In the 2013-2014 football season, Philadelphia Eagles starting quarterback Michael Vick went down to an injury. Backup quarterback Nick Foles stepped up to lead the team. He had such great success that he won NFC Offensive Play of the Week, NFC Player of the Month, and set an NFL record as the first quarterback in NFL history to post passer ratings above 149 in consecutive weeks. Foles would end the season with an astonishing 27 touchdowns to only 2 interceptions, behind only Tom Brady in the record books. The team would go on to win the NFC East division title, and so he holds the NFL record for touchdown-to-interception ratio when including the playoffs. Foles went to the Pro-Bowl that year and was the game’s MVP.
The following year Foles led the team to a 6-2 record before going down to injury. The eagles would then trade him away.
In the 2017-2018 football season, Carson Wentz, the Philadelphia Eagles young star quarterback went down with an injury. By this time, Foles was back with the team once again as a backup. He would go on to lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory over, of all teams, the New England Patriots and Tom Brady, in what was perhaps the most offensively dominate game of professional football ever played.
When Carson Wentz returned, he played fairly well in the following seasons. In 2018 and 2019, the eagles went 9-7, with Wentz playing 11 and 16 regular season games respectively. But in 2020, Wentz struggled. The Eagles only went 4-11 in 2020, with Wentz playing 10 of those games.
During this time, many local Philadelphia fans wanted Carson Wentz—the franchise quarterback—replaced by Nick Foles—the Eagles backup for many years. Local sportswriters and sports talk radio commentators had to repeatedly tell their audience how stupid they were for wanting Foles to be the Eagles starting quarterback, a trend that had started years earlier after Foles’ 2013 season and continued even after Foles had left the team. Fans wanted the Eagles to trade Carson Wentz for Nick Foles. Ludicrous, right? Here is one example:
“Stop bringing up Nick Foles when talking about the Philadelphia Eagles. [..] It was never much of a debate when it came to choosing between him and Carson Wentz. And look, props to Foles for his performance on Thursday Night Football just now. He led a fairly below average Bears team to a win over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. [..] However, this one random Week 5 win does not negate the fact that Philly ultimately made the right call on who their franchise quarterback would be.”
On February 18, 2021, just four months after the above was written, the Eagles traded away Carson Wentz. The franchise quarterback was no longer on the team. Wentz would play for two more seasons until, at 7 seaons played, no team would sign him at the start of the 2023 season. Foles would apparently end his 11 season career the same year. Across their careers to date, the two would have roughly comparable statistics, but with the Eagles and their talent, Nick Foles had clearly been the better quarterback.
Who knows how good the Eagles might have been had Nick Foles—who never played for a good team again—been their starting quarterback for much of 2015 to 2020, considering the level of success that current Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has had with the team since. We will never know.
I like to cite this as the perfect example of how the masses—who are constantly derided for being idiots—can know more than the experts. The Eagles fans—who are quite intelligent when it comes to sports—gave up on Carson Wentz much earlier than the experts did and were ultimately vindicated when the team moved on from him so quickly and Wentz failed to have any success elsewhere. Remember this when next you appeal to authority. As I stated in “On the Importance of Expertise“, expertise isn’t all it is cracked up to be.
On the other hand, maybe Wentz will get another chance to turn it around.
At times in the feudal era, the court jester was so foolish….he was correct on many an occasion for an important decision facing a king and his court. The quiet-odd kid in one of your classes in high school out of the blue would answer a question and everyone else would whip their heads back to look at him astounded that his answer was not only correct, but made sense.
Thomas Edison quipped that he would make the light bulb so cost effective and cheap that “the rich would not be able to afford them” and speaking of Edison, he was afflicted with “dumbness” according to all the school experts, and teachers. He was taught by his mother at home. Today he would be a over medicated, put into a resource room class, taught how to be a victim, and talked down to by every man.
This is not saying to place all your bets always on a “grey horse” in all of life’s matters, but I have been more than surprised quiet a few times in my life (and my current position career wise) when I heard something so basic and easy….it made perfect sense; then followed with “how come I didnt see that / think of that?”
Jesus found more faith in a Centurion “than he did in all of Israel” and Paul spoke about Athens with the staggering intellectual debates and nonsense that he turned the place upside down.
