All That and a Bag of Mail – OutKick

It’s Friday and I’m right here to unfold sanity in an insane world.

And as quickly as I do this, it’s formally little league baseball season so as soon as I end this text I’m a baseball dad for the weekend, driving my youngsters round to their video games.

Listed here are your questions for the week:

Colt writes:

“Why aren’t extra individuals speaking in regards to the Browns solely “paying” Deshaun Watson $1M within the first 12 months of his contract? It’s clear it’s solely so he doesn’t have to present the NFL as a lot when he’s fined a % of his 12 months’s wage. Fairly the gaming of the system.”

I don’t blame Deshaun Watson’s staff for negotiating a wage like this. It’s what they need to do. Their objective is to maximise as a lot cash as attainable for his or her consumer.

However I do consider the Browns determination needs to be a significant level of debate within the media. The Browns, successfully, are working to ensure that Watson suffers nearly zero penalties from the allegations that he sexually assaulted 22 girls. They’re actively limiting any punishment he can obtain from the NFL. Properly, that defeats the complete level of the punishment itself. (By the way in which, I stay of the opinion that the NFL shouldn’t be punishing gamers for off area incidents in any respect. I’ve by no means supported the NFL private conduct coverage. However in case you have the coverage, a participant or staff’s try and keep away from all the results of punishment defeats the aim of the punishment within the first place.)

Take into consideration this for a second. Not less than thus far Watson hasn’t misplaced a greenback of his wage. He obtained paid his total wage final 12 months regardless of not enjoying a single snap and refusing to play for his staff. (Plus, the Texans needed to hold him on their roster, which means they have been enjoying with one much less member of their staff all season.) Then he calls for a commerce and will get to choose the staff he’s traded to, the place they subsequently signal him to the biggest assured contract within the historical past of soccer.

Removed from struggling penalties for his alleged habits, Watson has benefited from it.

I don’t find out about y’all, however it looks like it’s going to be awfully arduous to argue the NFL is racist in opposition to black quarterbacks when all this was simply completed for a black quarterback. That looks like an terrible lot of privilege to me. (If a white quarterback had the very same historical past as Deshaun Watson, the standard blue examine woke suspects could be arguing this was an instance of #whiteprivilege. But it surely occurs for Watson and so they’re all silent).

In fact, the truth is fairly easy right here, the NFL doesn’t care about something besides in your expertise. As long as an NFL staff believes your expertise exceeds your issues you’ll all the time be employed within the NFL whether or not you’re black, white, Asian, Hispanic, homosexual or straight, prison or saint, nothing issues however whether or not you make a staff extra prone to win soccer video games.

That’s it, the NFL is the last word meritocracy. And the one advantage that issues is on area expertise.

Brian writes:

“Will Joe Biden be in workplace for his total 4-year time period, and might the nation get better from the catastrophe that his presidency has been?”

Sure, I believe he’ll end his 4 12 months time period. Primarily as a result of Kamala Harris is such a catastrophe I don’t assume anybody desires her taking on.

What I’m extra fascinated with, truthfully, is whether or not he’s going to run for re-election or not. Biden must decide on that concern by early 2023. So we’re lower than a 12 months from listening to his plans on this area. If he decides to run once more, and I’m leaning in the direction of he gained’t run, then I’ll additionally wonder if Biden will face 2024 challenges from inside his personal social gathering.

I believe he would as a result of Biden shall be 82 on election day in 2024. And he’d be 86, 86!, when his second time period ended if he gained re-election.

I simply don’t see any method attainable he has the bodily stamina to run a full election marketing campaign in 2023 and 2024 whereas governing full time as nicely. (He didn’t have the stamina to do it in 2020 both, Democrats have been simply capable of cover him in his basement and blame covid for this alternative.)

Will we be capable of get better? Sure, after all. Look, I’m an optimist. America has all the time managed to bounce again from dangerous presidents and dangerous historic cycles. One of many causes I really like being a historical past nerd is as a result of historical past teaches you perspective, you panic much less and see an extended view of the nation’s future. We had elections throughout the Civil Battle in 1864 and through World Battle II in 1944. In the midst of the 2 wars! And people elections have been partly about whether or not or to not proceed the Civil Battle and World Battle II.

