from NFL management rankings: How do all 32 head coaches stack up?: https://www.thescore.com/nfl/news/1976169

10. Sean McVay – Rams

When a 9-7 season feels like a losing campaign, you’ve set a high bar. The Rams’ offense didn’t click for most of last year, and McVay will need to wave his magic wand again in 2020 to fix what was broken. There’s no doubt he’s one the most brilliant offensive minds in the NFL and a capable head coach. McVay is 33-15 during the regular season with two playoff appearances and one Super Bowl berth since the Rams hired him following a 4-12 campaign in 2016.

“The protesters had to deescalate the police”: Demonstrators are the ones defusing violence at protests
Protesters describe the excessive force they’ve seen police use in cities across the country.

https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21279619/protesters-police-violence-philadelphia-los-angeles-washington-dc

The police response to protests across the country has been strikingly similar.

In Philadelphia, police cornered peaceful protesters on the side of a highway and tear-gassed them en masse. In Portland, Oregon, law enforcement used what’s known as a sound cannon — or a Long Range Acoustic Device — to send a piercing signal through a crowd of demonstrators. And in Washington, DC, National Guard officers flew military helicopters over protesters on the ground, an intimidation tactic aimed at getting them to leave.

At demonstration after demonstration, officers have met peaceful protesters, who are condemning the police killing of George Floyd, and police violence more broadly, with disproportionate and brutal force, often for no reason but to “disperse” a crowd. The approach has only illustrated how quick police can be to use violent tactics, particularly against black individuals.

The irony of this dynamic isn’t lost on protesters: By responding with brutality in demonstrations about police brutality, police are effectively helping activists make their point.

“The continuity across these spaces, the cruelty, the egregious militarized force, it forces you to come to the conclusion that this is systemic,” says Krystal Strong, 35, a member of Black Lives Matter in Philadelphia, who recalled watching a young black man get rammed with a police bike at a recent demonstration. “It’s not just Minneapolis. It’s not just Chicago or LA.”

Vox spoke with 10 protesters in seven cities — and nearly all of them had either directly witnessed or been subject to police violence while participating in marches and rallies in recent weeks.

“It’s affirmed that policing is brutal,” says Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, of her experience. “If I were the police, strategically I would say at a police brutality march, don’t be brutal. It’s just not smart; it’s bad optics.”

Police have escalated the violence at protests

The protesters who spoke with Vox all had a common experience: Regardless of the demonstration they attended — whether it was a peaceful march or a rally that included graffiti and property damage — the police were the ones who escalated the situation. And across the board, that response was seen as entirely disproportionate to the activity that may have prompted it.

During a peaceful protest in Toledo, Ohio, 29-year-old attorney Matthew Ahn said he saw police shooting wooden bullets directly at people, severely injuring at least two individuals. “One of the projectiles hit someone directly in the foot and broke multiple bones in his foot,” he said. “There were several puddles of blood left where he was.” Throughout a day of demonstrations, Ahn — who attended the protests in a personal, not professional, capacity — says police shot pepper balls, rubber bullets, or wooden bullets at protesters seven different times.

In Los Angeles, Abdullah described watching a state highway patrol car plow into a crowd of protesters and knock a man out in the process. “We didn’t know he was alive at the moment,” she says. “He was unconscious.”

And in Washington, DC, Allison Lane, a 34-year-old podcaster and bartender, recalled being among more than 100 protesters who were “kettled” by police into a residential neighborhood.

Last week, roughly 70 protesters, including Lane, were taken in by a resident named Rahul Dubey, who housed them for an entire night as police waited outside to arrest people for curfew violations. “Police officers were pepper-spraying wildly at people who were trying to get inside the home,” she said. “The scene inside … is people pouring milk into their eyes, using eyewash bottles.”

These incidents are among hundreds that have occurred in the past few weeks as thousands have taken to the streets to protest the police killings of black people, following Floyd’s death. A Twitter thread that’s since gone viral includes more than 200 video clips that capture police tear-gassing, shoving, and beating protesters with batons — and those are simply the offenses that have been taped.

Such acts of police violence have contributed to a number of injuries — rubber bullets have blinded multiple individuals, while beatings have resulted in broken bones — and one death. In Louisville, Kentucky, where officers still haven’t been charged in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, police shot and killed David McAtee near his business when he was out past curfew in early June.

“The protesters had to deescalate the police”

Demonstrators emphasize that they now go into marches expecting violence because of how law enforcement has behaved up to this point.

