So the Kroenke era begins...

Last night the NFL Network broadcast limited information on the NFL owners meeting taking place at the Ritz Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta Georgia. They did mention that there was a vote on Stan Kroenke. It was not precisely clear whether he won or not. I immediately looked it up on News.Google.com. The answer was yes, Stan has been approved as the new majority owner of the Rams. The facts of the case are these:

1. The approval vote was unanimous
2. Commissioner Goodell gave Stan a very nice endorsement.
3. Stan will be the 7th Ram owner in 73 years.
4. Many sources are reporting that Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez will still retain some interest in the team
5. Reports conflict, but VanRam states that Kroenke bought nearly all of the remaining 60% of the Rams for the sum of $450 million.
6. It is unlikely Chip Lucia will hold more than token stock in the Rams.
7. Stan has been given a grace-period to divest himself of the Nuggests and the Avalanche.
8. Regrettably, the NFL has not done away with the cross-ownership ban, or given Stan a pass. Rather he has a temporary exemption so that he can get into compliance with the rule.
9. Stan has until December of 2012, or until the end of the world, which ever comes first.
10. NFL Executive Vice President Eric Grubman says the Nuggests and Avalanche will be passed over to John Kroenke, the 30 year old son of Stan and Anne.
11. The spectre of a potential move to Los Angeles was raised immediately by the Atlanta media.
12. Stan said he would never lead the charge out of St. Louis, but he has to remain competitive, and to be competitive he needs revenues.
13. VanRam is reporting that the first item on Stan's agenda is a new Stadium and a return to profitability.
14. Certainly, a return to profitability is a critical aspect of the rebuilding project. You can't keep operating at a loss. You either staunch the bleeding or die at some point.

According to my fading memory, Stan began this trek back in late 1993 and early 1994 when a couple of guys named DeBartolo and Jones has spent Georgia under the table. The Rams were in considerable financial difficulty back then also. Georgia had no real money of her own. She was a Las Vegas Showgirl who had been married 5 times. She had nothing more than the money she inherited from Carroll Rosenbloom. While sizable by ordinary middle class terms, that fortune provided no means to compete with real billionaires like DeBartolo and Jones.

As an erstwhile NFC contender, the Rams needed to spend like the 49ers and Cowboys if they were to have any hope at all of launching a Super Bowl run. Georgia was basically forced to find a partner. Stan made it pretty clear he wanted to buy the whole enchilada outright. Georgia wouldn't sell the Rams outright. Eventually, they struck on a deal in which Stan bought 40%.

The first-refusal right Stan negotiated in that purchase contract made it absolutely clear that he was waiting on line to buy the rest of the team. Yesterday, 15 years of waiting in line came to an end. He could have made this process a year shorter, but with such monumental problems to grab hold of, why rush?

His timing makes sense. He will have approximately 4 calendar years in St. Louis to work out a new stadium deal before he can move to Los Angeles, if no progress is made. It should be noted that Stan could move the team tomorrow. He would simply have to pay penalties for breaking his lease early. No one expects him to do such a thing. The L.A. County stadium, either in Industry or downtown, is not ready yet.

It is unclear just who the progenitor of the move to St. Louis was in 1994. Stan is from St. Louis. Georgia was also from St. Louis. The city of St. Louis itself was beckoning a team. Some say that former President Shaw was the key exponent of the move. It's clear that Georgia finally made the move because she was (is) deeply hated by the people of Los Angeles, who believe she hijacked, then ruined the Rams. Georgia summed it up best when she said "I want to go where I am wanted."

You would be hard-pressed to find a more hated figure in Los Angeles sports history than Georgia Frontiere.

One thing the world must acknowledge: The Rams are now owned by the world's greatest sports Mogul. We'll see if he can return us to old form again.

I have to tell you, this news has had a strangely tranquilizing effect on me. I feel my heart strangely warmed, as John Wesley once did... I feel as if the Babylonian captivity has come to an end. Why do I feel that way? Well, let me tell you about it.

The subject of the first ever episode of PBS Frontline was the seamy, lurid and nasty side of sports. They spent a large block of time dealing with the very strange death of Carroll Rosenbloom. This is a fact not a theory. Check out the documentary.

Carrol was a guy who kept uncomfortably close ties with gambling men in Las Vegas. So close were these connections that he actually hooked up with their ex-wives. That would include Georgia. You see, Georgia was a Showgirl who had been married to a few managers of Las Vegas enterprises during the course of the 1960s and 1970s. You know what that means.

