So a priest, a rabbi, and an NFL scout walk into a bar and say, “Bartender, quarterbacks for everyone!”
Quarterbacks taken at the top of the NFL Draft are routine: Last week’s draft was the 13th of 19 in this century in which the initial pick was a quarterback. But the number of them to come off the board early was higher than ever. It was the first draft in NFL annals in which four of the top ten players chosen were signal-callers. Even by the standards of a sport known to touts as “a quarterback league,” that was something.
Tuesday Morning Quarterback contends that in the contemporary NFL—where rules have been elaborately tweaked to encourage the passing game and to protect the guy behind center—there is having a franchise quarterback, and then there is everything else combined. Looked at in that way, it’s no surprise four quarterbacks went at the top of the draft. Maybe it should have been more.
The surprise was that the price of admission to the franchise-quarterback party was relatively affordable. Jersey/B gave up one first-round draft choice and three number-two selections to land Sam Darnold. Buffalo gave up a first and two seconds for Josh Allen. Arizona surrendered just a first, a third, and a fifth for Josh Rosen. Of course Cleveland gave up an entire season, going 0-16 to obtain the first overall choice the Browns used on Baker Mayfield. But that price was already a sunk cost, as an economist would say.
These move-up transactions were less expensive than what the R*dsk*ns gave for Robert Griffin III (three number-one choices plus a number-two), what the Chargers gave for Ryan Leaf (the first-round choice they swapped was third overall, more valuable than any pick swapped last week by the Jets, Bills, or Cardinals), or what the Giants gave for Eli Manning (Jersey/A offered the fourth overall choice, again higher than anything offered by the Jets, Bills, or Cardinals, plus first- and third-round choices). Should Darnold, Allen, or Rosen become stars, no one will care in the slightest about the picks spent to reel them in.
No one has any idea whether the quarterbacks obtained by trade at the top of last week’s draft will earn the franchise label. A good guess is that of Darnold, Allen, and Rosen, one will be a huge success, one will be a bust, and one will bounce around from club to club looking for the right situation. Nobody knows at this stage which will be which.
In the 2012 draft, quarterbacks Andrew Luck, Griffin, Ryan Tannehill, and Brandon Weeden went high. One became a star, one is JAG (“just another guy” in scouts’ lingo), and two were busts. The third and fourth rounds of that draft produced Russell Wilson, Nick Foles, and Kirk Cousins, who have between them two Super Bowl rings and the NFL’s largest-ever contract guarantee. In 2012, a team seeking a quarterback was better off with late picks than early choices.
Since TMQ loves underdog athletes, this column was pleased that the selection of Mayfield represented the third time in the last six years that the top choice of the NFL draft was a guy who did not get five stars from Rivals.com, the holy writ of football recruiting. Mayfield received three stars coming out of high school, and in the recruiting wars, that’s the kiss of death: Football factories want five-star prep guys. (Some colleges give coaches bonuses based on the Rivals rankings of their recruiting classes.) Baker’s not-five joins the four-star ranking of Jared Goff, number one choice overall in 2016, and the two stars given to Eric Fisher. In Rivals-land, two stars means no football factory for you, bucko! Fisher attended Central Michigan, then became the first overall choice of the 2013 NFL draft.
Better still, three of the first 19 players chosen in last week’s draft did not receive any athletic scholarship offers out of high school. Nobody but nobody wanted Mayfield, who had to walk on at Texas Tech, then walked on at Oklahoma. Josh Allen, the seventh overall selection, couldn’t even find a walk-on opening out of high school: He attended a community college, then enrolled at Wyoming, which floats below the exalted level of the Power Five. The 19th selection of the draft, linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, walked on at Boise State, also not a Power Five school, because no college offered him an NCAA deal.
And lest we forget, Carson Wentz, the second selection of the 2016 draft, played college football at North Dakota when no Division 1 program extended a scholarship. It’s always pleasing in many aspects of life—athletics, the arts, science—when people who have been told they’re no good go on to do well. Lately there have been many such examples at the top of the NFL draft.