“I didn’t expect anything but violence — that’s all we’re thinking about,” said Lane.

Given the precedent for police behavior, protesters have been told to prepare and steel themselves for such treatment. Organizers encourage protesters to inform friends and family about where they are and set up a phone tree of emergency contacts. Additionally, demonstrators have been urged to dress in long-sleeved shirts and pants and to bring goggles in case tear gas or pepper spray is used.

Multiple organizers told Vox they try to protest with medical support directly on hand, to deal with both the exhaustion that protesters may experience and potential injuries that could result from police activity. “We now only do marches with medics present, and that’s been very helpful,” Abdullah, the Los Angeles BLM organizer, told Vox. As the New York Times reported, there’s been a surge of medical professionals and volunteers getting training to serve as “street medics” following the police violence at many demonstrations.

There have been some changes in how police have responded since the start of the protests more than two weeks ago. As cities have lifted curfews, and demonstrations have fluctuated in size, the police reaction has become less confrontational, in some instances. Protesters have speculated that this shift was due to the poor optics police had encountered, particularly when it came to high-profile incidents like the tear-gassing of peaceful demonstrators in front of the White House.

At the marches where law enforcement has taken a more aggressive approach, the escalation by police often came with little warning, protesters say. It can be chaotic, frightening, and overwhelming.

“There were many moments where we grabbed each other, where we pulled each other to safety. It’s a moment-to-moment reevaluation of the situation,” says Strong.

In some instances, protesters have called on white allies to put “white bodies to the front” when it appears that police are advancing on a crowd, because it’s less likely law enforcement will use fatal force on white activists. “I don’t think I was ready for how scared I felt,” said Steven, 25, a white protester in Washington, DC, who was tear-gassed and shoved by police multiple times on June 1.

Ultimately, many protesters note that they’ve been forced to deescalate police rather than the other way around — and they warn that activists should be ready to do just that. During a demonstration outside Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s house on June 2, for example, Abdullah says protesters were the ones who actually defused the tension.

“The protesters had to deescalate the police,” she said. “The protesters who were in front of the police began to just sit down to create almost a human fencing around the rest of us to prevent the police [from] being able to run in.”

The actions protesters have witnessed have further confirmed their views of police

For many protesters, the treatment they’ve witnessed only reaffirms the views they held about police.

“For them to be so brutal and repressive and terrible at these marches just affirms to me that policing in this country can’t continue to exist in its current form. You can’t tinker around the edges; it’s in the DNA,” says Abdullah.

Activists say the protests have strengthened their resolve to hold police accountable and to push for policy changes that fundamentally upend the current system. A major rallying cry at many of these protests has been a call not simply to reform the police but to defund the institution. The justification for this effort is straightforward: States and cities can reduce funding for the police and instead transfer that money to social services programs like food aid and education — to better address the core causes of both inequities and crime.

In Los Angeles, activists have urged officials to consider what they’re calling the “people’s budget,” which would reduce the allocation for law enforcement entities from roughly 54 percent of the city’s general fund budget to 6 percent.

The role that the protests have played in further highlighting police abuses has parallels in history: Nonviolent protest as a means to raise awareness of state violence was also a key goal of civil rights protests led by Martin Luther King Jr. and demonstrations against British rule by Mahatma Gandhi in India.

During the protests in the 1960s, the marches drew attention to police violence — as did the horrific treatment of protesters by police. “Aggressive dispersion tactics, such as police dogs and fire hoses, against individuals in peaceful protests and sit-ins, were the most widely publicized examples of police brutality in that era,” Katie Nodjimbadem writes for Smithsonian Magazine.

“Even back in the 1960s, when Dr. King was marching, part of the reason for the march was to expose the brutality,” Abdullah emphasizes.

There are legal actions protesters can take to hold police accountable

There is legal recourse for protesters who have suffered injuries at the hands of police, but there have historically been some pretty big obstacles to getting accountability.

Such barriers are largely due to the protections that police have in the case of civil lawsuits, because of a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity: In order to even go to trial with an allegation of police misconduct, an individual needs to show not only that it was a violation of their civil rights, but also that there’s precedent for that same action being considered unlawful in prior cases.

This shield has enabled police officers to avoid liability on many acts of misconduct in the past, including shootings, theft, and property damage.

Still, experts tell Vox that protesters have plenty of grounds to pursue legal action — and already, there have been multiple cases in the past month where the officer involved faces criminal charges.