On April 2, 1979, Carrol decided to take a little swim in the Atlantic Ocean, off his private beach in Florida. There, he mysteriously encountered heart problems and drowned. PBS Frontline showed videotape interviews with mobsters who claimed Rosenbloom had been dragged under water by the legs and held down until he drowned. Steve Hartman of L.A. Sports talk fame, frequently claimed he had seen photos skin divers swimming away from location moments after Rosenbloom died. There were many gruesome autopsy photos taken of Carroll. Some of those photos alleged show electrical burn marks on one of his ankles.

Shortly thereafter, Georgia had Carroll's body cremated (something you never do to a Jew), she inherited the team, fired step-son Steve Rosenbloom (who was doing an absolutely fantastic job) and moved the team to Anaheim.

We all believe Georgia had Carroll hit by some of her ex-husband(s)'s associates, not to put to fine a point on it. Steve Rosenbloom always believed the same thing. Still does, according to what I hear.

In any case, the spectre of Carroll Rosenbloom's death/murder has hung over the team for a very long time. Whilst I doubt he would have objected to son Chip running the team, I hope he can rest in peace now that clean hands own the Rams.

In praise of the Spread

I hope you all were watching the NFL Network yesterday evening. Around 6:00pm they were showing the NFL's Top 10 Innovations. I had seen the documentary last year, but this was the first time since then. I found it intensely annoying. It's not that it was a bad piece. It's not that the list was out of whack. It's not the guest commentators on the show. Rather, I was pissed at the tremendous two-faced duplicity of the many voices we hear on the NFL Network. This documentary exposed the tremendous Janus face of the commentators on the NFL Network.

Let's begin the case for conviction with the list of the top 10 innovations:

1. The Zone Blitz
2. The West Coast Offense
3. The 4-3 defense
4. The Shotgun formation
5. The 46 defense
6. The No-Huddle Offense
7. The 3-4 Defense
8. The Run-N-Shoot offense
9. The Tampa-2 defense
10. The Wildcat formation

The innovations are evenly split between offense and defense, five each. If we remove the defensive innovations, what does this list look like.

1. The West Coast Offense
2. The Shotgun
3. The No-Huddle
4. The Run-N-Shoot
5. The Wildcat

When you put them all together, what do you have? The Spread-Option offense Flordia has been running for 4 years. Tim Tebow has been the exclusive premier pilot of this scheme for the past 3 seasons. Some would say all four.

I won't have to explain that statement to anyone who knows football. A knowledgeable football fan might already know this. Other knowledgeable football fans might suddenly have the "AH-HA!" experience and put it all together for the first time. For the sake of those who do not understand, allow me to illuminate you further.

What is the key hallmark of each of these innovations?

1. The West Coast Offense: Dink-n-dunk, nickle-n-dime short passes. It is a ball-control passing attack. The emphasis is on the short pass substituting for the run. You don't run through the brick wall. You let your running backs take 4 or 5 strides, catch the ball and run with it. There is a strong tendency to script play sequences and for receivers to run adaptive routes.
2. The Shotgun: The quarterback lines up 5-7 yards behind the center and takes a long snap. This avoids the drop back, and gives the QB better immediate view of the defense.
3. The No-Huddle: The offense runs without a huddle, calling plays at the line of scrimmage, largely predicated on the defensive formations. The offense moves at double-time or faster. The defense is not allowed to make situational substitutions.
4. The Run-N-Shoot: The quarterback lines up under center most of the time with one back behind him. He has 4 WR in a balanced formation, and no TE. The receivers run flexible and adaptive routs based on what coverage they see. The notion is to stretch the defense vertically and horizontally and make them defense a 60 yard box.
5. The Wildcat: A running back lines up in the shotgun behind the center with two running backs lined up on the wings of the OL. One RB goes in motion across the field. The RB who takes the snap has the option to run the ball himself, or hand off to the motion RB, or the jet RB. This is the old single-wing formation with an option running attack.

There is just one bit of confusion that needs to be cleared up: The classic Run-N-Shoot was executed with Warren Moon under center at almost all times. The Oilers also called plays in the huddle. It became the RedGun when Jerry Glanville decided Chris Miller should line up in the shotgun most of the time, run without a huddle, and call plays at the line.

The commentators were absolutely clear that the Run-N-Shoot is still in the league. They even tagged the Patriots with running this offense. Clear associations exist with the Bengals of 1988, the Bills of the 1990s, the Patriots of today, the Colts of today, the Steelers of today, the Cardinals of yesterday, and current world champion Saints. I would tell you that all these teams are using the Spread, but they simply substitute a Tight End for 1 receiver with much greater frequency. They use the TE to chip the blind-side DE. The Florida Gators did that also.

