SPORTSBALL TALK: The Class of '04 edges out the Class of '83 for best Quarterback Draft. Ever.

With three QBs going in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft, it got me thinking again about what a fucking crapshoot it is to pick a quarterback in the first round.  Quarterback is the most important position in football, if not all of sports, which is why GMs take a chance and then pray that the QB they draft will save their jobs.  After seeing more than a few busts in the first round in the past decade, it's time to re-examine the 2004 NFL Draft (ok, I'm really only talking about the first round) and how great those Quarterbacks turned out.

First of all, fun fact:  There were four QBs taken in the first round.  Eli Manning went No.1, Phillip Rivers went No. 4, Ben Roethlisberger went No.11 and....the Bills took fucking JP Losman at No. 22.  Traded up to get him too.  Moves like that are why they haven't been to the playoffs since 1999.  (They also took EJ Manuel at No. 16 in the 2013 draft, the only QB taken in the first round.)

The first point of debate is: are Manning, Roethlisberger, and Rivers better than Elway, Marino and Kelly?  I say yes.  I don't feel like getting into a bar room debate, so if you disagree with me here, just take a second and fuck off.  The main reason I think 2004 was better than 1983?  In '83 SIX QBs were taken in the first round.  The other three were Todd Blackledge, Tony Eason and Ken O'Brien.  Also, the top 3 QBs in 2004 panned out with JP Losman sucking at the back end.  In 1983 this was the draft order:

No.1 - Elway
No.7 - Blackledge
No.14 - Kelly
No. 15 - Eason
No. 24 - O'Brien
No. 27 - Marino

This was when there were only 28 teams, so it's nuts to think that Marino was taken with the 2nd to last pick in the first round.  Teams whiffed while others scored.  Class of 2004 had a 75% success rate for teams that picked a QB in Round 1, 1983 only had a 50% success rate.

So what's my fucking point?  It's this: Despite being paid to evaluate talent, NO ONE has a fucking clue when it comes to selecting a quarterback and how they'll do in the NFL.  The 1st round just magnifies the cost and investment.  Let's look at the drafts from 2002 - 2010 (2002 because that's the first year there were 32 picks in the 1st round) and the QBs taken in the first round.  I'll also use a binary subjective term to say either the QB was a success or wasn't to see what the success rate is for taking QBs in the first round.  This will be denoted by 'Y' for success, 'N' for fail:

2002
No. 1 David Carr (Y - giving him a pass since any QB would've had a tough time here)
No. 3 Joey Harrington (N)
No. 32 Patrick Ramsey (N)

Success rate: 33%

2003
No. 1 Carson Palmer (Y)
No. 7 Byron Leftwich (N)
No. 19 Kyle Boller (N)
No. 22 Rex Grossman (N)

Success rate: 25%

2004
No. 1 Eli Manning (Y)
No. 4 Phillip Rivers (Y)
No. 11 Ben Roethlisberger (Y)
No. 22 JP Losman (N)

Success rate: 75%

2005
No. 1 Alex Smith (N - didn't perform well for the team that drafted him)
No. 24 Aaron Rodgers (Y)
No. 25 Jason Campbell (N)

Success rate: 33%

2006
No. 3 Vince Young (N)
No. 10 Matt Leinhart (N)
No. 11 Jay Cutler (Y - people forget Cutler was good in Denver until that dickhead Josh McDaniels tried to trade for Matt Cassel - LOL - and pissed off Cutler so much that he wanted out.)

Success rate: 33%

2007
No. 1 JaMarcus Russell (Fuck No)
No. 22 Brady Quinn (N - Browns selections should be exempt from this list)

Success rate: 0%

2008
No. 3 Matt Ryan (Y)
No. 18 Joe Flacco (Y)

Success rate: 100%

2009
No. 1 Matt Stafford (Y)
No. 5 Mark Sanchez (N)
No. 17 Josh Freeman (N)

Success rate: 33%

2010
No. 1 Sam Bradford (N - Success for a first rounder isn't becoming a journeyman)
No. 25 Tim Tebow (N - but he hit a HR in his first at bat with a Mets minor league A ball club, so that's saying  something)

Success Rate: 0%

When you see the list of names taken in the first round, 2004 really stands out as a phenomenal year that wasn't appreciated at the time, and rightfully so - you can't judge drafts until these guys get some years in the league.

