XFL Issues -- Part One

I'm a lousy amateur poker player. I'm capable of assessing my cards, doing the math, and acting appropriately. That's about it. Good poker players, on the other hand, can assess my assessment and generate a response based on two-step thinking. Great poker players can even assess someone else's assessment of their two-step assessment. All of that multi-step poker thinking is beyond me. In some ways, this lack of laying out multi-step consequences is one of the problems with the XFL.


Multi-Step Thinking

To flourish or even survive, the XFL must create intense, exciting games with comeback capabilities. They have, in my opinion, come up with some useful rule changes both in terms of player safety (for kickoffs, primarily) and in terms of creating two-minute drill opportunities with clock stoppages after each play. These are good things. The two-minute stoppages are an especially necessary addition in a league where half of the quarterbacks who have gotten starts are not terribly accurate throwing the ball more than 15 yards downfield. The tweaks are designed to increase scoring.

If you look beneath the surface, however, some non-obvious things are actually at work against increased scoring. Most of the XFL quarterbacks are (1) not locked in as auto-starters and (2) are trying to appear competent enough to earn an NFL roster spot. Competent is not a recipe for excitement. It's a recipe for risk aversion. Another issue along the same lines is that some of the league coaches are in comparable situations to their quarterbacks. They are trying to catch on, or catch on again, with an NFL or major college team. So despite punting rules tweaked to increase going for it on fourth downs, very little offensive risk-taking has occurred. We still see punting on fourth-and-middling from midfield, and we are still treated to bomb-shot field goals from the opposition 35. Most of the offensive coordinators and head coaches appear just as risk averse as their NFL counterparts.

The question then becomes, if the coaches and quarterbacks are in these high profile, televised contests trying to not look stupid, shouldn't the XFL have anticipated consistent conservatism? The tweaked rules superficially provide an opportunity for wild and crazy offensive play, but a multi-step perspective would have pointed to different possible consequences and dampened these kinds of expectations.


March 8, 2020
Bob Dietz

Thank You to Jean Scott

Since I'll be touching down in Las Vegas in an hour, now seems an appropriate time to thank Jean Scott, author of The Frugal Gambler and longtime Las Vegas Advisor blogger.

Once upon a time, the 80's to be precise, sports betting accrued formal comps at the same rate as race betting. Sports bettors also had access to fairly generous discretionary comps. Then some bean counters noticed that the hold for sports betting was not very much, and those great comps began disappearing. At one time, Circus-Circus gave me a dollar in comps for every $125 wagered, and I could tap discretionary comps on top of that. The gravy train, however, ended.

And this is where Jean Scott came in. In the early 90's, she began exploring all of the Las Vegas comp angles, and she was generous enough to share that information with the public. Her The Frugal Gambler taught me all kinds of things. I learned which video poker to play. I discovered that if you arrived at the tail end of a breakfast buffet and the buffet doesn't close for lunch changeover, then you can stick around for lunch at a breakfast price. She taught me which slot clubs would do what for you. Thanks to her, as my sports comps no longer fed me daily, I was able to incorporate minimal video poker play to furnish both food and a couple dozen comped casino nights a year. Her advice was clear, practical, and unpretentious. According to the March 5 Question of the Day at the Las Vegas Advisor site, The Frugal Gambler (published 22 years ago) has sold "well into six figures."

I mention this now because Jean Scott, a Las Vegas resident for decades, has retired from every day gambling and moved to Georgia with her husband, Brad. They have decided to spend more time near their grandchildren.

Her diligence and generosity had real financial benefits for many of her readers. I salute her and thank her for all of her help through the many years.


Some background:

www.cdcgamingreports.com/parting-words-from-frugal-gambler-jean-scott-put-the-fun-back-in-casinos/


February 24, 2020
Bob Dietz

College Football Postscript

Now that the 2020 college football playoff is well in our rear view mirror, I wanted to address three separate topics that made headlines in the last month.

1) Clemson/Ohio State Officiating:

Many people complained that the officiating may have enabled Clemson to sneak by Ohio State in the college football playoff semi-final. While I agree that Clemson was the beneficiary of two very large 50/50 flags, nothing has been written about Ohio State basically mugging Clemson receivers on virtually every play the entire game and benefitting from a plethora of non-calls. The Buckeyes came out determined to be physical and to re-route Tiger receivers. As play after play ensued with no calls, Ohio State ramped up the contact even more. The overall officiating, in my mind, was a wash.