“Police officers have the right to use force in a number of situations, but they never have the right to use excessive force or brutality. That is always illegal,” says University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, who founded the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project.

Protesters have three avenues they can take, Futterman notes: They can file a civil lawsuit against a specific officer for violating their constitutional rights, they can register a complaint with the city or police station involved, or they can report the incident to a district attorney, who could then file a criminal lawsuit.

In recent weeks, there have been at least two cases where such legal recourse has been effective: In New York City, the district attorney has charged a police officer with assault for shoving a protester during a demonstration in Brooklyn, and in Buffalo, New York, the district attorney has charged two police officers, who were filmed pushing an elderly man to the ground, with assault. The ACLU and Black Lives Matter are among those working with protesters to advance legal actions on this front.

But while the outcome of a lawsuit could help increase police accountability, it doesn’t do much in the near term for protesters fielding medical bills and injuries.

“In terms of compensation from the city or the police department, the only way would be to file a lawsuit, which would take time,” University of Memphis law professor Steven Mulroy tells Vox. He notes that legal advocates could put pressure on police departments to more quickly cover these costs without going to court. “A lawyer could send a demand letter — if you provide this amount to defray the medical expenses, we’ll hold off on pursuing a lawsuit,” he says.

Such accountability, while important, isn’t enough to fix the systemic nature of these abuses, though. To do that, protesters emphasize that the dem

Was Ron Brown the fasted player to wear a Rams uniform? Well here he out runs known speedster Darrell Green (who had an angle on Brown) for a 95 yard kick off return. The former Gold Medal winner for the United States may very well hold the title as fastest Ram https://t.co/xbg6eqrCzK pic.twitter.com/D3Qwag3yar

— RAMS ON FILM (@RamsOnFilm) June 14, 2020

Geoff Schwartz@geoffschwartz
The two things ppl miss the most when it comes to players vs owners $$ issues. 1) ppl often discredit the work athletes have put it to achieve success ($$) and 2) players have leverage to negotiate. And if you’re in a position at your job to have leverage, you’d do the same.

The idea that athletes should just accept a deal, whether personally or as a collective, just because they make millions is so counter to everything you believe in your life.

And no athlete is asking for you to feel sorry for them. If the owners are going to use the media to push their narrative, the players will do the same

A white couple call the police on me, a person of color, for stencilling a #BLM chalk message on my own front retaining wall. “Karen” lies and says she knows that I don’t live in my own house, because she knows the person who lives here. #blacklivesmatter pic.twitter.com/rOpHvKVwgP

— Jaimetoons (@jaimetoons) June 12, 2020

IMO–if you’re interested in learning more about how policing, economics, and racism all work together, this is a good read. Not the “only” read obviously but a good one.

==

Interview: How Policing in One US City Hurts Black and Poor Communities

September 12, 2019

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/12/interview-how-policing-one-us-city-hurts-black-and-poor-communities

Interstate 244 running through the Greenwood neighborhood. © 2018 John Raphling/Human Rights Watch

Nearly 100 years after one of the worst racial massacres in United States history, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma remains highly segregated, with black residents living in poverty at much higher rates than white people, subjected to worse health, shorter life spans, higher crime, and aggressive policing. A series of high-profile killings of black people by police in Tulsa led Human Rights Watch researcher John Raphling to investigate police interactions with black communities. Raphling speaks with Rachel Kent about his report “Get on the Ground!” He discusses how policing and ensuing court debt subject people to humiliation and abuse, and how it fosters a devastating cycle of poverty and arrest.

Why specifically are you looking at policing in Tulsa?

The killing of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man, in September 2016 drew my attention to Tulsa. The killing was caught on a video that went viral. I quickly learned that the city, like so many others in the US, is highly segregated by race and poverty. Day-to-day policing in black communities, in Tulsa and elsewhere, is marked by pervasive abuse and lack of trust. I thought Tulsa could be an illustrative case study for what everyday policing looks like throughout the US. While the Crutcher and other killings drew our attention there, we really wanted to see how police treat black people and poor people in more commonplace interactions.

We analyzed a great deal of data about how police interact with people to try and understand overall patterns. What we found is that abusive policing is pervasive in Tulsa’s black communities, particularly in North Tulsa. People had stories ranging from having a loved one shot and killed, to being pulled over for no good reason and then being pulled out of the car and searched – sometimes at gunpoint.

