On Shanahan's genius

Hopefully it is becoming more apparent to people that Mike Shanahan’s ‘genius’ is largely the creation of the incompetent and cheerleading sports media. Shanahan is, and always has been, a mediocre coach and a supreme asshole. He had a 3 to 4 year dream run in Denver that was almost completely attributable to the fact that he had John Elway and Terrell Davis. They won more than 75% of their games and won 2 Superbowl titles in that span. But if you look at the record you’ll see that Dan Reeves had a 4-5 year run (’84-’84, ’89) in Denver in which they also won over 70% of their games. Without a hall-of-fame caliber running back, I should add. I don’t see anyone calling Reeves a genius. Oh yeah, they lost 3 superbowls during Reeves’ tenure --- to legitimately great teams --- Parcells’ Giants, Gibbs’ Redskins and a 49er team that could arguably have been the best ever in the NFL. Shanahan’s Superbowl successes came against a Packer squad that just wasn’t mentally prepared to be repeat champs, and a clearly overachieving Falcon team that had no business being in the Superbowl in the first place. Ironically, that Falcon squad owed much of its overachieving success to its coach, Dan Reeves, who got them to the freaking Superbowl with those legends Jamaal Anderson at RB and Crystal Chandelier…errr… Chris Chandler at QB.

Anyway, more importantly, in the decade after Elway retired (and Davis was soon done in by injury) Shanahan managed to win about 57% of his games and recorded one playoff win. Ten years. 57%. One playoff win. Oh, did I mention that he had pretty much carte blanche over personnel decisions as well? Must be genius.

Funny too, how Washington’s struggles this year are now supposedly due McNabb’s inadequacies, huh? Quick…..name a Redskin WR or their starting RB. I’m not trying to say that McNabb is great ---he is clearly in decline--- but funny how the offensive geniuses of the Shanahans [Mike and (his nepotistic hire) offensive coordinator son Kyle] can’t fix things. I guess geniuses cannot win without hall-of-fame talent at all important skill positions.

You know what great coaches do? They repeatedly find ways to win important games with underdog rosters. Does that describe Shanahan? I don’t think so.

Finally, I also hold Shanahan primarily responsible for the whole Haynesworth fiasco. See, I have some sympathy for Haynesworth --- he is a problematic dumbass, but to his credit he has never presented himself as anything but a problematic dumbass. When Shanahan took over, he decided he would impose his despotic style and whip every one into submission from day one. Haynesworth, who had already been paid over $40 mill in guaranteed money, didn’t quite appreciate being pissed on. So he basically told him to fuck off. To be perfectly honest, in Haynesworth’s place, I would most likely have done the same thing. Great players often come with great egos. If I were signed to a $100 mil contract with over $40 mil in guaranteed money, I’d expect the incoming coach to treat me as an important part of the franchise too. Even a disciplinarian like Parcells used to have separate rules for players like LT --- Great coaches find a way to deal with, and bring the best out of, troublesome talent while despotic egomaniacs want everyone to kiss their ass in their prescribed manner.

Apropos of nothing, no self-respecting defensive lineman should show any respect or loyalty to Shanahan anyway. Shanahan made a career of perfecting the art of chop blocking without getting flagged. Shanahan’s O-lines always played dirty. It is one thing to push the envelope in game strategy but entirely another when the innovations are aimed at ending, or threatening to end, the careers of D-linemen. Dirty blocking is one of the primary reasons Shanahan could get a thousand yards out of any old RB. His early success as a coach and his premature elevation to genius status protected him from much of the calls and criticism that was due to him for the way his O-lines played.

All this is not to say that Shanahan won’t manage to have some winning seasons in Washington (the NFL is composed of two kinds of franchises: bad ones that never really win anything and good ones that go through cycles of prosperity and poverty; Washington belongs to the latter and they are wayyyyy overdue). But it won’t mean much if he does. As Norv Turner demonstrates week in and week out, year after year, teams in the NFL can find ways to win despite their head coaches. And at the first signs of Washington’s success, Mike will get his genius label back, Kyle will land a multi-million dollar head coaching job……and po-too-weet, and so it goes….

Just wondering...

At the first whiff of the Tiger Woods scandal, every news outlet including all the major ones jumped on it. It was a feeding frenzy to behold. Of course, all the 'respectable' outlets delved into all the steamy details under the pretext of "Well, it is relevant because it is a major distraction and could affect his golf...."

Interestingly, for a while now Deadspin has had a developing story on Brett Favre in which they claim that the old gunslinger was trying his best to sling his gun at a pretty little thang who worked for the Jets. Deadspin even has some pretty interesting audio and visual data to back up their claim. Favre will be visiting the Jets for a big Monday night game. Yet, there is nothing......nothing from the mainstream/major news outlets about this story.

Of course, if no one brings it up it cannot be a distraction, so the point of relevance becomes moot, right? Of course the great American legend could be just as much of a sleazeball as your average next-door perv, but it is really none of anyone's business. Funny how that works.....

