw this unbelievable incident, The leopard comes daily at night to meet the cow and the cow licks him with her tongue. The owner asked the previous owner of the Cow and came to know that the leopard’s mom died when he was 20 days old and the cow fed her milk to the leopard. Since then the leopard thinks that the cow is his Mom and he comes daily at night to see her. Cow is a natural mother.

    October 30, 2020 at 12:08 am in reply to: our reactions to the Bears game #123585
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    alyoshamucci

    Game 7 analysis … Bears

    Here’s to a solid win … likely a game we had an edge on because of Staley … but a solid win nonetheless with really solid individual efforts from many players …

    The Great

    1) Hekker. I mean … The Bears returner shaking his head after every punt drops inside the ten may be my favorite recurring theme. And he did it from every area of the field. And the watermelon punt? Goodness gracious. To be able to enjoy him after the depressing aspect of not getting a first down seriously changes my viewing enjoyment levels.

    2) DBs, as a unit … the pass breakups and tackles in the open field … Hill tipping it to Rapp … Ramsey coming off his guy for the pick … Dareus with the PD in the endzone AGAIN (on what was honestly a well thrown ball) … Burgess’ read and react skills and JJ3 being all over the place. I’m trying to think of a time when I had more faith in our DBs as a unit, and I can’t. A combination of great scouting drafting and coaching (likely mixed with the precision of who they face in practice every day) has really led to an outstanding unit. And that’s not even mentioning Fuller.

    3) The two play Malcolm Brown TD. I don’t know why I haven’t compared him to a rhino before, they way he bucks up under the guy trying to tackle him, but I will be doing that going forward. That is such a morale boost and motivating thing to see.

    4) I thought the pass to Reynolds for the first TD was perfect.

    5) Reynolds overall playing with confidence and making plays does well for our future comp pick situation.

    The Good

    6) Henderson getting his burst, initiating contact and driving forward … also? I thought specifically his vision has improved … he was hitting holes I didn’t know were there.

    7) Offensive rhythm was there.

    8) Mundt sighting!!! I liked him since he was on Oregon, TEs take slow roasting over 4-7 years …

    9) I like the feeling of knowing that if Everett catches the ball with no one on him at the 10 he’s definitely going to score.

    10) Goff spreading the ball around.

    11) Terrell Lewis makin plays, man.

    The Bad

    12) Playcalling in the 4th quarter past the ten minute mark … I was talking to Sun Tzu at the time (who was livid about it) and had to figure that there was some metric he was using to know that the odds were on the side of taking minutes off the clock. But it’s not my ideal plan of attack.

    13) More Terrell Lewis.

    14) Get Akers some touches … maybe you’re saving him a bit and he’s green, but you get rookies touches.

    15) Gonna miss Burgess.

    16) I don’t like the missed hands to the face …

    17) I ALSO REALLY DON’T LIKE the complete ignoring of the holding in the endzone.

    18) Couple of the run plays we called were going the wrong way … entailed making a nearly impossible block based on the personnel.

    The Ugly and the Gone

    19) Sloman … as I said after the first game … he kicks too low.

    October 29, 2020 at 8:36 pm in reply to: particle physics/astrophysics (update: dark energy) #123577
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    The universe teems with weird black holes, gravitational wave hunters find

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/universe-teems-weird-black-holes-gravitational-wave-hunters-find?utm_campaign=SciMag&utm_source=JHubbard&utm_medium=Facebook

    Less than 5 years ago, physicists rocked the scientific world when they first spotted gravitational waves—fleeting ripples in space and time—set off when two gargantuan black holes billions of light-years away swirled into each other. Since then, scientists have detected a scad of similar events, mostly reported event by event. Today, however, researchers with a global network of gravitational wave detectors announced the first major statistical analyses of their data so far, 50 events in all. Posted online in four papers, the analyses show that black holes—ghostly ultraintense gravitational fields left behind when massive stars collapse—are both more common and stranger than expected. They also shed light on mysteries such as how such black holes pair up before merging.

    The new studies, posted on the physics preprint server arXiv, “are superimportant,” says Carl Rodriguez, an astrophysicist at Carnegie Mellon University who was not involved in the work. “With an individual event, there’s only so much you can do in comparing to astrophysics models. But with a catalog you can not only begin to constrain the theory, you can start to understand the landscape.” Selma de Mink, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, says she and her colleagues have been waiting to do their own analyses of the data trove. “There will definitely be a flurry of papers that are rushing to take the first stabs at the data.”

    The observations come from three huge L-shaped optical instruments called interferometers that can measure the infinitesimal stretching of space itself by a passing gravitational wave. Two of those detectors belong to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of detectors with arms 4 kilometers long in Louisiana and Washington that spotted the first gravitational waves in 2015. The third detector is Virgo, an interferometer near Pisa, Italy, that has 3-kilometer-long arms and joined the hunt for gravitational waves in 2017.

    LIGO and Virgo had already spotted 11 events, including one merger of neutron stars, an event that may shed light on how the universe forges heavy elements. Now, the team has cataloged 37 additional black hole mergers, one likely neutron star merger, and one possible merger of a black hole and neutron star from the first half of its third observing run, from April through September 2019.

    Analyses of all 50 events show that when it comes to black holes, “the diversity is surprisingly large,” says Frank Ohme, a gravitational wave astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. From details of the mergers’ chirplike signals, scientists can calculate the masses of the colliding black holes. They expected to find a “mass gap” between about 45 and 135 solar masses—the result of particle physics processes that should blow apart stars within a certain mass range before they can collapse into black holes.