Charles Schulz, who created Peanuts (Charlie Brown and the gang) always made the characters to have a whimsical yet, simple philosophy about life. Despite the characters being children……he did not make them behave necessarily like children. He used childhood in that sense to create a sound innocence of looking at life. That is what made Peanuts have its impact. The adults were inconsequential
I see none of this in the man-o-sphere, nor in modern church. I hear Alpha, Cuck, Beta, Simp. I hear a whole bible sized book of psychology, terms, clauses, axioms, subsets of axioms, subset to subset of rules and laws that cannot ever be changed. Contradictory terms, double meanings and statistics that are WAY outta line.
Do men really want the ‘sphere to be this? A bunch of “learned” men who they themselves didnt use any of these “laws” they are putting joe average and below average to accept, and apply….while smacking them backhandedly telling them “they dont have the intellect to do this”
I hear daily “men are now winning”
No, the top 5% are, every other man is still being blamed for the problems in dating and mating today.
I said something like that just the other day:
The only men “winning” are the high status, top 5% men, but only relatively. Even they are losing because the entire system has gotten worse overall on absolute terms.
I was out last night with some co-workers, dinner (Teppanyaki), drinks….well, they had drinks. We we were discussing how narrative can be “framed” to be convincing and persuasion with no citing, no research, and just done on “genenarlization” to be made true, or the feeling it must be true.
I was reminded to one of college classes. The professor gave us an essay to read called “The Idiocy of City Life” and it was a slap-happy sarcastic, cynical view of people who live in larger cities in the USA. New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles. Beer comes from “Coors Country” and Cigarettes are by cowboys way out in Marlboro land. City folk grow bad tomatos on their small plots, or windowsils and think they could hack it on a Commune. Fashion, style and important decisions come from NBC, Playboy, Vogue and the New York TImes or San Francisco Examiner. Life is mechanical, and banal. Has no purpose.
We all laughed it it, we discussed how it is “true” but really isnt. Fellow students in my class who were from larger cities did laugh, but they also did bristle a bit because “this guy didnt have all his facts correct” and “many defended how important cities indeed are to modern life”
The next class he came in with another essay by the same author. Same lenght. Just as funny, and done in the same fashion called “The Idiocy of Country Life”. Food is wholesome and good, people are friendlier. Everyone goes to church. The air is fresh, the water is more wet, the snow is deeper. Country folks have a harder work ethic and think they could hack city life because everyone there is phony and fake.
We all laughed at it, discussed how it is “true” but really isnt. Students from the country / sticks like myself did laugh at it but we did bristle at some of his asseryions because “he didnt have all his facts correct”. I recall saying “plenty of overweight folks in the country with all that wholesome good food” and others who were from the country commented “in my town, we have some of the highest welfare rolls in my state, everyone has time to go fishing though…but cant be bothered to find a job”
In the end, it is how your own personal biases are and how peole in general beleieve “if the marble doesnt fall this way, it must fall the other”
It was a lesson on how narrative and writing / information can be used to sway an idea or beliegf even with sparse facts sprinkled with “a truth” or “slivers of a truth here and there” to get you to take their side on a topic.
We’re all guilty of it, but a constant reminder to always try to view the other side, and then dont just ask questions, ask the right questions. The problem is, evetryone is convinced they are right now in matters of importance to them.
It comes down to “who is saying it” more than “who did their homework”
Heh, good anecdote Last mod. 🙂
Mike is taking a couple of courses at the local community college now…
it’s interesting going back, just for “fun”, later in life (he is still on disability and we don’t know when, or if for that matter, he will recover enough to return to work).
His philosophy course is pretty interesting…but more interesting still is the perspective of the students.
Kind of blows away stereotypes that people are convinced are true if they spend too much time in confirmation bias environments.
We had a brutal murder here in LA that happened a few days ago in Tarzana / Encino. The discussion over dinner was the shock, and how gruesome it was….and how the police are still looking for some missing people and the one partial body that was found in a dumpster. Gruesome.
Then the discussion drifted to how the narrative was framed (KTLA / NBC affiliate in LA). The accused is a son of a big-shot Hollywood executive….and suddenly we all should have a different view of the accused because of his social status? Or was it thrown in because “this is LA and every swinging d*ck in this town has angle, is an aspiring actor, has a screenplay, loves to be on TV, or is connected to Hollywood. Was it also because of the typical rich, smug entitled people in this industry believe they can do what they want in this fair city”
I was out later than usual. I ended up singing some karaoke with some flight attendants from Japan Air Lines (these gals were drunk). It was a fun night in west LA.
Glad you had a good night. A good portion of flight attendants here have drinking issues…sounds like Japan is no exception. 🙂
I’m sure living in LA would be a much different reality than I’ve ever experienced.