What we found in the data is that black people are subjected to physical force, including stun guns, police dog bites, pepper spray, punches, and kicks at a rate 2.7 times that of white people. Some neighborhoods with larger populations of black people and poor people experienced police stops more than 10 times the rate of predominantly white and wealthier neighborhoods.

What stories from Tulsa did you hear that stood out?

I spoke with a young schoolteacher. When she was driving home from visiting relatives in North Tulsa, police stopped her car and pulled guns on her, ordering her out of the car. Her 7-year-old daughter was begging police not to shoot her mom. Officers said they were investigating a stolen car, but she had not reported the car stolen. This highly terrifying situation had a lasting impact on the woman and her child. These types of interactions happen frequently in Tulsa, but you don’t hear about them because they don’t make the news.

Then there is the story of Ollie Brooks Sr. He was an older homeless man who worked odd jobs. He had been to jail and prison in the 90’s for drug paraphernalia but hadn’t had any convictions since. But in 2015, he received a ticket – for jaywalking. One evening police came to a motel, where Brooks happened to be staying, and did a warrant sweep – meaning police looked at the motel register and ran all the names for warrants. They found that Ollie Brooks had a warrant, and even though it was just for jaywalking, they chose to take him in. Police knocked on his door and because he had some drug paraphernalia, he was scared and tried to get away. Police pepper sprayed him and shocked him with a stun gun twice. He collapsed at the scene and died a short time later. All over a jaywalking warrant.

How is the issue of fines and fees playing a role in this system?

One of the really horrible things I discovered is that Tulsa, the county it’s in, and the state of Oklahoma raise money to pay for their court system and other government agencies largely through fines, and court costs that are imposed on those arrested and who have to go to court. And it’s a huge amount of money. It’s an abusive practice that is very common throughout the US.

Most arrests and citations in Tulsa are for relatively minor crimes. If you get ticketed for speeding or running a stop sign, you get these fees and fines. Poor people, who get cited and arrested the most, often cannot afford to pay. So the court will issue an arrest warrant. Almost 40 percent of arrests made by the Tulsa Police Department are just warrant arrests and a large percentage of those are for failure to pay court debt. Court costs was the third most common booking charge in the county jail.

People can’t get out of debt. This court debt is predominantly in poor and black communities. I spoke with people who kept getting arrested for failure to pay and would miss work and lose their jobs. I spoke to a man who could not retire because he had to make payments. The debt just keeps piling up on people.

What’s the solution to excessive fines and fees?

For one, cities can significantly reduce or not impose the fees and fines. Oklahoma has relatively low taxes, but they shouldn’t make up this lack of tax revenue for the public function of law enforcement by taking money from the poorest part of the population.

Tulsa police shouldn’t arrest people just because they haven’t paid their fines. Instead police could give an additional citation so they can come to the court’s specialized “cost docket,” that is supposed to help people manage the debt.

Or simply don’t over-police.

How do you respond to police department claims that black neighborhoods have more police presence because they are “higher crime” areas?

Our report cites a lot of studies that indicate that more policing does not lower crime. In fact, there are some studies that indicate intensifying policing can even exacerbate crime rates. The United States is investing so much in policing to address crime, without addressing poverty-related factors that drive crime. The government needs to improve public safety by addressing human needs. For example, maintaining a functioning mental health system, promoting economic development and opportunity in poor neighborhoods, and improving schools and providing afterschool programs that cultivate productive talents of our youth. These fixes will actually uplift communities.

Did anything in your research surprise you?

How closely policing outcomes track racial segregation and poverty may not be surprising, but it was a very noticeable finding with our data. Policing, including arrest rates, frequency of detentions, and length of detentions was substantially greater in North Tulsa and other parts of the city with larger populations of black people. North Tulsa has a poverty rate of about 33 percent, noticeably higher unemployment rates, and lower life expectancies. Grocery stores are scarce and largely lacking in fresh produce. These markers of poverty closely tracked policing outcomes, like arrest rates and the experience of police violence.

The difference between North Tulsa, where mostly black people live, and South Tulsa, which is predominantly white, is striking. South Tulsa is affluent and there are lots of businesses. In North Tulsa there are lots of boarded-up buildings. Unemployment is significantly higher in North Tulsa and life expectancy is much lower. Policing seems to be reinforcing these racial and class divides.