There is another thing....if they could get ratings out of this, all these outlets would still follow it pretty hard. I guess what they are all declaring is that a salacious story about a young superstar American icon will play really well with the American audience while a sordid story about an aging superstar American icon will just not play very well in most American households. The fact that the former is a colored man while the letter is a gray-haired white man has nothing to do at all with all of this, I'm sure. Nothing to see here, folks....move right along....

Free fallin'

A little tribute to Tiger’s Woods’ game of late…

Anyway, the bottom line is that the man cannot make a 4 foot putt anymore. I noticed this at the Masters, and by the time the USOpen concluded I knew that his major problem was putting. All the other golf stuff will fall in line if he can make putts at will again. If you can make key putts, you never mentally check out or exhaust yourself; on the other hand, if you cannot make putts to save a hole from bad shots or to capitalize on good ones, you don’t much see the point in playing golf….or in keeping score, at any rate That’s where Tiger is right now. It is really as simple as that, and it always has been.

BTW, for those who constantly bitch and whine about the amount of coverage Tiger always gets on TV, this year should be proof of why. Let me add that I am frequently frustrated by the telecasts---I would like to see much of the rounds of at least the last 6 groups, instead of a few shots from one group followed by fluff pieces and commercials --- but it is fashionable for (prejudiced) people to whine about TV showing every Tiger shot all the time and this is what I’d like to address. This Tiger-centricity came about for 2 main reasons: (1) It’s what delivers viewers and so networks will stick with it. Viewership (and ultimately the mighty advertizing dollar) justifies all kinds of popular garbage on TV so why should it not justify attention on the most compelling player in golf? (2) Nobody delivered like Tiger. Nobody. And now that Tiger can’t break 70 if his life depended on it, nobody has stepped up to deliver. For the past 6 months, Tiger has basically offered up the World #1 ranking to anyone who may want to take it. There have been multiple instances where Mickelson could have won or finished really high and taken the mantle. This past weekend Westwood or Mickelson could have wrested the #1 ranking from Tiger just by finishing decently---combined with the fact that Tiger almost finished DFL (dead effing last). But they even screwed that up. Westwood had two bad rounds and then withdrew due to injury—the official news is that it was his calf but I’m guessing there was a bit of injury to the confidence there too. And Phil --- the man Tiger haters love to love --- the Great White Hope in the Tiger era --- the man who has all the tools to make a sustained run at the #1 spot --- Phil the thrill --- folded like a lawn chair yet again. Coming into Sunday, he was placed well at 10^th place or so, four shots behind the leaders, needing to climb up only to fourth place to finally get the #1 ranking in the sport. Tiger, having a disastrous week, had already finished his round with an abysmal 7-over par 77 well before Phil teed off. And Phil, with everything to gain --- the tournament itself, the #1 ranking, some great momentum going into next week’s PGA Championship --- lit up Sunday with a sterling 8-over par 78. Mind you, this was a day when the final leaderboard showed 11 of the top 14 finishers shooting rounds under 70, including two 64s, two 65s, a 66, and three 67s.

Sooooo, yeah. All the Tiger haters need to see, understand and accept what Tiger’s collapse has revealed. There is currently no #1 player in golf. Indeed, there hadn’t been for a while before Tiger showed up. And now that he is in stunning and incredible free fall, there is again no #1 player. There is no one who, with his skill and will on the course, can make this sport quite as watchable as Tiger did.

Sure, as Tiger continues to spiral down and as others continue in their spotty mediocrity there will soon be someone other than Tiger who is ranked #1. But undertand this: golf will, as it does now, have a #1 ranked player, but it will still be without a #1 player. Until Tiger returns…if he ever does. Or until some kid like McIlroy steps up and takes charge.

Haaaaaaaahahahahahahaha

/

Rick Reilly opines that Mickelson's Masters win is a victory for women......

You know, at the place (Augusta National) where they consider women unworthy of membership.

I'm sure Rick thinks he totally, right on, nailed it too. Nice toadying, dumbass.

Landmark (and great) decision on patents involving DNA

A landmark ruling that, I think, clarifies some of the confusion surrounding patents involving DNA. Some of the stuff in the article itself serves to illustrate confusion in peoples' understanding of what is/was/should have been patentable. The confusion boils down to a lack of understanding of the difference between 'invention' and 'discovery'.

From the NYTimes:

"A federal judge on Monday struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property."

I think this was a great ruling because the BRCA ('breast cancer gene') patents basically (I understand it) were for DNA that occurred naturally in living beings. Myriad Genetics claimed (like other companies have before) that isolating the gene transformed it chemically so it was now patentable. Shrewd lawyers and ill informed judges went along with that idea. But it was flawed from the beginning because Myriad patented the mutant version of the gene (which naturally occurred) and then got sole rights to test for those mutations (that naturally occurred in patients). There was no engineering human engineering involved that made that sequence unique and patentable. The exclusivity for the breast cancer test didn't arise from any technical innovation in the testing procedure --- just from the naturally occurring DNA sequence. Basically, they patented a discovery, not an invention. A lot of the 'gene' patents are fundamentally flawed for this reason: they are patents for discoveries, not inventions.

