jday
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I left my home last Saturday afternoon as a father of two boys, husband of one wife, and owner of two pets: a cat and a dog. I came home to a cat lady starter kit.
The errand I was running was with a buddy of mine; we were picking up provisions for our own Cinco De Mayo celebration that was to include grilled Steak Quesadillas and a few adult beverages. Nothing too crazy; just good food and good company; an American Dream Saturday afternoon.
Upon my return, I was met at the door by my wife who launched into a tirade about a litter of kittens that had somehow found their way into our backyard. The first to emerge did not fare so well considering my dog was the first to find it. Rather he was protecting the yard or simply playing with the kitten is a mystery, however, said kitten was dispatched and buried by the time I arrived back home. Such is life…sometimes you’re the dog in his back yard with not a care in the world; and sometimes you are a baby kitten that has unwarily ventured into the aforementioned dogs domain.
Anywho, that kitten, it turns out, had 6 siblings and a mother that no longer seemed to care for her litter of what I’d guess to be somewhere between 4 to 6 weeks old. Being a stray cat, she probably was unable to support the kitten’s diet any further as a result of the lack of provisions available in my neighborhood. Whatever the truth is, being the bleeding heart that I am, I was unable to turn these little orphans away. Two of the devils clearly come from a Siamese background, whereas the balance are for the moment solid white, with brindle orange ears and tails…so one of the parents is Siamese and the other likely Calico.
Being a premature separation from their birth-mother, their needs are specific and costly (at least in the sense that this was clearly not part of our budget going into this month). We had to purchase kitten formula and every 2 to 3 hours use medicine syringes left over from our children’s infancy to inject the pseudo-milk into the monsters greedy little mouths. It is a time-consuming and, at times, painful endeavor in consideration of the fact that when feeding they struggle to retract their claws and are not afraid to unnecessarily use them.
Each day this week I have had to wake up at some point in the 5 a’clock hour to the chorus of their throaty-meow-screams. Initially it was a pain in the posterior, no question. But with repetition comes familiarity and eventually a small dose of self-appreciation. After all, I know I’m in rare-air committing to this adoption, with all the other responsibilities I am saddled with as a husband, father, and provider. Sure I could drop the buggers off at the nearest shelter, but would they be cared for in the same manner I have cared for them? I don’t think so. Life in a cage, is no life at all. In my view, it would have been better to leave them to the care of Mother Nature and man’s best friend.
Gradually, I have grown to appreciate the act of caring for these kittens. It is an experience that is difficult to put into words, but as I feed them and pet them all the while there is a certain adoration in their eyes, further communicated through their little purrs that sounds like they each swallowed a never-ending wind-up toy. The transition for me was pretty quick. Monday morning of this week, I was pretty upset that I would have to figure out a way to sandwich feeding the ridiculous 6 between getting my kids ready and to school and me getting ready and to work; a commute that demands 45 to 60 minutes (one way) of my day dependent on traffic, as it is.
By Tuesday, I had grown to look forwards to these interactions and at this point, would have it no other way…once they make the full conversion from formula to solid food, I suspect I will miss these brief cherished feedings. And the days I have to find a new home for all of them, will be 6 (5…maybe 4) really sad days.
When I was a child I unknowingly shot the mother of two baby sparrows with my BB gun (I knew I was shooting a bird; I just didn’t know it was a mom, okay). When I heard the squeaking of baby birds, I eventually put together what I had done. In an act of penitence, I committed myself to adopting those baby birds, nursing them back to health and vowed from then on to respect all of God’s creatures great and small. Were it not for that life-changing moment in my life, there might have been seven shallow graves in my yard instead of one.
Right about now you are probably wondering to yourself “why have I just read over 1,000 words on a Cowboys related blog that has absolutely nothing to do with the Dallas Cowboys and everything to do with a guy needing to get his testosterone levels checked?”
Patience grasshopper…there is a tie-in…somewhere…I know it.
How about this?
Right now, as I write, there is a civil war being waged in the comment sections of the numerous online media sites and all the various blogs devoted to the Cowboys. The war being waged is on whether or not Dak Prescott is in fact the franchise QB of the future. I have watched, listened, and read a good portion of every argument for and against and am in truth baffled at how wrong and right both sides can simultaneously be. It’s fascinating, to be quite honest.
In many of these debates, however, I have noticed a tendency by both sides to over-rely on either stats or what I believe to be the misinformed opinion being parroted by the national media.
