Hts121

I don't like all these snow days. In my day, we used to walk to school through the snow..... uphill..... both ways. (I suppose my son will be doing that bit 20-30 years from now ;))

^That was assumed well before Haslam officially hired Banner. It's the same way Lerner ended up with Policy. New owners get an experienced front office guy who is supposed to help ease the transition.

Just as young, idealistic people are somehow found in every generation..... the old, grumpy, cynical, "this country is going to hell in a handbasket" crowd never dies out.

With this move, I think we will end up keeping both.... but I'd much rather keep Ward if we had to pick. I'm most definitely not the type to undervalue the offensive line, but we have a good bit invested in that unit. Ward is the leader of our defense and we don't have anyone capable of replacing him.

The AM dial advertising is definitely a breed of its own. When they break for commerial it goes from "buy gold" to "gun safes" to "home security systems" to "Obamacare survival guide" to "identity theft protection" and so on. It is an empire built on paranoia. The more they spread, the more money they rake in. Ironically, or perhaps not at all, it sustains the same way religion does....

Holy cwap. Bombshell. I was really concerned going into this off-season with Banner given the decisions we have to make with Ward and Mack. I always got the feeling he was the type to let both walk and think he can replace them with a mid-round pick.

I assume DS saw the mention of a HUD loan and simply assumed that the building would be low-rent. However, if I understand correctly, HUD loans simply require that a certain (usually very small) percentage of units be provided to low-income families. I know of one building in Cleveland Heights that was only required to have one unit as such.

Just giving my opinion. Not trying to upset you. BTW, not every site has Smith ahead of Lattimore. Lattimore is still #1 in the state on a few, including ESPN and 247Sports. Smith must've got a late season bump on rivals and scout, because he was always behind Marshon. But no.... obviously they are not all wrong. In fact, I think two of them are right ;)

Durham must've gone under some type of major transformation recently

Also, it's kind of funny to me that you mention the state championship game, because I was really down on his performance in that game (minus the kick return). Loveland gameplanned for Lattimore..... double covering his side of the field most of the time while on defense and not running or throwing his way too often on offense. Smith should've had a huge game. He didn't. A 2 minute highlight tape of him tackling the ball carrier (a lot of times arm-tackling) beyond the first down marker doesn't help the argument. Here is a longer video, which I only watched the first half of prior to posting it here. I can tell you that he will have a hard time finding the field at tOSU if he shows the effort and ability on display at 2:00 and 2:50 and 6:40 and 7:00. That #27 for Loveland, BTW, is a HS freshman..... an exceptional freshman, but a freshman nonetheless.....

You're assuming that Apple and Conley stay at corner.... and Smith stays at S. UM moves guys around to get the best 11 on the field. That includes special teams. Roby was on special teams.... so was Hyde. If you make one of UM's kick coverage teams, you are one of his favorites and are going to see the field with the defense as well. That is why I brought up Bogard, because he was on the kick coverage team as a true freshman under UM. Tanner was on the field this past year at safety quite a bit. He played mostly because of injury, but the coaches like him. He's a hitter. I have no idea how you relegate Jayme Thompson to special teams at this stage. He was a four-star prospect in last year's class who broke his ankle in practice before the season even started and took a medical redshirt as a result. He was every bit the recruit Smith is and has an inch or two on him in height. Same goes for Worley. He redshirted last year. Sure, he might have been a 3-star recruit. So was AJ Hawk, Troy Smith, James Lauranitis, and Malcolm Jenkins. Give the kid a chance before burying him on the depth chart. As for Smith's Alabama offer...... ehhhhhh, I don't want to say it, but SEC recruiting can be extremely shady. I have the strong feeling that Lattimore was really the target and Smith would've washed out like 1/3 of their recruits do every year. Is it a coincidence that every school that offered Smith also had an offer out to Lattimore? The only ones I can tell who offered Lattimore but not Smith were Oregon and USC (and, for whatever reason, Toledo). Take from that what you will.....

I was very partial towards Jonas myself and still am, but I strongly disagree that TT has hit his ceiling. The guy just switched his shooting hand, which has never been done before. Since basketball shooting skills are more muscle memory than anything else, it is virtually guaranteed that he continues to improve his shot. TT might also be the hardest worker on the team and he has a lot of room to grow into his body. I sure wish he was 2 inches taller, but I really think we are going to look back at him 5 years from now and see a different man. Sounds like Kyrie has a case of the WallBeal flu and won't play tonight. I think it will clear up in time for the all-star game.

