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Saturday, June 6, 2009

Busy day in OTA land, plaxi-shmoe

Ralph Vacchiano reports that

Cofield "may" have had micrfracture surgery too. Read the note by Ralph that says how the Robbins blog deleted the word "microfracture" from the Robbins site. Too late, the cat's out of the bag. I always find it stunning how people try to delete history. Saturday Night Live had a great skit back in November of last year with the Big 3 automakers on C-Span in front of Congress asking for 10's of billions of dollars. The plan was to get more and more money every few months with no end in sight. These comedians (and the public) had this one figured out well before we pumped in 50B-60B to see GM still go to bankruptcy anyway. Why mention this? Because you can no longer find the video on the SNL website. NBC pulled it. The truth (be it to the gov't or to the ad clients) hurts.

Lots of passing at Friday's OTA

Antonio Pierce lost a gear last year. 31 in October? Ouch. This is what happens to ALL LBers. A few are able to sneak by until 33, but most get to 31 and the downhill slide is unforgiving. Boley will help his game, but remember that Boley will probably be thinking too much to be making an impact, at least in the first half of the 2009 season. Pierce's days are numbered. If he is able to find the fountain of youth and play effectively for one more season, it would be a huge gift. This was why we were so keen on beefing up LBer. I really hope Sintim can help this team, but his hamstring certainly does not help. At least he'll be able to rest it from mid June to the end of July.

Someone is going to have to explain why it all of a sudden has dawned on plaxi-shmoe that he needs to do a deal NOW to keep him in the 2009 season. He had this at the end of March and passed. Two more months have gone by and he is NOW figuring it out? For his sake the grass better be greener with the Jets/Bucs/Bears.. in 2010?

5 comments:

Andrew said...

I agree to a large extent but... it's a more complicated issue than you're making it seem and there is a way to salvage the situation, although it does involve spending more money. Right now, we are bailing out, in computer terms, Car Version 1.0. What we should be doing is forcing the companies we now control to spend on introducing Car 2.0, and to do it before Israel, Denmark and Australia do. There is an electric car network company called Better Place in Palo Alto, California. This company has created a model for infrastructure that would empower the electric car and do so with renewable energy sources. The first countries to sign onto this plan... Denmark, Israel, Japan and Australia (but Denmark and Israel will be implementing it sooner). This company is based here in the US, and now as we all know, American Taxpayers currently own (60% of) GM and to a large extent, Chrysler. We have already changed the guard at GM, we have the authority to make changes. We're trying to prevent jobs from being lost, how about creating new ones that could eventually be purely private sector jobs? We need to invest in this infrastructure on a massive and organized level. If we continue to pour money into car 1.0... we will be doing ourselves a major disservice (hybrids won't cut it at this point, that's car 1.5).
Now there are some positives that have come out of the bailouts. They have at least slowed the layoffs at these companies and minimized them. They have made it possible to recapitalize certain subsidiaries, like Saturn, enough so that they have been sellable (in this case to a Mr. Penske right here in the USA). We did sell Hummer to China but... I mean that's why we're in this mess, they can have it... if they want to buy the most awful carmaker in America, GOOD! We can take the capital and reinvest it in the system. But we must... must... MUST look to the future, and start investing in the technology of the future. This doesn't just mean working with Better Place... this also means investing in the great Bolivian lithium deposit (believed to hold around 50% of the world's supply). With lithium ion batteries already ubiquitous in large electronics and hand-held devices, we need more lithium, which is actually a renewable material if treated correctly (along the guidelines that Better Place lays out). Right now, companies in Canada and France have become the first to lay claim to this untapped battery mine. There is still room for a lot more investment there, and it is crucial that we get in on that.
If all of these things were done, Americans would pay half of what they currently do at the tank. The big lie here is that changes in infrastructure are too expensive... but for the price of around $40 billion, we could outfit every single gas station in America with this technology. It starts to become clear, whatever we don't spend on this stuff now, will seem like a pittance compared to what we'll have to spend down the line, if we do nothing.
All this being said, the bailouts were a sad but necessary evil... hopefull we will start making the right moves and moving into the future.
Anyway, let's not talk about politics on this blog. Giants fans are diverse, and I know that many of you are not Manhattan, New York Times reading liberals like myself. Let's just be united by our love of the GMen. I consider Bill O'Reilly to be the biggest D-bag in the history of broadcasting... but he is a Giants fan, so if we were watching a game together (never going to happen), we'd be pumping our fists in harmony for the G-Men.

Andy F. said...

It is my fault for opening up pandora's box with that remark about the Nov08 bailouts skit from SNL. I really did not want to start a political debate inside of a sports blog. I was merely trying to find some amusement in how the Robbins blog removed the word 'microfracture'!

We have had almost 1000 posts here on the blog and have done a pretty good job of staying clear of politics. We have also only removed content from the blog once (March 5, 2008) in 2 1/2 years, and that was for a factual error in an interview that was pointed out by Mickey C.

Mitch said...

Andy....

I promise no politics but how about some medical info...

I have a good friend who is an avid golfer. He was facing a knee replacement when an orthopedist suggested microfracture knee surgery instead. The procedure was less invasive and he figured it would buy him some time and he could play golf until his knee would eventually wear out. It also would give him less recovery time so he could get back to work.

He explained to me what this involved.

The procedure requires a surgeon to locate the cartilage hole which is typically smaller than a nickel, then poke small holes in the exposed bone. That allows blood and marrow to seep which creates a clot in the cartilage hole.

If the hole clots properly and the knee is rehabilitated well, the area will begin to form near-normal cartilage, giving a refurbished cushion to the joint.

Initial rehabilitation is done for several weeks with a "continuous passive motion" device that gently rocks the knee and stimulates cartilage growth. From there, athletes can rehabilitate with a low-resistance stationary bike and water therapy.

Professional athletes who see cartilage growth can be expected to return to action six months after surgery - but the hole can take a year or more to fully fill.

Now that is the problem. Many athletes never made it back from this e.g. Allan Houston, Penny Hardaway. But Jason Kidd, Antonio McDyess, Steve Yzerman have.

But Brian had said earlier on the blog that when a big man's knee goes that is it.

I think the odds for Fred Robbins are very long and the Giants know this. He is a "very large man" which put tremendous strain on the knee joint. I'm just hoping that Cofield is not facing the same odds. He is seven years younger and I'm sure that will help if he indeed had this procedure. (We are not sure at this point)

As for my friend...he's back playing golf, although he was never that good he's sure it was worth it.

Andrew said...

I feel like Fred Robbins will be playing this year though. Our D-line will be rotating in and out probably. He won't be the starter but I'm sure he'll see a lot of the field. He's still a beast, and I'll always love him for all the awesome play and for the championship he helped bring us.

Andy F. said...

I know someone who is an opthalmologist, the day Cedric Jones was drafted he told me it was a bad pick based on the problem he had in one eye. Basically the comment was along the lines that the eye would never be able to be function, so you were getting someone with one eye, that this was not good enough, certainly not good enough for #5 in the draft. I think he was right.

So if there are any orthopedists out there who can directly speak to the particulars of Umenyiora, Cofield and Robbins, fire away.

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