Whipped Cream Difficulties

This week’s TMQ, after the jump…

Is the increase in scoring being driven by the NFL’s cracking down on defense, as we’ve been suggesting for weeks now? Signs point to “yes”, according to TMQ.

But much of the increase in flags against the secondary comes from what seems like a trend toward ticky-tacky calls, as if there is now an assumption of guilt against pass defenders.

TMQ continues to (pluck) the chicken of seeded playoffs.

Since NFL players are adults who are well-compensated for knowingly assuming risks, why should anyone care if they become addicted to narcotics? Because, as in head injury and weight gain, the NFL is setting a terrible example for society. Prescription drug overdoses now cause more deaths than street-drug overdoses, and 72 percent of the deaths are from opioid painkillers. The United States is in the midst of a painkiller-abuse epidemic. Having NFL players popping painkillers — and then performing with abandon, as if football doesn’t hurt — sends the wrong message. That taxpayers subsidize this wrong message should be seen as an outrage.

First of all, we’d like to see a citation for the “painkiller-abuse epidemic” stat. What we see is a lot of hysteria over painkillers being prescribed; and that hysteria is hurting people in chronic pain who have a legitimate need for painkillers. Secondly, why should anyone care what other people put in their bodies, be they football players or private citizens?

Stats. Sweet: Kansas City. Sour: New Orleans. Mixed: Green Bay – Philadelphia.

You can read TMQ’s entry on high school playoffs, or you can read this NYT article, which is longer, but better written, and doesn’t make the assumption that this is unique to Texas.

Are film subsidies a “House of Cards”? The NCAA has no shame. In other news, fire is hot, water is wet, and TMQ is channeling his inner Ric Romero. (What prompts this? Bobby Petrino’s half-million dollar bonus for “academic achievement”. Shouldn’t the shame here be the fact that Bobby Petrino still has a job coaching football?)

Montgomery County schools go PC, in a story that’s been pretty well covered everywhere. (We’ll give TMQ a pass on this one, though, since he lives in the district.) Bad rushing: The New York Football Giants.

Speaking of schools, excessive spending on administrators hurts students. And taxpayers.

T.C. Williams is a large institution with two campuses, a satellite campus and about 3,300 students, so would be expected to have a large front office. But T.C. Williams has two principals, two executive associate principals, four assistant principals, a lead academic principal, two other academic principals and six deans. That’s 17 high-level administrators, one per 194 students. Even if all 17 are working hard, this represents staff money diverted from teaching to memo-writing and meetings.

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The trend toward money diverted to administrators is seen in many aspects of education. A 2010 study notes, “Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per student at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research, or service only grew by 18 percent. Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student grew by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent.” Heather Mac Donald of New York’s City Journal cites this example: During the same period the vice president of the California University school system claimed costs were being “cut to the bone,” the University of California at San Diego added senior administrative positions such as associate vice chancellor for faculty equity.

“Authentic Games” once again pulled from…somewhere. (We apologize to our readers for making them think about TMQ’s neither regions.)

“Even the Football Gods Said Ye Gods”. Wait, wait: a week without the football gods chortling? It’s a Festivus miracle! Creep. We were able to stop playing TMQ’s new song in less than 30 seconds.

Why are they the Santa Clara 49ers, and why not the Arlington Cowboys and the Orchard Park Bills? TMQ explains it all to you.

Muschamp.

What Obama agreed to last week isn’t meaningfully different from what the elder Bush agreed to in 1992, though it’s nice to now have China on board — nonbinding, of course.

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…all Obama really promised in China was that existing trends will continue.

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Brace yourself for environmentalists saying that falling gasoline prices is a disaster. The more fossil fuels cost, the greater the incentive to switch to renewables — but the reverse is true, too. Not only are fossil fuel prices declining, so are prices of many commodity metals. Market economists would call this good news: Technology and innovation drive down costs, and everyone comes out ahead, but establishment liberal opinion tends to think that unless action originates with government, it must be sinister.

New England is rebounding, and doing it with guys you’ve never heard of. Your wacky whisky of the week is Cragganmore.

“Adventures in Officiating“: was that a fumble by Cutler, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Arizona – Detroit. Happy Hour in Hell’s Sports Bar is back. Chicken-(salad) kicking: Oakland, Washington.

MIT 24, Coast Guard 13. Pop passing, and a nice shout out to Paul Lukas of Uni Watch. Bad tactical decisions by Washington and Notre Dame.

More chicken-(salad) kicking: Buffalo. Philadelphia. Detroit. Stanford. The 500 Club. Also 600 and 700. No Canadian Club, sorry. Augsburg 62, Bethel 61.

Remember last week’s “single worst play of the season – so far” by Da Bears? It wasn’t defensive coordinator Mel Tucker that was responsible for that: it was linebacker Lance Briggs. Good to know.

And that wraps things up for this week. TMQ hasn’t announced a bye week this year, and it looks like there will be a real column next week. We’re not sure what to tell you to tune in for; perhaps a ritual denunciation of turkey, or complaints about Rudolph airing too early in the Christmas season. No matter what, tune in next week; we’re pretty sure we’ll be able to poke holes in TMQ’s arguments about something.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2014 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Loser, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.