    However, LIGO and Virgo have now spotted mergers involving black holes squarely within the gap, including one with a mass of roughly 85 solar masses. De Mink, who models the evolution of black hole pairs from binary star systems, says accounting for the interlopers will be challenging. The mass gap is “such a clear prediction from the models that it’s hard to believe that there’s not a feature there” in the mass spectrum, she says.

    Similarly, scientists expected another forbidden range below five solar masses, based on previous observations of individual black holes peacefully orbiting normal stars. But at least one hole in the catalog appears to fall below that limit. “How do you describe the boundaries of this population?” Ohme asks. “It’s not such a clear picture anymore.”.

    Their new ability to take a census of black holes has also enabled researchers to probe whether black holes in a merging pair point in the same direction as they orbit each other—a potential clue to how the pair came together in the first place. If the spins align with the orbital axis, the black holes might have formed from a pair of stars that were born together, naturally acquired matching spins, and remained companions after they collapsed. If the spins point in different directions, the black holes might have formed first and then somehow paired later. Which formation channel dominates is a subject of intense debate.

    In particular, if one of the black holes spins in the opposite sense of the orbit, the pair would more likely come from the mingling of black holes that had already formed. But it’s very hard to tell for sure whether that’s happening from the warble of a single signal, says Maya Fishbach, an astrophysicist and LIGO member from Northwestern University. However, by analyzing the events en masse, scientists have teased out evidence that at least some of the mergers involve reversed spins. That result in turn suggests that black hole pairs form in more than one way, Fishbach says. “It seems like there might be multiple things going on.”

    Rodriguez notes that the overall rate of black hole mergers that LIGO and Virgo see seems to roughly match the rate he predicted in his model, in which already formed black holes find each other and pair in knots of old stars called globular clusters. “I shouldn’t toot my own horn—but I totally am going to,” he says. But, he adds, the data are also consistent with such a mechanism producing just onequarter of the mergers.

    Researchers have even been able to probe how the number of black hole mergers may have changed over cosmic time, Fishbach says. The rate is expected to be higher in the early universe, when the pace of star formation was also higher. But previous data allowed that rate to be up to 100,000 times higher than it is now. Now, scientists have seen enough far-flung events to say that the rate of mergers 8 billion years ago was no more than 10 times what it is now, Fishbach says.

    LIGO and Virgo scientists owe their scientific bounty to the increasing sensitivity of their detectors, which has enabled them to spot ever fainter and more distant events. Now, they are eager to build up their catalog even further. With more events, they find a correlation between spin alignment and the masses of the black holes that could help reveal whether the heaviest might themselves have formed through mergers. (If the two black holes’ spins aren’t aligned, then they may not have formed from an isolated pair of stars, and theorists wouldn’t necessarily have to explain how a collapsing star could produce such a heavy black hole.) “We’ve answered a lot of questions we didn’t even know we had,” Fishbach says, “but we raised even more. This is just the beginning of the science.”

    October 29, 2020 at 6:16 pm in reply to: tweets (Rams) … 10/27 thru 10/29 #123572
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    Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
    Even as Joe Noteboom returns to the active roster at some point, Sean McVay says that David Edwards will continue to start at left guard because now the OL has the desired continuity.

    Lindsey Thiry@LindseyThiry
    Andrew Whitworth says this is one of the most brutal schedules he’s played in his 15 seasons regarding the East Coast travel that’s been surrounded with big-time prime time matchups.

    Whitworth suggests they send flowers to whoever they made mad in the scheduling office.

    Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
    Whitworth has been around a long, long time but said that this year’s Rams travel schedule has been the most brutal in his memory considering trip-to-game-to-recovery process.

    Rams DT Aaron Donald, on the concept of facing a rookie quarterback in his first NFL start as the Rams will in Tua on Sunday: “He’s still a quarterback in the National Football League.”

    Regarding facing a left-handed QB, on Monday Sean McVay mentioned that really the only thing that changes is the spin on the ball so not really a factor for Rams; however they may drill DBs a little with the jugs machine on “left” as they would with a lefty punter so that they

    can eyeball as they work to make plays on the ball. Today Aaron Donald mentioned that Tua may prefer to flush left so they want to be ready for that and will also drill opposite-side strips

    Stu Jackson@StuJRams
    This is the youngest Rams team OL Andrew Whitworth has been on, but he’s enjoying getting to know those players.

    “Even though there’s this huge gap, I think there’s an opportunity there for me that I don’t want to miss to help them grow as men and help them grow as players.”

    Next Gen Stats@NextGenStats
    First-year defensive coordinator Brandon Staley has utilized Jalen Ramsey’s versatile skill-set by playing him at the “Star” position in the #Rams defense.

    Ramsey has aligned in the slot on 20.9% of snaps this season, the highest of his career.

    Staley has also allowed Ramsey to rush the passer more often than he has in previous seasons. Ramsey’s 11 pass rushes this season are more than he’s had in his first four seasons combined (10).

    October 29, 2020 at 6:15 pm in reply to: tweets (Rams) … 10/27 thru 10/29 #123571
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    October 29, 2020 at 5:53 pm in reply to: tweets (Rams) … 10/27 thru 10/29 #123570
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    October 29, 2020 at 5:52 pm in reply to: tweets (Rams) … 10/27 thru 10/29 #123569
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    October 29, 2020 at 5:48 pm in reply to: tweets (Rams) … 10/27 thru 10/29 #123568
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    October 29, 2020 at 3:40 pm in reply to: tweets (Rams) … 10/27 thru 10/29 #123567
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    SUNDAY, NOV. 1st

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