For over 60 years the Grand Ballroom has been a landmark in Maltese history. It was here, that Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II waltzed on the solid-wood parquet dance floor, and the ballroom has hosted everything from intimate family lunches to lavish wedding receptions ever since.
Today this stunning space is still available for weddings and events in Malta, comfortably catering for up to 350 seated guests. The Ballroom Balcony also complements it, providing comfortable seating and ambient lighting. Private cloakroom facilities, as well as a separate entrance, are also available.
The Phoenicia is Malta's premier luxury hotel and the ideal 5-star Wedding venue for civil ceremonies in Malta, as well as for lavish receptions. The hotel has a long and prestigious history, having opened its doors in 1947. Since then, it has become a national treasure, with an impressive archive of past guests that includes socialites and European royalty.
The numerous Auberges built by the Knights of St John.
Other assets include the hotel's luscious 7.5 acre gardens and its collection of paintings by Chev Edward Caruana Dingli and other Maltese artists. Above all, the Phoenicia prides itself on its award-winning service and excellent facilities, which make it the perfect retreat for a wedding in Malta where all your needs will be met.
This page was last edited on 27 March 2015, at 03:45.


text:
Tesla Model S Earns Five-Star Safety Rating
Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers / Articles / Car Accident / Tesla Model S Earns Five-Star Safety Rating
Tesla Motors is the "new kid on the block" of American vehicles in many ways. The company offers some of the first fully-electric cars on the road and it sells vehicles in innovative ways, including directly through the Internet.
Because Tesla is new on the scene, many drivers, including many San Diego car accident attorneys, have wondered how well the company handles safety issues. Recently, the company earned a promising credential when its Model S received a five-star crash test rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The five-star crash test rating includes top ratings in safety in three different types of crashes: a front-impact, side-impact, and rollover crash. In each test, the Model S passed with five stars, earning it the overall five-star rating as well. Videos from the test sessions show the vehicle's multiple airbags working as intended to cushion "passengers" – crash test dummies – from front and side blows to the vehicle.
The Model S joins several other similarly-sized vehicles in the five-star category, including the Honda Accord. Fans of the Model S note that Tesla, despite lacking years of its own experience in crash safety to draw on, appears to be learning as much as it can from other automakers who hold longstanding records for five-star vehicles.
The NHTSA recently announced plans to add front-angle crashes and sideswipe crashes to its five-star test ratings. However, because these plans have not been finalized, the Tesla Model S was tested on the same parameters as other vehicles are currently tested.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Humanities › English
What Makes Something a Proper Name?
Tetra Images/Getty Images
An Introduction to Punctuation
Richard Nordquist
English and Rhetoric Professor
Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York
Dr. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks.
A proper name is a noun or noun phrase that designates a particular person, place or object, such as George Washington, Valley Forge, and the Washington Monument. A common noun, on the other hand, is not a particular place or thing, such as a president, a military encampment, or a monument. Proper names are uppercase in English.
Types of Proper Names
Tim Valentine, Tim Brennen, and Serge Bredart discussed proper names in "The Cognitive Psychology of Proper Names" (1996). Here are some of their thoughts.
"Following linguists' definitions, we will take proper names as names of unique beings or things. These include:
Personal names (surnames, first names, nicknames, and pseudonyms)
Geographical names (names of cities, countries, islands, lakes, mountains, rivers and so forth)
Names of unique objects (monuments, buildings, ships or any other unique object)
Names of unique animals (e.g. Benji or Bugs Bunny)
Names of institutions and facilities (cinemas, hospitals, hotels, libraries, museums or restaurants)
Names of newspapers and magazines
Names of books, musical pieces, paintings or sculptures
Names of single events (e.g. Kristallnacht)
"Temporal names like names of days of the week, months, or recurrent festive days will not be seen as true proper names. The fact that there is one Monday each week, one month of June and one Good Friday each year suggests that 'Monday,' 'June' and 'Good Friday' do not really designate unique temporal events but rather categories of events, and therefore are not true proper names."
Bill Bryson on the Lighter Side of Place Names in Britain
Bill Bryson, a humorous writer of nonfiction who was born in Des Moines, Iowa, but decamped to Britain in 1977, then returned to New Hampshire for a time, has now returned to Britain. Here he talks about funny names in Britain in a way that only he can. This is an excerpt from Bryson's "Notes From a Small Island" from 1996.
"There is almost no area of British life that isn't touched with a kind of genius for names. Select any area of nomenclature at all, from prisons (Wormwood Scrubs, Strangeways) to pubs (the Cat and Fiddle, the Lamb and Flag) to wildflowers (stitchwort, lady's bedstraw, blue fleabane, feverfew) to the names of soccer teams (Sheffield Wednesday, Aston Villa, Queen of the South) and you are in for a spell of enchantment."
"But nowhere, of course, are the British more gifted than with place names. Of the 30,000 named places in Britain a good half, I would guess, are notable or arresting in some way. There are villages that seem to hide some ancient and possibly dark secret (Husbands Bosworth, Rime Intrinseca, Whiteladies Aston) and villages that sound like characters from a bad 19th-century novel (Bradford Peverell, Compton Valence, Langton Herring, Wootton Fitzpaine). There are villages that sound like fertilizers (Hastigrow), shoe deodorizers (Powfoot), breath fresheners (Minto), dog food (Whelpo), toilet cleansers (Potto, Sanahole, Durno), skin complaints (Whiterashes, Sockburn), and even a Scottish spot remover (Sootywells). There are villages that have an attitude problem (Seething, Mockbeggar, Wrangle) and villages of strange phenomena (Meathop, Wigtwizzle, Blubberhouses). There are villages without number whose very names summon forth an image of lazy summer afternoons and butterflies darting in meadows (Winterbourne Abbas, Weston Lullingfields, Theddlethorpe All Saints, Little Missenden). Above all, there are villages almost without number whose names are just endearingly inane—Prittlewell, Little Rollright, Chew Magna, Titsey, Woodstock Slop, Lickey End, Stragglethorpe, Yonder Bognie, Nether Wallop, and the practically unbeatable Thornton-le-Beans. (Bury me there!)."
How Places Get Their Names
What Are Common Nouns?
Understanding the Types of Nouns in English Grammar
Proper Nouns in English Grammar
Meet the Abstract Noun
The Legend of St. Patrick
Name That '-nym': A Brief Introduction to Words and Names
Compound Nouns
Definition and Examples of Appositives in English
Types of Nouns
Onomastics Explained
100 Key Terms Used in the Study of Grammar
A Place Name in All 50 States?
Guidelines for Using Capital Letters
Relative Adverbs in English


A long day for me at the ExCel center but there was a lot of interesting exhibitors and knowledge to take in and this led to a tiring but very interesting day. Its amazing that there are so many vendors playing in niche markets in the software defined space. This is a highly competitive area and I can see that most of these companies are vying for customer interests by creating unique differentiators to entice potential customers. Its a good ploy but there will always be losers in this game.
I wanted to make sure I caught up with developments with Nutanix and Pernixdata and see how they have developed.
I caught up with Darren Woollard who has recently moved to Nutanix and he explained how the concept of converged infrastructure was going from strength to strength. His enthusiasm about the technology was evident and I know that the product vision is one that I like. This led me to attend Dheeraj Pandey's (Nutanix CEO and Founder) session on 'The Future of Convergence' and it was a brilliant insight into where technology is going. He explained that having the traditional SAN in the datacenter is a thing of the past and the future lies in converging technologies into a single x86 platform where the customer can choose what components they would like – compute, memory, flash and traditional disk that can be configured to a requirement by a customer and these form a nutanix node. The evolution of the traditional phone to the smartphone was illustrated very well as an example of where converged infrastructure has already taken place in the mobile telephony world and I have to agree that traditional datacenter stacks must be more agile to meet the ever increasing need by devops folk to have virtualised servers on demand. Webscale architectures are no longer required for the likes of Google or Facebook and Dheeraj made the point that enterprises are now looking for this agility without spending a lot of capital on traditional infrastructures. No SAN does not mean no delivery but instead means less complexity in the datacenter and advanced analytics on top of the Nutanix platform mean anyone can look at and interpret the metrics in the compute, network and storage stack very easily. A great presentation delivered with finesse and simple to understand from Dheeraj.
Next I caught up with James Smith from Pernixdata and he showed how and why Pernixdata make a good fit for accelerating workloads in any shape or form to save cycles at the SAN level and lower down in the application stack. With version 2.0 just released, its now a more mature product and being able to choose varying acceleration media such as SSD, PCI-E or RAM, make this a great solution with great heritage. James also showed me the new interface and how easy it was to deploy and be up and running in less than 30 mins. You can choose individual VM's to accelerate or datastores using write back or write through policies and the metrics available will show you in that over time you can reduce latency and also deliver more IOPS to your sensitive applications.
Personally, I'm looking forward to more conversation and networking in Barcelona at VMWorld with these vendors and others, hoping to delve a little deeper into how and why Silicon Valley innovators are taking the world giants on by delivering and showing USP's that continue to WOW the world.
Can Server-side caching really alter datacenter costs ?
A very interesting era of everything being branded with 'software-defined' is upon us but is server-side caching one of these and can it really a business to avoid storage costs and increase performance. Read on for my thoughts….