Clemson beat a superior Ohio State team because the Clemson coordinators out-coached the Buckeye staff. Clemson had some brilliant play sequencing and timing of calls on offense. The Tiger staff won the game, not the officials.


2) Mark Dantonio:

Much was made of the presumably classy, low-key retirement of Mark Dantonio at Michigan State. I've been a Dantonio fan a long time. What's not to like about a hard-nosed, conservative defense, solid special teams, and the overuse of quality tailbacks? Michigan State under Dantonio has been the closest thing to Vince Dooley's old Georgia squads reincarnated. But let's acknowledge the reality here.

The 2019 Spartans were a hot football mess. This was a team with 17 returning starters, including the entire offensive line, which turned out to be the weakest part of the squad. Realistically, just two teams on the Michigan State schedule, namely Michigan and Ohio State, figured to be clearly better. And not only were the Spartans underdeveloped underachievers, but they failed tactically during games. They flat-out blew two games, Arizona State and Illinois, that they physically dominated.

Yes, the athletic department was an imploding black hole of distraction, but the football team simply failed on many levels. If Dantonio hadn't resigned, he probably should have been fired. Michigan State knows damned well that the 2019 edition was the best collection of experienced talent that MSU is likely to have for a long, long time. That 7-6 team may have contained more firepower vis-à-vis the rest of the Big 10 than they'll have for the next decade. The 2019 Spartans were a failed opportunity, and this was undoubtedly Dantonio's worst season as a head coach.


3) The Boise State Near Disaster:

You're probably wondering what I'm talking about. The Broncos had a great year. Their only regular season loss was a banger versus BYU with Boise's starting QB sidelined due to injury. Why do I think 2019 Boise State was a near disaster?

Well, I didn't say it was a near disaster for Boise State. Rather, it was a near disaster for the alleged "Power" conferences and the college football playoff. If Boise wins that BYU game, they finish the regular season undefeated. It would have been a very indelicate maneuver, for two reasons, to freeze them out of the playoff while inviting Oklahoma. First, everybody remembers the 43-42 Boise win versus the Sooners in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, considered one of the greatest college football games of all time. Second, if you shoehorn Oklahoma into the playoff with that four seed, and they get annihilated by LSU, which obviously is exactly what happened, how do you justify freezing out the unbeaten Broncos? The playoff committee would look like idiots with a serious case of "Power" conference greed.

So it's a good thing that the Boise QB was out for that 25-28 BYU game, or the playoff committee would have had to make a really tough call. They hate writing checks to non-power conferences.

The playoff committee basically survived a near flyby from a major asteroid. What were the consequences? Well, first of all, we now hear a bit of a buzz about inviting Boise to be a member of one of the "Power" conferences. The idea has certain obvious precedents. Both Louisville and TCU were non-power-conference powerhouses in the recent past. Louisville had a monster team in 2004, with their only loss a brutal 38-41 at Miami (FL). In 2006, Louisville lost 25-28 at a ranked Rutgers squad, but won all of their other games. And in 2013, their only loss was 35-38  to UCF. These were all spectacular teams, a combined nine points from being undefeated. TCU, meanwhile, had tremendous squads in 2009 and 2010. The 2009 edition went unbeaten, then lost to Boise State in a bowl. The 2010 TCU team was likely the best in college football, but their non-power-conference status resulted in their being frozen out of the playoff, which featured Oregon versus Auburn.

Both Louisville and TCU were routinely blackballed from big-paying bowls and forced to take sub-million dollar payoffs despite stellar, consistent records, tremendous personnel, and great coaching. Eventually they were both invited to join "Power" conferences. Allow my cynicism to raise its ugly head here. I don't really believe that the "Power" conferences and the NCAA invited Louisville to the ACC and TCU to the Big 12 because they felt it was the fair thing to do. I happen to think that the NCAA was cornered with the possibility of structure-gutting lawsuits and had to cut backroom deals with both schools.