Adding the cumulative total we get a success rate of 38.4%.  That's not good.  If history tells us anything, it's that between Trubisky, Mahommes, and Watson, only one, if any will be a good QB.  I'm not high on any of these guys, but then again, I wasn't on Mariota or Winston either, and both are showing promise which just reinforces the fact that no one knows shit about selecting QBs even when you're a highly paid NFL executive.  So with such a shitty success rate, why do GMs continue to risk first rounders on QBs?  It's simple:  If you're in that 38.4%, you've found your franchise QB for the next 10-15 years and the most important position on your team won't be a variable, you'll look like a genius, and you get some extra job security.  That's why GMs continue to play QB roulette in the first round of the NFL draft.

And just to reinforce the fact that scouting NFL talent is one of the toughest things in the business, here's a video of JJ Watt, All-World Defensive End, reading his pre-draft scouting report:

My Uber Rider Rating is 4.50 and I have a Few Theories Why

I read this post over at The Points Guy about how Uber riders can now see their rating in the app.  What do ratings mean?  In a nutshell, as a rider if your rating gets too low (or you threaten your driver with a sexual assault charge), you won't be able to use the app to get a ride.  Likewise, if you're a driver and your rating gets too low, you'll have to go drive a taxi cab.

My rating of 4.50 isn't that bad, but in this age of grade inflation on this app, it's a little alarming.  For the sake of assumption, let's say half of my drivers gave me a 5 and half gave me a 4.  I have some ideas why I would rate a 4 as a rider:

• I don't tip.  As soon as they add the ability to tip in app, I will start tipping the driver.  In the meantime, fuck it.  The whole point is to be able to get out of the car and get on with your life.  Besides, tipping might be a way to buy a better rating, which is cheating.
• If I have a snack in the car, I don't share.  If I'm destroying a bag of Funyuns, I watch the driver glance at me in the rearview mirror and keep stuffing my face.
• There are some days I haven't mustered the motivation to put on pants.  On some of those days, I ride an Uber.
• I'm not a 19 year-old drunk college girl wearing a short skirt and low-cut top.
• Sometimes when I'm wearing my headphones, I forget that other people aren't listening to loud music and can still hear (and smell) my farts.
• I openly accept OTPHJs from fellow UberPool riders
• When the driver asks me what kind of music I want to listen to, I tell him/her the Carly Rae Jepsen Spotify radio station.
• I'm an asshole.

Those are really all the things I can think of.  I'm not sweating my rating since I normally take Lyft here in Denver anyway, plus Uber is just a horrible fucking company and a total shit show right now.  The only thing saving that got them out of the limelight was United.

Let's close this thing out with the Uber CEO berating a driver.

  

Like a (University of) Phoenix, I Will Rise From the Ashes

I've previously written about how I'm on academic probation at an online university.  For anyone who might give a shit, this is an update.  A redemption story.  A tale of perseverance.  If this was sports related, ESPN would make a 30 for 30 about it, it's that good.  Going from a 1.5 GPA to a 2.5 GPA in a matter of months?  All I need is a 'B' in my current class and I'll be at a 3.0 (since I'm repeating a class I got an 'F' in, my new grade will replace that 0.0.  That's called for-profit education math.)  Oh, and by the way, I'm totally murdering the class I'm taking right now:

There's only one way to accurately describe my performance in this class:

And again, if my rise from probation to bare-minimum passing for-profit online education taker was a sports story, I would compare it to these comebacks:

I Took the Elevator from the Fourth Floor to the First Floor Today Just to Take a Shit

I'm not proud of this, but it had to be done.  You see, there's this building code out there that says there needs to be the same amount of toilets in women's and men's bathrooms.  HOWEVER, in this case, a urinal = a toilet to satisfy this building code.  I'm sorry, but a urinal is not a toilet when you have to drop a deuce.  As such our bathrooms have three urinals and three toilets.  They're predictably full at about 9:30AM after everyone has had their coffee as well as around 12:30-1:00PM when everyone is unleashing some post lunch fury.  I have seen people standing around in the bathroom waiting for one of the shitters to open up.  Not this guy - I refuse to stand around like a fucking animal just to sit down on a toilet pre-warmed by a co-workers ass.  That's why I went down to the first floor just to take a dump.