Will this board (the general consensus, at least) consider it "good" or "bad"? You can reveal that without showing any bias or lack of objectivity as a reporter ;)

I wouldn't beat Grant up too bad about his drafting. He was mostly the victim of bad circumstance. In 2011, Kyrie was obviously the right pick, certainly over the other candidates for #1 overall (Derrick Williams and Enis Kanter). At #4 that year, I would've taken Jonas (as I believe my posts from back then would confirm). But we don't know what went on behind the scenes there. It was clear that there was concern about when/if Jonas would come over. His agent might've used that leverage to get him to the market/team he desired. And, if you look at TT's and JV's stats, they are very comparable. Perhaps you could say with 20/20 hindsight that Klay Thompson would've been a better pick, but nobody was talking about him in the top 10. There were generally two lines of thought back then. You could've taken DWilliams and Brandon Knight, or you could've taken Kyrie and TT (or JV). In 2012, there were three coveted players and we picked fourth. They weren't going to take Lilliard after taking Kyrie the year before. Harrison Barnes was the popular pick, but he has turned out to be rather 'meh', as I predicted he would be. Drummond dropped to #8 for a reason. Again, using hindsight, you take him. But there was obviously some solid logic behind not risking it. This year's draft may go down as the worst in history. Definitely not a good draft to have the #1 overall. At least Bennett has shown some signs of life this past week or so.

What ever happened to the coffee shop Air-ah-beak-ah?

Seems to me that Pianka is telling the City it is SOL absent a change in ordinance. It actually reads like an advisory opinion... something he is not really supposed to do. He was able to deny the declaratory judgment action filed by LR 310 simply because LR 310 had not exhausted administrative remedies and (I believe) all 2506 appeals go to the common pleas court, not housing court.

Are transgendered people even allowed to compete in the gay games? I've always thought it a mistake to bundle the "T" with the "LGB"

It doesn't. But at least it gives the appearance that Gilbert is not going to just sit back and watch this disaster continue to unfold without consequences. He fired the guy who was responsible for assembling that destructive locker room. Gilbert had given Grant a lot of room/flexibility to improve this team and that did not happen. In a kind of ironic twist of this current losing streak, Bennett is actually starting to play much better.

I hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. Lattimore is the far superior player out of the two. I would be shocked if Smith made it into the rotation before Lattimore. There are also quite a few players who will start out ahead of Smith on the depth chart not mentioned by the above analysis - - Devon Bogard (assuming he can get and stay healthy, he might actually start), Ron Tanner, Jayme Thompson, Eli Apple, Gareon Conley, and a few LB/S hybrids in Chris Worley and Daron Lee.

We need McMillian to be "the man" from day 1. I've heard some rumblings that Hubbard's best position may be SS.... which I assume would make him the "Star" position at OSU. That would be insane to have a 6'6 safety. I hope Erik Smith was not part of a package deal for the other two Glenville recruits. I saw him play a few times and he didn't seem like OSU material in terms of on field ability. The recruit who impresses me the most on tape is Curtis Samuel: Noah Brown also looks good and already has NFL WR size: In other news, Christian Bryant's final appeal for an extra year of eligibility was denied.

I suspect that Gilbert wants an objective evaluation of Grant's draft picks (Irving, TT, Waiters, Zeller, Bennett, Karasev, Felix) so critical decisions on this team's future can be made ahead of the fast approaching trade deadline. That's the only benefit I can see for doing this at the moment. Does it really make a difference if you throw the chief engineer of a sinking ship overboard? IMHO, if you were going to shake things up, go ahead and shake things up by firing Brown too. Someone called into WKNR and raised a good point about Brown. What do Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshal, Damon Jones, Wally Szczerbiak, Shaq, Ben Wallace, Jiri Welsch, Antoine Jamison, Jarret Jack, Earl Clark, Luol Deng (and probably others) have in common? All of their statistics dropped (significantly in many cases) once being acquired by the Cavs (under Brown) as compared to their most recent stints with other teams. Mo Williams and Delonte West were the only two I could think of who arguably improved under Brown. Then there are guys like Shannon Brown and Danny Green who did much better once being let go by the Cavs. That's not a good resume for player development.

I never say this.... but go ahead and blow it up. Start with Kyrie. Idk what happened to him at the All-Star weekend last year, but he hasn't been the same player ever since. It sure seems that his poor attitude is infecting the rest of the team.

^^It might be different here due to the efforts at keeping Continental/United happy. Those efforts created an atmosphere completely lacking in competition for CLE's most frequent flyers. In hindsight, the United for United campaign was probably not a smart move, considering that this outcome was largely inevitable.... probably even before the merger. Airlines are operating with less and less hubs. ^^^That's a question I would like answered clearly. The letter says that United has lost $$ over the last decade or so operating out of CLE. But is that answer based solely on United's profit margin?... on Continental's profit margin prior to the merger?..... on the combined profit margin both before and after the merger?

Absolutely not. You need a FB who the defense has to worry about slipping out into the flat, and you need a FB who doesn't slow up the RB getting through the hole. Those super big packages are used mainly only in goal line and 4 and inches situations. I want a FB to be part of the gameplan on 1st and 2nd down.

I'm sure that was an greatest game in Super Bowl history if you were a Seahawks fan. For the rest of the nation.... at least the commercials were decent.