Proper now I consider we’re seeing historical past repeat itself — Joe Biden is an unintended president in 2020 identical to Jimmy Carter was an unintended president in 1976. Carter obtained elected due to Watergate and Biden obtained elected due to covid. What occurred in 1980? Carter obtained trounced by Reagan and for the following twenty years we mainly had sane, logical governance. (You possibly can dislike Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton, however they have been all eminently cheap leaders who led from proper of heart or heart.) Then George W. Bush obtained elected and he would have been, I believe, much like his three predecessors however 9/11 occurred and despatched him off right into a geopolitical mess. However even Obama’s 2008 marketing campaign, to a big extent, was about how nice America was. That’s nearly thirty years of peace and normalcy after the madness of 1968 and Watergate.

So I believe we’re headed in the direction of a interval of relative stability over the following twenty years the place the outlandish left wing absurdity is repudiated and the Democratic social gathering as we all know it, is destroyed. Very similar to occurred after Jimmy Carter. Bear in mind, Invoice Clinton rebuilt the Democrats as a centrist various to the failed left wing ideology than ascendant. In my view historical past will repeat itself and we’re poised to elect a modern-day Ronald Reagan. Who’s that particular person? Properly, we will spend a ton of time debating that, however I believe it’s the place we’re headed.

Bear writes:

“What’s to forestall an athlete at this level in highschool from utilizing the leniency given to transgender athletes to aim and “faux” a life-style change as a way to earn an athletic scholarship as a “girls’s” collegiate athlete?”

It’s a wonderful query as a result of I’m unsure to what extent most excessive colleges and highschool athletic associations have the power to establish what life-style adjustments are occurring to represent a person turning into a girl and subsequently being allowed to compete in opposition to a special gender. (For aggressive functions we solely actually care about males turning into girls as a result of girls turning into males don’t have any likelihood of profitable something in highschool or faculty.)

That’s why I assist laws that requires highschool athletes to play sports activities based mostly on the biology on their beginning certificates.

This appears eminently logical to me, you compete in opposition to your intercourse at beginning.

I’m additionally, by the way in which, against the concept minors ought to be capable of get their gender modified. We don’t let youngsters drink beer legally till they’re 21, however we let 12 12 months outdated’s change their gender with extremely costly and critical surgical procedure? This appears loopy to me. Completely and fully insane.

When you turn out to be an grownup if you wish to change your gender, have at it. That’s your determination. However altering your gender once you’re a minor, for my part, is little one abuse. You simply don’t have the requisite psychological colleges to make that alternative, you’re nonetheless too younger, your mind remains to be growing.

Having mentioned that, even in case you’re an grownup and begin altering your gender, I don’t consider you need to be capable of compete in opposition to girls in case you’re a person. As we’ve seen with the Penn transgender swimming case, you may’t erase biology. Males are larger, stronger and sooner than girls. Even in case you suppress testosterone you continue to can’t change the peak of the swimmers, the scale of their toes and arms, the width of their shoulders, males get advantages from puberty that girls don’t.

And you’ll by no means erase these advantages later in life.

Put it this fashion, LeBron James might out of the blue determine to turn out to be a girl. In a 12 months or two, guess what, even after the medical therapies he would nonetheless be probably the most dominant WNBA participant of all time. Nobody else could be near him/her.

Permitting a grown man to determine to turn out to be a girl and play girls’s athletics is patently absurd and destroys the complete existence of “girls’s” athletics. As a result of if this continues, finally lots of the high athletes in most sports activities shall be males figuring out as girls.

SJW writes:

“Is the left’s continuous evaluate/contrasting of Kavanaugh to KBJ red-pilling individuals as soon as once more? One was falsely accused of being a gang rapist and requested about their highschool yearbook. The opposite was questioned about their authorized work and determination making. Looks like a silly angle.”

It’s an insanely silly argument.