So now Boise State has inherited the red-headed stepchild mantle and the chance to be grateful for joining the brand-name glee club. We'll see what transpires in the months ahead.


March 5, 2020
Bob Dietz

The Catch-22 Kaepernick Conundrum

Nancy Armour asked all of the right questions in her September 17 USA Today column regarding the "actively, actively interested" but unsigned Colin Kaepernick. Given the early-season ravaging of the quarterback position, why has no NFL team rushed to sign Kaepernick?

Considering the rash of contender-toppling injuries, even if a particular owner had a distaste for assigning Kaepernick a roster spot, that owner would be insane to not sign the man immediately and use him as trade bait. Allow me to repeat that. If an owner is so committed to white nationalism that it precludes his team from actually playing Kaepernick, why not be the first to sign him and then leverage the signing into a deal that benefits your team? The fact that no team has done this underlines, strongly, that there has been some kind of NFL-wide conspiracy to keep Kaepernick off all rosters.

None of the Kaepernick saga makes any sense, and it never will. Carolina could use him, as could the Jets, the Steelers, Miami, Tennessee, Minnesota, Washington, the Colts, and maybe Tampa Bay. Kaepernick could start for a third of the teams, and he'd be a superb backup for mobile young guns in Philadelphia, Kansas City, San Francisco, Buffalo, Dallas, and Houston.

Instead, he's working out at home. Why is that? Are NFL owners all idiots? For the sake of brevity, let's skip that question and cut to the proverbial chase.

The owners are trapped in a classic catch-22 of their own making. If a team signs Kaepernick, and the man succeeds, the fact that he's succeeded will demonstrate unequivocally to the American public that the owners illegally blackballed Kaepernick from the league for multiple seasons. They deprived him of prime athletic years at peak ability. Conversely, if they do not sign him, and they plug in various and sundry journeymen quarterbacks, they also demonstrate to the American public that the owners illegally blackballed Kaepernick. But at least they aren't paying him.

The only way that the owners look as if they haven't illegally blackballed him is if some team signs him and Kaepernick fails miserably. But here's the catch-22 inside the catch-22:  the fact that nobody has signed Kaepernick and given him an opportunity to fail is because most owners are convinced that he won't fail. It's as simple as that.

Lurking in the back of the NFL owners' minds is another troubling thought. The possibility exists that signing Kaepernick could motivate some of that team's players to go above and beyond to help Kaepernick succeed. That team might perceive themselves as playing for more than paychecks.

The NFL owners' Mr. Magoo business optics just amaze me. Kaepernick sits at home. Ray Lewis is a commentator. How does that work? I keep expecting Lewis to show up on one of the new NFL/Tide detergent commercials wearing his infamous white suit. Peyton Manning could call him to the podium to have Ray explain how he got all of the stains out.

The entire situation is ridiculous. The owners know Kaepernick could start for a third of the teams. It's particularly absurd that the championship caliber team that would probably benefit most from having Kaepernick as a backup is the Dallas Cowboys, deep in the heart of "we don't kneel" Texas.

Personally, I don't understand why any African-American should stand for The Star Spangled Banner. I'm not sure how many owners are familiar with the third stanza, but it's a doozy. I happen to know all of the stanzas because my grade school music teacher used 1920's songbooks. We sang all of the verses.

"No refuge could save the hireling or slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave."

Remind me, the next time the Star Spangled Banner plays, I really need to kneel.



Bob Dietz -- September 19, 2019

Exorcism at Steve Spurrier Field: Part Two

Somehow I had brought unspeakable evil back from Las Vegas with me. The consequences of its possession of eastern Tennessee football weren't pretty. Testosterone levels among Tennessean males fell to an all-time low. A depression epidemic was a real possibility. God knows what the effects of the prior 24 hours would have on opioid use. On the other hand, of course, the University of Tennessee had chosen a fine time to begin selling alcohol in Neyland Stadium. Perhaps the Vols' administration had a hand in summoning Pazuzu. To many Volunteer football fans, that didn't seem terribly farfetched, and it would explain much about the athletic director's office.

I considered what I should do. An exorcism seemed to be in order. But where? And how? And by whom?