In other NFL news, the first round of the draft was “weird” and “amazing” and “shocking” and “bizarre” and “awesome” and “nuts.” Those adjectives were used in the first 15 minutes by announcers on ESPN and NFL Network. “Awesome” is a matter of taste, but can calling out the names of former college football players truly be “amazing?”
Part of the house-man role of sportscasters, whether male or female, is to pretend that events are not merely interesting (which ought to be sufficient), but are crazy or extraordinary, as if the audience were witnessing something astonishing. Americans are so hooked on professional football that every year on draft week, millions of us—at least 12 million for the first round—will watch football merely being talked about, not played. But it should be enough that the draft is interesting. As Strunk and White would say, intensifiers are not needed.
Announcer jargon note: Draft prospects were said to possess “fluid hips” and “quick feet” and other mysterious properties. On NFL Network, Mike Mayock said of one former college athlete, “He has violent hands.”
Giants Fans Working on Puns for the Name “Saquon.” The draft decision that may have the most impact on the 2018 NFL season was the Giants selecting Saquon Barkley with the second pick, rejecting trade offers to stockpile draft capital and passing on the opportunity to acquire a successor for 37-year-old Eli Manning. This commits Jersey/A to a win-now strategy in 2018, rather than switching the franchise to rebuilding mode. Since Eli arrived in 2004, the Giants have hoisted two Super Bowl trophies and had only one bad season, which was last season. That suggests it makes sense to go all-in to win as much as possible while Manning is still standing.
If Jersey/A returns to form in 2018, Ben McAdoo’s name forever will be cursed by Giants fans for the ridiculous one-game benching that ended Eli’s consecutive starts streak at 210, second-highest in NFL annals. Note that McAdoo is currently unemployed in football. He now has a negative aura that may reduce his future employment prospects with other NFL clubs. After Jim Fassel was perceived (fairly or not) as having botched his turn with the Giants, he ended up coaching the Las Vegas Locomotives.
As for Barkley, commentators called him the best tailback since Adrian Peterson. The apt comparison is to Marshall Faulk, who went second overall in 1994. Peterson was really hard to bring down, but one-dimensional. Faulk could catch as well as carry the ball, ran precise routes, and blitz-blocked. Barkley shows a lot of potential as a receiver, and unlike some college stars, did not consider himself too important for blocking assignments. If Barkley does for the Giants what Faulk did for the Rams, Eli may suddenly look younger.
Everybody’s Above Average. Lots of sportswriting is posturing; features that grade teams’ drafts on an A-to-F scale are especially so, considering that at this juncture, no one has the slightest idea how any team’s draft class will perform. Draft-grade features require the sportswriter to pretend to have detailed appreciation of 256 college players, most of whom the writer has never seen nor, for that matter, ever heard of. But everyone gets a participation trophy!
As part of overall grade inflation, almost all draft grades are above average. The lowest grade the NFL’s website handed out was a C, so no one was below average. The NFL graded 17 of 32 teams with an A, meaning 53 percent of the league was “outstanding.” The NFL even awarded an A to the Houston Texans, who had no first- or second-round choice, yet still managed, according to the grades, to compile an exceptional group. NFL.com says the Texans even got an A on the first day—when they didn’t pick anyone!
Of course the NFL’s writers are house men. What about those hardhitting investigative journalists at the Washington Post? The Post graded 19 of 32 NFL drafts as above average—that means the average result was above average—while not handing out any failing grades. Nobody failed—social promotion comes to football!
Pete Carroll Goes Comey. NFL head coaches and general managers who want to go all Comey—that is, engage in elaborate self-praise—declare that they traded down to add picks, then nabbed the guy they would have chosen anyway. The Seattle Times quotes Pete Carroll saying this about his moves in the first round. Maintaining you moved down then got the best player anyway is the same as declaring, “I’m smarter than everyone else.” We’ll see. Sometimes the going-Comey is more direct. Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome cut out the middleman and simply declared his own decisions “masterful.”