The Washington Submit editorial board, extremely, truly argued that Ketanji Brown Jackson had been handled WORSE than Kavanaugh had at their respective hearings. Nobody with a practical mind believes this. And I believe arguments equivalent to these more and more make it clear why Democrats are going to get destroyed in 2022.

The largest drawback the Democrats have is that they consider Twitter is actual life and so they attempt to make sure their opinions are common there.

It isn’t, not remotely near it.

So the Democrats all struggle to be common on Twitter, which pushes them additional and additional to the left, thereby additional alienating them from individuals residing in the true world.

It’s my opinion that covid was a defend from actual world actuality in 2020. Sufficient suburban girls — and a few males — have been prepared to purchase into the argument that Trump’s response to covid was harmful and we would have liked somebody new on the helm to “shut down covid.” Properly, have a look at the numbers, Biden has completed nearly nothing to close down covid. The one saving grace of Biden’s election is it’s made it clear that neither social gathering was going to “shut down” covid. In truth, I believe you may make a powerful argument that nearly nothing we’ve completed has made a really substantial influence on covid in any respect.

Worse than that, I believe once you have a look at lots of our interventions — shutting down colleges and making an attempt to determine between important and nonessential companies, as an example — I believe we’ve made issues far worse than if we’d completed nothing in any respect.

That’s why a reckoning is coming in 2022 and 2024.

Jorge writes:

“With the latest broad receiver actions these previous couple of days you assume the Titans pay AJ Brown when it comes time to?”

Properly, AJ Brown goes to need over $20 million a 12 months as a brand new contract. And you’ll’t blame him for that. As a result of by the point he finishes his fourth season with the Titans AJ Brown may have made a complete of simply $5.7 million in these 4 years. Which means the Titans have had entry to one of many high receivers within the NFL and solely needed to pay him a mean of $1.4 million a 12 months.

I truthfully wouldn’t be stunned if AJ threatens to carry out this offseason and calls for a brand new deal. I in all probability would if I have been him.

As a result of in any other case he might get franchise tagged for one 12 months and nonetheless keep away from his huge assured cash.

One of many intriguing angles that isn’t receiving a ton of consideration is how do you stability having a high paid quarterback — a man making within the neighborhood of $50 million a 12 months like Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes — with a high paid broad receiver who desires over $20 million a 12 months?

On condition that the NFL wage cap is roughly $210 million, in case you pay high market to a high quarterback and a high receiver, you’re locking up $70+ million of your total wage cap on simply two gamers. It’s troublesome to construct an excellent staff with a 3rd of your wage cap spent on simply two gamers. So I believe you’ll see increasingly high receivers being traded and also you’ll see groups making an attempt to return into the draft and discovering younger gamers to exchange them.

The speculation is, which I agree with, that it’s simpler to exchange a high broad receiver than it’s to exchange a high quarterback.

That’s actually what the Packers and the Chiefs seem destined to do.

The distinction is the Titans would possibly do the alternative — they may lock up AJ Brown and let Ryan Tannehill go. In the event that they did that they’d return into the draft, presumably, and seize a younger quarterback and hope it really works with AJ Brown going ahead.

Or, relying on how this 12 months goes, the Titans would possibly acknowledge their window is closing and determine to let Tannehill and Brown each stroll and remake their roster with a number of draft picks they get for Brown specifically.

That’s what makes the Bengals loss so crushing. The AFC is completely loaded with expertise now and the possibilities of the Titans, frankly, being the general primary seed once more feels actually slim. With back-to-back division wins and residential playoff video games the Titans went 0-2 and missed their window to compete for a title.

I’m simply not bought on Tannehill as being a man who can win you a Tremendous Bowl. And I believe most Titans followers agree with me.

Moreover, it seems Tannehill is on the decline now versus the ascent.

So I believe the plan going ahead with AJ Brown shall be dictated, to a big diploma, by what occurs with Ryan Tannehill.

And as a lot as I’m an optimist in life I’m by no means optimistic about Tannehill’s video games to come back.

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As all the time thanks for studying Outkick and I hope all of you’ve incredible weekends.