I couldn't get through to the Vatican. I don't speak Italian, and the Vatican switchboard didn't seem to take my report of a Football Pazuzu seriously. But I couldn't sit idly by while football in eastern Tennessee was corrupted forever. Although I felt uncredentialled, someone had to do something, and that someone, to paraphrase Travis Bickle, was me. Despite my clergy license plate, which I utilize during Biker Week in Daytona Beach so nobody parks me in, I am not ordained. I do, however, own copies of Demonolatry and Malleus Malleficarum, which were used to identify, convict, and exorcize witches during the Inquisition. The only additional required text was The Rite of Exorcism (Roman Ritual), which one can surprisingly pick up from Target for $22.99 with same-day delivery.

Next I had to figure out the where. Where in eastern Tennessee could football karma be so bad, so horrifically evil, that a maleficent demon would hunker down as if at a Holiday Inn? Then it hit me. The Science Hill football team plays at a home field named for Johnson City native, Steve Spurrier. Spurrier was notorious for all manner of running up the score when he coached at Florida. He routinely threw deep with massive fourth-quarter leads, causing much weeping, gnashing of teeth, and four-letter words that could lead to damnation. More importantly, he often said that "You can't spell Citrus without UT," a reference to how his Gators consistently sealed off the Sugar Bowl from Tennessee football teams and relegated the Vols to the Citrus. If the Football Pazuzu demon felt at home anywhere in eastern Tennessee, it would be Steve Spurrier Field.

The next evening, after procuring The Roman Ritual from Target, I arrived at Steve Spurrier Field at 9 PM. I entered the iron gates while carrying Demonolatry, Malleus Malleficarum, The Roman Ritual, and a life-sized rubber model of a human heart, in case any sacrifices or trades would be required. As I stepped onto the artificial turf field, I was shocked to find that I wasn't alone. Despite my legendary IQ and insightful brilliance, others had figured out the location of Football Pazuzu more quickly than me. Others who devoted their lives to strange beliefs and who were trying to control the demon for their own devious and selfish ends.

I was too late to stop them. I would have to cut a deal.


A week later, most things had returned to normal in eastern Tennessee. The Science Hill High football team played a team from Knoxville called Hardin Valley Academy. Science Hill prevailed 52-14. The ETSU Buccaneers, a 2018 FCS playoff team, went up against something called Shorter, which had lost 29 consecutive games. The Bucs won easily, 48-10. And finally, on Saturday in Knoxville, the Tennessee Volunteers hosted Brigham Young. The Vols, holding a 16-13 lead, gave up a 64-yard pass with 20 seconds left, which allowed BYU to kick the tying field goal as time expired. In overtime, a BYU team that had been pushed around all day played like a team possessed. They muscled in a rugby-scrum off tackle play for a touchdown to pull the 29-26 upset. As Brigham Young celebrated in Knoxville, 90 miles away I heard a deep mournful wail. I couldn't tell if it was the plaintive howling of Tennessee's hound mascot or the cumulative crescendo of Vols' souls in pain. It carried on the wind and drowned out everything else in eastern Tennessee.

Why had Football Pazuzu's curse been lifted from Science Hill and ETSU, but not the University of Tennessee? Well, as I said, I had to cut a deal with those mysterious folks at Steve Spurrier Field. They had already begun their own ritual, and the best I could do was bargain with them as to which locales would be free of the demon. They were, as it turned out, Mormons. Rocky Top could not be spared.


Postscript:  A friend of mine was hiking in Colorado at the exact moment BYU punched in its winning score against Tennessee. He swore he felt a rush of wind and heard a loud wailing somewhere overhead. My deal, you see, was that the Mormons take Football Pazuzu with them to do with as they pleased, with my insistence that the demon stay west of the Rockies. National championship teams, after all, do not live west of the Rockies, so how much damage can the demon do? The Mormons, I've heard, made their own bargains with Football Pazuzu in the days that followed. If BYU somehow goes unbeaten at home the rest of the season, we'll know the true power of the football demon. And if they win as underdogs in overtime again, well, sometimes it pays to have the devil in your corner.

Exorcism at Steve Spurrier Field: Part One

Note:  This entry addresses the aftermath of events described in the previous (8/13) post.