text:
Charlie Gehringer
Charles Leonard Gehringer
Primary position: 2nd Baseman
He was The Mechanical Man, a player whose remarkable consistency was equaled only by his self-effacing demeanor.
He was so consistent he even played in every inning of the first six All-Star games as the starting second baseman for the American League and hit .500 in 20 at-bats.
"Charlie says `hello' on Opening Day, `goodbye' on closing day, and in between hits .350," said Hall of Fame player-manager Mickey Cochrane.
Gehringer played his entire 19-year big league career with the Detroit Tigers, breaking into the majors at age 21 in 1924 and retiring after the 1942 season. Of his 2,221 games in the field, only 15 came at a position other than second base.
"I tell you, I used to cuss him – I couldn't hit a ball past him," said Hall of Fame shortstop Joe Sewell. "I'm left handed and I just couldn't get one through there on the ground. He'd just coast around that infield, just like somebody skating."
At the plate, Gehringer was even better. He batted better than .300 in 13 full seasons, had more than 200 hits seven times, drove in more than 100 runs seven times and won the 1937 American League batting title with an average of .371. He was also the league's MVP that season – a year when runner-up Joe DiMaggio had 46 home runs, 167 RBI and scored 151 runs.
"I always thought that Charlie was one of the great hitters of my time," said Hall of Fame catcher Rick Ferrell. "He didn't have the tremendous power of Jimmie Foxx, Ruth or Gehrig or those guys, but he was tough to strike out and he hit more line drives and met the ball more solidly than any hitter."
When Gehringer retired, he had scored 1,775 runs, batted .320, posted an on-base percentage of .404 and thumped 574 doubles. His 60 doubles in 1936 mark one of only six times in baseball history a batter has cracked the 60-double barrier in one season.
"You wind him up in the spring, turn him loose, he hits .330 or .340, and you shut him off at the end of the season," said Hall of Fame pitcher Lefty Gomez, whose Yankees battled Gehringer's Tigers for the AL pennant almost yearly during the 1930s.
In all, Gehringer played for three pennant winners and helped the Tigers capture the 1935 World Series title. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1949.
Gehringer passed away on Jan. 21, 1993.
that Charlie Gehringer played every inning of the first six All-Star Games as the starting second baseman for the American League, batting .500 in 20 at-bats in those games?
"He hits .350 on Opening Day and stays there all season. "
Position Played: 2nd Baseman
Bats: Left
See 88 more left handed batters
Birth place: Fowlerville, Michigan
See 6 more from Michigan
See 10 more born this year
Bat used by Charles Gehringer during the 1930's with the Detroit Tigers - B-208-95 (Milo Stewart Jr./National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)
Charlie Gehringer, Detroit Tigers, 1930 - BL-777-46 (Charles Conlon/National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)
Charlie Gehringer, shown with (from left) Tigers teammate Hank Greenberg and Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the Yankees, was a six-time All-Star who finished in the Top 10 of the AL MVP voting eight times. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)
A .320 lifetime hitter, Charlie Gehringer earned the nickname "The Mechanical Man" for his consistent play at second base. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)
Charlie Gehringer was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1949 following a 19-year career spent entirely with the Detroit Tigers. (Forrest Yantis/National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)
Charlie Gehringer - Hall of Fame biographies
Gehringer's consistency took him to Cooperstown
On May 5, 1949, Charlie Gehringer was elected to the Hall of Fame.
Future Hall of Famer Charlie Gehringer named 1937 AL MVP
Detroit Tigers second baseman Charlie Gehringer received the American League MVP Award on Nov. 2, 1937, becoming the third Tiger to receive the award in the previous four years.


text:
Voltar à Toca
Sobre o Evangelho
Sobre o Alfa
O Evangelho do Coiote
Monthly Archives: Janeiro 2013
By Gonçalo Fortes
If there was an expression such as "you're a sight for sore eyes", but applied to the ears, he would be the reason for its creation. It was a joy just being there, eyes closed and listening to the music floating. Six-Fingers Sam, they called him, the reason being literal. Not three in each hand, but twelve in total.
But oh, he learnt how to use them. As a child, while the other kids were playing football, he was learning the music notes on dirty sheets of paper. On its teens, instead of wasting time chasing tails and losing virginities, he has decided to work and buy a piano. The pariah pattern was also the talent rocket. It was a life of mockery, when someone noticed the six fingers: the girls holding his hands screamed and the goalkeeper gloves didn't fit. But now, as an adult, nothing mattered anymore.
Adjusted bench, feet reaching the pedals and arms stretching upwards complete the initiation rite, every day, every time. The six times two then start walking over the ebony and ivory. At first with soft gentle steps, just a smooth cherish on the surface, causing a vibrant intensity on the inside. Inside the piano strings and inside the women's bodies. Inside that woman's body. He's a player alright, and this doesn't apply only to the piano. The initial subtle smoothness starts demanding more. Starts demanding vigor. Just like the piano black and white, wherever there is light, there are also shadows, it's a casual relationship that can't be avoided. And so, the hands either step graciously and slowly the skin web or jump and press vigorously the flesh mesh, we're not talking about music anymore. The game is pattes d'araignée, and the trained fingers are not rejected. Quite the opposite, they're received and pulled and pushed and moaned to. The slow massage goes down from the rib cage to the area that defines the Venus, the palm of the hand pressing hard and the fingers pivoting to the deep forbidden, but desired zone. It was forbidden, but not anymore!
There is a similar expression to the one in the beginning, in fact: the pleasure escaping her lungs is music to his ears, as he keeps using his natural born gift and acquired training to explore her vocal modulations, from Allegro Ma Non Troppo to Molto Vivace. She wants Prestissimo, and they're already as one, hips against thighs, lips colliding, her music channeling through him, his music channeled inside her. A complete symphony of deliverance.
Back to the piano, Six-Fingers Sam, they called him. The reason being literal. It was a gift that always helped him. But the gloves still don't fit!
Gonçalo Fortes
Deixe um comentário	| tags: Cultura, Geral, Literatura	| posted in Prosa
Penthouse or On Her Majesty's Service
This was my first literary attempt in english language. Error-prone and everything:
Otis was an old elevator. He had one of those rusty accordion doors that squeaked when someone opened or closed them. One had to be careful, though. Otis was old and grumpy, and sometimes he didn't have manners. Once, he closed the doors on the 2nd floor's fatty kid's finger. The doors squeaked, the boy squealed and Otis screamed on top of it all: Run piglet boy, ruuun!
But Otis wasn't mean. He was just tired of going up and the down the ladder, carrying everybody.
In the beginning, people talked to him. But they started to slowly forget him and this was his way to try and get attention back. Loneliness is tougher than life. And life isn't easy to begin with.
Sometimes Otis jammed and refused to work. It's my bad knee – he kept saying – I'm not the same boy I once was. Chasing tail up the stairs, pushing rivals down the pit.
But this was only a façade. A mask that Otis wore to ask for some kind, gentle, caring words. Words that never came, and the pit was now Otis favorite place:
8th floor? Go by yourself, I'm fed up of carrying everybody's globes on my shoulders. If it was only the body weight, I could handle it with no problem. Heck, I even carry the fat piglet boy around. But he's young, he doesn't carry the pains yet. The choice. The not being able to choose. Because I'm always carrying the unhappiness, the work cursing, the marriage hating, the neighbor envying… And that's far heavier than any group of people exceeding the weight limit sign. It's four people or 250 kg, by the way, you didn't ask, but I say it anyway. And although I bounce their emotional weight around, giving them some breath on the way down when I go faster and leave the weight floating amidst, still nobody asks for my knee.
And right he was. Even worse, there were drunks vomiting, people farting, couples fornicating and dogs pissing. The average guy's office hazards, between the rusty doors.
But everything changed that day. A little girl came and asked Otis to take her up.
I can't, little girl.
Why? – she asked – I'm like the fatso kid, still no burdens to bear, with the extra bonus of being thin. I'll probably be anorexic some day, but today it will be just a small lift. Why?
It's my knee – he showed her.
Out of nowhere, the little girl shed a tear. A single tear, light in weight, light in light. The tear touched the rusty accordion doors and, screw the laws of chemistry, they didn't oxidize. Next stop, 8th floor!
Território marcado
Aderir à matilha
Inserir aqui o endereço de email para receber novos textos.
Acabados de ganir
Na barriga
Caution: Fragile
Toca e foge
Já ganidos


Betsy was born in the parsonage of the Elijah Kellogg Church on March 18, 1920, the daughter of Abbie Allen and Lawrence Kellogg Batchelder of Harpswell. She was the great-granddaughter of Elijah Kellogg. She graduated from Brunswick High School in the Class of 1939. She married Philip James Clough on June 10, 1944. They had 62 happy years together. Mr. Clough died on Oct. 28, 2006. Her interests were golf, bridge, sewing, crafts and church. She and her husband edited two books on Covered Bridges in the 1960s.
Surviving are niece, Jane Collins, and nephews, Merle Pierce and David Hackett, all of Harpswell.


