Khyber53

Sorry, you're right. Showing my age I guess.

We've had neither strength nor conditioning on this team in the last three seasons, perhaps longer. We're basically the SE Louisiana State Tech MudDawgs, pre-Waterboy. I heard three of our big injuries last season were actually from playing Foosball in the game room. Joe Horn actually pulled a hammy reaching down to grab a bag of potato chips from the vending machine outside the DBs room.

WTF is Anthony Rizzuti? Joe Blow #84 Mock Drafter. I can't wait for the draft to be here and then over so we can move on from this.

Or the charity tank since we ended up giving it all away.

It's not tanking if you couldn't win a game if you tried. That was us last season.

We have the very first pick of Day 2. After all of the first round dust has cleared, all of the infighting and wrangling has gone on, and with a full night to consider the options and see what gem has fallen --- we'd give that up? A team that sucks so bad that the only four surefire starters on the team are a DT, a RT, a punter and a kicker???? And we're going to trade away that prime piece of real estate for a much later second rounder and one for next year, too??? fug that. Keep 33, pick the best damn player left on the board. Get the guy that is going to make the other 31 teams regret that they missed out on him. Maybe, maybe think about trading our pick at 39, but only for a king's ransom. Or pick the OTHER missed gem. Everyone wants to be all fancy and trade around. Look where that got us. Take your picks. Make your Team. Win some games. I know those are alien concepts around here, but poo man, don't get clever get better.

I just can't get excited or upset about it either way.

Oh boy, we won the offseason! Again... In April... Again... Sure would love to just win some games. Again.

Offseason program in Carolina, also known as Remedial Football Basics 101. Let's hope the new professor understands the subject.

I've got to agree with him on this.

I'm still not cheering the Morgan hire, yet. We've supposedly won the off-season for five years running. Though the Brown extension is a great one at a reasonable price, I think we can also surmise that it was a no-brainer since he was one of about three guys who put in decent work last season at the beginning, middle and end of the year. Right now Morgan still needs to prove he's more than a blind squirrel having a good day.

That's the makings of a moderately competitive UFL team, or a championship caliber Division III Arena Football League team... the Gastonia Gazelles or somesuch.

If he's there, I think you have to take a serious, serious look at taking him, unless one of the other shining stars in the draft has somehow fallen. But yeah. even the starting QB position can't be considered as a lock by anyone on our roster right now. Having two suitors for a franchise QB roll could be a very good thing. Sure couldn't get any worse, right?

To be honest, mainly I just spoke about how bad Fitterer sucked at making draft picks, rather than a single player. Seems rough to just pick on some kid straight out of college and tell him he sucks before he's done anything. Now a 40-odd year old football exec who is supposed to know what he's doing, and who has been anointed by a billionaire? That guy, I don't have a problem saying he sucks when it's pretty obvious. He was a chump, a mark, a rube and was a sports exec of the George Costanza model.

Nobody would listen to me back then. I'm getting used to it now.

Just because someone is stupid doesn't make it ethical to take advantage of them, even though it seems that's the way the world works.

I'm going to be honest here, I've thought of all different things that could happen at 33 and I come down to this: Stick with #33 and take the best player available, whoever it is. This team has so many holes in it that whoever has sneakily slipped down past the picks beforehand, we need to grab, no matter what position they play. Our team sucks so bad right now that any good player can make a difference. And I'll even go so far as to say if Nix or Pinix happens to be there, then grab them. Let them fight it out with Bryce to win the starting position. At the end of the season, one might be tradeworthy and one might finally be the guy we were looking for. That's harsh, but it's reality. There isn't one safe spot on this team, not even Brown at DT. (And he is a phenomenal building block but we are about to hit major sticker shock for him after this season). Pick the best player available. We get to watch a lot of teams make desperation picks on day one, we get to have some of the better teams winnow the chaff, and we get an entire night to think over who is available. Don't pick with the hope for a positional rebuild, we have 22 of those spots that need to be addressed. And do it the same darned way with our second second round pick. Hell, take the the remainder of the Nix/Pinix group there. I think we'll see someone else at 33 than a QB that's the best available, but I'm not going to rule out continuing to fish for a franchise QB.

And the tickets and the parking and the jacked up concessions and the merchandise... Hmmm, I think I figured out how they are billionaires.

Why would anyone give you money to place a bet with them? Had you been betting before but stopped for a while? If so, that's a great way to get you back into their cash flow plans. Had you signed up for the service but never used it? Then it's a powerful way to motivate you to start betting. Just tiny little hooks to keep you dancing on the line for them. Sports booking/betting outfits really don't care if you win or lose, they are balancing bets against each other to keep the books straight. They make their money off of the vigorish or placement fees. They are interested in volume, keeping the number of people active and involved. Free money for bets, comped rooms, "VIP" bettor status, whatever it takes to keep the action rolling. Gambling has always had a parasitic relationship with society. And man, it's on steroids now.

Here's another one I wrote. Interesting guy. This one ran on our main channel before but we had to pull it and re-edit it because of a viewer complaint. It happens. So, here we go.

This has been a war of attrition between a carpet-bagged Pittsburgh hedge fund billionaire and professional football in the Carolinas. And it's the fans who have lost the most. We have gotten worse and worse and worse since the team was sold to that semi-bald, numbers massager and his trophy wife. And now we're all hoping that Meathead Morgan has somehow come around to become the savior of the organization. The guy who was the right hand man of the worst GM in the organization's history... and that's saying something. I hope, I hope, I hope that it will all miraculously come back around like it did at times in the past under the prior ownership. We had a few tragically bad years back then, and a few that we weren't competitive in, but since Tepid took over, that's all we've had. This is a roster that breeds and needs turnover, but until there's turnover at the very top, we probably will be stuck like this.

It does. My buddy Jason is our narrator and he does a great job, I think.

Mount Tabor High School here, how about you? 1987 grad.

I grew up in the neighborhood where Fritz Klenner killed the old couple. My best friend's mom was the one who discovered them. (They also lived right across the street from Maya Angelou, a wonderful lady). I remember the TV station breaking in in the middle of the afternoon cartoons to announce about the chase, wreck and explosion that killed Klenner, his girlfriend and her two kids. The tale behind that whole event is just jaw dropping. I've wanted to do it, but the guy who owns our channel says it's too old and won't draw much attention because there is no footage to work with. I disagree but I don't sign the checks, so... And I think Velma Jean Barfield, North Carolina's poisoning black widow, would be excellent, too. And there's another nope for the same reasons. The narrator and I are hoping he'll let us open up a spin-off channel that can cover older stories like those. Maybe someday we will get the chance.

I mean, he hasn't been the answer to a lot of questions so far, but he isn't costing us much more money than his roster spot at the moment. Let him compete. Of course, he might want to work on more than one good route. There is literally such a lack of talent on this roster right now that just by giving it some semblance of effort you could make a difference. That's a heck of an opportunity for someone who is willing to work at it. But if that drive isn't there, then we can't manufacture something for him. Root hog or die.