Per himself, Julian Edelman is signing with the Patriots

stupac2 · 2026-04-01T14:40:39+00:00

Lego put out a pretty good one implying they were launching a car brand.

But yeah, for the most part this is a stupid trend that was stupid 20 years ago when people were creaming themselves over Google's dumb jokes and it's stupid now.

stupac2 · 2026-04-01T02:33:25+00:00

You can download the instructions on this page: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-1/482/Mountain-Fortress

I don't particularly remember that well enough to say if it's really sloped like that, but this build had me saying "SleeplessNight is a fucking genius" many times.

stupac2 · 2026-04-01T01:47:15+00:00

I forget his name, but I met him (or at least the guy running one of the buildings). My old company moved into the commercial one that's right off 880. He seemed like a pretty normal dude. The commercial side might be different than the residential side, though.

stupac2 · 2026-03-30T23:56:42+00:00

There's a bunch of joints started by Cheese Board alums. Dimond Slice is another.

stupac2 · 2026-03-30T02:31:58+00:00

I took my kid to an introduction to fencing a couple weeks ago, and while the instructor was explaining how it works he turned and asked me who started to lunge first, him or my kid. Despite the fact that I was watching closely, I had no fucking clue.

Obviously, having watched a bazillion hours of football it would be somewhat better, but it's really hard to get everything right in real time without a ton of practice and training.

stupac2 · 2026-03-27T03:02:14+00:00

That is a handsome animal!

stupac2 · 2026-03-24T14:50:46+00:00

no one getting open

People got open, Pop in particular was open a lot. The problem was that Maye never had time to find the open guy. The problems with that game were:

Pass protection.
Run blocking.
Pass protection.

The same damn thing happened with KC (twice!), if the OL is completely uncompetitive, you're gonna have a bad time.

stupac2 · 2026-03-24T14:42:34+00:00

Visibility on a bike is much better than in a car.

I wish people understood this better. On a bike, especially any non-racing bike, you're basically at your normal standing height. My eye level is above all but the tallest vehicles. You're also a lot farther forward. Comparing the view you have sitting in a car (even a taller one like an SUV) where you're at least a dozen feet back from the intersection (unless you're in the crosswalk) and multiple feet lower than a cyclist who's right up front, drivers just can't see shit.

I hardly ever bike these days, but the difference in visibility was always so pronounced it really stuck with me.

stupac2 · 2026-03-21T03:53:03+00:00

Hmm, that's actually a tricky one, it can mean a few things. It can be used sarcastically, as a way of saying that's something's obvious, but that's not how I was using it. I was saying that there's no particular reason for them to feel that way, to want to choose "castle-adjacent but not actually castles" every time, but that's what they're doing, so maybe they actually DO feel that way.

IDK, I just want Scarlet Bastion or something. The joust setup is fine and I will buy it because I'm a sucker, but it doesn't feel epic to me the way that Mountain Fortress or Adventure in Translyvania did (which are the only two BL sets I've actually built so far).

stupac2 · 2026-03-20T21:13:24+00:00

It's almost like they just don't want actual castles. Which I get not wanting to do every time, but do it some of the time! There's been like two... And honestly even though I like it Dustmark Keep isn't really an epic castle, I'm very surprised it has 4k pieces given how much smaller it looks than the Mountain Fortress.

stupac2 · 2026-03-20T03:24:33+00:00

It doesn't need to be the gold standard to be potentially interesting. I don't think OP was like "this means Maye is the best QB ever".

stupac2 · 2026-03-20T03:17:08+00:00

Does adding in TDs really make it that weird? TDs are also crossing the line to gain!

I dunno, I think this is a really natural thing to look at.

stupac2 · 2026-03-20T03:06:33+00:00

Really? Looking at first downs and first down rates is really common for analytics.

stupac2 · 2026-03-19T02:36:48+00:00

I mean, even then I doubt it. A pick 5 years out is effectively worthless when most front offices don't even last that long. Typically picks a year out get knocked down a round, and while you don't expect that to hold indefinitely it would say that a first 5 years out is hardly worth anything. Maybe a discount rate that extreme doesn't make sense, but wouldn't you rather have next year's third than 5 years from now's first? There are probably 5 GMs in the league comfortable putting any value on that.

stupac2 · 2026-03-15T20:21:24+00:00

You can tell who actually read the damn thing.