Meanwhile, the women's bathroom has six toilets, an L-shaped sofa, massage bed, and a gumball dispenser.  I have no evidence to proof this, so it's true until someone tells me otherwise.

Sprint Tried to Fuck Me Out of a Veteran Discount and Other Adventures in Unfucking My Cellphone Bill

A little backstory here about why I switched from AT&T to Sprint:

I was grandfathered into AT&T's unlimited data plan, so I had no desire to switch services until they informed me they were increasing the cost of my plan by $5 later this year.  My bill had already swelled to $89, so I started to think I was getting fucked.  That $89 is with my 15% military discount too.  So I looked at their other plans, and switched to a 3GB plan with rollover.  To me, unlimited data is fool's gold.  Even when I'm driving up to mountains with Google maps and the Carly Rae Jepsen Spotify station blaring full blast, I don't approach 3GB, and with rollover, after a few months it may as well be unlimited (I recently deleted the Brazzers app from my phone).  I was able to get my bill down to $45 and change per month.  Pretty good right?

Well Sprint is promoting their $50/month unlimited data plan, and when I was talking to a guy in a Sprint store, he asked me how much I was paying with AT&T.  I told him $45, and that's when he said "The current deal we have is unlimited for $55/month.  You save $5 with autopay, and you'll save another $5 as a military discount if you go to www.sprint.com/verify. So you'll be paying $45/month."  Ok, sign me the fuck up.  For the price of taxes and fees I can get unlimited data and more importantly 10GB of hotspot a month?  Well, this is where my adventures began.

I went to the verify website and filled out the info, and got a confirmation email saying I was verified.  When I didn't see it applied to my bill, I wrote them back and got this:

April 2018?  Really?  This has got to be a typo, so I replied asking as such, giving them the benefit of the doubt.  Then I got this:

Well, this is some bullshit.  The sales guy in the store said I would get it right away. You bet your ass I'm not going to wait a full fucking year to get a discount that was sold to me in store.  I wrote them back and got this response:

What the hell is there to discuss?  I'm getting screwed, and you want to justify your stance.  Fuck off.

Great.  Now Jerry the fucking manager is involved, who basically wants to tell me the same thing over the phone: sorry not sorry we won't honor your discount.  I decided to go nuclear and drop this email on his head, especially since I was in Australia and had my phone set to airplane mode.

I sent that on some phone, so naturally there are some typos.  Get over it.  After laying down the law, Gerry came back with this:

THANK YOU.  Was that so fucking hard?  It amazes me how I have to threaten to tell Mommy (BBB) on them to get them to give me something I was promised.  I don't give a shit if the sales guy was talking out of his ass - he's a Sprint employee, so you better train your people better to know their ass from their elbow.  Part of the saga I left out earlier is how I was planning on using my iPhone 6 on Sprint.  Well, after unlocking it from AT&T, I took it to two Sprint stores and neither of them could switch it over.  Rather than stay on the shitty loaner Android piece of shit they gave me, I just took the plunge and upgraded to an iPhone 7 through Apple's website for $299 + a 2 year contract.  I was randomly looking at my bill today and saw this:

What the hell is this?  Even on the subsidized plan $25 is a lot.  That's $25 * 24 months = $600 even though I already paid $299 (the 128GB iPhone 7 is $750).  By my calcs, the subsidy should be about $14 and change.  This is when the chat opened and someone asked if I need help with my bill.  Why yes I will.  Here are some of the greatest hits from my chat sesh:

You could say I escalated things quickly and was in NO MOOD to deal with this guy's shit.

Just raining hatred on him at this point - sick of all that shit about hidden fees and what not.

Am I the only one that finds this ridiculous?  Since I didn't lease a phone, I bought a phone on a plan that wasn't compatible with the unlimited plan I'm on, so they decided to slap me with a $25 subsidy fee and hope I don't notice.  Fuck them.

It's ridiculous that I need to switch plans to remove the subsidized phone charge.  Fucking ridiculous, but I net out better in this case, which is still shitty since I'll be paying $5 more a month than I should be.

Of course there's still the issue of the fucking subsidized charges on my bill.