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text:
Limits on the Network Sensitivity Function for Multi-Agent Systems on a Graph
Revision as of 06:16, 15 May 2016 by Murray (talk | contribs) (htdb2wiki: creating page for 2009r_tm09-cds.html)
Stefania Tonetti, Richard M Murray
CDS Technical Report 2009.001
This report explores the tradeoffs and limits of performance in feedback control of interconnected multi-agent systems, focused on the network sensitivity functions. We consider the interaction topology described by a directed graph and we prove that the sensitivity transfer functions between every pair of agents, arbitrarily connected, can be derived using a version of the Mason's Direct Rule. Explicit forms for special types of graphs are presented. An analysis of the role of cycles points out that these structures influence and limit considerably the performance of the system. The more the cycles are equally distributed among the formation, the better performance the system can achieve, but they are always worse than the single agent case. We also prove the networked version of Bode's integral formula, showing that it still holds for multi-agent systems.
Technical Report: http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechCDSTR:2009.001
Retrieved from "https://murray.cds.caltech.edu/index.php?title=Limits_on_the_Network_Sensitivity_Function_for_Multi-Agent_Systems_on_a_Graph&oldid=19780"


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Tickets are expected to sell out quick, so you'll want to make sure you don't miss. She will play the Palladium from January 26, 27, 29, 30 next year. Madonna will also play the venue on February 1 and 2 in Her new album, Madame X, will also debut on June 14 this year and features tracks influenced by Latin music - no doubt influenced by her time in Lisbon.
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text:
The Becoming: The Dragon Heart Legacy, Book 2 (Abridged / CD-Audio)
By Nora Roberts, Barrie Kreinik (Read by)
This is book number 2 in the The Dragon Heart Legacy series.
#1: The Awakening: The Dragon Heart Legacy, Book 1 (Paperback): $17.99
#3: The Choice: The Dragon Heart Legacy, Book 3 (CD-Audio): $39.99
**This is an abridged CD edition**
A new epic of love and war among gods and humans, from Nora Roberts—the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Awakening.
The world of magick and the world of man have long been estranged from one another. But some can walk between the two—including Breen Siobhan Kelly. She has just returned to Talamh, with her friend, Marco, who's dazzled and disoriented by this realm—a place filled with dragons and faeries and mermaids (but no WiFi, to his chagrin). In Talamh, Breen is not the ordinary young schoolteacher he knew her as. Here she is learning to embrace the powers of her true identity. Marco is welcomed kindly by her people—and by Keegan, leader of the Fey. Keegan has trained Breen as a warrior, and his yearning for her has grown along with his admiration of her strength and skills.
But one member of Breen's bloodline is not there to embrace her. Her grandfather, the outcast god Odran, plots to destroy Talamh—and now all must unite to defeat his dark forces. There will be losses and sorrows, betrayal and bloodshed. But through it, Breen Siobhan Kelly will take the next step on the journey to becoming all that she was born to be.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
NORA ROBERTS is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 230 novels, including Legacy, The Awakening, Hideaway, Under Currents, The Chronicles of The One trilogy, and many more. She is also the author of the bestselling In Death series written under the pen name J.D. Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print.
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication Date: November 23rd, 2021
Series: The Dragon Heart Legacy
Fiction / Fantasy / Paranormal
Fiction / Romance / Fantasy
Kobo eBook (November 22nd, 2021): $12.99
Hardcover (November 23rd, 2021): $28.99
CD-Audio (November 22nd, 2022): $19.99
Paperback, Large Print (December 7th, 2022): $22.99
Library Binding, Large Print (December 3rd, 2021): $38.99
CD-Audio (November 23rd, 2021): $39.99
Mass Market (November 28th, 2023): $9.99


text:
"""

  `Postgres Clients`
--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--·--
   The MIT License (MIT) © 2015 Jared Lunde
   http://github.com/jaredlunde/cargo-orm

"""
try:
    import ujson as json
except ImportError:
    import json

from collections import defaultdict

import psycopg2
import psycopg2.pool
import psycopg2.extras

from multiprocessing import cpu_count

from vital.cache import DictProperty, local_property
from vital.tools.dicts import merge_dict
from vital.tools.lists import unique_list
from vital.security import randkey
from vital.debug import preprX

from cargo.cursors import CNamedTupleCursor, ModelCursor
from cargo.etc.types import reg_array_type, reg_type
from cargo.etc.translator.postgres import OID_map
from cargo.relationships import _import_from

__all__ = (
    "Postgres",
    "PostgresPool",
    "db",
    "local_client",
    "create_client",
    "create_pool"
)

class BasePostgresClient(object):
    __slots__ = tuple()

    def get_type_OID(self, typname):
        """ -> (#tuple) |(OID, ARRAY_OID)| """
        q = """SELECT t.oid AS OID, t.typname AS name
               FROM pg_catalog.pg_type t
               WHERE t.typname IN(%s, %s)
               ORDER BY name DESC;"""
        conn = self.get()
        cur = conn.cursor(cursor_factory=CNamedTupleCursor)
        self.apply_schema(cur, *self.get_search_paths())
        cur.execute(q, ('_%s' % typname, typname))
        res = cur.fetchall()
        conn.put()
        return tuple(r.oid for r in res)

    def get_type_name(self, OID):
        """ -> (#str) type name for @OID """
        try:
            return OID_map[OID]
        except KeyError:
            q = """SELECT t.oid AS OID, t.typname AS name
                   FROM pg_catalog.pg_type t
                   WHERE t.oid = %s;"""
            conn = self.get()
            cur = conn.cursor(cursor_factory=CNamedTupleCursor)
            cur.execute(q, OID)
            res = cur.fetchall()
            conn.put()
            return res.oid

    _ext_map = {'hstore': psycopg2.extras.register_hstore,
                'uuid': psycopg2.extras.register_uuid,
                'composite': psycopg2.extras.register_composite}

    def register(self, extension, *args, cursor=None, **kwargs):
        """ Shortcut for registering extensions in :prop:_ext_map to the
            local connection or cursor, currently only 'uuid', 'composite' and
            'hstore' are supported.

            @extension: (#str) name of the extension
            @*args: arguments to pass to the extension function
            @cursor: (:class:psycopg2.extensions.cursor) apply to the
                given cursor rather than the local connection
            @**kwargs: keyword arguments to pass ot the extension function
        """
        if cursor is None:
            conn_or_curs = self.get().connection
            seen = set()
            while True:
                try:
                    conn_or_curs_ = self.get().connection
                except psycopg2.pool.PoolError:
                    break
                if conn_or_curs_ is conn_or_curs:
                    break
                self._ext_map[extension](conn_or_curs_, *args, **kwargs)
                seen.add(conn_or_curs_)
            for c in seen:
                self.put(c)
        else:
            conn_or_curs = cursor
        r = self._ext_map[extension](conn_or_curs, *args, **kwargs)
        try:
            self.put(conn_or_curs)
        except:
            pass
        return r

    def _load_from_str(self, name):
        return _import_from(name)

    @DictProperty('_cache', 'cursor_factory', read_only=False)
    def cursor_factory(self):
        if isinstance(self._cursor_factory, str):
            self._cursor_factory = self._load_from_str(self._cursor_factory)
        return self._cursor_factory

    def set_cursor_factory(self, cursor_factory):
        self.cursor_factory = self._load_from_str(cursor_factory)

    @property
    def schema(self):
        """ The default schema to set the cursor search path to """
        opt = self._connection_options
        return opt.get('schema', opt.get('search_path', self._schema))

    def add_search_path(self, *paths):
        """ Adds a schema to the search path in addition to :prop:schema.
        """
        self._search_paths.extend(paths)

    def remove_search_path(self, path):
        """ Removes a schema to the search path in addition to :prop:schema.
        """
        self._search_paths.remove(path)

    def get_search_paths(self, schema=None):
        """ Gets all of the search paths currently set in the client """
        paths = []
        if schema:
            paths = [schema]
        if self.schema:
            paths.append(self.schema)
        if self._search_paths:
            paths.extend(self._search_paths)
        return unique_list(paths)

    def set_schema(self, schema):
        """ Sets the default schema used by the client. """
        self._schema = schema

    @staticmethod
    def apply_schema(cursor, *schemas):
        """ Sets @schemas to the cursor search path.
            @schemas: (#str) one or several schema search paths
        """
        schemas = schemas
        return cursor.execute('SET search_path TO %s' % ", ".join(schemas))

    @staticmethod
    def to_dsn(opt):
        """ Converts @opt to a string if it isn't one already.
            @opt: (#dict) dsn options
        """
        try:
            return " ".join(
                '{}={}'.format(k.replace('database', 'dbname'), v)
                for k, v in opt.items()
                if k in {'dbname', 'database', 'user', 'password',
                         'host', 'port'})
        except AttributeError:
            return opt

    EVENTS = {'COMMIT', 'ROLLBACK', 'CONNECT', 'CLOSE', 'NEW_CURSOR'}

    def before(self, event, task):
        """ Creates a hook which fires @task before @event. The task callable
            must accept one argument for this |client| object.

            @event: (#str) name of the event in :prop:_events
            ..
            db.client.before('connect',
                             lambda pg: pg.set_schema('foo'))
            ..
        """
        self._attach_event('BEFORE', event, task)

    def after(self, event, task):
        """ Creates a hook which fires @task after @event. The task callable
            must accept one argument for this |client| object.