As for James Comey going all Comey, his machinations can seem inscrutable. First he broke every rule in the Justice Department book by holding a lengthy press conference exonerating Hillary Clinton; when no charges are to be filed, law enforcement should say nothing. So was he carrying water for Clinton? Then two weeks before the election he broke rules again by announcing something extremely harmful to Clinton, though he would later admit to having no evidence of any kind. Now Comey claims he could not have “concealed” what the FBI was up to, yet it is standard—required by law in most cases—for the FBI to say nothing while investigations are ongoing. So was he carrying water for Donald Trump? Inscrutable!
Along the way Comey missed no chance to glory himself, saying his October moves were an incredible act of courage on his part – “Thanks, me, for praising me.” Then he signed a deal for a book of self-praise. Based on media promotion and sales, Comey’s book income is on its way to $5 million, as the former FBI director lauds himself for his ethics, for his leadership gifts, for his victimhood, and most, for his “higher loyalty.”
If one wonders who Comey really backed, or why he was flouting Justice Department professional standards, then his machinations indeed are inscrutable. But suppose Comey’s higher loyalty always was to himself. If his goal was publicity, money, and personal acclaim, everything Comey did makes perfect sense.
The Center Cannot Hold, Or At Least If He Does It’s a 10-Yard Penalty. This column contends that center is the unappreciated position in football. Two centers went in the first round for the first time since 2009. With his initial selection as a head coach, Detroit’s Matt Patricia chose a center. From his years with the Patriots, Patricia surely knows how important reliable centers—Dan Koppen, David Andrews—have been to Tom Brady’s success, both as blockers (pressure up the middle is the shortest distance to the quarterback) and in making the line calls.
Rookie Bryan Stork was New England’s starting center when the Flying Elvii defeated Seattle in the 2015 Super Bowl. Multiple concussions ended his NFL career after two seasons, during which Stork looked like a future Pro Bowl performer. Considering all the recent attention to traumatic brain injury in football, TMQ finds it puzzling that Stork’s story has not been told.
The other NFL team with a new head coach associated with New England is the Flaming Thumbtacks, whose Mike Vrabel played linebacker for Bill Belichick for eight years. Vrabel used his first two draft choices as a head coach on linebackers.
3…2…1…Liftoff for Space Books. Two important and revealing new books, The Space Barons by Christian Davenport and Rocket Billionaires by Tim Fernholz, tell the stories of projects by Jeff Bezos (Space Barons) and Elon Musk (Rocket Billionaires) to develop private launchers for placing things and people into orbit. Each book is, in its own way, a great read. Both concern whether rocketry will show the same sequence as aviation: initially so expensive and little-understood that government control was expected, eventually practical and affordable without public financing.
The authors devote much of their narratives to the personalities of the outsize entrepreneurs involved. In the background of both efforts lies a simple but oft-neglected concept: Cheap is better than expensive.
In the early days of the Moon race, when it was far from clear any nation could succeed in placing a person on the lunar surface then bringing him home, cost was no object for Apollo program managers and aerospace contractors. These constituencies realized they liked cost-no-object funding. After the final Moon landing in 1972, the sensible step would have been to seek lower-cost methods of reaching space.
Instead, NASA and the aerospace old-boys network fixated their lobbying on keeping costs as high as possible. The space shuttle was a technical success but a taxpayers’ nightmare; several presidents announced what seemed like private-space initiatives but actually were intended to keep launch costs as high as possible; the aerospace lobby devised United Launch Alliance to exert monopoly power over what would appear to be private initiatives for NASA, commercial, and Air Force blast-offs. Though real-dollar prices of almost all consumer and industrial goods have declined, today’s United Launch Alliance rockets cost more, in adjusted dollars, than comparable boosters of half a century ago, which is exactly what the aerospace lobby wanted—while NASA’s troubled Space Launch System, if it ever flies, will cost more than double the real-dollar price of the Saturn V rocket that existed when the Beatles were still together.