Negotiations 101: Ask for more.  That $10 seemed hilarious since it's a gesture of "service apology".  Well, fuck you.  He did a good job of anchoring me though with that initial offer, though.  I asked for $20 because I was pissed and figured I may as well see what would happen.  Maybe I could've gotten more, maybe not.  Oh fucking well - I'll have to monitor this situation to make sure my bill isn't totally dicked in the future.

TLDR - Fuck Sprint.  I've been a customer for less than 2 months and my bill has been fucked completely sideways.

I eat bacon every morning and I'm as healthy as a fucking horse

It always cracks me up when people say bacon is too fatty, isn't good for you, blah blah blah, shut the fuck up.  I eat two hard boiled eggs and three strips of bacon everyday (when I'm at home) and I recently had a physical and had my blood work done.  What were the results?  See for yourself:

Your laboratory data is excellent.  There is no evidence of Cushing's disease.  Your blood glucose, kidney and liver tests, blood count are all normal.  Hepatitis C, syphilis tests, HIV are negative.  He had excellent cholesterol with a very high HDL or good cholesterol 97; the LDL or bad cholesterol is only 109.

EAT SHIT anit-bacon people.  So the first few lines don't have anything to do with me eating bacon all the time, just wanted to include them in case any single ladies were reading this to let them know I don't have any of those fucking STDs. Sup?

For those of you who aren't impressed by my cholesterol numbers (even though you should be), let's take a look at this chart:

I'd like to take a moment to point out what total bullshit the "Total Cholesterol" number is.  My total number is 206.  According to the chart on the left, I'm in the white borderline area.  When you break out my good and bad cholesterol, you'll see my LDL of 109 is squarely in the "Good" area.  You want to talk about my HDL?  My 97 is crushing it as 65 is "protective" against heart disease.  What's the takeaway here?

Total Cholesterol: Fuck you, you're meaningless.

The only thing that makes me feel a little bad about eating so much bacon is looking at pictures of these cute guys:

But not bad enough to stop eating bacon.

How leaving the Navy may have actually saved my life

All right, now anyone who knows me and sees the title would probably be thinking "fucking let it go man! We get it, the Navy sucked.  You got out."  Yes, I was disgruntled and bitter at the end, but this is about how I found out about a health issue that I most likely wouldn't had discovered had I stayed in the Navy.

A little background: the advice I got when I was getting out was to swing by medical and make sure you get everything checked out so it goes into your record while you're still in the service so it's documented.  Something about being easier to get treated for conditions at the VA and what not.  I'm still not 100% sure why, but better safe than sorry, right?  Anyway, cut to the chase, I read this men's health article about Sleep Apnea.  It's pretty long, so you shouldn't read it, but a couple of lines really stood out to me:

I guess I do have a few symptoms of sleep apnea. Sometimes, for instance, I wake up marinated in sweat, my head pounding as if I had bounced it on cement.

Never had the head pounding, but I've woken up drenched in sweat with no idea why.  Turns out, when you stop breathing in your sleep it's quite a fucking workout for your heart and thus your body sweats.  Pretty scary shit.  This other one was more frightening:

Tom Zehmisch is a big part of why I'm being tested. Five years ago at a national swim meet, I shared a room with Tom, a lean and superbly fit triathlete. Tom had the body type that you could see gracing the cover of this magazine—the diametrical opposite of what doctors have dubbed the Pickwickian syndrome.

Four months after the meet, Tom died of a heart attack during the biking leg of a triathlon. He was 46.

I know this is anecdotal and I shouldn't have a knee-jerk reaction to it, but the fact is, being active and fit doesn't make you immune to something like a heart attack.  That's scary as fuck.  To make matters worse, I was still lazy - I figured I'd just sleep on my side to prevent myself from snoring.  It wasn't until someone who had already gotten out told me all you have to do is request a referral at medical on base and you could get a sleep study conducted at a lab in town and of course it's all covered while you're active duty.  Needless to say, I went and got checked out.

Moral of the story is that I'm glad I did.  I was prescribed a CPAP - something I've been using ever since the diagnosis.  I fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and am generally more refreshed than before I was using it.

To recap, even though I look like this:

I was sleeping like this:

So if someone tells you that you snore like a motherfucker in your sleep, might not be a bad idea to get it checked out.