The NYTimes article goes on to say:

Such patents, it said, have been granted for decades; the Supreme Court upheld patents on living organisms in 1980.

The first part of this statement is somewhat true; but again, those patents were awarded incorrectly, due to some smart lawyering that muddied the facts about what was natural versus what was portrayed to be 'engineered'.

The second part of it was, at best, a bad example. The patent on living organisms that it refers to is one in which a microbe was engineered, using DNA that was also engineered, to be able to break down crude oil. There is no naturally occurring piece of DNA identical to that which was made and used for the engineering. Consequently, there is also no naturally occurring microbe that can break down crude oil in quite exactly the same way as that microbe --- and it is highly significant that the microbe's ability to break down crude oil is completely dependent on the engineering, and unnatural piece of DNA, that it possessed. The difference in this case, that made the DNA and the microbe patent-worthy, was that they were inventions not discoveries.

Anyway, coming back to the breast cancer gene patents---from related NYTimes article:

Although patents are not granted on things found in nature, the DNA being patented had long been considered a chemical that was isolated from, and different from, what was found in nature. But Judge Sweet ruled that the distinguishing feature of DNA is its information content, its conveyance of the genetic code. And in that regard, he wrote, the isolated DNA “is not markedly different from native DNA as it exists in nature.”

Way to go judge. Freaking nailed it!

This ruling is very significant because Myriad patented a discovery and charged patients a freaking ton of money for a simple test. They charge over $3000 for a test that shouldn't cost more than a twentieth of that. This ruling could open up a ton of competition for the simple test now, and hopefully bring down the cost of the test dramatically.

This should also set the standard for future patenting in biology. It is really not that difficult to determine invention vs discovery --- and award patents for the former and not for the latter.

A thought about Tiger's return

Now that Tiger has announced he'll return at Augusta for the Masters, there is the usual cacophony from all sorts of media outlets about how this move is obvious/smart/arrogant/cowardly/calculating etc etc etc because Augusta is a 'safe' place --- they hold near-absolute control over the media credentials and the crowds...excuse me...patrons.

I expect that every one of the people who have been (and still are) accusing Tiger of arrogant and controlling will absolutely beat down the doors of Augusta National and the PGA Tour if they aren't allowed as many credentials as they want, or if they aren't allowed to ask any damn question they want at the pressers. Further, since Augusta doesn't require any of its participants to appear at pressers, if Tiger chooses to avoid any pressers (which he won't, but still) I trust that the entire media empire will arise and unleash their fury and vitriol on Augusta National and the PGA Tour for not making it mandatory that he ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS DAMMIT!!!!!!

I would even think that, just like the Golf Writers of America boycotted Tiger's public statement a few weeks ago because he wouldn't answer any questions, at least some 'backboned' 'principled' sections of the the media will completely boycott the Masters if Augusta not accede to their requests re Tiger and pressers.

Oh wait....I forgot.....it is perfectly OK for a bunch of rich old white dudes to be totally controlling about every aspect of their existence and message, discriminate as they wish as re their membership, and conduct their tournament by their own rules even if those rules are different from the requirements for every other golf tournament in the world....their invitational tournament will still be sanctioned by international golf bodies and they will all be referred to in hushed and reverent tones by the very same media assholes all the time....even if the Masters took a giant dump on their community once by telling CBS who it can and cannot assign for Masters coverage....ask Gary McCord about his fellow journalists' integrity....!

On the contrary, however, if a supremely gifted athlete ascends, by virtue of his talent, hard work and sheer force of will, to the pinnacle of the sport and popularize it like no one before....and generate unprecedented revenue for every one associated with the sport....if he should want to control his life and his message to his will and desire, then he is to be absolutely and endless vilified in every form of media possible....because the media are about integrity and morality, right?

A glimpse into the corridors of financial power

A good read from Vanity Fair....Larry Fink's $12 trillion shadow.

Excerpt that I found particularly interesting:

He now says he lost money at First Boston because no one really understood the risks involved. The computer systems were inadequate, and so were the programs that measured the impact of key variables such as changes in interest rates. “We built this giant machine, and it was making a lot of money—until it didn’t,” Fink says. “We didn’t know why we were making so much money. We didn’t have the risk tools to understand that risk. It’s what I tell everybody today: you should analyze your portfolio just as much when you are making money, because you could be taking on too much risk.”

Seared by his fall from grace at First Boston, Fink vowed never again to be in a position where he did not fully understand the risks he was taking in the market. What Fink had also come to see during his years at First Boston was how little his clients—pension funds, corporations, state and local governments—understood about the risks they were taking. Indeed, he says they were almost completely dependent on Wall Street firms to measure their risk—which was something, he knew from experience, that Wall Street did poorly. And so he decided to build a company that would not only invest money for clients but offer them sophisticated risk management too.

Worth taking the time to read the whole thing.