It was, of course, entirely my fault. When my trip to Las Vegas ended and I returned to Johnson City, I assumed all was well with the world. I thought that the strange occurrences and synchronicities that shadowed me for more than a week had ended quietly with my return to the Tri-Cities Airport. I had bidden goodbye to Mickey Bible and deplaned. Nothing unusual happened in the following days. No odd connections or inexplicable resonating events. Things seemed to have returned to simple normalcy.

Just as in the beginning of the seminal film, The Exorcist, however, festering is often a slow, quiet burn. And just as in the movies, animals often detect evil much more quickly than we humans.

My friend, Tony, was celebrating his birthday. He is a diehard Tennessee Vols fan, so I bought him an orange hat with the trademark white T.  It was a good looking hat. Tennessee was scheduled to open the 2019 season a week later as 26-point favorites at home against lowly Georgia State. Tony was pleased with his birthday present and said he was looking forward to cheering on the Vols.

A couple of days later, I was having lunch with Tony and a few other friends. Tony tapped my arm and pointed to his phone. He scrolled down to a photo of the new hat, which looked as if it had been ravaged by Dire Wolves. I was close. Tony's German Shepherd had found the hat and savaged it. I joked that maybe this was an ominous omen for the Vols' season. It turns out that the hat was a just a portent of disasters to come.

Thursday, August 29, I cleaned out my suitcase from the Las Vegas trip. I took my tan Skechers out of their plastic bag and noticed some debris in the tread. Locust debris. Pieces of the swarms that had flooded Las Vegas during my visit. The same locusts that The Exorcist 2 described as vessels of the demon, Pazuzu. At the time, I did not realize the significance. I simply cleaned my shoes and put them away.

Friday, August 30, I finally understood. The Science Hill High School football team, a local power that plays at Steve Spurrier Field, had never lost to the David Crockett Pioneers. That evening, a few miles away in Jonesborough, David Crockett utterly crushed Science Hill 62-34. The result was beyond stunning. It was apocalyptic.

I began to suspect that something was awry. Had I somehow brought the demon, Pazuzu, back from Las Vegas with me? And was it manifesting itself in eastern Tennessee by corrupting that most sacred of religious traditions, southern football?

The next afternoon confirmed my suspicions. First, the local college team, the East Tennessee State Buccaneers, an FCS playoff squad in 2018, traveled across the mountain to Boone, North Carolina. They played Appalachian State and were crushed like grapes, 42-7. Then came the coup de grace. Ninety miles to the west, in Knoxville, the Tennessee Vols were 26-point favorites against a Georgia State team that had been 2-10 in 2018. That's 2-10 in the Sun Belt. Tennessee, overwhelmingly superior by all personnel standards, lost convincingly 38-30. Not only that, but the University of Tennessee had paid Georgia State almost a million dollars for making the trip. The wailing from Neyland Stadium was carried on the wind, banshee-like, to the entirety of eastern Tennessee..

In the span of 24 hours, the unthinkable had happened twice with the Science Hill and Vols losses, and ETSU's playoff veneer had been stripped as if by a blowtorch. Football Pazuzu had possessed eastern Tennessee.

Travelogue: The Eighth Plague

The story you are about to read is true. I've kept the names the same because, as much as I love Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalism isn't my thing. I'm more of a Joe Friday/Dragnet guy.


I'd like to say that my sports futures scouting expedition to Las Vegas started off innocently enough. But that wouldn't be the truth. The fact is, I hadn't even left Tri-Cities (TRI) airport on my flight's first leg, when the weirdness began.

I had ordered a coffee and a chocolate muffin at the restaurant in the gate area. The cashier squinted at the total on the register and hesitated. She seemed somewhat taken aback. The amount was $6.66. She said that she refused to ring it up, and that she would bill me for a different pastry. I shrugged and said okay, and she rang up something else so that I owed $6.24. I thanked her, gathered my change, and sat down to enjoy my snack and ponder the likelihood of a $6.66 bill.

Shortly thereafter, I noticed that my flight had been delayed, although skies were clear and weather from TRI to Charlotte was perfect. I noticed because the gate attendants began rebooking half of my flight's passengers, starting with an announcement for Pastor A and then a second announcement for Pastor B. I can't say that I've ever noticed back-to-back pastor announcements during my hundreds of thousands of miles flown. Luck of the draw, I guessed.

