shrader

Haven't you figured it out yet? He's always right.

I feel like there's been a never ending list of Minnesota bring their high profile college players back home.

That's a separate issue though. Decreasing expenses does not change revenue. A players association is not going to suggest ways to decrease expenses because they themselves are a league expense. These agreements are always going to be about what the league is paying to the players and what they're being paid for, not how they spend anything else. That's the owners business and not theirs.

What other options do they have to increase revenue though? There's no tv deal walking through that door anytime soon, at least nothing of substance.

Pretty much everything people do is self-serving at some level. If you hand some change to the homeless guy on the corner, you're doing it because at least at some level, it makes you feel better about yourself. Both sides gain from it and there's nothing wrong with that. And yeah, like you're saying, some will look on and say "he should give more" or "look at the rich guy lording over that poor homeless man". Those people will always be out there.

Time to burn it down and rebuild

Being a great player and attention-seeking self service are not mutually exclusive. It's completely fair for someone to judge one aspect completely independently from the other.

That and the under-performing guy sticks out a bit more on a hockey team due to the fact that the roster is half the size and there are half as many guys on the playing surface at a time, compared to football.

And if a team is truly desperate for a camp dump, I would hope that you'd try to exploit that a bit more and send a lower pick.

Strangely enough, I found myself driving next to a white Ford Bronco this morning.

Nice work on the new avatar. I'm not sure I ever would have expected you to willingly take on our logo.

As you and TrueBlue probably know, I'm very much an outsider on all things bouncyball. But anyway, the negative response there seemed to me to be more about the whole announcement, as WIldCard suggested. That whole thing was a classic wrestling heel turn, so I hope it was intentional that he did it on a wresting-style stage. I'm sure some already didn't like him at that point, but he instantly became the villain. I don't remember as much spin about ring chasing there, but that may be clouded by the hindsight of knowing that it wasn't all that successful in that regard. I like your line in the other post about exploring his power. I was thinking of that whole announcement as a failed experiment, so that's very much along the same lines.

But you can safely use that incorrect abbreviation around us because we have no idea what that word actually means

The whole Warrior thing has done a wonderful job of exposing the hypocrisy that is the sports media. For years players were vilified for chasing money instead of titles. Then once Durant does the opposite he still gets vilified. Not only is he supposed to want to win, but he's also supposed to do it on his own. The sad part is that people will never realize that the media is the ultimate attention *****, saying whatever they have to in order to get attention.

I usually hate the hypothetical game, offering up a ton of fake scenarios as opposed to judging what actually did happen. Here it's an even more curious tactic given that the real life scenario is already about as bat **** crazy as possible. I don't exactly know where the line is, but he definitely crossed it. As for the last part about not using a number, why can't it be used for tribute but also for the opposite reason. This could be a perfect case. It was done as a tribute at first, but then later became "yeah, we don't want to go there". This whole thing is the perfect storm where you had the iconic player/number who then f'ed up so many years later. It's easier in the Ray Carruth or Aaron Hernandez case where they're not superstars and there really isn't much number recognition there, at least not on a wide national scale. I'm fine with their approach here, but me personally, I'd rather go with the ignore it and hope it goes away approach.

Right, which means if they're wearing it in tribute, it's not a tribute to anything positive. That element is certainly out there, the OJ was framed community. And come on, there had to at least have been a couple Naked Gun movies in your youth.

Unless you get the guy who chooses the number as a tribute to OJ. Sadly I think that's a real possibility.

I know, but now that you mention the movie specifically, my day is ruined. For whatever reason, the first line that always pops into my head is "we've got a bleeder". See, this is the kind of thing that happens when we talk about such highly important things as the coaches nickname.

I can actually hear that image.?

And if the Habs can wear 85 jerseys in their centennial season (impressive given that there were only 82 games), they can let another team play around with a few options during their 50th.

Well he did specifically say balls.

How long does it take and how many reissues are needed before the topic dies? I have no idea what the answer is to that one, but I suspect that it will take more time than it's worth.

They ended the winning streak, officially starting the downward spiral. That should fuel some fan hate.

No one can live up to what he was as a football player and no one should want to be associated with his name due to what he did after being a player. It's probably best just to pretend the number doesn't exist. Using it again brings unwanted attention. Leaving things alone would not have gotten any attention at all. The choice seems obvious to me.

I was going to say "who wants to be the first guy to wear that number", but then that question was immediately answered.