For example, if in representation of either side of the argument, you wield a useless stat such as those garnered over the course of an entire season, I can without the slightest bit of hesitation say you are wrong. There is no stat available in this world more misleading. The reason it is misrepresentative is because the 31 other quarterbacks Dak is being compared to did not face the same competition, at the same time, in the same weather conditions, and at the same place over the course of the same year nor did they do so with the same weapons and offensive line at their disposal. And since different teams as a general rule have different levels of defensive strength, the evidence being used here is truly inconclusive.
The only way stats such as these could be considered viable is if we were instead able to force all 32 teams to play a football team of cyborgs programmed to play the same way every time in a controlled environment were weather will not impact the game one way or another for 16 games. Then and only then would we be able to look at the stats compiled over that hypothetical season and make worthwhile conclusions.
Granted, that will never happen, but understanding why those stats would be far more conclusive then the current stats being collected, you should see why our present system of stat-comparison leaves much to be desired. The current method allows for anomalies and outliers to negatively and positively impact the end result (such as comparing players of teams that faced relatively weak schedules to players on teams that faced relatively difficult schedules), which can lead to people making false assumptions about a player; especially when balanced against stats compiled over the course of a season.
These same inconclusive stats seem to support the notion that Dak is a franchise quarterback. I’m not saying he isn’t; I lean toward the notion he is (all he needs is time in service). I just wouldn’t use those stats as the foundation of my arguments.
Now let’s take a look at the other side of the coin.
Recently in a conversation with a so-called Dak-hater I was treated to a well-thought out explanation as to why he doesn’t believe Dak is not the quarterback of the future (paraphrasing):
In summation, it is his belief that Dak is very limited by his actual talent to play quarterback at a professional level. He admitted that if everyone does their job in the running game, passing game, pass protection, and defense, Dak can win. But, comparing him to Brad Johnson, he’s more of a game manager or bus driver. He went on to say that he will never be in the same class as quarterbacks such as Brees, Ryan, Romo, Rodgers, Brady; he lacks the ability to read defenses, make all the throws, anticipate a receiver gaining separation, pocket awareness, and the ability to pick up the slack of those around him.
At a guess, I’d say this a pretty close approximation of what most Anti-Dak fans would say; feel free to disabuse me of that notion in the comment section.
The first issue I take with this assessment is the lack of a middle ground between bus driver and the aforementioned quarterbacks. He is not merely a game-manager, he has demonstrated the ability to make all the throws (albeit he does throw the occasional duck), anticipate a receiver gaining separation (I’ve seen the studies complete with GIFS to prove it), pocket awareness (that at times has been spotty, but so has his protection), and the ability to pick up the slack of those around him (though, he did not do it when the Cowboys needed him to do it the most last year, he routinely did it as the starter for Mississippi State and was the predominant reason they reached #1 in the college ranks for the first time in that schools history).
The second issue I would like to address with the above Dak-valuation, is that when Brees, Ryan, Romo, Rodgers, Brady were in their second year, they weren’t on their current level either. There is no such thing as a rookie or second year player that plays at an elite level. Roethlisberger and Wilson did win a Super Bowl in their sophomore season, but I think we all can agree that both those teams had elite defenses holding their hand throughout those otherwise storied seasons.
What makes this a compelling and self-sustaining debate is that both sides of the argument are both right and wrong at various points in the conversation. The following will be my attempt to explain to both sides of this argument what really happened in the simplest of ways:
Dak’s rookie year was the worst thing that could possibly happen to a young quarterback. Many of you at this moment are asking yourself how could potentially the best rookie quarterback year in the history of football ever be considered the worst thing that could happen to a young quarterback?
If you think Dak’s rookie years greatness was as a result of his greatness and his greatness alone, you are sadly and completely mistaken. Dak certainly had a hand in it. But so did luck both on the injury front, ball-bounces, and passes that should have been interceptions. So did that offensive line Dak enjoyed an eternity behind to pick and choose where to throw the ball. So did Zeke, both as a running-back and the guy who could take a screen 80 yards to pay dirt. So did a number of things going right at just the right time in just the right way. I’m not saying anybody could have done it…I’m not saying that at all. But it was by far a much easier season to weather than was 2017; where everything seemingly went wrong…particularly towards the end of the year without the services of Zeke to lean on during that 6 game suspension.