The late Robert Bork contended that monopolies self-destruct by creating targets for nimble competitors. Bezos and Musk both observed that NASA, the Air Force space division, and United Launch Alliance were feather-bedded and dragging their feet against innovation. The result is the reliable, lower-cost launchers whose stories are told in the two exciting new books.
Footnote 1: As Apollo wound down, maverick engineers proposed several ideas, collectively known as Big Dumb Booster, for low-cost alternatives to the shuttle. Big Dumb Booster was relentlessly quashed by aerospace contractors, exactly because it would not be expensive. Here is a 1989 Office of Technology Assessment study of the concept, a study which, as you’ll see, was triggered by my 1987 reporting on same.
Footnote 2: Beginning in the 1990s, a little-known company called Sea Launch fired 32 large rockets into orbit from a purpose-built ship at the equator, becoming the first private venture to place heavy objects in space. (The equator is the ideal position from which to reach orbit.) Sea Launch made some progress in cutting the cost of access to the final frontier, but since it was not a true independent (Boeing backed the idea), the old-boys network was able to employ Capitol Hill maneuvering to freeze it out. Some Sea Launch personnel moved on to the Musk and Bezos projects, which build their own hardware to avoid being beholden to the aerospace establishment. In 2003, I reported on the Sea Launch project in an Atlantic article aptly titled “Long Shot.”
Is the Clock Ticking on Aaron Rodgers? A year ago at this time, the Bills traded down in order to acquire the 2018 first-round selection they packaged to acquire Josh Allen, who has a reasonable shot at becoming the team’s first franchise quarterback since Jim Kelly. Last week, Green Bay traded down in order to acquire a 2019 first-round selection. Does this mean the Packers’ new management is setting the table for a 2019 move for a successor to Aaron Rodgers? Rodgers can be the cat’s meow, but he’s had injury problems, turns 35 by Christmas, and since defeating the Steelers in the 2011 Super Bowl, is 5-6 as a postseason starter.
Buffalo chose Josh Allen over Josh Rosen, who was soon plucked by Arizona. (TMQ calls the Arizona club the Cactus Wrens because cardinals are rare in the land of the Grand Canyon, while cactus wrens are the state bird.) Coming from the Pac-12, where offenses are more similar to the pros than in any other college conference, Josh Rosen seems ready to go. Last week’s TMQ proposed that Rosen was the best quarterback in the draft. Time will tell who selected the best Josh.
Sportsyak claims the Bills needed Josh Allen’s spectacular arm to throw through the lake-effect clime of western New York. That seems a red herring: Nick Veronica of the Buffalo News shows gameday weather and wind speed in the Miami of the North are about the same as typical gamedays in Denver, Chicago, and Cleveland. But Allen’s stature and strength—the ability to stand tall as all is chaos around him—will remind spectators of the stature and strength of tough-guy Ben Roethlisberger. That’s perfect for the Buffalo audience.
Stop Me Before I Trade Again. Nobody makes more draft day moves than Bill Belichick. Up, down, down, and then back up—three trades involving the fourth round alone. They really seem to need something to do in the Patriots draft room. Maybe they should reenact Civil War battles using salt-flour maps and toy soldiers.
The NFL Draft Celebrates Absurd Precision. Contemporary American society likes the sort of absurd precision that pretends we can know, down to decimal places, things that are either guesses or approximations. One reason the NFL draft gets such notice is that drafkniks can spend months obsessing about hundredths of seconds in shuttle times, quarter-inches of hand size, and similar pseudo exactitude. Here’s a review of recent examples:
· At the 2017 Combine, Davlin Cook ran the 40 in 4.5 seconds, while Christian McCaffrey was clocked at 4.48. That means McCaffrey reaches the 40-yard marker three inches ahead of Cook. Cook’s 4.5 became a 4.49 after the Supreme Court, Vatican, and United Nations Security Council examined the data. At the 2018 Combine, potential draftees got grades to the hundredths. Maybe an 11.77 in the long shuttle qualifies you for a 5.64 grade!
· The NFL’s Next Gen Stats has Leonard Fournette running 22.05 MPH, while Tyreek Hill could manage only 21.68 MPH.
· Late in a Princeton versus Notre Dame men’s basketball contest, officials huddled and put 0.9 seconds back on clock. It certainly wasn’t one second!
· Alex Bente (@theAlexBente) noted on Twitter, “Alexa just told me I can expect ‘about 0.88 inches’ of snow tonight.”
· My favorite local Tex-Mex place tells me a burrito has 67.68 calories. My county claims to recycle 56.01 percent of its wastes.
· Curbside note: My neighborhood has county recycling financed by a mandatory assessment on property tax bills, plus user-fee pivate hauling for regular trash. My private hauler charges $240 per year for twice-weekly pickups of an unlimited amount. The government-managed recycler comes once a week, will only take a fixed amount, has numerous rules, and charges a hyper-specific $205.11 per annum. The whole justification of recycling is that post-consumer paper, metals, and glass have value. So shouldn’t the county be paying me for my recyclables, rather than charging? Yet the private-sector fee for more than twice as much service for trash that must be taken to a landfill is nearly the same as the government-imposed cost of recycling that supposedly makes economic sense.
· Conservation note: to save paper, the Cincinnati Bengals recycle game plans.
· Chevy says the new Bolt goes precisely 238 miles per charge. Tesla says the new Model 3 goes 215 miles, which sounds like a round number, but actually is as hyper-specific as 238. China emits “20.09 percent” of the world’s artificial greenhouse gases. A teen solved a Rubik’s Cube in “4.904” seconds. The Fish & Wildlife Service knows exactly how many grey wolves there are.
· Here are gymnastics scores from the 2016 Rio Olympics. United States women took the gold with a score of 184.897, Russian women won the silver with a score of 176.688, while Canada’s women took the bronze at 176.003. Russia was half of a tenth of a percent better than Canada!
· Then there are tax rates. For institutional payers or very high earners, small differences matter: For the majority of filers, tax rates seem to be set with a principal goal in mind of confusion.
· The Oregon state income tax top rate is 9.9 percent—it’s certainly not 10 percent! The income tax top rate for Iowa is 8.98 percent, for New Jersey is 8.97 percent, for Vermont 8.95 percent. Connecticut’s top rate is 6.99 percent—surely not 7 percent! Tax rates like this are like Amazon Prime charging $99, which is certainly not $100!
· In 2011, Illinois enacted a “temporary” 5-percent income tax rate; in 2017, the Land of Lincoln made the “temporary” rate permanent at 4.95 percent. This was presented to voters as a tax cut.
· The Clark County, Nevada, hotel tax to fund the new Raiders stadium is 0.88 percent. That levy will divert about $750 million from citizens’ wallets and purses—or from social needs like health care and school funding—into the portfolios of the NFL’s super-rich ownership feudal elite. But rest assured, the tax is only 0.88 percent, certainly not 1 percent!
Finally, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, whose motto is All Predictions Wrong or Your Money Back, annually mocks predictions. What about when failed predictions meet absurd pseudo-predictions?
Here is ESPN on the eve of last season predicting, to the decimal place, what would happen once the ball was kicked off. With pseudo precision, ESPN forecast the Seahawks would be the league’s fourth-best team at “4.2,” while Philadelphia would be 15th best at “0.2.” Seattle missed the playoffs, the Eagles became NFL champions. The Jaguars were said to be a paltry 27th best, at “-4.0,” whatever the heck a minus ranking means. The Cowboys were sixth-best at “3.8,” while the Bills were next to worst at “-1.9.” Dallas missed the postseason; Buffalo made it.
ESPN forecast the Colts to win “8.5 games”—that is, to achieve an outcome that is impossible. The Giants were poised for “8.2” victories—they won 5.2 less than that. The Steelers were predicted to win not 10 games but 10.1 games, while Green Bay would just miss 10 wins with 9.9 victories.
As for obtaining the Lombardi Trophy, New England had not a real good chance but precisely a 34.7-percent chance. The Eagles were said to have a mere 3.5-percent probability of reaching the Super Bowl, and just a 1-percent—excuse me, “1.0”-percent—chance of winning.
Distressed Asset Sale. On the day of the 2013 draft, the Rams traded first- and second-round choices for wide receiver Tavon Austin; on the day of the 2018 draft, they sent Austin to the Cowboys for a sixth-round choice. Holders of Puerto Rico utility bonds got more cents on the dollar than this.
Just before the 2016 season, LA/A awarded Austin a megabucks contract that on paper called for $42 million in payments. Jeff Fisher was then still head coach of the Rams: Having spent a handsome sum in draft terms to acquire Austin, Fisher wanted to pay him like a superstar, thus justifying the original decision. Soon Fisher was shown the door, and now Austin has been, too. The “$42-million” contract had long since been rewritten to a $5-million deal, which is why Dallas was willing to swap for it.
“The Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in an Adult Video Goes to…” Stormy Daniels continues to be in the news, so much so that headline writers have exhausted possible puns on the word stormy. Whenever an adult film actress makes the papers, she’s inevitably referred to as a “porn star.” Does this mean everyone in porn is a leading character? You’d think there would also be a supporting cast. What about the porn performers who play the grizzled detective who’s seen it all, the eccentric old lady who urges young people to follow their hearts? Shouldn’t porn have subcategories for set designers, sound mixers, gaffers?
The trend in theater is to describe all performers as actors, eliminating the designation actress. The reasoning is that physicians no longer are addressed as “doctor” or “doctress,” just doctor, so the same transition should happen with actor and actress. This suggests a porn actress such as Daniels should be referred to in news reports as a porn actor.
Why the Low Rounds Are Better Than the High Rounds. A generation ago, high draft selections were viewed as much more valuable than low ones: If given the chance, any team would have swapped a dozen seventh-round choices for a first-round pick. Today the salary cap makes the dynamic different. Late-round draftees represent warm bodies who can be bound to the club for four seasons at the league minimum. Late choices can be preferable to undrafted free agents, who may command a modest bonus; sixth- and seventh-round selections have no choice but to sign for whatever they are offered.
This explains why the New England Patriots traded out of the third and fourth rounds, where rookies get decent deals, in order to obtain five sixth- and seventh-round selections. The Rams ended up with four selections in the sixth round and two picks in the seventh round, though none in the first or second; this may seem bad to the audience, but it’s good for the team’s salary cap manager. Green Bay put together three fifth-round choices, a sixth rounder, and three in the seventh round—perhaps part of its hopes of clearing enough cap room to grant an extension to Aaron Rodgers and also sign another high-profile quarterback in 2019.
Since the draft is basically buying lottery tickets, some sports-analytics types would call a handful of late choices equal in value to one high selection. In terms of sports economics, late choices are definitely desirable.
Frequent Flyer Pick of the Draft. Number 79: Seattle from Arizona through Oakland and Pittsburgh. Though number 167 was pretty good: Vikings from Vikings via Jets, Minnesota trading this choice away to Jersey/B and then reacquiring it later.
Don’t Forget New Orleans Came Within One Fluke Snap of Facing the Eagles for the NFC Title. The Saints mortgaged their future by surrendering their 2019 first-round choice to move up. They chose defensive end Marcus Davenport of the University of Texas at San Antonio, a college which only recently began to play football. Go Roadrunners! (Crowds at UTSA games should chant, “Meep meep!”) Davenport may give New Orleans the sole thing it lacked in 2017, pressure off the edge.
Sometimes mortgage debt makes sense—in this case, when you know your future Hall of Fame quarterback is almost to the end of the line in athletic terms. Drew Brees is famously boyish but will turn 40 by next year’s NFC title contest. If there is to be another Lombardi for the Brees-led Saints, it’s now or never.
Run Big Guy, Run! Minnesota used a high draft pick on University of Pittsburgh offensive tackle Brian O’Neill, who in college carried the ball three times for 39 yards and two touchdowns. NFL Network showed one of his rushes, with commentator Mike Mayock calling the play a “reverse.” It was not a reverse—the ball never changed direction—rather, an end around. Except in this case, a tackle-around.
The Upside of Scouting Hobart vs. Endicott Is That There’s Not a Huge Crowd of NFL Executives Needing Space in the Press Box. Two years ago the Buccaneers invested a second-round pick in offensive lineman Ali Marpert, who played at Hobart, a Division 3 college. Last week the Buccaneers invested a third-round choice in Alex Cappa, an offensive lineman from Humboldt State, a Division 2 school. The Statesmen of Hobart line up against the likes of Endicott and Ithaca; the Lumberjacks of Humboldt State square off against Azusa Pacific and Chadron State.
At Least Porn Is Honest About What It Is. Two recent studio flicks, Darkest Hour and Chappaquiddick, bring history to life on the big screen. Or do they? Darkest Hour has a character named “Winston Churchill” and it’s May 1940, the pivotal month of Churchill’s life and for European democracy. Chappaquiddick has a character named “Ted Kennedy,” and it’s July 1969, the pivotal month of Kennedy’s life and for the Kennedy dynasty.
But both movies are full of preposterous fiction. In the decisive scene of Darkest Hour, Churchill wanders alone into the London Underground, chats with a group of pleasingly multicultural Britons—workmen, well-dressed women on their way to the office, an African, a Muslim—and draws from their plainspoken dignity the courage to defy Hitler. When Churchill stumbles trying to quote Macaulay, one of the ordinary people on the train completes the quotation for him. It’s impressive moviemaking—but nothing like this happened.
In a key scene of Chappaquiddick, Joseph Kennedy Sr., father of Ted, Bobby, and the 35th president, and an evil mastermind in conspiracy theories that stretch as far back as prewar England, gives instructions on how to cover up the killing of Mary Jo Kopechne. This is preposterous. Kennedy Sr. suffered a stroke in 1961 and became aphasiac. By summer 1969, when the movie scene occurs, the elder Kennedy was mute and a few months shy of death.
Perhaps in both cases directors would say, “These scenes made for better movies.” They did, but they also converted veracity into pulp fiction. Darkest Hour and Chappaquiddick devalue the word “history” by inserting stuff the Brits call “sexed up” material. Motives of the moviemakers further confuse the situation. Darkest Hour seeks to lionize Churchill—who is already among the most admired figures in 20th-century history (though certainly not in India). Chappaquiddick seeks to demonize the Kennedys. Straightforward facts about Ted Kennedy’s hours of silence when he was the only person who knew there was a young woman trapped in a sunken car, slowly running out of air, are more damning than the film’s inventions.
Public figures including Donald Trump have been furiously devaluing factual truth; Hollywood goes along, and sometimes newspapers and book publishers do, as well.
As in other big-deal “historical” movies, during Darkest Hour the audience has no way of gauging what’s true (some scenes in the flick are faithful to actual events), what’s speculation (no one has any idea what Winston and Clementine said to each other in private), and what’s pure hokum. The subliminal message to audiences is that it does not matter what’s true so long as you are entertained. That’s Trump’s message, too.
Soccer Moms Won’t Let Kids See Movies That Show Cigarettes, But Showing Murder Is Fine. This column excoriates movie disclaimers that warn of euphemisms such as “action violence.” Reader Barry Edwards of Minneapolis notes Chappaquiddick warns of “historical smoking.”
In the current generation, Hollywood has avoided depictions of smoking, on the theory that audiences are impressionable, while glorifying guns and killing for sport. The result? Less smoking and more mass shooting, exactly the outcome moviemakers promote to the mass audience.
The scandal that began with Harvey Weinstein leaves us all unsure what goes on in private in Tinsel Town. But everyone sees what happens in public: objectification of women, glamorization of slaughtering the helpless, using really cool guns. What Hollywood promotes for everyone to see is the disturbing part.
Scrat Hoarded Acorns, Belichick Hoards Future Picks. Through various trades the Indianapolis Colts ended up with four second-round choices. None of the selections were splashy. But the Colts have had a weak depth chart recently; that may change in 2018. Indianapolis also banked an extra second-round choice to 2019, as did both Super Bowl entrants, New England and Philadelphia. New England stockpiled a third-round choice to 2019, as well, and expects additional mid-round choices in 2019 as a result of the NFL’s recondite free agent compensation policy.
Teams that succeed over the long haul often defer picks until future drafts because they know there will be a limit to how many rookies can make the roster in the current year. In the case of the Patriots, it was puzzling that with extra picks to exploit this year, and more coming next year, and Tom Brady not getting younger no matter how much avocado ice cream he eats, Belichick didn’t make any major move for a rookie quarterback. Of course, Belichick wants to keep everyone puzzled.
Was This “Masterful?” Netting several trades, the Ravens swapped the 16th overall choice, second-, fifth-, and sixth-round choices, plus a second-round choice in 2019, for two late first-round selections plus a third-round choice. General manager Ozzie Newsome was running his final Baltimore draft, and ending up with two first-round picks, made a splash. But by trading a high choice in 2019, Newsome may have boosted his own reputation while mortgaging the future that will be inherited by Baltimore’s next general manager.
Newsome took quarterback Lamar Jackson with the final choice of the first round. Walking onto the big stage ‘ere the clock struck midnight Eastern, with fans and media already streaming to the exits, Jackson winced, as though having to suffer by becoming the last selection on the draft’s prestige day. The landscape is littered with phenomenal athletes who can only dream of having been first-round NFL choices, and gladly would have been the final first-round choice.
Lend Me a Tight End! Note Baltimore’s highest choice was tight end Hayden Hurst; the Ravens added another tight end in the third round. Many NFL teams try to economize—in draft and salary cap terms—at tight end. “You can always get a tight end off the street,” Bumbling Buddy Nix, a former Bills general manager, said after passing on Rob Gronkowski, a Buffalo native, to select the legendary Torrell Troup, who would post two NFL career starts.
The last Super Bowl paired clubs that invested heavily in the tight end position, with Gronkowski, Zach Ertz, and others. The defending champions just invested a second-round choice in a tight end, Dallas Goedert, who will start as Philadelphia’s third-string TE, replacing Trey Burton, who threw a touchdown pass on Philly Special in the Super Bowl, then swapped his notoriety for a signing bonus from the Bears. The Eagles’ strong roster allows the club to afford a luxury pick such as a highly drafted backup tight end. Still, the message is the same: Teams that try to economize at tight end don’t go far, as tight ends are the keys who unlock a modern NFL defense. Perhaps on his way out the door, Newsome put the Ravens in a position for a Super Bowl return.
An 18% Gratuity Will Be Added to Any Trades Involving Six or More Draft Choices. A trade between the Ravens and the defending champion Eagles included the equivalent of a $10 bill left on the bar for a $5 beer: The teams flip-flopped picks #125 and #132.
Next Week. Next week for Tuesday Morning Quarterback arrives on August 21st, as the football artificial universe resumes.