            @event: (#str) name of the event in :prop:_events
            ..
                db.client.after('new_cursor',
                                lambda pg, cur:
                                    cur.set_client_encoding('latin1'))
            ..
        """
        self._attach_event('AFTER', event, task)

    def _attach_event(self, when, event, task):
        event = event.upper()
        try:
            ids = set(id(task) for task in self._events[when][event])
            if id(task) not in ids:
                self._events[when][event].append(task)
        except KeyError:
            self._events[when][event] = []
            self._events[when][event].append(task)

    def _apply_event(self, when, event, *args, **kwargs):
        try:
            event = event.upper()
            for event_cb in self._events[when][event]:
                event_cb(self, *args, **kwargs)
        except KeyError:
            pass

    def _apply_before(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self._apply_event('BEFORE', *args, **kwargs)

    def _apply_after(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self._apply_event('AFTER', *args, **kwargs)

class Postgres(BasePostgresClient):
    """ ======================================================================
        ``Usage Example``

        Creates a new :class:cargo.Model with a customized
        Postgres instance.
        ..
            from psycopg2.extras import NamedTupleCursor
            from cargo import Model, Postgres

            class MyModel(Model):

                def __init__(self, **model):
                    client = Postgres(cursor_factor=NamedTupleCursor)
                    super().__init__(client=client, **model)
        ..
    """
    __slots__ = ('_dsn', 'autocommit', '_connection', '_connection_options',
                 '_schema', 'encoding', '_cursor_factory', '_cache',
                 '_search_paths', '_events')

    def __init__(self, dsn=None, cursor_factory=CNamedTupleCursor,
                 connection=None, autocommit=False, encoding=None,
                 schema=None, search_paths=None, events=None,
                 **connection_options):
        """`Postgres Client`
            ==================================================================
            This is a thin wrapper for the :mod:psycopg2 connection object
            returned by :func:psycopg2.connect, it's purpose being to
            standardize a client object in the event that other SQL backends
            aside from :mod:psycopg2 or Postgres are added in the future.

            @connection: (:mod:psycopg2) connection object returned by
                :func:psycopg2.connect
            @cursor_factory: (:mod:psycopg2 cursor factory) passed to
                :prop:cursor
            @autocommit: (#bool) if True all the commands executed will be
                immediately committed and no rollback is possible
            @encoding: (#str) Sets the client encoding for the current session.
                If None, the default is the encoding defined by the database.
            @schema: (#str) schema to set the postgres search path to
            @search_paths: (#list) additional search paths to set aside
                from the default @schema, |public| is added by default.
                It can be removed by calling :meth:remove_search_path
            @events: (#dict) |{'[before, after] event_name': action}}|
                available events are: :see::attr:Postgres.EVENTS
                ..
                    from cargo import db
                    db.bind(events={
                        "before": {
                            "commit": do_something
                        },
                        "after": {
                            "new_cursor": lambda pg, cur:
                                cur.set_client_encoding('latin1')
                        }
                    })
                ..
            @**connection_options: |key=value| arguments to pass to
                :func:psycopg2.connect
        """
        self._cache = {}

        # Connection options
        self._dsn = dsn
        self._events = events or defaultdict(dict)
        self.autocommit = autocommit
        self._connection = connection
        self._connection_options = connection_options or {}
        self._schema = schema
        try:
            self._search_paths = list(search_paths)
        except TypeError:
            self._search_paths = ['public']
        self.encoding = encoding

        # Cursor options
        self._cursor_factory = cursor_factory

    __repr__ = preprX('_connection', 'autocommit')

    def __enter__(self):
        return self.connection

    def __exit__(self, *exc_info):
        self.close()

    @property
    def closed(self):
        """ -> #bool True if the connection is closed """
        try:
            return self._connection.closed
        except AttributeError:
            return True

    @property
    def connection(self):
        """ Creates a new connection if there isn't one or it is closed.
            -> :mod:psycopg2 connection object
        """
        if not self._connection or self._connection.closed:
            self.connect()
        return self._connection

    def cursor(self, *args, cursor_factory=None, **kwargs):
        """ Creates a new_cursor object with given options, defaulting to
            configured options.

            @name: (#str) name of the cursor
            @cursor_factory: :mod:psycopg2 cursor factory passed to
                :prop:cursor
            @scrollable: (#bool) specifies if a named cursor is declared
                SCROLL, hence is capable to scroll backwards (using scroll()).
                If True, the cursor can be scrolled backwards, if False it is
                never scrollable. If None (default) the cursor scroll option is
                not specified, usually but not always meaning no backward
                scroll.
            @schema: (#str) search path to set
            @withhold: (#bool) specifies if a named cursor lifetime should
                extend outside of the current transaction, i.e., it is possible
                to fetch from the cursor even after a connection.commit()
                (but not after a connection.rollback()).

            -> :mod:psycopg2 cursor object
        """
        if cursor_factory is None and \
           self.cursor_factory != self.connection.cursor_factory:
            cursor_factory = self.cursor_factory
        self._apply_before("new_cursor")
        cursor = self.connection.cursor(*args,
                                        cursor_factory=cursor_factory,
                                        **kwargs)
        self._apply_after("new_cursor", cursor)
        return cursor

    def connect(self, dsn=None, **options):
        """ Opens a :mod:psycopg2 connection with @options combined with
            :prop:connection_options

            -> :mod:psycopg2 connection object
        """
        if self._connection is None or self._connection.closed or dsn \
           or options:
            self._apply_before('connect')
            dsn = dsn or self._dsn
            if not dsn:
                dsn = self.to_dsn(self._connection_options)
            self._connection = psycopg2.connect(
                dsn, cursor_factory=self.cursor_factory)
            self._set_conn_options()
            self._apply_after('connect')
        return self._connection

    def _set_conn_options(self):
        if self.autocommit:
            self._connection.set_session(autocommit=self.autocommit)
        if self.encoding:
            self._connection.set_client_encoding(self.encoding)

    def commit(self):
        """ Commits a transaction """
        self._apply_before('commit')
        self._connection.commit()
        self._apply_after('commit')

    def rollback(self):
        """ Rolls back a transaction """
        self._apply_before('rollback')
        self._connection.rollback()
        self._apply_after('rollback')

    def close(self):
        """ Closes the psycopg2 cursor and connection """
        self._apply_before('close')
        try:
            self._connection.close()
        except AttributeError:
            pass
        self._apply_after('close')

    def get(self, *args, **kwargs):
        """ Dummy method in order to work seamlessly in the ORM with
            :class:PostgresPool
        """
        return self

    def put(self, *args, **kwargs):
        """ Dummy method in order to work seamlessly in the ORM with
            :class:PostgresPool
        """

class PostgresPoolConnection(Postgres):
    __slots__ = ('pool', '_connection')

    def __init__(self, pool, connection):
        self.pool = pool
        self._connection = connection
        self._set_conn_options()

    def __enter__(self):
        return self

    def __exit__(self, *exc_info):
        self.pool.put(self)

    def __getattr__(self, name):
        try:
            return self.pool.__getattribute__(name)
        except AttributeError:
            return self.__getattribute__(name)

    @property
    def connection(self):
        return self._connection

    def put(self, *args, **kwargs):
        """ Returns the connection to the pool """
        self.pool.put(self, *args, **kwargs)

class PostgresPool(BasePostgresClient):
    __slots__ = ('_dsn', 'autocommit',  '_connection_options', '_schema',
                 'encoding', '_cursor_factory', 'minconn', 'maxconn', '_pool',
                 '_cache', '_search_paths', '_events')

    def __init__(self, minconn=1, maxconn=1, dsn=None,
                 cursor_factory=CNamedTupleCursor, pool=None,
                 autocommit=False, encoding=None, schema=None,
                 search_paths=None, events=None, **connection_options):
        """`Postgres Pool`
            ==================================================================
            @minconn: (#int) minimum number of connections to establish
                within the pool
            @maxconn: (#int) maximum number of connections to establish
                within the pool
            @pool: (:class:psycopg2.pool.ThreadedConnectionPool) initialized
                pyscopg2 connection pool object
            ==================================================================
            :see::class:Postgres
        """
        self._cache = {}
        # Connection options
        self._dsn = dsn
        self.autocommit = autocommit
        self._events = events or defaultdict(dict)
        self._connection_options = connection_options or {}
        self._schema = schema
        try:
            self._search_paths = list(search_paths)
        except TypeError:
            self._search_paths = ['public']
        self.encoding = encoding
        self._pool = pool
        self.minconn = minconn
        self.maxconn = maxconn

        # Cursor options
        self._cursor_factory = cursor_factory

    __repr__ = preprX('_pool', 'autocommit')

    def __enter__(self):
        """ Gets a connection from the pool """
        self.connect()
        return self

    def __exit__(self, *exc_info):
        """ Puts away the active connection in the pool """
        self.close()

    @property
    def closed(self):
        """ -> #bool True if the connection is closed """
        try:
            return self._pool.closed
        except (ValueError, AttributeError):
            return True

    def connect(self, dsn=None, **options):
        """ Opens a :mod:psycopg2 connection with @options combined with
            :prop:connection_options

            -> :mod:psycopg2 connection object
        """
        if self._pool is None or self._pool.closed or dsn or options:
            dsn = dsn or self._dsn
            opt = merge_dict(self._connection_options, options)
            if not dsn:
                dsn = self.to_dsn(opt)
            minconn = opt.get('minconn', self.minconn)
            maxconn = opt.get('maxconn', self.maxconn)
            self._pool = psycopg2.pool.ThreadedConnectionPool(minconn,
                                                              maxconn,
                                                              dsn)
        return self._pool