Like many veterans said of him during that landmark year, Dak simply did not know what he did not know and played like it was easy because in many ways it was. The offensive line and the time they afforded him to assess the defense made it easy. The stellar run game and game breaking quicks of Zeke, supplemented by security blankets in the form of Witten and Beasley made it easy. The weapons manning the outside, be it Terrance Williams, Dez Bryant or Bryce Butler at times made it easy.
In other words, 2016 spoiled Dak. Had 2017 been his first year, he might of fared better. But since his first year failed to properly inoculate him to the realities of what being the franchise quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL is all about, he experienced a slump at times and was not able to adjust. Being a second year player not playing with the assistance of an elite defense, that should not surprise anyone.
I honestly don’t know if we will ever see that 2016 Dak again, but I certainly wouldn’t bet against it. Dak’s name may never be uttered in the same sentence as the elites such as Brees, Ryan, Rodgers, Brady but considering the relative low number of Super Bowls those five have accounted for from their inception into the league, Dak doesn’t really need to be on their level to win a Championship.
Dak could very well get there; it all depends on him….and if you take in consideration that in his freshman year of college he was used more as a running back than quarterback, you would see that his ascension from then to now has been other-worldly. Again…I would not bet against him because despite the lack of any physically elite traits, Dak does have elite intangibles which I go further in-depth on here.
I’d imagine, in the first few weeks of my cubby of kittens existence, their life was grand; their mom saw to their wants and needs, stroked their backs and ears with her tongue and literally ate their poop; kinda like how 2016 was for Dak when literally everything went right at just the right time in just the right way. Roughly 4 weeks into living, those kittens were pushed from their mothers nest into the cold realities of the world, likely watching from the sidelines as a dog rag-dolled their sibling; kinda like how Dak had to watch as his brother in Blue & Silver (Zeke) got raw-dogged by the league. But as fate would have it, the kittens quickly found salvation in the form of a warm home paired with warm meals peopled by a family of animal-lovers that took pity on their plight; kinda like how I hope the Cowboys fanship will embrace Dak going forward into the 2018 season.
Ahem…by the way, if anyone’s looking for a cat I have 5, maybe 4, could be as little as 3 available.
Thoughts?
The errand I was running was with a buddy of mine; we were picking up provisions for our own Cinco De Mayo celebration that was to include grilled Steak Quesadillas and a few adult beverages. Nothing too crazy; just good food and good company; an American Dream Saturday afternoon.
Upon my return, I was met at the door by my wife who launched into a tirade about a litter of kittens that had somehow found their way into our backyard. The first to emerge did not fare so well considering my dog was the first to find it. Rather he was protecting the yard or simply playing with the kitten is a mystery, however, said kitten was dispatched and buried by the time I arrived back home. Such is life…sometimes you’re the dog in his back yard with not a care in the world; and sometimes you are a baby kitten that has unwarily ventured into the aforementioned dogs domain.
Anywho, that kitten, it turns out, had 6 siblings and a mother that no longer seemed to care for her litter of what I’d guess to be somewhere between 4 to 6 weeks old. Being a stray cat, she probably was unable to support the kitten’s diet any further as a result of the lack of provisions available in my neighborhood. Whatever the truth is, being the bleeding heart that I am, I was unable to turn these little orphans away. Two of the devils clearly come from a Siamese background, whereas the balance are for the moment solid white, with brindle orange ears and tails…so one of the parents is Siamese and the other likely Calico.
Being a premature separation from their birth-mother, their needs are specific and costly (at least in the sense that this was clearly not part of our budget going into this month). We had to purchase kitten formula and every 2 to 3 hours use medicine syringes left over from our children’s infancy to inject the pseudo-milk into the monsters greedy little mouths. It is a time-consuming and, at times, painful endeavor in consideration of the fact that when feeding they struggle to retract their claws and are not afraid to unnecessarily use them.
Each day this week I have had to wake up at some point in the 5 a’clock hour to the chorus of their throaty-meow-screams. Initially it was a pain in the posterior, no question. But with repetition comes familiarity and eventually a small dose of self-appreciation. After all, I know I’m in rare-air committing to this adoption, with all the other responsibilities I am saddled with as a husband, father, and provider. Sure I could drop the buggers off at the nearest shelter, but would they be cared for in the same manner I have cared for them? I don’t think so. Life in a cage, is no life at all. In my view, it would have been better to leave them to the care of Mother Nature and man’s best friend.
