SteVo

WIth CBA negotiations supposedly underway, it seems like the idea of an 18-game schedule is gaining steam. So, what say you, TGP? Personally, I've had an idea in my head for a while that I think is a nice compromise that keeps everyone happy. It is: a 16-game, 18-week schedule where each team gets two bye weeks. Players win because the extra bye week gives added rest and should, in theory, help with injuries. Owners win because an extra weekend of football means more money (this is a win for players also). Fans win because it's an extra Sunday of football. Discuss!

I respectfully disagree. It failed in 1993 for two main reasons: 1) bye weeks scheduled too closely together, and 2) more byes mean fewer games, so fans were getting stuck with bad games on TV. Problem #1 can be fixed by the schedule-makers, I have no doubt. Problem #2 is eased by fixing problem #1, but it's mostly solved by the huge wild card that wasn't available in 1993: RedZone. I don't think fans would be stuck in the same situation.

MVP: Carson Wentz. Duh. OPOY: Carson Wentz. Duh. The Eagles have too many weapons on offense, so no one person (at a skill position) will have an astronomical year statistically. DPOY: Fletcher Cox. A few other options, but Cox is the clear favorite. CBPOY: Darren Sproles. Not really any contenders here. OROY: Miles Sanders. Duh. DROY: Shareef Miller. He was our only draft pick on defense.

It's pretty close to a 1a/1b situation, but honestly the main reason is my feelings toward Belichick. I love Bill Walsh, but Belichick is light years ahead of him in an era where it's so much harder to gain an edge. Montana would have 10 rings with Belichick. (That's an exaggeration to drive home my point; forgive the logical fallacy.)

Warren or Harris will be the nominee for sure, and some of y'all are gonna be butthurt out the ass. Can either one beat Trump? I honestly don't know.

Ya wtf is Kirk Cousins doing on this list

Razor, thank you so much for this incredible endeavor. I know I haven't been commenting much, but you know I enjoy your mathematical studies of football no matter what angle you're playing. I have enjoyed this list immensely, and I know others have too. All of that said, the data in this study cements the top two on my personal all-time QB list: Joe Montana Tom Brady Don't fucking @ me.

So who are the top 2? Brady and...who else?

A run on modern QBs before Jimmy Mac, and I'm honestly not surprised to see any of them up here.

Re: gerrymandering and how to avoid it The problem with "nonpartisan commissions" is they're still run by humans, who are subject to both bias and bribery. It's 2019. Let the math dictate where the boundaries are.

That's funny, I was just in Madison this past weekend. Really cool city, albeit a bit too hipster for my taste.

This is very true, but I want to point out a few things about The Sopranos, since I'm a Sopranos homer. 1) Many fans of the show always misunderstood it. The so-called "hits and tits" crowd thought it was a pure mob show and raged at every episode that didn't have a mob war. So they were set up for disappointment. Was the ending to the final season anticlimactic? Yes. But the concept of anticlimax had been used so often it was firmly established. 2) Sopranos had always been more thematically rich than Game of Thrones. Whereas Thrones is mostly plot-driven and doesn't go much deeper thematically than "power corrupts," Sopranos is much deeper. So of course the finale would be more challenging to viewers. Anyone who went in to that episode thinking its purpose would solely be to reveal the fate of Tony Soprano was, again, set up for disappointment. So basically what I'm saying is the final season of Sopranos was absolutely consistent with the pacing and structure of the show up to that point. I cannot say the same about the final two seasons of Thrones.

Poor Zack is about to be so disappointed.

vs

I think Biden has a very low chance of winning the primary. And yes, I know what the polls say. But I think he's a high-floor, low-ceiling candidate.

It also needs to be said (Than alluded to this, for the record) that part of the reason seasons 7 and 8 are disappointing is because of the insanely high standard we were held to. For six seasons, Thrones was the best show on TV, and as good as any TV drama has ever been, in my opinion. It's ridiculously difficult to keep that up for six seasons, let alone eight.

Pacing was the huge problem with seasons 7 and 8. I really don't know why they felt the need to compress the story's endgame into 13 episodes. I think this could have been 20 episodes for sure. The character development would have been more methodical, and the payoffs would have been more satisfying. Though you'd probably have to add some plotlines (something needs to be going on in King's Landing while we're gearing up for battle in Winterfell), Martin's outlines should have enough of that. There were things I liked about the finale, but overall I feel disappointed.

Meh.

Lmao with these fucking petitions. If you're not happy with who's writing/producing a movie, don't watch the damn movie. Fucking millennials, man.

No matter how we feel about season 8, I think we can all agree this is awesome: [/me

There's no doubt this season has been lesser received than any so far. Maybe it's just a victim of astronomical expectations, but it seems like the consensus is Thrones is blowing its endgame. As you guys know, I have been a fan of this season's action episodes (first episode was average and fourth had big problems), but I have a terrible feeling the finale will be horrible. So we'll see.

I loved the end of Jamie's arc, I just felt it was a bit clumsy how he got there. Everything about his final conversation with Tyrion was great. Everything about him finding Cersei in King's Landing was great. Him deciding to stay in Winterfell with Brienne and then suddenly deciding to leave? Less than great. As I said, my main takeaway from seasons 7/8 is the showrunners had good ways to end character and story arcs, but didn't arrive there in the smoothest way.

As usual, I'm late getting to this thread and most of y'all have already spelled out my thoughts. So I'll be brief except for one talking point. I loved the episode. I loved where all the characters ended up, even if I had minor quibbles with how they got there (that's basically my summation of seasons 7 and 8). Varys' death? Awesome. Clegeanebowl? Awesome. Jamie and Cersei's death? Awesome. Arya's realization? Awesome. Jon's horror at battle? Awesome. Now let's focus on Daenerys. I can certainly understand how someone could dislike her actions in this episode (one friend told me it ruined the show for him and he may not watch the finale), but it worked for me on two levels. First, as a viewer, I was floored when my excitement at watching Drogon obliterate the Golden Company turned to shock at Daenerys burning the entire city to the ground. It was probably the biggest, most effective shock of the series since...Cersei blowing the Sept of Baelor? Let's be real; this is the penultimate episode of the entire series, and it comes with astronomical expectations. Penultimate episodes of every season so far have included game-changing battles and betrayals. If this episode were just another battle ending with another ruler taking the Iron Throne, it would have been a little disappointing. But for us to watch all of King's Landing get absolutely destroyed? Fuck yeah, that works. Second, as a character, Daenery's descent makes sense to me. Has the show built up to it properly? I would say not quite, but the groundwork is there. (All her time as a liberator in Slaver's Bay seems a bit odd now, I concede.) Like Cersei, she is totally out of allies. She has come all this way to Westeros, and she knows there's no way for her to save the world and rule peacefully. Maybe there never was. So, is she about to just sail back to Essos? No way. Finally, she stops fighting what has been inside her all along. She embraces her inner Targaryen and takes what is hers--with fire and blood.

I did enjoy Varys and Tyrion as well. I'm glad that Thrones, in its final hours, is getting back to the political backroom conniving that sort of started everything in the early seasons.

If anyone posts spoilers for episodes 5 and 6 before they air, please use spoiler tags kthx. Thanks for the insight on the novels, Thanatos. Adding a third player to this final season definitely would have helped, I think. Also I don't buy that A Dream of Spring is done, or even close. I get Winds of Winter, but there's no way Martin has written two massive novels in between all the other stuff he's been doing.