    @property
    def pool(self):
        return self.connect()

    def get(self, *args, **kwargs):
        return PostgresPoolConnection(pool=self,
                                      connection=self.pool.getconn())

    def put(self, poolconn, *args, **kwargs):
        """ Returns the connection to the pool
            @poolcon: (:class:PostgresPoolConnection) object
        """
        try:
            poolconn = poolconn._connection
        except AttributeError:
            pass
        self.pool.putconn(poolconn, *args, **kwargs)

    def close(self):
        """ Closes all the psycopg2 cursors and connections """
        try:
            self.pool.closeall()
        except AttributeError:
            pass

#: Storage for connection clients/pools
class LocalClient(dict):

    def get(self, name=None):
        if name is None:
            name = 'db'
        return super().get(name)

    def find(self, *opt, return_key=False, **opts):
        key = self.get_key(*opt, **opts)
        if return_key:
            return (key, self.get(key))
        return self.get(key)

    def get_key(self, *opt, **opts):
        return str(opt) + str(opts)

    def bind(self, type='client', *opt, **opts):
        key, client = self.find(*opt, return_key=True, **opts)
        if not client:
            if type == 'client':
                client = Postgres(*opt, **opts)
            else:
                client = PostgresPool(*opt, **opts)
        self['db'] = self[key] = client
        return client

    open = bind

local_client = local_property()
local_client = LocalClient()

class _db(object):
    """ Thread-local ORM session """
    engine = None

    def __init__(self):
        self.engine = local_property()
        self.engine = None

    def __getattr__(self, name):
        if name != 'engine':
            try:
                return self.__getattribute__('engine').__getattribute__(name)
            except AttributeError:
                pass
        return self.__getattribute__(name)

    def __setattr__(self, name, value):
        self.__dict__[name] = value

    def __delattr__(self, name):
        return self.engine.__delattr__(name)

    def __repr__(self):
        try:
            return self.engine.__repr__()
        except RuntimeError:
            return "<_db:{}>".format(hex(id(self)))

    def __get__(self):
        if self.engine:
            return self.engine
        return self

    def bind(self, *opt, client=None, **opts):
        """ Creates a thread-local, global :class:ORM object with the
            given options.

            @*opt and **opts are passed to :class:Postgres
        """
        from cargo.orm import ORM
        if not client:
            client = local_client.bind(*opt, **opts)
        self.engine = ORM(client=client)
        return self

    open = bind

    def close(self):
        try:
            self.engine.db.close()
        except AttributeError:
            pass

db = _db()

def create_client(*opt, **opts):
    """ Creates a connection client in the :attr:local_client thread which
        will be used as the default client in the ORM.

        See also: :class:Postgres
    """
    return local_client.bind('client', *opt, **opts)

def create_pool(minconn=None, maxconn=None, **opts):
    """ Creates a connection pool in the :attr:local_client thread which
        will be used as the default client in the ORM.

        @name: (#str) name in the :attr:local_client thread dictionary to cache
            the pool within