Gradually, I have grown to appreciate the act of caring for these kittens. It is an experience that is difficult to put into words, but as I feed them and pet them all the while there is a certain adoration in their eyes, further communicated through their little purrs that sounds like they each swallowed a never-ending wind-up toy. The transition for me was pretty quick. Monday morning of this week, I was pretty upset that I would have to figure out a way to sandwich feeding the ridiculous 6 between getting my kids ready and to school and me getting ready and to work; a commute that demands 45 to 60 minutes (one way) of my day dependent on traffic, as it is.
By Tuesday, I had grown to look forwards to these interactions and at this point, would have it no other way…once they make the full conversion from formula to solid food, I suspect I will miss these brief cherished feedings. And the days I have to find a new home for all of them, will be 6 (5…maybe 4) really sad days.
When I was a child I unknowingly shot the mother of two baby sparrows with my BB gun (I knew I was shooting a bird; I just didn’t know it was a mom, okay). When I heard the squeaking of baby birds, I eventually put together what I had done. In an act of penitence, I committed myself to adopting those baby birds, nursing them back to health and vowed from then on to respect all of God’s creatures great and small. Were it not for that life-changing moment in my life, there might have been seven shallow graves in my yard instead of one.
Right about now you are probably wondering to yourself “why have I just read over 1,000 words on a Cowboys related blog that has absolutely nothing to do with the Dallas Cowboys and everything to do with a guy needing to get his testosterone levels checked?”
Patience grasshopper…there is a tie-in…somewhere…I know it.
How about this?
Right now, as I write, there is a civil war being waged in the comment sections of the numerous online media sites and all the various blogs devoted to the Cowboys. The war being waged is on whether or not Dak Prescott is in fact the franchise QB of the future. I have watched, listened, and read a good portion of every argument for and against and am in truth baffled at how wrong and right both sides can simultaneously be. It’s fascinating, to be quite honest.
In many of these debates, however, I have noticed a tendency by both sides to over-rely on either stats or what I believe to be the misinformed opinion being parroted by the national media.
For example, if in representation of either side of the argument, you wield a useless stat such as those garnered over the course of an entire season, I can without the slightest bit of hesitation say you are wrong. There is no stat available in this world more misleading. The reason it is misrepresentative is because the 31 other quarterbacks Dak is being compared to did not face the same competition, at the same time, in the same weather conditions, and at the same place over the course of the same year nor did they do so with the same weapons and offensive line at their disposal. And since different teams as a general rule have different levels of defensive strength, the evidence being used here is truly inconclusive.
The only way stats such as these could be considered viable is if we were instead able to force all 32 teams to play a football team of cyborgs programmed to play the same way every time in a controlled environment were weather will not impact the game one way or another for 16 games. Then and only then would we be able to look at the stats compiled over that hypothetical season and make worthwhile conclusions.
Granted, that will never happen, but understanding why those stats would be far more conclusive then the current stats being collected, you should see why our present system of stat-comparison leaves much to be desired. The current method allows for anomalies and outliers to negatively and positively impact the end result (such as comparing players of teams that faced relatively weak schedules to players on teams that faced relatively difficult schedules), which can lead to people making false assumptions about a player; especially when balanced against stats compiled over the course of a season.
These same inconclusive stats seem to support the notion that Dak is a franchise quarterback. I’m not saying he isn’t; I lean toward the notion he is (all he needs is time in service). I just wouldn’t use those stats as the foundation of my arguments.
Now let’s take a look at the other side of the coin.
Recently in a conversation with a so-called Dak-hater I was treated to a well-thought out explanation as to why he doesn’t believe Dak is not the quarterback of the future (paraphrasing):
In summation, it is his belief that Dak is very limited by his actual talent to play quarterback at a professional level. He admitted that if everyone does their job in the running game, passing game, pass protection, and defense, Dak can win. But, comparing him to Brad Johnson, he’s more of a game manager or bus driver. He went on to say that he will never be in the same class as quarterbacks such as Brees, Ryan, Romo, Rodgers, Brady; he lacks the ability to read defenses, make all the throws, anticipate a receiver gaining separation, pocket awareness, and the ability to pick up the slack of those around him.
At a guess, I’d say this a pretty close approximation of what most Anti-Dak fans would say; feel free to disabuse me of that notion in the comment section.