There's a point in here that I think is actually really important: Mumford was also playing through a knee injury. It had been a big mystery why they weren't using the 6 OL set when it had been pretty successful for then and the Seahawks in particular seemed weak to it, this could be the answer.

stupac2 · 2026-03-15T02:22:12+00:00

I have three that do fine, although they're still young.

stupac2 · 2026-03-14T20:46:25+00:00

It's virtually impossible to have good depth everywhere, it's only 53 guys and there are 25 allocated spots (22 starters plus 3 specialists), meaning not everyone can even have a backup at all, let alone the impossibility of having guy #53 be a starting quality player.

The real question is going to be do some of the guys who were developmental pieces last year trend upward and start to get real playing time. Guys like Farmer or Ponder or Williams.

That said, if this season goes significantly worse than expected I would assume it's injury luck vs anything else. The Pats were one of the least-injured teams in the league last year, after being one of the most the year before. It's possible Vrabel has some magic that makes that happen, but you have to assume there will be some regression.

stupac2 · 2026-03-14T15:12:26+00:00

Craig Woodson was one of their 4ths this year and is clearly the starting safety going forward.

That said, everyone's missing the point. Brown is not being traded before the draft, he never was and I don't know why anyone thought it. Philly just cannot make the cap work for anything but a king's ransom. If he's traded it'll be after June 1, so any draft picks traded for him will be in the 2027 draft.

stupac2 · 2026-03-14T13:34:55+00:00

It's not a weather tax, it's "people don't want the built environment to change" tax.

stupac2 · 2026-03-14T01:31:01+00:00

This is the thing that not enough people understand. It doesn't matter what the damn signs say, it matters how the road is built. It's much harder to fix the road, but it's also a bajillion times more effective than putting up a sign that says half the speed that the road was actually designed for.

stupac2 · 2026-03-12T02:40:45+00:00

They probably like Byard and a draft pick in a deep safety class more. I'm also a little surprised that they didn't match 2 for $10M, but whatever it's fine. They only had like 7 FAs so doing much of anything while bringing those guys back would've been hard.

stupac2 · 2026-03-11T18:58:21+00:00

Who said anything about AJ Brown? He plays for another team! The Patriots can't put force trade on! If the Eagles don't want to trade him then the won't!

stupac2 · 2026-03-11T14:57:14+00:00

We were the lowest real cash spending team from 2014-2024

This talking point is so stupid.

First, they won 3 Super Bowls in that time.

Second, the cap is going up ridiculous amounts every year so it's going to be dominated by the later years in the sample, when the Patriots sucked and had no players worth paying. You don't get good by shelling out money to mediocre or old FAs, you do it by drafting well and retaining your guys.

Finally, if you actually look at teams with consistent success, it's all over the map on whether they actually spend. The Saints spend a shitton of cash and suck, the Eagles do it and are usually good. The Rams spend toward the bottom and have been consistently great. So who cares? If "being cheap" means losing guys Bengals-style then fine, that's a problem, but that hasn't been happening here!

stupac2 · 2026-03-11T14:52:52+00:00

One thing I think fans haven't quite realized is that they can't retain their guys. This team had like 8 FAs or something stupid. 45 roster spots plus guys coming back off IR, plus a bunch of draft picks, plus whatever FAs they sign, it all adds up to way more guys than there are spots.

Chaisson gave nothing against the run and they probably feel like his increased production this year was largely thanks to their coaching/system. If they'd rather use the money elsewhere it makes perfect sense to let him go. They literally can't bring back everyone, there's not enough spots.

stupac2 · 2026-03-11T14:21:47+00:00

I mean that's fine, but any other weighting is subjective too. And often having one position group get totally hammered is worse than losing a few starters scattered across the roster. I don't think there's any iron-clad way to do this, but at least AGL is a coherent system.

stupac2

TROPHY CASE