        See also: :class:PostgresPool
    """
    minconn = minconn or cpu_count()
    maxconn = maxconn or (cpu_count() * 2)
    return local_client.bind('pool',
                             minconn=minconn,
                             maxconn=maxconn,
                             **opts)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tag Archives: Dan Snyder
Success is a Fragile Thing but its Absence Sitcks
AJ Green, Andy Dalton, Baltimore Ravens, Carson Palmer, Carson Wentz, Cincinnati Bengals, Dan Snyder, Derick Henry, Deshaun Watson, Detroit Lions, Elijah Mitchell, Indianapolis Colts, Ja'Mar Chase, Jimmy Garoppolo, Joe Burrow, John Lynch, Kansas City Chiefs, Kyle Shanahan, Marvin Lewis, Matt Patricia, Miami Dolphins, NFL, Patrick Mahomes, Ryan Tannehill, San Francisco 49ers, Tennessee Titans, Washington Football Team
It has been a mixed week for the TWF team with the Bengals getting a statement win on the road against the Ravens to get people talking about them, whilst the Dolphins managed a déjà vu field goal loss against the Falcons against a back drop of trade rumours that I think will worry Dan until we are past the trade deadline next week.
For me there's only one place to start with the Sunday games that I watched this week and that is in Baltimore. The game started as a tight contest that the Bengals edged out 13-10 at half time, but the Bengals' offence broke out in the second half as the defence clamped down after an early third quarter touchdown for the Ravens to turn a 17-13 deficit into a 41-17 statement win. Ja'Mar Chase had a two-hundred yard receiving day and the rookie receiver now has the most receiving yards through seven career games of any player in NFL history. The defence is what was winning game initially, but now it feels like both sides of the ball are coming together. The Ravens have no need to panic at 5-2 as there is plenty of season left to go and they have too much experience to fall apart after a bad game, but for now the Bengals deserve to be taken seriously, although that also involves dealing with expectations so let's see what happens next week at the Jets.
The other of the early games I watched was the Kansas City Chiefs getting beaten soundly 27-3 by the Tennessee Titans. The thing I didn't mention on the podcast this week is that it is really hard to get to four Super Bowls in a row, which is what the Chiefs are trying to do this season. It is even harder if you have not nailed your draft picks or all-in moves in free agency. The key players are there, but right now Patrick Mahomes is pushing and turning over the ball in a way he never used to. They need to find some way to exploit more space underneath or to challenge the two high safety looks that they are now seeing regularly as now the offensive production is slipping and the defence shows no sign of improvement. The Titans don't exactly have a fearsome defence but had more than enough in this one and it was Ryan Tannehill throwing the ball that was as effective as anything on offence for the Titans, although seeing Derick Henry throw a touchdown pass was undeniably fun.
Finally, on Sunday night the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers took on each other and a bomb cyclone in a contest that was understandably heavy on the run game, particularly as at some poins throwing the ball looked like a quarterback's nightmare brought to life. It's not that often that you see two running backs from opposing teams run for matching one-hundred and seven yards and a touchdown from eighteen carries, but that's what the 49ers Elijah Mitchell and Jonathan Taylor managed. The up and down nature of Jimmy Garoppolo season continued as he returned from injury but still hasn't exactly convinced, while Carson Wentz still tries to do too much and has a nasty habit of in trying to make an impossible play simply giving the ball back to the opposition. The Colts have won three of their last four games after an 0-3 start so their matchup with the 5-2 Titans next week is a pretty huge contest but at least they seem to be finding themselves. As for the 49ers, you are beginning to hear enough questions about the job Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are doing in building this team that there could be questions to face if things don't start to improve. As good as a play caller as Shanahan is, his career record is 31-39 with only one winning season, though he did take his team to a Super Bow, but if anything it is play of both Garoppolo and Trey Lance that could be seen as the biggest questions for this franchise.
I exist in a state of quantum flux when it comes to discussion of the Deshaun Watson trade rumours, both amazed that any team would consider trading for a player with that litany of complaints and police charges against them and yet simultaneously not at all surprised because patriarchy and football.
One of the teams I didn't mention on the podcast that has also been floated as a Watson desitination was the Washington Football Team, which I have to think Ron Rivera would oppose given the recent investigations into the Football Team for their toxic work environment, particularly for women. That said, while the NFL through Roger Goodell are stating that they have handled the situation well (there is no report to publish, although they are apparently cooperating with a request from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for all documents and communications about the investigation into the workplace culture in Washington) you wonder whether Dan Snyder might make the trade, even if he is not running things at the moment..
What I Think
The Detroit Lions may be 0-7, but there are five teams below them in the DVOA rankings and frankly they threw the kitchen sink at the LA Rams on Sunday, made them work and so far this season have only been beaten badly by one team. I don't think this looks like a winless team, they are still fighting for their coach, and they can perhaps look at the first year of Brian Flores in Miami where the Dolphins also lost their first seven games but closed out the season 5-4. The unfortunate thing for the Dolphins is that after going 10-6 last season, they have not kicked on this season, but to me that hints at how fragile a thing success can be in the NFL.
As a Bengals fan I was hoping for progress coming into the season and prepared for disappointment. I certainly was not expecting a 5-2 start that includes win in Pittsburgh and Baltimore and whilst I'm certainly not expecting the end to one of our two playoff droughts, I can at least dream of it. The Dolphins were unlucky not to get into the playoffs last season with ten wins, but while there are several teams with as bad or longer droughts for appearances, the Bengals, Lions and Dolphins make up the top three longest playoff win drought. The injury to Andy Dalton in 2015 still haunts me as the team who could have been something, particularly as the Bengals haven't had a winning season since and are without a playoff win in thirty seasons despite Dalton leading the Bengals to the playoffs for five straight seasons from 2011-2015. The Lions' last winning season was in 2017 and after the spectacular failure of the Matt Patricia tenure the reboot is going to take time and with their one playoff win back in 1991 (a whole season more recent than the Bengals) their drought looks set to continue for a while. Going into the season the Dolphins would have looked best out of these three teams to end their own playoff win drought, and at twenty seasons they have some time before they catch the Lions and Bengals but this year does not seem destined for them to get that win.
The season is more random for teams than many like to admit, but these long streaks demonstrate that for some teams there are definite patterns, even if they felt more competitive to you as a fan at the time. The Marvin Lewis period transformed the Bengals from and national laughing stock to a credible franchise that included several incredibly talented teams threatening to break the playoff drought but they never quite could. There's no guarantee that Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase can do better than Andy Dalton and AJ Green, or for that matter Carson Palmer and his talented offence so yes I'm cautious, but I am definitely enjoying the game right now.
What I Hope
I have two hopes this week. I really hope that the Bengals are focussed and beat the Jets to maintain their run as there is a lot of season left and they really can't afford to drop winnable games. I also hope that the Dolphins give Dan something to be happy about come Monday.
AFC and NFC East Preview
Adam Gase, Alex Smith, Bill Belichick, Brian Flores, Bruce Allen, Buffalo Bills, Cam Newton, Carson Wentz, CeeDee Lamb, Chase Young, Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys, Dan Snyder, Daniel Jones, Dante Scarnecchia, Dave Gettleman, Dwayne Haskins, Jamal Adams, Jason Garrett, Joe Judge, Josh Allen, Kyle Allen, Miami Dolphins, Mike McCarthy, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Jets, NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, Pre-Season, Ron Rivera, Sam Darnold, Saquon Barkley, Sean McDermott, Stefon Diggs, Tom Brady, Tua Tagovailoa, Washington Football Team
Despite having a longer run up to the start of their season than the rest of the major four American sports did to restarting their seasons, it feels like the NFL are approaching the 2020 season with a higher degree of improvisation and as a result there are no pre-season games.
This means that as far as I know the season opener will be the first time the NFL plays a game with the as yet untested protocols. Certainly, this is the case for two teams playing each other and only time will tell how that goes.
The inaugural draft of The Wrong Football Dynasty NFL fantasy league takes place this week, and we are under two weeks away from the start of the season so I thought it was time to roll through the divisions to see what I thought about the teams.
I always want to see how a team does rather than speculate too much, and I think that is going to be even more true for the upcoming season, for which we have nothing but training camp reports to work with so there is a lot of speculation and little we know for certain. In fact, I think it's distinctly possible that things will move faster than a website can keep up with, but let's start with the two East divisions and see what I can say.
Let's start how we mean to go on, with a Patriots team who lost an all-time great quarterback, and so were already in flux before half a dozen players opted out of the season due to Covid-19. I can't find fault with any player deciding to sit out, but with a shortened offseason, a retooled defence, and a Brady-less offence for the first time since his ACL tear in 2008 things are going to be very different for the Pats this season. I would say with their coaching staff they should be fine, but the last time Dante Scarnecchia retired the Pats offensive line really struggled. The pickup of Cam Newton was a canny stroke and I really hope he can get back to his best, but whilst I expect the Pats to compete, this is the first year in a while where you can't pencil them in for the playoffs, although it would hardly be a surprise if they do make it.
After a seventeen year wait, the Bills have gone to the playoffs in two out of the last three seasons under head coach Sean McDermott and they are hoping that their off-season trade for receiver Stefon Diggs will catapult them to the next level. The aim surely has to be to win a playoff game this season, but Diggs can't catapult the offence to more closely match the defence's top ten ranking by DVOA on his own. A lot rests on if quarterback Josh Allen can take another step forward in his third year. It feels like the Bills front office have done an excellent job of building around the young quarterback and he doesn't have to become elite for the Bills to be a dangerous team, but their ceiling is going to be set by his performance. Still, they look to be the other contender for the AFC East title and will be looking for more than that.
I have very little idea what to make of the Jets coming into this season. They had a top ten defence by DVOA last season, but traded away their All-Pro safety Jamal Adams to the Seahawks, their special teams were top five by DVOA, but their offence was ranked thirty-first by DVOA and second year quarterback Sam Darnold missed games with mono. More importantly there seems to be very little stability in their front office and with all the caveats that he's likely forgotten more about football than I'll ever know, Adam Gase does not inspire confidence and I suspect he is a better co-ordinator than head coach. Even after having said all of this, they still went 7-9 last year so we can't write them off completely, but I definitely have them pegged for a similar or worse record this season. As ever I would love to be proved wrong, although I'm sure Dan would disagree.
I am pretty certain I'm going to be singing the Dolphins' infuriatingly catchy fight song on the podcast a time or two this season as despite their 5-11 2019 season, things are definitely on the up for the 'phins. For starters, they were tanking and so had no business winning five games, yet they still got to draft quarterback Tua Tagovailoa who for many fans was the off-season target all along. More importantly, Brian Flores is probably the first Bill Belichick assistant who truly convinced in their first season as a head coach. They had a raft of draft picks in April and I think the arrow is definitely pointing up for this team. They might not win that many more games this year given the shortened pre-season, but I believe Flores will make them competitive no matter how many games Tagovailoa does or does not start and I feel as confident as I ever remember since I started this site about the Dolphins going forward. I'm sorry if that's a jinx Dan.
Now it's time to jump conferences and look at the NFC East
The 2019 season was a really odd one for the Eagles with a lot of people, including myself, thinking that they had one of the deepest rosters in the league, but they were ravaged by injury, particularly at receiver and corner and so just getting to the play-offs was in truth something of an achievement. They seemed to put a high priority on speed in the draft, but it is a slightly odd quirk for Carson Wentz is that in his four season in Philadelphia the Eagles have gone to the play-offs the last three season, won a Super Bowl yet his play-off record is 0-1. I think this is just a quirk of some bad injury luck, but I'm sure Wentz would like to get at least one win and put this behind him before the passionate Philadelphia fans start to question their franchise quarterback. I like the Eagles chances of doing just that, but we shall have to see.
