freekbass
This week in grimace emoji. Good news: COVID case fatality rates are plummeting. Bad news: it seems like a large reason why is that the average age of the infected is also plummeting, because:
Before and After. COVID-19 is real and the real implications for ignoring basic precautions. #mileg #COVID__19 pic.twitter.com/COEe8qPZW6
— Sam Singh (@singhsam94) June 23, 2020
I am dubious that The Youth are going to change their behavior, and The Youth cluster around college football players for obvious reasons.
Meanwhile, what happens if and when someone has to go to the ICU? This is napkin math but napkin math is probably enough in this situation:
Maybe it's lower than 0.1%. Or maybe only 5% of players catch COVID. Then again, maybe 30% do. The exact numbers are wildly uncertain. But, to a first approximation, it strikes me as fairly likely that at least 1 player ends up in the ICU with COVID, which I think ends the season
— Mile High Brendan (@MileHighBrendan) June 22, 2020
That probably shouldn't be the reason. We accept the inevitability that football will produce Eric LeGrands already. The reason should be the inexorable exponential math when R > 1. But that's not easy to put in a news broadcast.
Anyway, buy HTTV! We'll figure out something you'll enjoy even if the season is one FCS game! 30 pages of hardboiled detective Phil Martelli novella? Wait, come back, I didn't mean it!
[AFTER THE JUMP: some good cornerbackin']
MORE THAN 8 YEARS IN THE NFL IS A LONG TIME
Boom: chart! by LSA on how long an NFL draftee is expected to last.
The blip is explainable by what's been going on with NFL rookie contracts. The maximum contract for a rookie used to be seven years (hence the peak), but since 2011 every rookie contract has been four years with a team option for a fifth on 1st rounders.
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Since the rough years in Ann Arbor have now stretched longer than what's typical for any NFL career, the Michigan guys still playing are particularly old. I remember making all-Michigan teams in early Playstation versions of Madden. Try that now and you can squeeze together a one-deep plus Henne, Fitz, Will Campbell, and Cam Gordon on the bench (I 'm using Mundy for now but if you figure Stevie Brown will sign somewhere you can swap them out).
SMART FOOTBALL ON HARBAUGH
It's scheme month on the Solid Verbal Podcast so Smart Football (Chris Brown) has been on. This already is relevant to your interests. But this week's show was on Harbaugh so…
Go to the 47 minute mark to get to the Harbaugh. Dnak at the link provided the bullets for "Bo Schembechler football with Jon Gruden's playbook." Dnak also questioned the suggestion that Fisch is going to be running the offense, a prospect Chris is down on. I do think Jedd's "passing game coordinator" title is legit but Drevno is calling plays, as he did well enough in San Diego, and it's still Harbaugh's scheme and Harbaugh's plans, and Harbaugh's metaphorical nose in the huddle.
Earlier they're talking about Mariota vs. Winston and Chris is asked "In 2015 what's a Pro Style offense and what's a Spread?" and he just rips apart the labels, before using them anyway because we still don't have better to describe two slider setting extremities.
Speaking to what you do with a quarterback, until you've got a Tom Brady/Peyton Manning who in Chris's words is "seeing the Matrix", you design a passing game you can teach and your quarterback can operate. Dials include footwork (shotgun, 3-, 5- and 7-step drops), pre-snap reads, post-snap decision trees, and of course whether his feet are going to be part of the offense. Start with the knobs he's good at, and slowly turn up others as the QB adjusts.
The biggest point is "it all works" as long as your offense puts stress on the defense. The classic example of exactly what you shouldn't do then hangs in the air like a wet Borges fart. It is annoying that Brown excitedly brings up our two chief rivals as examples of cutting edge while the commentary on Michigan's offense is "this stuff may be old but it still works." May it kick ass so the smart coach-y people have to explain why.
[After jump: Austin Davis, night games and the Freekbass Quotient of invitees, why we're all A's fans now]
Typically this column tries to grab a cross-section of the happenings of social media. But sometimes an event is so all-encompassing that we can’t look away. No matter how hard we try to move on, a big ol’ train wreck will always grab and hold our attention. Fortunately, this one comes with actual trains:
[NOTE: The magic men behind this video have been trying desperately to pull these videos down as fast as we can bring them up, so if it gets pulled down, don’t worry. The Internet never forgets.]
There are just so many things going on here. Matt Painter makes a half-assed cameo. They attempt to rhyme “outdone” with “Boiler Up” (among about thirty other failed rhymes). The Lonely Island beat. The guy in the tuxedo. The overreliance on the inherent awesomeness of having a big drum. The sunglasses. The lyrics. Ooooooh, the lyrics.
As you can imagine, many people have put in their two cents on the topic. Among the suggested reading:
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Sports Illustrated transcribed the lyrics, and in doing so realized half-way through that they were doing the work of the devil.
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Purdue blog Hammer and Rails created a breakdown pointing out a number of factual inaccuracies, as well as to the general WTFness.
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Spencer Hall over at EDSBS provided a helpful how-to guide for making team-themed music videos. The takeaway: don’t.
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Adam Jacobi at Black Hearts Gold Pants showed how Kirk Ferentz would have thrown down, which… just read it.
The only remaining question is where exactly this video falls in the Pantheon of the Pathetic. Let’s take a brief run through the history of terrible team tunes:
[AFTER THE JUMP: Yes, of course there will be Freekbass.]
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