Goodell: NFL Might Get Rid of PATs

While I was busy working yesterday, the NFL Commissioner was busy coming up with weird ideas. Specifically, he floated the idea of eliminating the PAT.

“You want to add excitement with every play,” Goodell said. “So there have been some proposals. Some are still going through the process of creativity, but there’s one proposal in particular that I’ve heard about (where) it’s automatic that you get seven points when you score a touchdown, but you could potentially go for an eighth point, either by running or passing the ball. But if you fail, you’d go back to six.”

So we're talking about scoring a touchdown, getting seven points for that, and then having the ability to gain an extra point by going for the two point conversion, with the idea being that if you fail, you go back to six.

This is a silly idea. First, it's not going to motivate any coaches to go for two (or should we call it one?) with the conversion "bet", unless they otherwise would due to the score being odd. If you didn't know, there's actually a chart that you can use to determine when to go for the two-point conversion. I'm told there was math involved.

Anyway, my point is that eliminating the PAT kick won't really change the game at all, other than to have the effect of going directly from TD to kickoff most of the time. Does that really make the game "more exciting"? Not really.

It does move the game along a little, but the PAT only takes a few seconds. The big delay is really a feature of the TV timeouts they take between the TD, the PAT, the kickoff, and then the first offensive possession of the other team. In that span of time, you can get a TV timeout (a commercial) between all of those, resulting in about 4-5 minutes before more actual football occurs.

So, it's really the commercials. Also, do you know anyone who complains about PATs? Hey bro! You know, the thing I hate most about the NFL is those darn PATs. They're soooo boring! I wish they would get rid of them!

No, you don't know anyone who says that, because no one says that. You know what I would like to see? I would like to see the NFL tell advertisers that they can only show a certain commercial a limited number of times during each game.

Think about it. How many times have you watched a football game and seen the same commercial for three hours, over, and over, and over? Being overexposed to the same commercial makes you start to loathe the product. Case in point: Before he saw this commercial, my friend Will probably didn't have any strong feelings about the Nissan Rogue. Now I bet you a nickel he would never buy one, because he's had that stupid commercial force-fed to him about a billion times in the span of a few football games. If you bought one, he would probably make fun of you.

Keep the PAT, drop the repetitive commercials.

John Boehner and Lane Kiffin

This whole debacle over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling has been an unmitigated disaster for Republicans. They started out with the primary objective of repealing the Affordable Care Act. When that didn't happen, they moved to defunding it. When that didn't happen, they moved to trying to delay it. When that didn't happen, they tried to go with the strategy of getting rid of Congressional staffer subsidies. Guess what. That didn't work either.

In short, nothing was achieved. The Republicans lost every single time on every single issue, and it was fairly predictable. Nothing was accomplished. So what's the way forward for the Republicans? I don't know. But I do know this:

Southern California fired their coach this year because they went 7-6 last year and were 3-2 this year. When football teams have a really bad few seasons, they fire the coach. That's not to say it's totally the coach's fault that the team is doing badly. It wasn't Lane Kiffin who threw three interceptions, but you can't fire the whole team when they're playing poorly. Accordingly, you make a change of leadership and start fresh with someone else running the team. That's all you can do. That's what Southern Cal did. And although they'll continue to struggle this season, they're taking steps to address the problems they have.

The former coach of Southern California's football team.

That's what needs to happen with the Republicans in the United States House of Representatives. It isn't necessarily John Boehner's fault that this strategy didn't work, but you can't get rid of the entire GOP House. They're going to be there. However, the Speaker is like the coach. He needs to be fired or resign. I don't have any idea who should lead the GOP in the House (and I don't really care) but I know that the current leadership isn't getting the job done on any level. The players don't trust the coach.

I would like to see Boehner, Cantor, and the rest of the House leadership simply resign their posts.

The current GOP leadership that needs to be fired.