The Dallas Cowboys were a very good team on offence last season, finishing second in the league in offensive DVOA, but a middling defence and poor special teams when combined with some less than inventive coaching led to the end of the Jason Garrett era in Dallas. The Cowboys come into this season with the same offensive coordinator, operating the offence under new had coach Mike McCarthy who made headlines by running a staff without a team last season and professing that he's been studying analytics. We can't know if such an approach will survive contact with the season, particularly given McCarthy's reputation for conservative play calling at the end of his tenure in Green Bay, but it will be fascinating to watch. I don't understand why they haven't committed to Dak Prescott yet and signed him to a long term contract, but Prescott will be hoping to prove that it was a mistake not to get him signed up and the addition of rookie receiver CeeDee Lamb gives them a potentially formidable receiving group. The Cowboys really weren't that far away from winning this division last season and I expect them to compete with the Eagles all the way for the division.
Last season was a mess for the Giants, who went 4-12 with very few positives on either side of the ball. The hire of thirty-eight-year-old Patriots' special teams coordinator Joe Judge was definitely not a big name hire. I like the idea of hiring a special teams coach who is used to interacting with the whole roster, but it has to be viewed as a gamble with quarterback Daniel Jones going into his second year. The young quarterback has not shone early and the Giants are a team that looks to be a multi-season rebuilding project that they are entrusting to a young first time head coach. The Giants have some good skills players, and in Saquon Barkley a truly special running back, but I'm not sure I trust Dave Gettleman's judgment of draft value in terms of who he picks where, though he clearly has an eye for talent. I simply don't know enough about Judge as a coach to have strong feelings about this team, but I would be surprised if they did more than show progress. However, at this point in their team building, that would still be a positive step.
It's hard to know where to start with Washington. It might be easier to go through what hasn't happened to them. The 2019 season was a disaster on the field and off, leading to the hire of Ron Rivera as their new head coach, and loss of long-time president Bruce Allen. So far this off-season we've had the horrible revelations of the climate of sexual harassment around the team. The franchise has finally been forced into addressing their name, but only after major sponsors threated Dan Snyder with pulling out of contracts, and their owner has now also had allegations related to sexual harassment levelled against him. The turmoil does not end there as the conduct of Snyder over the years has led to several minority-owners of the team looking to sell their stakes, and Rivera who has so much on his plate already this off-season has been diagnosed with cancer. The one truly positive on-field news story has been the remarkable return to practise of Alex Smith from his gruesome 2018 leg injury, that after complications and infections nearly cost him the leg. As big a feel-good bit of new as Smith's return to practise is, it's hard to see him being anything other than a valued veteran voice in the quarterback room unless Dwayne Haskins continues to struggle in his second year and Kyle Allen (who has followed Rivera from Carolina) can't get the job done either. The addition of first round draft pick Chase Young should really help this team's pass-rush, but with so much change it is hard to see this team excelling this season, but Washington are another football team for whom forward progress would be a genuine achievement considering the position they are starting from.
Competition Thursday & The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition
Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition
Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Bruce Allen, Bruce Arians, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Christian McCaffrey, Dallas Cowboys, Dan Snyder, Daniel Jones, Dave Gettleman, David Tepper, Detroit Lions, Disappointed Twenty, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Jason Garrett, Jay Gruden, Jim Caldwell, Kliff Kingsbury, Kyle Allen, Kyler Murray, LA Rams, Matt Patricia, Matt Stafford, Mitchell Trubisky, New York Giants, NFL, Pat Shurmur, Picks Competition, Ron Rivera, Sean McVay, Steve Keim, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Todd Gurley, Washington
Well the picks competition is over and for a second consecutive year since he started competing, Dan's Dad is pick champion whilst I slipped back to third.
Dan's Dad: Week 17: 6-10 Overall: 143-113
Dan: Week 17: 6-10 Overall: 136-120
Gee: Week 17: 7-9 Overall: 130-126
Looking back at last year I am three points worse whilst Dan has increased his score by eleven (I suspect through not blindly picking the Dolphins) whilst Dan's Dad added a modest six to beat Dan by seven, which is a three point increase on his lead over me last season.
The moral of all this is that Dan and I will need to really step are games up next season if we're stop the blog permanently being purple and gold. I'll let 3D fill in the rest in his trivia write up, whilst I take a run through the teams from the NFC who left us this week.
The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition
The Dallas Cowboys have plenty of talent on the roster, but couldn't convert good statistics into wins with clear issues in coaching. However, there is still no word out of Dallas about Jason Garrett losing his job despite everybody thinking it would happen. His contract doesn't run out until later this month, but with a series of solid drafts the big question for next season is what is going to happen with the coach and until we know that, you can't say too much about the Cowboys' plans for next year, although they do have to make big decisions on who to re-sign.
The New York Giants had a tough season with a few scattered bright spots from rookie quarterback Daniel Jones, but clearly had a disappointing season finishing 4-12. After two consecutive losing season this has cost Pat Shurmur his job, but interestingly not Dave Gettleman. I mention Gettleman not because I have any wish to campaign for someone to be fired, but the Giants have not won for two season and Gettleman was responsible for picking Saquon Barkley with the second pick two years ago rather than taking a quarterback or even listening to offers. Even in last year's draft he took Daniel Jones at a position much higher than he was predicted to go when he had a second pick in the first round to use on him. It's hard to know what is going to happen in the off-season, but I don't have a lot of faith in this franchise to make enough of the right decisions to improve drastically next season.
The seasons of failure continued in Washington, but Dan Snyder has certainly wasted no time in making changes having fired Jay Gruden earlier in the season. Gone from the front office is Bruce Allen whilst the news of new head coach Ron Rivera's hiring was broken Monday and made official on Wednesday. There is a lot of work to turn around the culture in Washington and a lot will depend on who the new GM is and who has final say in drafting players and roster moves, but they do at least have an experienced coach who has always had a great relationship with his locker room.
The Chicago Bears finished 8-8 with third year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky failing to develop from last season. There are some big decisions coming with regards to their signal caller, and certainly the move to get him is not justifying itself yet so all eyes will be on him until he either proves himself or another player is given a go. It will be worth watching the Bears in the off-season to see if they make any moves at quarterback.
The Detroit Lions hired Matt Patricia to put them over the top having missed out on the playoffs with a 9-7 record under Jim Caldwell. Unfortunately, Patricia decided an overhaul was needed and the Lions have been rewarded with first a 6-10 season and now 3-12-1 so next season is a big one for Patricia who has kept his job. It may be that the saving grace for him was quarterback Matt Stafford being out for the latter half of the year, but the defence hasn't been good (it's never good for a head coach if their side of the ball is not great) and I imagine there will need to be a dramatic turnaround next season for there not to be big changes.
The Atlanta Falcons started the season 1-7 but managed to finish 7-9 and come second in the NFC South as the players seemed to rally round their head coach Dan Quinn and were successful in keeping him his job. However, I don't know if they can turn things round in the off-season given that things haven't really been right since they were in the Super Bowl and at some point there may need to be a change to get back to winning ways.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers also finished 7-9, although they started 2-6 but their season can be summed up in the performance of Jameis Winston who threw for over five thousand yards and thirty touchdowns, but he also threw thirty interceptions. It feels like the positive statistics means that you have to re-sign Winston, but unless Bruce Arians can find a way to limit the turnovers it is hard to see the Bucs consistently win.
The Carolina Panthers had a rough season, starting with two losses before Cam Newton was sat with injuries that ultimately didn't see him return to the field. The Panthers turned to backup quarterback Kyle Allen who was able to get the team back to a 5-3 record before things truly fell apart and they could not win another game this season. This led to Ron Rivera being fired before the end of the season, and has overshadowed the remarkable feat of running back Christian McCaffrey who managed to amass over a thousand yards rushing and receiving. New owner David Tepper says he wants to meld old school football toughness with modern analytics and is also overhauling the front office so we shall just have to see what this results in next year.
The LA Rams finished with a winning record, but could never quite compete with the Seahawks and 49ers in their division. They never fell below .500 but Todd Gurley does not look the same running back and as a result for much of the season Sean McVay couldn't find the right balance on offence. He is still a really good coach, but there are now structural problems with the roster as they have a lot of money tied up Todd Gurley and Jared Goff. Neither player have really lived up to them, and there are other players who also need signing and not many draft picks to refresh the roster. The front office think they have a different formula to compete, but next season will be key to see if the franchise can bounce back or if things are going to go badly.
Finally, we have the Arizona Cardinals who got five wins in Kliff Kingsbury's first season as an NFL head coach with rookie quarterback Kyler Murray showing promise. Given how much work was needed to improve the roster, it was no mean feat to improve their season record by two wins and a draw from last year given the quality of the other teams in the NFC West. However, they will need Steve Keim to have a good off-season if the Cardinals are to get enough talent for them to challenge for the playoffs and if they fail to make it for a fifth season then perhaps the position of Keim is the one that will need examining.
Wildcard Trivia
'Greetings Friends
Week 17 has come and gone and the end of the Regular Season has delivered what we hope will be a juicy playoff series.
I will be keen to see if the Vikings can reverse their recent collapse of momentum against the Saints, but with the 49ers lying in wait this will be a big ask. Equally attractive is the Seahawks and Eagles vying for a match up at Green Bay. Yet again the NFC seems to deliver some meaty games.
In the AFC I am less excited by the Wildcard games, although never rule out the Pats is one lesson I've learned. The excitement though will be in the next games when the oft-unfancied Ravens and the Chiefs re-enter the battle.
I feel that the week's gap for 4 teams can go either way. Momentum or recovery time can be important and this is one area where a coach earns their corn.
I'll stick my neck out now and predict that Superbowl LIV will be contested between the Saints and the Chiefs with Kansas running out narrow winners. There, I've given you a stick to beat me with. Ho Hum never mind.
Talking of predictions the Picks competition also ended on Sunday and I agree with Gee's comments in Thursdays post that week 17 is very difficult to call as some teams have nothing to play for while others would be desperate to position themselves well for either the Play-offs or, don't forget, who will be on the roster for next year. Already we have seen the coaching merry-go-round starting up and I see this being a very busy closed season.
I think the mixed agendas contributed to one of the lowest scoring weeks we have had. What is pleasing though is that as a group we have increased the total of wins by 9 over last season. Dan and I managed a disappointing 6 each but the week was won by Gee on 7. But how I achieved a rank of 2253 in the whole competition I will never know. Maybe it proves I have a smarter pin than I thought.
One thing that is still running through the post season is the trivia quiz and in week 17 I set 2 questions both around LA Quarterbacks. They were:
I was the quarterback that led the Rams to a victory in the 2000 Super Bowl against the Tennessee Titans. I lost my starting job after I fumbled six times in the first game of the 2003 season. Who am I?
This was correctly identified by both Dan and Gee as Kurt Warner