Honestly, its not that bad. I do understand why people DO live here. We have the best weather. We really do. We have tons of problems, and the place I personally believe is a sinking ship. Can it be saved? Set back on course? It could, that would take work. A tough as nails personality, yet having the right demeanor or “way” to say it and implement the changes required. Something neither political party wants to do, and no politicians here have the tact, intelligence or “way” about them to really set it back.
People forget Gulliani in New York City was a native New Yorker. He came up through the DA offices and departments. He was not a city council or burrough member. He worked his way up and knew the system and how New York operated. He knew how to talk to people, and push hard and then how to back off. We dont have that here in LA (city or county) sadly.
The traffic is still bad out here (always was, always will be), and I have met some very friendly people here too. I dont really have any friends, but no one in LA really has “friends” so I guess I am not alone there.
Its not a bad place to live, the politicians ruined it, and the people here actually deserve way better
What I am saying…..A Donald Trump would not have been able to do what Gulliani did in New York City. Why? Because he was not a native New Yorker and Gulliani came through the whole system of New York CIty going back to the late 1970’s. He knew everybody. Knew how the “game” worked. Who to call, who not to call…..how departments and agencies worked or didnt work. He knew how to push on all the DA’s (who knew them all through the past fifteen or so years)
He also could relate to the average New Yorker. The hero of 911? Yes, we will never forget the rescue personnel on that dreadful day….but Gulliani, his speech from the aftermath. He got it. Not Hillary, not Bush II…..it is something that comes with deep ties and a love for his city and the people there, a genuine love. Not a superficial one.
LA doesnt have this anywhere in the city or county or in any of the environs like Pasadena where I live or where Scott was from up in Santa Clarita.
What about Joe Collins?
He is the only politician I’ve ever given money to for a campaign (his campaign against Maxine Waters). He lives in the district he wanted to represent, and grew up there, and is a veteran.
Well Joe still is a politician on the front issues like “we need to protect biological women” and “we need to stop political correctness”
His solutions for fixing the ingrained problems of Los Angeles and the area are “cut taxes” and “we need to stop transgender story time” That is not going to fix homelessness, its not going to fix housing costs or cut the red tape to get a project done. It wont bring back a quality of life so many evidently pine for. I hear over and over, “LA back in the 1970’s was such a nice place to live!”
You need a man or woman who knows how to balance a budget, cut spending and stand up to the “deep state of LA county” and a person who knows it, and how it works and the people inside. You have to have the right cabinet around you as well when / if you get the position. People who put the well being of the city over any favors owed. You need a leader who can cut back and fix that mess in the DA’s office, and really reform and tear down those walls and structures inside the LA PD which have made it a corrupt and very untrustworthy department.
You can’t win that over or change that when your stance is “well, we need to bring back values / stand up for men”
Gulliani in 1993 campaigned that the “city was broken on all levels” and he “was one person that could bring actual real change to the culture of the city internally” He didnt waste time on “Bill Clinton is terrible” and “Gay rights” (a hot button topic at that time). He also said how he would do it. Not with a book deal (Newt Gingrich, which he made millions off and none of his ideas were implemented mind you) or a simple “three step plan”
It was solutions of merging departments, actually firing people in said departments and agencies. You need a cold person that way and in matter like that.
As much as I would hope Joe would win…..I dont think or believe he would be that effective in the end. Sure, on a party line vote in DC it would work, but there is way more than that to just running a city or country.
For example, when I was living in Fresno after that pretty blonde woman (who was a terrible mayor, but she was “pretty” and got elected) we got Lee Brand. I didnt vote for him or like him.
However.
City was going to build a low income housing project. The land was already secured, and the planning commission came and had the estimated cost and the cost per unit was over 850K. It was a forty unit facility.
Lee dressed down the commission, the city council and other groups “For that cost, we could buy everyone of the people who is going to live there a home in Fresno. Pay for their groceries for a year in Fresno, we could pay their property taxes for a year, we could get them each a new car in the Camry or Accord class and still have some money left over! Back to the drawing board. Get that cost lower!”
The planning commission and city council was planning to over-ride him and go with this bloated cost. People in Fresno woke up for a second, and let the city council know…..”the mayor is right. Back to the drawing board!”
The cost came in 50% lower in a few months, the place was built and opened on time.
They tried to smear him as “hating poor people” and “he hates that neighborhood” but his tact and the way he presented it worked. Lee, despite his faults and other areas I could not stand him with…on that I said “Balls! Good for him! ” As did most Fresnans at the time, even people who didnt vote for him.