I knew my connection would be tight, but the gate folks assured me that I'd make it. I settled back down with coffee and muffin and finally noticed the news. Las Vegas, Sin City, was being invaded by grasshoppers. Well, that was different. Video from the previous evening showed giant mega-swarms spiraling around an intense white beam cutting through the night sky. The sky-splitting white light came from the pinnacle of the black pyramid casino known as the Luxor. Downtown Las Vegas, which was the original founding point for the city, was also inundated with flitting, flapping clouds of tawny locusts. If the Luxor was the city's southern Gomorrah, then the downtown four miles north certainly fit the bill as a modern Sodom. They were both covered in bugs.

As I watched videos of the grasshoppers swarming all white lights, I felt compelled to google the number of the Old Testament locust plague. As it turned out, locusts were the eighth of the plagues visited upon ancient Egypt. Remembering how these Moses plagues culminated, I realized that I was a firstborn. Not a good thing. I also knew that I would be turning 62 while in Las Vegas, and six plus two equals eight, and locusts are the eighth plague.

I finished my coffee and boarded the plane, which was running even later than advertised. As I mentioned, I have six decades of living under my belt, so jogging across the Charlotte airport lugging a bag is no picnic. I made my Las Vegas flight by three minutes. I had the middle seat for the nearly five-hour flight, so it came as no surprise that I learned a few things about my seat mates. The young man on my right was heading to Las Vegas for a plastic surgery residency. The older gentleman with the window seat was an avid bowler and world traveler. He was also a minister returning from a mission in Kenya. Something about his build and demeanor suggested James Earl Jones, which set off some locust bell in the back of my head. I had to be wrong. What could a minister returning from Kenya have to do with locusts in Las Vegas? Then I remembered -- "Exorcist II:  The Heretic."

The Exorcist movies were all about the presence of demonic entities. In "The Heretic," the swarming of African locusts was a direct consequence of the influence of demons in the natural world. The locusts, like people, could be agitated by Satan and swayed to do great harm.

I watched more Las Vegas locust videos during the flight. The minister, meanwhile, wanted assurances that the turkey bacon on the airline's club sandwich was indeed turkey and not pork. The flight attendant refused to confirm this for him, but we both ordered it anyway. The plastic-surgeon-to-be fell asleep with his textbook open to something about smiling. I kept wondering what would happen if jet engines encountered swarms of locusts. The flight, however, went smoothly, and we landed in Las Vegas without incident Saturday evening.

Early Sunday morning, while checking the Golden Nugget futures and William Hill futures at the Plaza, I was continually approached by working girls, presumably having finished their money-making overnight Saturday shifts. I was too tired to give cute responses, so I simply asked them if they should be in church.

My numbers surveying, and the trip itself, went about as expected. I found a few bargains here and there. I managed to visit South Point, where iconic oddsmaker Jimmy Vaccaro had returned in time for 2019 kickoff. My diet went to hell, as it usually does when I'm in Las Vegas, and I once again managed to discern the difference between 105-degree days, which I handle quite well, and 112-degree days, which I do not. I almost dozed off in the parking lot of the Orleans at 3 AM, but it was a hundred degrees, and I didn't want to crack the windows. I couldn't afford for a gazillion locusts to swarm the rental car. Dozing in the parking lot was a no go.

The five-day trip was physically brutal (112 degrees usually is), but things went smoothly. I did a reasonable job of surveying numbers and understanding where they were going. When I boarded my final return leg, from Charlotte to Tri-Cities, I had almost forgotten about plagues and $6.66 snacks and Biblical resonances.

I plopped into my seat on the little Embraer for the 45-minute flight. My seat mate introduced himself. He was about my age, and he had just signed a five-year contract to work as a consultant in the United Arab Emirates. His name was Mickey. Mickey Bible.


Bob Dietz -- August 13, 2019


Postscript:  I enjoyed writing this, and every detail is true. What's equally true is that, sufficiently motivated, we can all construct similar stories highlighting pseudo-connections for a synchronicity framework on which we can hang the details of our lives.