Which Charger quarterback bounced back from a dismal 2003-04 season, winning the Comeback Player of the Year Award, throwing 27 touchdowns to seven interceptions, and landing himself a spot in the 2005 NFL Pro Bowl?
Here too they both named Drew Brees.
So 4 points each being Gee up to 19 and Dan 22.
This week I will drop in at 3 teams and again there is 2 points for each.
First we are at the Miami Dolphins, so no pressure here Dan.
After the Dolphins made it to Super Bowl VIII after the 1973 season, what was the next season they saw Super Bowl action?
Next we relocate to the Twin Cities to ask this about the Vikes.
Who did the Vikings play in their first Super Bowl, which was Super Bowl IV, played on January 11, 1970?
Finally this week it is the New England Patriots,
The Patriots moved and changed their name in 1971. What was the home city and their name prior to that?
Right then, that's 2019 done and we look for a vision for 2020. Catch you next week'
Separating the Merely Bad from the Truly Awful
Adam Gase, Adam Thielen, AJ Green, Andy Dalton, Andy Reid, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Bruce Allen, Cincinnati Bengals, Dan Quinn, Dan Snyder, DeAndre Hopkins, Dee Ford, Denver Broncos, Deshaun Watson, Gardner Minshew III, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jim Turner, Jimmy Garoppolo, Kansas City Chiefs, Kenyan Drake, Kirk Cousins, Kyler Murray, Lamar Jackson, London Games, Marvin Lewis, Matt Moore, Miami Dolphins, Mike Brown, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, New York Jets, NFL, Nick Bosa, Nick Foles, Patrick Mahomes, Ryan Finley, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Sam Darnold, San Francisco 49ers, Todd Bowles, Tom Brady, Trent Williams, Washington, Zac Taylor
With week nine over we have one unbeaten team left, another year of London games completed, and Adam Gase continued to cause the Miami Dolphins problems by being so bad with the New York Jets that they lost to a Dolphins team who are not actually trying to win this year as they reboot their roster. So let's take a swing through the NFL and what they have coming up.
The Thursday night game was more competitive than I was expecting as the Arizona Cardinals marched down the field in the opening drive and scored a touchdown then late in the game managed to claw their way back into contention but ultimately lost to the visiting San Francisco 49ers. Sadly for the Cardinals, the stretch from the end of the first quarter to early in the fourth allowed the 49ers to build a big enough lead to win. The plus points for the Cardinals were Kyler Murray's continued improvement, posting a quarterback rating of 130.7 in this game and new acquired Kenyan Drake running for one hundred and ten yards on only fifteen carries as he managed to find creases in the 49ers normally excellent front seven. That said, the pass rush of the 49ers is very impressive and whilst only generated the three sacks, they seemed to be causing problems on most plays with Dee Ford catching the eye opposite rookie Nick Bosa. The 49ers offence was just as impressive with Jimmy Garoppolo posting his own quarterback rating of over 130 as well as four touchdowns and over three hundred yards of passing, all whilst the rushing attack had to use thirty-one carries to get to one hundred and one yards. There are definite signs that Kyler Murray can be productive in the NFL and find his way, but this was always going to be a building year for the Cardinals, whilst after several of their own building years it looks like Kyle Shanahan's plans are finally coming to fruition as the 49ers remain the team to beat in the NFC, if not the league right now.
The first game played on Sunday was the last of four London games that saw the Houston Texans beings hosted by the Jacksonville Jaguars. I was expecting the Jaguars who are used to the trip to London to perform better than this, but they were never able to get anything going on offence, although it wasn't until late in the game when Gardner Minshew was trying to make things happen to catch-up that he started turning the ball over repeatedly. It has to be said that the Texans' offence didn't look to be running that much better than the Jaguars, but the ability of Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Watson to make spectacular plays was the thing that really separated these two teams and it looks as if the Texans will be competitive to the end of the season, although I'm not sure they are good enough to maximise the all-in moves they have made in managing this roster. It's not going to hurt them this season, but with all the draft picks they have given away they could have issues going forward. The Jaguars meanwhile, are sliding back in the race for the post-season and the question will be what they do at quarterback now that Nick Foles is near to being healthy, and whether either quarterback can get the team into the playoffs.
The next game I saw was the Minnesota Vikings losing a close game to the Kansas City Chiefs 26-23 at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs are know to have a home field advantage and it certainly sounded loud on the TV. This was a close competitive game that I'm sure will be frustrating to Kirk Cousins as he missed a lot of throws and was not at all up to the level of play we had seen in October, although receiver Adam Thielen did have further problems with the hamstring injury he has been dealing with for a number of weeks. That said, the Vikings were held to under one hundred yards rushing at 3.5 yards per carry, which is pretty good for a rush defence that is currently ranked twenty-eighth in league by DVOA. If the plaudits should go anywhere though, it is to Andy Reid, who has kept his team winning despite losing Patrick Mahomes to a dislocated kneecap and starting Matt Moore at quareterback in his stead, and more was coaching high school football a month ago. Moore may only be 1-1 as a starter this season, but he also contributed to a win when he stepped into the game against the Broncos and it gives the Chiefs the luxury of not rushing Mahomes back. They may not look at their best right now, but they could look good come the playoffs, whilst the Vikings also looked competitive, but there will still be questions about Cousins in big games until he wins more of them.
The final game of Sunday was the match-up of the week for most people, and it was certainly a good game but in the end the Baltimore Ravens ran out 37-20 winners as they hosted the now beaten New England Patriots. Ran out is definitely the right turn as the Ravens amassed over two hundred rushing yards where they got up early on the Patriots and never relinquished that lead. The Patriots did steady the ship after going down 17-0 by the start of the second quarter, but even if they slowed the Raven's rushing attack, they never really contained Lamar Jackson and needed turnovers to get themselves into scoring positions. The Ravens were able to take advantage of the Patriots offensive line to pressure Tom Brady and limit the Patriots' running game. It is only one loss, and the only one the Patriots have had this season so it would be unwise in the extreme to write off the perennial contenders, but their looks to be less of a gap between the Pats and the other contenders in the league this season. For the Ravens, I see them having no problem beating up on the Bengals defense next week given their problems at the edges of the front seven, and whilst there are tough games against the likes of the 49ers, Texans and Rams, as well as a not easy game in Buffalo in the coming weeks, the Ravens have two more AFC North games and host the Jets so I find it hard to see them not winning the division and the question is whether they can get a bye for the first round of the playoffs.
There are plenty of people who are happy for the Miami Dolphins' players as they got their first win, but anyone who was surprised by the result had not been paying attention to how the Dolphins had played since putting Ryan Fitzpatrick back in as quarterback. There were some who greeted his signing in the off-season as not being fully aligned with the rebuilding project that was clearly taking place as he might win them too many games, and he has certainly had a positive effect on their offence in recent weeks. However, the real story is that the New York Jets were major players in free-agency and were meant to be kicking on this season and have done anything but. In truth, this is a franchise in a deep funk that has problems in the front office, on the roster, and the coaching staff so it is not surprising that their franchise quarterback looks to be regressing rather than improving this year. The real problem here is that there is no overall plan and the GM who drafted Sam Darnold is no longer there whilst the team have gotten worse since the firing of Todd Bowles. There is plenty of blame to go around and New York is not an easy media market to function in, but you have to wonder who is going to survive this at the end of the season.
I did hear an interesting discussion around the Trent Williams holdout and the reason why Williams is not happy with Washington's medical staff. His grievance is about a growth he had for a number of years that turned out to be cancerous, and I thought that doctor David Chao did an excellent job of walking you through the medical side of things so if that sounds of interest then I recommend you take a look at this tweet and go from there.
I want to take a quick look at a few of the losing teams because despite there being four teams with one win and the winless Bengals, I do think there is a difference between the bad and the truly awful. The first place to start in the separation is the Miami Dolphins, who for years have been suffering in mid-table mediocrity as they were to good to get elite players in the draft but weren't making the playoffs every year. Losing was the plan this season, not as an aim in of itself, but in rebuilding with young players through next year's draft and so whilst we don't know if things will turn around the results this year are not a disaster but a calculated consequence of their method of rebuilding.
The rest of the teams are meant to be competing but there are perhaps extenuating circumstances for some. The results are of course going to be a worry for the Atlanta Falcons, and I don't know if Dan Quinn is going to keep his job, but there is a lot of talent on this roster, but it is not deep and they have struggled with developing both lines. There is talent and a franchise quarterback so the right person might be able to turn this things around but it will likely require a change of approach by the front office if not new leadership.
The Cincinnati Bengals were pretty much sunk before the season started and my concerns quickly came to fruition. The loss of three starting lineman to injury and or retirement before the season was the precursor to their problems protecting Andy Dalton and I was always concerned about the hire of Jim Turner given his chequered history, but the loss of AJ Green to an ankle injury at the first practice o a high school field that the team should never have practiced on is particularly galling. I can't help but wonder if a more experienced coach might have stopped the event when he saw the field. The Bengals were once a laughing stock, but Marvin Lewis brought respectability and Mike Brown has invested in the largest coaching staff the Bengals have ever had and renovated the building as they committed to Zac Taylor's vision. It has done anything but pay off so far, but I'm not sure previous regimes would have turned the offence over to the rookie quarterback who looked promising in training camp to see what they have in him. They could have given more time for Dalton to try to find another team once they decided to bench him, but they probably want Dalton to be a mentor for Ryan Finley and it sure looks like we'll see him in a different uniform next season.
However, this is where I think the extenuating circumstances end. The Jets as I said earlier were meant to be competing but their dysfunction starts with ownership and how they have approaches solving their problems in recent years and until they find the right GM to establish a culture and commit long term to its implementation they will continue to struggle.
The final team are the Washington no-names, who have an argument to have one of the worst owners in American sports. It's not like Dan Snyder hasn't spent money but he has presided over a mess in the front office and I'm not sure what Bruce Allen has achieved as president to earn such loyalty. Snyder bought the team in 1999 and since then Washington have had six winning seasons if you count 2016 8-7-1 and haven't won a playoff games since 2005. Not only has the on-field performance been bad, but the franchise has gone from being the preeminent part of the Washington sports seen to a team that regularly sees more away fans than home in the stadium.
All of these teams need a lot to go right to turn them round next season, but I really do fear for the Jets and Washington.
I would also like to give a bonus mention to the Cleveland Browns who can't get out of their own way and I'm not sure the Denver Broncos are truly going to compete until John Elway can find another quarterback.
What I Know
I had a terrible week in the picks competition last week, but what I know is that sometimes you modify your numbers by gut and your right, and sometimes you get led astray but it's the over-correction in the following week that you have to watch.
If I put as much thought as I do into just picking games, I know that the staffs on these losing teams will be working as hard as they can to improve their team's situations. There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes, no one is trying to lose and what I hope is that they learn from this situation and improve.
After five years of blogging about the entire league I spend my time wishing success for people – I want things won through skill and clever strategy and for players to be as healthy as they can when they get out.
I really hope that Ryan Finley gives the Bengals a spark and that if the tean are to move on from Andy Dalton, that they can take best player available or even drop back and pick up some extra picks in next year's draft. After all, as we have had ample proof recently, there really is no such thing as guaranteed franchise quarterback just because they were selected in the first round.