He didnt bash Gov Brown. He didnt bash and smear his opponents. He didnt make snide remarks on Facebook about the city council. This was 2012? 2013?
That’s really interesting, LM.
I know base construction projects were very similar by the sound of things.
Typically a new commander has no idea how those contracts are written (what to look for, what constitutes a reasonable cost, reasonable timeframe, and so forth).
They’re signing on without really knowing what they are looking at.
Learning curve is steep. By the time they know what is going on, they’re off to another base and different assignment and the next guy is just as green as the outgoing one was two years prior.
The cost of everything, everywhere is through the roof now.
Mike was driving through S Dakota and his truck had some issues (he just changed 7 of the 8 spark plugs himself due to the insane cost of “professional” installation, but the 8th was too difficult to get to so he took that to the mechanic in Denver).
He stopped at a mechanic in S Dakota this morning.
From what he told me on the phone:
The old mechanic who owned the shop came to the counter and told him he would look at the truck, but “things are busy at the moment we’re having a card game”. Apparently years before when he bought the shop from another guy, he had to promise to “keep the card game going” (it was a similar game to pinochle from the description).
They looked at the truck after finishing the hand.
Turned out the spark plug the Denver mechanic had changed was cracked, and the mechanic hadn’t even attached the wires on either side. Mike bought a new spark plug at a local store and brought it to them, and they installed it correctly. They didn’t want to charge him anything.
He insisted, and the old guy said, “well, you can pay the mechanic 30 bucks”.
That’s South Dakota.
Someone living in a completely different place from that wouldn’t understand it, might not even believe a place like that exists.
That’s a world I understand more than LA, and am more accustomed to.
It’s snowing now on our mountain…we got a foot and a half in one day, day before Halloween.
So I can see why people like California weather.
Enjoy your sunshine, time for me to shovel the driveway, eh.
”He didnt bash Gov Brown. He didnt bash and smear his opponents. He didnt make snide remarks on Facebook about the city council.”
He would be called a beta-chump or simp today by most ”redpillers” then.
i and others expected that from the 3 Rs of game but not those who say their CHRISTians in the ‘sphere.
Everyone is a “leader” today and an “amazing one” evidently but you call any company or city / state / county dept and you are on hold forever, no one picks up and people dont return your calls.
You can bet though, everyone is said dept or business thinks they are an “amazing leader” because they have been told they are by college, supervisors, or church
Leadership for 99% of us is earned, built, and has to be maintained and consistantly has to be adjusted and learned. Jordan Peterson did say something I apply at my job daily “Assume the person you are speaking to knows something that you do not”
Very true, and its common sense but we have thrown that out the window a long time ago. Someone gets a title with “leader” in it, or “supervisor” and manager….now they are the expert and get to be “the boss” of others. Its a base chimpanzee level of thinking and frankly, its not surprising at this point.
There are more and more Chiefs today and fewer and fewer Indians. Lots of cooks deciding what to cook, and fewer waiters getting the order to the table, and even fewer busboys and dishwashers to clean up after. Why? Well, everyone is a “leader” and leaders dont do that! They make important decisions!!!
I was at a job a few weeks back. Shopping mall (Arcadia, CA). The temp agancy doesnt have enough people to send to do the proper cleaning of the mall after its closed for business. The daytime staff is overwhelmed already with keeping up with basics of day to day cleanliness. I setup with the managers there of the property “We’ll start at 9PM, we gotta get floors done and deep cleaning and VIP touches, this will be your schedule for a week”
One quit immediatley (good riddance). Most griped about how “this isnt part of their job” and ONE was actually excited and eager to learn. I was there as well with them despite working a ten hour day already. I had to set an example. “Its your property, you are the boss, customers, and retail dont care if it isnt your job, they want a clean, safe and sanitary shopping experience”
I dont expect them to do this every week, but they had to learn……….you are not that important here, what is important is the sale, and what customers, and Leaseholders expect when they come to a retail center like this.
They needed to get some hands dirty and remember being a leader is sometimes stepping up and doing the dirty work of what keeps the place running.
I am reminded also about Ray Kroc, founder of the modern McDonalds franchise and chain. In the 1970’s, he would come in as a secret shopper and check the bathroom first. If the bathroom was dirty, or not clean he assumed the kitchen would not be up to standard as well. He would identify himself, come to see the manager or shift supervisor. He would hand him the bucket with the toilet brush and state what needed to be done. If any excuses were given, or “that is not my job” they would be fired on the spot.
