Links for December 29, 2012
Seahawks - Redskins GameDay
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... well, okay, "Talking Points," not GameDay, probably. I been reading too many traffic-seducing Euro soccer headlines. Guess I shoulda went with "Is Walter Jones Preparing to Play This Sunday?!", followed by an article mentioning that he's not.
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=== Point ===
Dr. D will be watching the Vikings-Packers playoff game with more interest than almost any NFL game this year, that didn't involve the Seahawks.
Not only is this the most traditional rivalry left standing in 2012, but ... Minny has a decent chance of beating the Packers, with Adrian Peterson running the ball in cold weather, and if so, they have a good chance of beating the overrated Falcons.
And if that occurs, the NFC championship game, Minnesota-Seattle at CLink, would be a Seahawks bye into the Super Bowl. Having a bye during the NFC championship game would be ... valuable.
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=== CounterPoint ===
SSI fears for the officiating this Sunday. Not everybody realizes that the Redskins are one of the most valuable sports franchises on the globe, sometimes THE most valuable. Over the past decade the race has been between Manchester United, the Yankees, the Redskins, and a couple of other teams.
The furore over the Redskins' glamor (?) season has been preposterous. And when the New York Knicks are making a lunge for a championship, the refereeing they get in Madison Square Garden makes the games there unwatchable.
Complicating this, the NFL is going to be royally ticked off about Richard Sherman's In-Yo-Face to their drug testing. ... we read that the 2005 Super Bowl was fixed, which it was in my humble opinion, precisely because the NFL was annoyed at Mike Holmgren breaking code and mouthing off about things he shouldn't have. Dr. D nevvvvvverrrrr underestimates the seaminess of NFL back-stage dealing.
Still and all, we'll see. My own estimate (opinion) of the chances for a fix are, oh, 25%.
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=== Point ===
The 'Skins won 7 in a row. That's nothing to sneeze at.
But Dr. D doesn't notice that Shanahan and RGIII chewed up Tom Brady, chewed up the San Francisco 49'ers, that they beat the Chicago Bears on the road, or that they won three games in a row by 150 points.
Instead, the Redskins snacked on Philadelphia (4-12) twice, on Cleveland (5-11) ... and the other four games, against solid but not excellent teams, they pulled out all four at the end of the game. Such as their OT win against the Giants.
There's nothing wrong with winning the games that are put in front of you, but there has been a good amount of luck involved in the 'Skins' run. There has been no such luck involved in the Seahawk run. They have crushed their enemies like pop cans.
Play 16 games between these two teams, neutral field, and the Seahawks go about 11-5.
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=== Counterpoint ===
It was scary the way the 'Skins corners locked down the Cowboys' wideouts -- freeing Washington to rush 6, 7 men with impunity. Romo never had a chance.
Everybody in Seattle likes and admires Rice, Tate, and Baldwin. But the fact remains that they are lousy wide receivers.
Each one of those players would be welcome at New England -- as the 4th or 5th option in the pass pattern. Come on, 748 yards for Sidney Rice? In SIXTEEN games? And that leads the ballclub?
They've all got hands, they've all got guts, and they've all got serious problems creating separation. The Seahawks' wideouts do not match up well against the defense we saw last night.
The Seahawks are a feature receiver, and a little more Russell Wilson experience, away from being truly ready to go to war.
... that ain't much.
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=== Point ===
Dr. D's boyhood hero wa Larry Csonka, a "fullback" (look up the term) who was the one player in the NFL that Jack ("Assassin") Tatum admired without reservation. He said the Raiders could never stop Csonka, "and worse, I was never able to sting him. He uses his elbows to ward off tacklers and he never takes a painful hit."
Marshawn Lynch is a player who absolutely must be gang-tackled. If the defense does not read Lynch and fly, we say fly at Mach I, then Lynch is going to ramble.
You know the rest. In this offense, the defense cannot read Lynch and fly. Dr. D can see no defense, practical or theoretical, that could stop Wilson and Lynch.
In some individual game you might confuse them a little, slow them down a bit while they adapt to a strange situation. But even yesterday against the Rams, Lynch had 100 yards and Wilson threw for 250 - and the Seahawks won. That was the best you could imagine a defense doing against them.
New defense Sunday, maybe: man-to-man on the wideouts and seven men crashing the line every play. Problem occurs when Wilson escapes, and gets the extra three seconds, because when he gets those, he's got bad intentions downfield.
You go after Russell Wilson, fine, but when he spins away, he likes to get revenge. The Washington defense knew Romo like the back of its hand. We'll see how familiar they are with our guy.
Heh, heh, heh,
Dr D
Russell Wilson vs Robert Griffin III
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Dr. D settled in last night to carefully analyze Robert Griffin III's pocket passing, on display in a context in which the defense did not fear his running. He was shocked by Griffin's slowness to read the field.
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You can watch Russell Wilson drop back and read the field, and you can apply a standard consisting of "Joe Montana." The way that Wilson checks off to his second, third receivers, the way that he spins in the backfield like Fran Tarkenton and then INSTANTLY spots a weakside receiver and flicks him the ball ... his downfield vision gives away zero to the rookie Montana. I'm not sure how much it gives away to Tom Brady.
You could watch Russell Wilson play two quarters, in a white drone uniform, and you wouldn't be absolutely sure you weren't watching Montana for that quarter or two. Or Brady, almost, if you edit out the mobility. I said almost.
Applying an Aaron Rodgers / Drew Brees standard to Russell Wilson, you're left wondering, is Wilson operating at 80% of that? Or 90%? Or what? ... you know that the density of Wilson's knowledge is not lurking behind the performance, but in terms of vision, he does a pret-ty cotton-pickin' good facsimile for certain stretches of game time.
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Applying an Aaron Rodgers / Drew Brees standard to Robert Griffin III's downfield vision last night, to his alertness and to his quickness of decision, I thought he measured up fairly well to ... Ken O'Brien.
O'Brien, for those who joined us later than the 1990's, was a physically talented passer who couldn't see a secondary to save his coach's life. The Jets under O'Brien ran plays designed to give their QB single reads. Okay, Ken, the safety comes up, you throw it over there. He stays back, you throw it away. Literally.
Griffin threw for, count them, 100 yards, and the media was drooling all over him. I was drooling all over the prospect of sic'ing the Seahawk defense on him.
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He's had a very good year. So did Michael Vick have an excellent first full season, and then he never reproduced it. Not this side of the pokey, anyway. Vick's success was based on the novelty of his run-pass attack. Was he ever going to be Drew Brees plus 80 rushing yards a game? No Way Jo Zay.
And as we've written before, RGIII ain't gonna be able to run that dive-forward shtick forever. We predicted injury earlier this season, and that didn't take long, now did it? If he's hurt as a rookie, where's he going to be in year four?
Wilson, on the other hand, has a deep down, bone-in aversion to being hit. He's vastly more survivable. He's a gnat on a water buffalo, not a mountain goat trying to butt heads with one.
It is not my bias, because I don't care enough about football to be biased, and I don't say it's the gospel truth. But it's my impression at this point: Robert Griffin III couldn't carry Russell Wilson's jockstrap. Wilson is an actual future HOF quarterback.
Check them in three years.
My $0.02,
Dr D
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Nuclear Treaties - 4 - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I
One of the main points of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was the requirement that those states which currently possessed nuclear weapons work towards nuclear disarmament. The two world super powers at the time, the United States and the Soviet Union both possessed nuclear arsenals. The U.S. possessed about one thousand inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and about six hundred and fifty submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) in 1969. The Soviets had around one thousand ICBMs as well hundreds of SLBMs in 1969.
By that time, the Soviets had installed an anti-ballistic missile system (ABM) around their capital, Moscow, Russia. The U.S. had announced plans to protect twelve sites but only built one ABM system to protect a missile base in North Dakota. The U.S. and the Soviets were also working on warheads that contained multiple nuclear bombs. These multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, referred to as MIRVs, were a response to the work on anti-ballistic missile systems (ABMs).
These new developments in the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the Soviets increased international pressures for work towards nuclear disarmament. The first round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks known as SALT I began in Helsinki, Finland in late 1969. These bilateral disarmament talks between the U.S. and the Soviets went on for two years of hard negotiating at meetings which were held alternately in Helsinki, Finland and Vienna, Austria.
The Soviets wanted to negotiate over U.S. bombers in Europe while the U.S. wanted to negotiate over Soviet mid-range nuclear weapons aimed at Europe. Both sides dropped these positions in favor of only negotiating an interim agreement on ICBMs and ABMs.In May of 1972, Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed two agreements, one to deal with anti-ballistic missile systems and another dealing with limiting strategic nuclear weapons.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty limited both sides to having only two site protected by ABM systems. The U.S. dismantled their single ABM system a few years later. The ABM system around Moscow is still in use.
The other treaty signed by the U.S. and the Soviets as a result of the talks was called the Interim Agreement Between The United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Certain Measures With Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. This agreement was to be in force for five years. Strategic ICBMs were to be frozen at 1972 numbers. No new ICBM silos could be built. Signatories were allowed to build new SLBMs if their number was balanced by a equal reduction in the number ICBMs. Some allowance was made for modernizing launchers.
The U.S. had basically frozen its missile deployment program during the talks while the Soviets added 50% to their ICBM numbers and quadrupled their SLBMs.
Start of the SALT I negotiations from NATO photo archive:
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