The first issue I take with this assessment is the lack of a middle ground between bus driver and the aforementioned quarterbacks. He is not merely a game-manager, he has demonstrated the ability to make all the throws (albeit he does throw the occasional duck), anticipate a receiver gaining separation (I’ve seen the studies complete with GIFS to prove it), pocket awareness (that at times has been spotty, but so has his protection), and the ability to pick up the slack of those around him (though, he did not do it when the Cowboys needed him to do it the most last year, he routinely did it as the starter for Mississippi State and was the predominant reason they reached #1 in the college ranks for the first time in that schools history).
The second issue I would like to address with the above Dak-valuation, is that when Brees, Ryan, Romo, Rodgers, Brady were in their second year, they weren’t on their current level either. There is no such thing as a rookie or second year player that plays at an elite level. Roethlisberger and Wilson did win a Super Bowl in their sophomore season, but I think we all can agree that both those teams had elite defenses holding their hand throughout those otherwise storied seasons.
What makes this a compelling and self-sustaining debate is that both sides of the argument are both right and wrong at various points in the conversation. The following will be my attempt to explain to both sides of this argument what really happened in the simplest of ways:
Dak’s rookie year was the worst thing that could possibly happen to a young quarterback. Many of you at this moment are asking yourself how could potentially the best rookie quarterback year in the history of football ever be considered the worst thing that could happen to a young quarterback?
If you think Dak’s rookie years greatness was as a result of his greatness and his greatness alone, you are sadly and completely mistaken. Dak certainly had a hand in it. But so did luck both on the injury front, ball-bounces, and passes that should have been interceptions. So did that offensive line Dak enjoyed an eternity behind to pick and choose where to throw the ball. So did Zeke, both as a running-back and the guy who could take a screen 80 yards to pay dirt. So did a number of things going right at just the right time in just the right way. I’m not saying anybody could have done it…I’m not saying that at all. But it was by far a much easier season to weather than was 2017; where everything seemingly went wrong…particularly towards the end of the year without the services of Zeke to lean on during that 6 game suspension.
Like many veterans said of him during that landmark year, Dak simply did not know what he did not know and played like it was easy because in many ways it was. The offensive line and the time they afforded him to assess the defense made it easy. The stellar run game and game breaking quicks of Zeke, supplemented by security blankets in the form of Witten and Beasley made it easy. The weapons manning the outside, be it Terrance Williams, Dez Bryant or Bryce Butler at times made it easy.
In other words, 2016 spoiled Dak. Had 2017 been his first year, he might of fared better. But since his first year failed to properly inoculate him to the realities of what being the franchise quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL is all about, he experienced a slump at times and was not able to adjust. Being a second year player not playing with the assistance of an elite defense, that should not surprise anyone.
I honestly don’t know if we will ever see that 2016 Dak again, but I certainly wouldn’t bet against it. Dak’s name may never be uttered in the same sentence as the elites such as Brees, Ryan, Rodgers, Brady but considering the relative low number of Super Bowls those five have accounted for from their inception into the league, Dak doesn’t really need to be on their level to win a Championship.
Dak could very well get there; it all depends on him….and if you take in consideration that in his freshman year of college he was used more as a running back than quarterback, you would see that his ascension from then to now has been other-worldly. Again…I would not bet against him because despite the lack of any physically elite traits, Dak does have elite intangibles which I go further in-depth on here.
I’d imagine, in the first few weeks of my cubby of kittens existence, their life was grand; their mom saw to their wants and needs, stroked their backs and ears with her tongue and literally ate their poop; kinda like how 2016 was for Dak when literally everything went right at just the right time in just the right way. Roughly 4 weeks into living, those kittens were pushed from their mothers nest into the cold realities of the world, likely watching from the sidelines as a dog rag-dolled their sibling; kinda like how Dak had to watch as his brother in Blue & Silver (Zeke) got raw-dogged by the league. But as fate would have it, the kittens quickly found salvation in the form of a warm home paired with warm meals peopled by a family of animal-lovers that took pity on their plight; kinda like how I hope the Cowboys fanship will embrace Dak going forward into the 2018 season.
Ahem…by the way, if anyone’s looking for a cat I have 5, maybe 4, could be as little as 3 available.
Thoughts?
(but thanks for taking care of them...it'll come back to you somehow, some way, some day)!