These divides happen not only in Tulsa but in cities throughout the US. There needs to be a real look at those causes of poverty and what role structural racism is playing in creating a situation where black people are living in poverty at such high rates.

What are the goals on a national and local level?

There is some movement towards reform in Tulsa going on right now. The mayor appointed a commission to make reform recommendations. Some of the recommendations were useful, but many involved superficial changes or simply said that the police department should continue what it’s already doing.

City leaders have proposed an Office of an Independent Monitor that would review internal affairs investigations of force incidents. But as proposed, this agency lacks power to hold the police department accountable. We need an oversight body that is answerable to the communities, as opposed to answerable to the existing power structure in Tulsa or the police. The agency should have sufficient access to records, investigatory powers, and the ability to impose disciplinary measures.

In Tulsa, as in the rest of the country, police are tasked with handling so many societal problems. Homelessness is a big problem and police are the first line to deal with it. The Tulsa police also get thousands of calls a year related to people with mental health conditions. These societal problems need to be addressed with services, not by police.

Cases, Hospitalization Rates Climb In Previous Cold Spots In Post-Memorial Day Surge
link https://khn.org/morning-breakout/cases-hospitalization-rates-climb-in-previous-cold-spots-in-post-memorial-day-surge/
Public health experts are alarmed by several indicators such as hospitalization rates. Some states are nearing their ICU bed capacity, a warning sign from the early days of the pandemic. This week, confirmed cases in the U.S. climbed past 2 million and over 113,000 Americans have died.

—

The Associated Press: Alarming Rise In Virus Cases As States Roll Back Lockdowns
https://apnews.com/feb4c26d9364497cf82ee7c0c1b1b3d5
States are rolling back lockdowns, but the coronavirus isn’t done with the U.S. Cases are rising in nearly half the states, according to an Associated Press analysis, a worrying trend that could intensify as people return to work and venture out during the summer. In Arizona, hospitals have been told to prepare for the worst. Texas has more hospitalized COVID-19 patients than at any time before. (Stobbe, 6/11)

—

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Hospitalizations Surge In Some States
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-hospitalizations-surge-in-some-states-11591912459
The post-Memorial Day outbreaks in states come roughly a month after stay-at-home orders were lifted. Experts urged people to continue to take the virus seriously and not take increased freedom as permission to stop wearing masks or resume gathering in large groups. Dr. Marc Boom, chief executive officer of the Houston Methodist hospital network, said he is concerned by the “array of indicators, all of which are starting to flash at us,” including increased cases, a rise in hospitalizations and a boost in the percentage of positive test results. (Collin and Findell, 6/11)

from –The best tight end in the NFL: Who comes after Travis Kelce and George Kittle?
https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-the-best-tight-end-in-the-nfl-who-comes-after-travis-kelce-and-george-kittle

…

TIER 3: SCHEME-DEPENDENT ZONE-BEATERS
Tyler Higbee, Los Angeles Rams

Last season, Tyler Higbee became an integral part of a Los Angeles Rams offense that seemed to have forgotten their tight ends. From 2017-18, Higbee appeared in all 32 games and was targeted only 71 times. He collected just 49 receptions for just 587 yards at an average of just 1.20 yards per route run, 24th among 72 qualifying tight ends.

Last season, Higbee saw his role increase in the Rams offense, and he went on to haul in 69 of his 86 targets for 734 yards across his 16 games. He ended the season with an average of 2.60 yards per route run that ranked third among tight ends who saw at least 25 targets.

This spike in production can be attributed to the Rams expanding their offense to include tight ends as a more prominent feature in their passing game. Higbee’s production has mostly come against zone coverage, where last season he earned a 92.0 passing grade, the second-best figure among qualifiers. He also ranked among the top five players at his position in yards per route run (3.53, second) and explosive plays of 15-plus yards (13, second) when facing zone coverages.

His spacial awareness and feel for zone coverage are evidenced by his 68% separation rate versus zone coverage over the last three seasons, but it’s also more than worth noting that his 57.1% separation rate against man coverage is a mightily impressive figure, too. Looking forward to 2020, I expect Higbee’s production to soar in what will be his fifth season in the NFL.

Grant Wistrom was one of the Rams most formidable defenders during the Greatest Show On Turf years. The former 1st round pick brought tenacity and grit to the field!

#98 led the Rams in sacks during the 2000 season pic.twitter.com/QsIiqqQGjJ

— RAMS ON FILM (@RamsOnFilm) June 12, 2020