Posts by David Newman50

I was watching some old clips of training camps last night, and it got me thinking about how much we, as fans, obsess over the "undrafted sleeper" narrative. Every single year, the cycle repeats. The media starts circling certain names—usually players who were overlooked by every major scout—and suddenly, they aren't just players; they're protagonists in some grand underdog movie. We love the idea of the guy who came from nowhere, worked twice as hard as the first-round picks, and finally got his shot. It’s a beautiful story, but I wonder if we’re actually doing a disservice to the reality of the sport by constantly hunting for that one miracle player.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good Cinderella story as much as the next person. There is nothing quite like the feeling of cheering for a guy that everyone else wrote off. It feels personal. It feels like we’re part of a little secret club that knows something the "experts" don't. When a guy who wasn't even drafted starts carving out meaningful minutes in preseason or summer practices, it feels like a victory for the regular person. It’s a validation of the idea that meritocracy actually exists in a world that seems increasingly rigged toward the high-priced, blue-chip assets.

But lately, I’ve been feeling a bit cynical about it. Is this obsession actually based on talent, or are we just suckers for a good narrative? I look at how much hype gets generated around these specific "low-profile" players during the off-season, and I can't help but notice how quickly that hype evaporates the moment they hit a wall. We build these players up in our minds—creating this aura of "the hidden gem"—and when they inevitably struggle with the sheer physicality or the complexity of the professional game, we act like they've betrayed us. We forget that being "undrafted" isn't a personality trait or a superpower; it's just a statistical reality of how the draft works.

I remember back in my college days, there was this one player on our local squad who everyone was convinced was going to go pro. He had that "it" factor, that gritty, overlooked vibe that makes people fall in love. We spent an entire season talking about him like he was the next big thing. He worked harder than anyone, sure, but the jump from our level to the next was massive. When he didn't make the leap, the same people who championed him turned on him instantly. It made me realize how fickle our "support" for the underdog actually is. We don't love the player; we love the *idea* of the player.

It also makes me wonder about the actual players themselves. Imagine being a rookie coming into this environment. You’re already fighting an uphill battle for a roster spot, and then you realize the entire fanbase is hyper-focused on you because you fit this specific "undrafted underdog" archetype. That’s a lot of psychological pressure. You aren't just playing against the guy across from you; you're playing against the massive weight of everyone's expectations that you're going to be the "miracle" that proves the scouts wrong.

I think we need to start appreciating the depth of a roster more. The guys who were drafted in the second or third round, the guys who have been steady contributors for three years without ever making a headline—they are the backbone of the league. But they don't get the romanticized "sleeper" treatment. They don't get the "watch this space" articles. We tend to ignore the reliable workhorses in favor of the high-variance gambles.

I'm curious to hear what you all think. Do you actively seek out these undrafted stories because you enjoy the unpredictability, or do you find the constant "sleeper" hype to be a distraction from the actual roster construction? Are we actually helping these players by building them up, or are we just setting them up for a harder fall?

Gregory Howard said:I have no idea who this Otto character is, but the criteria here are perfectly clear. A Cuban-American is someone who arrived from Cuba and was shaped by that specific culture and civilization. Similarly, Americans from Argentina are considered Latinos if they’ve fully assimilated into that society and shed their original identity within a Spanish-speaking environment—just like that Kirchnerist president of theirs (or her husband, who I assume is some guy of German descent).

There is no such thing as a Latino "race," only a culture. It’s the same nonsense as the idea of a "Slavic race"—which the Nazis deemed inferior, even though during World War II they were busy stealing Polish and Russian babies just because those kids happened to be bluer-eyed than the aesthetic ideal of the so-called Aryans favored by Heinrich Himmler and Goebbels.

Regarding Latinos in Los Angeles... you can keep sending links to Miss Venezuela or Miss Chile all you want, but the reality on the ground is something else entirely.
About 90% of the Mexicans in LA are descendants of the Maya, characterized by pear-shaped heads, heavy jaws, and short stature. Honestly, they are probably the most diverse and unintelligent group on the planet. They sit much lower on the social hierarchy than Black Americans.

And as for Swabians versus Slavs... just compare a Czech woman, a Polish woman, or a Russian woman to a Swabian woman🤣 🤣 and you can end this debate right here.
One out of every hundred Swabian women actually looks like a woman; the rest are more or less she-males.😂

If you look at things through a European lens, the white population in the US has already dipped below 50%.
The official numbers show them at over 60%, but that’s mostly because groups like Iranians, certain Latinos, and people with mixed Native American heritage are categorized as white—which might pass for Iranians, I suppose, but it’s a stretch for others...
There aren't many white Americans out there who don't have at least a little bit of Native American ancestry, much like how many Mexican-Americans are composed without any white blood at all.
When you look at birth rates, Latinos make up the vast majority... which really tells you everything you need to know about what the future looks like.
Even though they are a huge part of the population, they remain one of the most disliked groups in the US—and even though they are Catholic (maybe that's part of it?), it’s a hard concept for the "white" crowd on this forum to grasp—assuming we're counting those Western Herzegovinian types as white.

An absolute failure. Without Iran and Hezbollah involved... you're basically just looking at a bunch of chickens in a coop. It’s like when the head farmer was lecturing them and the hens were just staring blankly—that's your idea of "success."

wearycobra74 said:Right, I wasn't aware that the poster wasn't also the author. Regardless, the text is clearly controversial, which makes it perfect for a debate.

But there is one point worth noting. You can't just stack up the massive U.S. deficit indefinitely without consequences. Eventually, Americans will have to pay for living beyond their means, especially when there's no backing left.

They’ve already started paying the price. Believe me, I'm feeling it.
Just ignore the demagogues... trust me, we're already feeling the sting.👎

James Nguyen13 said:They were compared to Nazis back when they carried out the genocide against a million people. Honestly, they were actually an inspiration for Hitler, who, when asked "what will future generations think of us?", simply replied: "who even remembers the Armenians anymore?"

I have issued the command — and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish descent and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space [Lebensraum] which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

Unsere Stärke ist unsere Schnelligkeit und unsere Brutalität. Dschingis Khan drove millions of women and children to their deaths, deliberately and with joyful Herzens. Die Geschichte sees him only as the great Founding Father. What the weak Western European civilization claims about me is irrelevant. I have issued the command — and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. So I have, for now only in the East, placed my death-head formation in readiness with the command to mercilessly and without compassion send men, women, and children of Polish descent and language to their deaths. Only thus do we gain the Lebensraum we require. Who talks today of the Armenian Genocide?

Adolf Hitler, August 1939, a conversation with German military commanders immediately preceding the invasion of Poland.

You're twisting the facts a bit. The Young Turks did commit atrocities, but...

http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Othe...nHolocaust.htm

It wasn't really "Young Turks"—it was the old Zionists.
Anyway, their main goal was to abolish the Caliphate... and honestly, it's hard to find a single true Muslim who would have actually wanted that.

True Muslims want:
- No entry for Turkey into the European Union, because that just dilutes Islam in Turkey even further.
- A defeat in the war against the Kurds, leading to internal unrest, an eventual massive revolution, and finally purging the cancer within Islam—specifically those embedded Doenmeh puppets, from local school boards and town councils all the way up to the Joint Chiefs and Congress.
- Turning Turkey toward Iran, closing the borders to the European Union, and ignoring that decaying nursing home of a continent.

hiddengardener84 said:Sarkozy is getting a divorce, and here is what French law says about it
This is pathetic:

Yesterday, the White House confirmed the news reports regarding the divorce of Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia. Two French law professors, Norbert Foulquier from the University of Evry and Vincent Valentin from the Sorbonne, used an issue of Libération from the other night to try and interpret how this upcoming divorce fits under Article 67 of the French Constitution. That specific law forbids any legal proceedings being brought before the President if they interfere with his official duties. According to them, a divorce counts—because you can't get divorced without appearing before a judge. The article was titled "Cecilia, the impossible divorce." And who's to blame that Cecilia has to wait until the end of her husband's term just to get a divorce? Exactly. Islamists.

The authors don't even wait until the second sentence of the article to reveal the Islamist threat lurking within Article 67 of the Constitution.

"The President's wife cannot divorce. An order from an Islamist regime? No, rather the result of criminal law changes initiated by Chirac..."
So, what was the writer hinting at with that allusion to "Islamists"? The "oppression of women" in Islam? Trying to show off that he knows Islamic law too? The only thing they managed to do was act like total hacks because divorce is actually permitted in Islam. It's hard to sway the emotions of a French reader by pointing out facts like how divorce wasn't possible in Italy until 1970, in Brazil until 1977, or in Ireland until 1997—a situation we can thank the Catholic Church for, given how hard they lobbied against those laws for years.

That Zionist puppet was a big hope for Zionists, but he fell in the first round.
A Muslim was screwing his wife.🙏