So where is the duplicity? All of these things are labeled the NFL's Top 10 innovations. It is reasonable to say this because they are in use every Sunday by nearly every team. All of these things have become ubiquitous. They also happen to be the components out of which the Spread is assembled. The Spread is allegedly a college offense, not a legitimate pro offense, and one which causes great difficulties for young quarterbacks coming into the NFL. The Shotgun Zebra is everywhere you look in the NFL. Everybody is doing it, but because you mask it in West Coast terminology, nobody accepts the fact that this is a slightly modified Spread.

Spread kids have been using the NFL's Top 10 innovations for years! They are using the same elements of offense we see every Sunday in the NFL! They have run offenses very similar to those run by the Patriots, Steelers, Colts, Cardinals, and Saints!?!?!?! These are a bunch of our recent Super Bowl teams.

Just the other day, I heard Petros and Money complaining, with respect to the overtime rules, that the NFL likes to posture itself in a highly elitist stance. They do not wish to adopt the college rules for overtime because that may bust the 3 hour window, but more importantly, they do not want to be seen as copying the innovation of the NCAA rules committee. This could potentially damage the NFL's elitist posture.

I want to tell all the voices on the NFL Network the following: You can't have it both ways. If the list above constitutes the NFL's Top 10 innovations, then Spread QBs are using your offensive innovations, and they are a lot more NFL ready than you say they are. They are using a fully-authentic NFL offensive scheme. You just don't want to admit it because of your elitist posture.

On the other hand, if the list above does not contain the NFL's Top 10 Innovations, you better shoot Steve Sabol and burn the digital masters of that documentary.

I want to throw a shout-out to Bill Devaney and Steve Spagnuolo: Why do we not adopt the modified version of the Spread that these recent Super Bowl teams are using? It allows a mobile and athletic QB to run when he has too, as in the Wildcat. It confronts the defense with 4 spread-out receivers (make one a blindside TE and let him chip). They run adaptive routes as in the West Coast and the Run-N-Shoot. You hit'em where they ain't. The QB lines up the shotgun, a formation Don Banks of Sports Illustrated can see no downside in. You can control the ball by throwing short as in the West Coast.

Mike Leach did all of this at Texas Tech. I have a good idea! How about if we fire Pat Shurmer and sign Mike Leach as our new offensive coordinator. Michael Vick and Tim Tebow will prosper under his administration. We will also score a hell of a lot more than 10.9 points per game.

I can't name 5 QBs in the league I want more than Donovan McNabb?

Today, the NFL Network broadcasted (what looked like) a all-new episode of The NFL's Top 10 show. This episode was titled The NFL's Top 10 Mobile Quarterbacks. I enjoyed it, as I always do, but this was certainly the worst of their efforts. The main problem was that the list was absolutely crazy. Certain key men named John Elway and Joe Montana did not make it on the list. A couple of men named Dan Marino and Bobby Douglas were on the list. We'll talk about that later.

I look particular umberage at a comment made by my draft super-hero, Mike Mayock. Those who read my blog know that I think the world of Mayock as a college tallent evaluator. He is my main trusted guru on the subject. However, he is a guy with biases. He is from Philly, and he covers a lot of Viking games. These two teams get special handling from him.

Now Mike has the audacity to tell me that I can't name 5 QBs in the league I would rather have than Donovan McNabb. Well, technically he is right. The number is not 5. The number is 8; maybe 9. Do I mean to tell you there are 8 or 9 quarterbacks I would rather have than Donovan McNabb? You damn betcha! Without further ado, here is my list

1. Peyton Manning
   
2. Drew Brees
3. Philip Rivers
4. Ben Rothlesburger
5. Aaron Rodgers
6. Kurt Warner
7. Tom Brady
8. Jay Cutler

Pending the outcome of Sunday's Cowboys vs Eagles game, I would probably take Tony Romo over McNabb also.

Do I mean to say that all 8 of those QBs are better than McNabb? Yep, that's right. Even Cutler? Well, he's younger and has much more unrealized potential. The first 7 on that list are clearly and distinctly better than McNabb.

Let us not forget that McNabb owns one of the worst performances in Super Bowl history. Let us not forget that demonstrated the worst 2 minute clock management skills we have ever seen. Let us not forget that he stated emphatically that he did not know regular season games could end in a tie. I have known that rule since I was frickin' 14 years of age, and I am not paid millions of dollars to know the rulebook.

Hollywood's top 25 sexiest women of all time

Recently, I was channel surfing and came across an absolutely preposterous & absurd program called "Hollywood's Top 25 Sexist Women of All-Time". