SWA 2022: Chiefs Both Young and Dominant

Well, that was a weird brain freeze on my part! I'll fix that.

Yeah, you can tell where my brain has been at lately.

I've always wondered something. Let's say a team spends exactly 1 dollar below the salary cap. Then suddenly, it has a rash of injuries and has to sign replacements to vet mins. Are they allowed to exceed the salary cap then?

To me, there is nothing counterintuitive about it.  Teams try and get as many players on cheaper contracts (i.e. younger) that fit their roster build as they can.  If they get hurt—except for training camp, when there is still time to train up new guys—then teams sign replacements who they know can step in and play (i.e. older/veterans).  So, again to me, intuitively older players are more likely to get injured, but also intuitively injured players’ replacements are more likely to be older.

Careers are insanely short, especially the paid part of the career.  Two to four years as an unpaid intern in college (this has changed slightly, but only slightly), followed by a chance at maybe three to five paying years, which is already winning the lottery, but then you need to win another lottery to have a career that stretches beyond five years.  The pay during those paying years is great, in isolation, but when combined with the lifestyle, it doesn't amount to much.  EDIT:  meant to say, combined with the lifestyle common for young athletes, doesn't usually amount to enough savings to to survive on this career alone.  Which isn't necessarily a problem - used wisely, the money they make can give them a great financial head start on their next career.

The only saving grace is that careers are over so quickly, the players are still young enough to learn a new trade to pursue for the rest of their working years.

I've debated whether to post a reply or not, and decided to proceed.  Not because I think it will change your mind.  You have your philosophy and your view of the world.  So consider this simply an attempt to explain why not everyone may see this the way you do. 

From where I stand, what I see is that you're advocating for your own illogical inconsistencies and jumping to your own conclusions, and the solution you're proposing to the problem you perceive doesn't necessarily lead to a better society.  

It's not logical, to my mind, to claim that employers should not be allowed to hire or not hire people based on the facts known to them at the time.  It's not logical to assume that "the full facts" could ever come to light.  It's particularly not logical to assume that the American justice system will surface and publicize the full facts.  It certainly won't do so in a timely manner.  And the standard that an employer sets for themselves need not conform to the standards of the criminal or the civil justice systems, and probably shouldn't.

People need to make decisions based on what they know at the time.  Just like you're doing with this article you quoted.  You've jumped to the conclusion that the information in this article is the final word on the matter, even though the trial hasn't even occurred yet (I believe it's set for October).  Maybe conflicting facts will come out, maybe they won't.  All that matters, from my perspective, is that the Bills were well within their rights to make their decision based on what they knew when the released Araiza.

Maybe the fact that Araiza admitted to having oral sex with a minor was sufficient grounds for the Bills not to want to employ him.  Maybe what Araiza did or didn't tell them about the incident prior to the Bills drafting him was sufficient grounds for the Bills not to want to employ him.  This doesn't seem to matter in your philosophy, because you're of the view that people should not be held accountable for their actions until sufficient evidence is presented to satisfy your standards.  Which is fine, if you're the one hiring Araiza.  Go ahead and put him on your football team if you'd like to employ him.  I'd watch him play, doesn't fuss me.  But if the Bills - and the other 31 NFL teams - don't want to hire him because of his past behavior, that doesn't fuss me either (absent collusion, which always lurks beneath the surface of NFL behavior, but that's going off on a different tangent).

This is not a case of vigilantes taking justice into their own hands.  No one is being executed, contrary to your colorful rhetoric.  The power of the state is not being wielded to oppress anyone.  What is happening is that free people are exercising their free choice to employ, or not employ, to watch, or not watch, entertainers for reasons that are sufficient to them.

I know it galls you that those reasons are sufficient to others when they aren't to you.   But your stated solution to this issue is to impose your standards on the whole of the rest of society.  Everyone should wait, take their time before rushing to a judgment that differs from yours.  In your mind, that's better.  But I don't think it is.  If someone other than the Bills wanted to hire Araiza, they could have.  I think that's better.  Not everyone has to have the same opinion, not everyone has to behave the same.  Let people make up their own minds; let anyone who wants to influence their opinion do so, but ultimately we all make our own choice. 

Your approach is to presume that the 17-year old was lying or mistaken, and until someone can prove to you otherwise, you're going to continue to presume that she's lying or mistaken.  That's a reasonable position for the criminal law system to take - in fact, the best position for it to take, in my opinion, although it has the unfortunate side effect of encouraging sexual assault victims to shut up, lest they be assaulted a second time by a court system that presumes them to be liars - but it's a ridiculous standard to impose on everyone else.  I can make up my own mind about who I want to associate with and spend my money on, and I'll do so for my own reasons, thank you very much.  You're free to make a different decision.

I do think that you're right that people should look for facts and reserve judgment as best they're able.  I just think it's unreasonable to expect them not to have an opinion, and even more unreasonable to expect them not to act on that opinion, during periods of uncertainty.  Because things are almost always uncertain.  And "do nothing until we know more" is absolutely not a neutral position.  That's forming an opinion ("I'm good with this until I learn more").  It may be an opinion based on an underlying matter of principle for you, but it's still forming a current opinion that drives your behavior ("I'll act like this is nothing until I learn more").

"EDIT - curiously, the URL reads, "witness says matt araiza present alleged-rape" yet the title of the actual article, in case you don't click the link, says, " Witness says Matt Araiza wasn't present at time of alleged rape." The bold and italics are my emphasis."

I've seen this with various "slugifying" functions, where common enough words are removed from headlines.  In this case, the common word ("wasn't") is pretty important to the meaning, but usually it's not as noticeable.

I gotta ask:

What was your take on Kaepernick's ouster from the league?

"You are saying, sometimes it's reasonable to act before all of the facts are present. Just when is it inappropriate to do so and who decides? Is it ok for some people to react with little evidence but not others, or should everyone be encouraged to behave this way?"

It sounds like you're trying to determine some universal truth here, but that's not ever going to be the case.  Every situation and decision maker is going to have different threshold here.  They'll incorporate, either implicitly or explicitly, their own morals, time constraints, assumptions about public reaction, etc.  In this case, I'm sure the Bills weighed the costs of cutting him when he's innocent vs. the cost of continuing to employ him when he was guilty, and decided the latter was greater.

And we know that even within the league, different teams have different thresholds.  Some teams stayed away from Deshaun Watson for moral reasons.  Others were probably interested, but didn't want to pay too much.  And, of course, at least one team was willing to overlook all the risks and acquire him.

You've mentioned working in the machine learning field before, and I wonder if that's impacting your stances here.  I work in software engineering and it's really tempting to find a "correct" and logical solution to things, but real life is never that clean.  Humans are social and emotional creatures, and that impacts every decision everyone makes in some capacity, and will never really change.

A question about contract termination: on what grounds is that? Did he get his money? If not and everything you wrote is true, can he sue and get the full contract money?