Going forward may be tough, but a different strategy and different leadership needs to be put in place. Maybe the House GOP is too conservative for Boehner, but maybe that's the problem. When you have players on a team who aren't "buying in" to what the Coach is trying to do, you're not going to have a good team, and you're not going to win games. Right now, a large part of the team isn't buying in to the leadership. And the problem is, you can't fire the team. You have to change leadership.

This is one of those good for the party, good for the country type deals. Getting rid of the current House GOP leadership will also have the benefit of clearing the board of all the old animus that has built up between Boehner and all the Democratic leadership.

Russia's Offer to Take Syria's Chemical Weapons

First, I think this will be the deal. Or something very close. It offers too much face-saving to everyone involved. Don't forget: Syria and Russia are allies. They're on the same side. Russia wants Assad to stay in power. That's their interest. With this deal: 

• The USA gets to say: We forced Assad to give up his chemical weapons! 
• The Russians get to say: We brokered a peace deal! Look how important we are! 
• Assad gets to say: I'm not guilty, but here are my chemical weapons.

The Russians and Syrians know that we are very unlikely to bomb Assad much. However, Russia might not have wanted to take the chance that a little push on Assad might have tipped the balance of the civil war. The Russians cannot afford for Assad to lose to the jihadist rebels. So maybe the Russians are being a little risk-averse here.

Also, the chemical weapons have no further use for Assad. His goal is to win the civil war, and he can do that with conventional weapons. I'm sure that part of this deal will have the Russians giving/selling more conventional weapons to the Assad, so he can continue prosecuting the war. I hate to break it to y'all, but people are just as dead from an AK-47 as they are from sarin. Dead is dead.

It's possible that Assad is giving up nothing by giving up chemical weapons since those weapons have already achieved as much military advantage they were going to achieve. Think about it like chess.

What Russia and Syria are doing is taking and keeping the initiative, forcing Obama to respond to them. They're offering to exchange some pieces for position and time. The piece they are giving up are no longer useful in the full sense. However, they get to string out "inspections" and such for a long time. It will probably be long enough for Syria to win the civil war.

In chess--a game Putin no doubt knows very well--initiative is nearly everything: one has the advantage when one is forcing an opponent to respond to your moves rather than you to his. By forcing Obama's play, he is effectively one or more moves ahead.

In chess, there are (basically) three stages of the game. There's the opening game, in which the players being to strategically place all of their pieces on the board, bringing out their powerful pieces in turn. This is followed by the middle game, which takes place after some of the pawns have been cleared away and there is room for powerful pieces to exert their reach. Finally, you have the endgame, where final pressure on the opponent's king is exerted, and he's ultimately powerless and trapped in checkmate.

We're now in the middle game. The endgame here is Iran with nukes. Checkmate happens when the Iranians achieve nuclear capability and we are maneuvered into a position where we can do nothing about it.

Sometimes mistakes in the opening cannot be overcome.

The Folly of Striking Syria

Col. Ralph Peters has a good analysis of the situation in Syria.

You might as well try to teach a snake to juggle as hope the Obama administration will think strategically. The “peace president” is about to embark on his third military adventure, this time in Syria, without having learned the lessons of his botched efforts in Afghanistan and Libya. He hasn’t even learned from the Bush administration’s mistakes — which he mocked with such delight.

Before launching a single cruise missile toward Syria, Team Obama needs to be sure it has a good answer to the question, “What comes next?”

Go read the whole thing.

I still haven't heard what the goal in Syria is. What's our compelling national interest? What is our motivation? Is Congress going to be given a chance to authorize this action?

This seems like President Obama got his feelings hurt and is wanting to lash out. Otherwise, I can't explain it.

Jim DeMint's Resignation

First of all, I don’t think Jim DeMint’s resignation from the Senate to go to the Heritage Foundation is some kind of pre-positioning for 2016. That’s not how you become President, and I think he knows that. If you think this is pre-positioning for a Presidential run, you need to stop doing drugs.

We all know that DeMint isn’t exactly a “team player”. He’s kind of the lone voice of really hard conservatism in the Senate, and he’s not really getting much done. Most of DeMint’s power was stop other things from getting done, and that’s got to be frustrating for him. Honestly, he hasn’t really been that effective at getting other hard-conservative/tea party folks elected, so it’s not like he’s been practically productive.