I am not that extreme, but he built his life on this concept, this restuarant and he expected a lot. It was one reason why the franchise grew to the size it was.
He also once came to a McDonalds that was overwhelmed. He happened to drop in, the manager was sick. The supervisor was new…..the crew……you know how high schooolers can be at times. He didnt yell. He didnt “take over and start giving orders”
He told the shift supervisor, do you job….you have to step up, this is your floor! He toook the bucket and toilet brush and went to the bathroom himself.
Leadership
lastmod,
Modern leadership is defined by adherence to bureaucracy. No individuals are responsible, they are only following someone else’s instructions. Nobody ever does anything wrong.
This is typified in how schools shut down because the state health department made them, state health departments were only following the CDC, and the CDC said that they were making optional recommendations.
Amazing how nobody in the CDC, no politicians in government, and no school board was responsible for the disaster. Not a single person was responsible.
There are no leaders. Hardly any men like Ray Kroc still exist, and most systems are set up to crush anyone who tries to be like him.
Peace,
DR
That is true. But men like Ray Kroc (and SWA’s Herb Keller) have always been pretty rare…just more so now in an environment that neither supports nor cultivate men like that. That said, in my experience in the civilian world there are fewer Herb Keller/Ray Kroc types than the military world. That’s true even today (though they too are getting rarer). Tim Kennedy (one of those great men) was asked recently what keeps him from losing hope in humanity after being taxed again and again and seeing so much of the worst of it. He said he looks to the people who are doing good, and he feels blessed and fortunate to know them.
My spouse, fwiw, is also a great man, and a truly great leader. He takes that “iron sharpens iron” and “faith without works is dead” stuff seriously.
Just to add (before I take a long long break from the internet)…
A person can be a great leader in nearly any capacity. One doesn’t have to have the title. We have a good friend who is a charter fisherman. He spent 10 years literally digging ditches to get some money to buy a boat and start his business. He has no employees, but he does take young men out and spends the day teaching them a useful skill and mentors them while he is at it.
Many of those young men do not have fathers at home. He is doing a great deal of good for the world…and Mike mentioned this when he was visiting and said he often felt like he wasn’t doing anything useful/important.
Have fun. My conversation with Sharkly has meant that I don’t have time to write as many new posts, so I am about to run out of material to post on a daily basis. There is a chance that I might soon go into a lengthy break from posting.
Agreed. I hear frequently in the ‘sphere still and the like (all of them) about being a “boss” or a “leader”. Be it in church, the “leader” of the praise team, or the “leader” of men in the church. Being a “deacon” or whatever other title is invented to give men authority, or think they have some.
Once in a church, (non denom, Christian) in Fresno I attended with a friend, the pastor was asking “we need leaders to handle the program / usher ministry…we need men to step up and hand out programs and lead this ministry inside the church on Sunday”
Really now. Really? Handing out programs and being an usher is a “leadership” position and “very important” to the church.
If parishoners cant pick up their own program and walk down an aisle to find a seat or pew if there is no one available at the entrance….we’re in really big trouble as a people. Also this title, calling it “leadership” like confidence or anything else the ‘sphere ties to it……..when everyone is Alpha, no one is. When everyone is a “leader” then no one really is. If the position is so important, the real leader…the pastor should be on a Sunday just grabbing random men to do this “important” job. The reality is, its NOT important and calling it something it isnt waters “leadership” down further. Dumbs it down. Makes people believe they are leaders when they are not. The real leaders inside know it isnt important, its just another “busy job” to throw at the layity and making them do something they should not have to do because THEY are the leaders.
I see this in all organizations. Even my company, they have this silly chart, and it shows the “people on the bottom” the “real” leaders in the organization and it goes downward to the all levels to the CFO.
Mind you, if the company REALLY believed this, the bottom rungs would be paid way more and actually have decision making abilities. Its just a virtue signaling thing to make the bottom believe they are actual “leaders”
Decades ago, I heard about “leaders” in the tech industry like Jerry Yang (his idea, but a spokeshead only, figurehead of the Yahoo), Scott McNealy from Sun always “speaking off the cuff and tough, a real leader” (Sun went bust, and IBM his rival competitor didnt even bit at an offer to buy his failing company). Steve Jobs……so innovative….brought admins to tears, would fire someone for asking for a raise, and then give a raise “off the cuff” to another person in the span of five minutes. Bullies all of them.