I think this is DeMint cashing in his chips when he can, as I’m sure the Heritage Foundation will probably pay him pretty well. Other than that, the main intrigue is how the seat goes. Governor Haley gets to nominate someone, and then they’ll have to have a special election in 2014 (I think). If that’s the case, then both seats in the US Senate from South Carolina will be up in 2014.

In any event, the Democrats will still control the Senate, and DeMint will still be a voice of hard-conservatism.

Ultimately, I kind of rate this as kind of a non-event. The only thing that is kind of a story here is someone walking away from a US Senate seat. He probably could have kept that seat as long as he wanted. You kind of have to respect that on a certain level.

Post Debate Thoughts

Don't worry, unlike some celebrities, there are no curse words here. (I used all mine up last Saturday anyway.) The debates were pretty interesting when viewed in the context of each other. The final debate was most interesting as to what the candidates thought about the state of the race.

First a little recap. In the first debate, Romney came out hard, attacking, playing the prosecutor. At the same time, Obama thought he could just show up, recite his stump speech and win. Alas, it was not to be.

The first debate showed two things. One, Romney wasn't the evil guy that all the attack ads made him out to be. He actually had a plan for the future, and he could explain it. Two, Obama just didn't have the fire that he did four years ago. He was just "checking the box" of the debate, and his plan is to continue with "investing" in roads, bridges, and the same stuff he's been saying for four years. Romney ate his lunch, and everyone knew it. Well, almost everyone.

I think that Obama was playing a prevent defense too early. He knew he had a good lead in some important swing states, and he was simply going to show up, recite his stump speech, not make any major errors, and keep the election on it's current trajectory. As John Madden once said, "All a prevent defense does is prevent you from winning." That's exactly what happened. Romney scored touchdowns, and Obama wasn't even trying to play offense.

The second debate was what everyone thought the first debate was going to be. Both candidates came out of the gate hard, challenged each other, and at one point, I actually thought they were going to start hitting each other with the cordless microphones. Obama to his credit, responded well, showing that he still wanted the job. The energy debate centered on who was more in favor of drilling, which must have driven the environmentalists insane. In any event, basically a tie. However, the damage had been done in the first debate. The people who tuned in for the first debate had formed their impression. Relevant quote for this debate: "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

The final debate was on foreign policy. Or at least it was supposed to be. At a few points in the debate, both candidates decided that they were just going to talk about domestic policy. Bob Sheiffer decided that he wasn't going to interrupt and get them back on the topic of foreign policy (or maybe he fell asleep) and the candidates talked about domestic policy for at least 10 minutes each in a 90 minute debate. Oh well, when the economy and domestic policy is as important as it is this election cycle, there aren't many votes to be had going into detail about foreign policy. Just kill the bad guys, which both candidates are in favor of.

Very differently than before, though, Romney came across as not the prosecutor, but the calm guy who was reasonable. He wasn't going to be the "Cowboy" President, unlike that last Republican in the White House. Romney agreed with Obama more in 90 minutes than he did in the entire campaign. Romney didn't attack Obama when given chances. On the contrary, Obama attacked Romney. All I can take away from this is that Obama thought he was behind (which he is) and Romney thought he was ahead (which he is). It was just the flip side of the first debate. The question is, does Romney's prevent defense work at this point, or does the Romney momentum fade too soon?

Ultimately: Most people voted for Obama last time. Why? Remember where we were four years ago? The outgoing Republican incumbent was toxic, and Obama was such a great story. It was a great combination that created a tidal wave of support. The landscape today couldn't be more different. The economy has been mired in the doldrums for four years, and the inspirational candidate from four years ago isn't here. This version of Obama is petty and condescending.

People desperately want the economy to get better, and they have a binary choice: Government continues to try and solve the problem, or government gets out of the way. We'll know in a few weeks. It's going to get more intense before then, so brace yourself - especially if you live in a swing state.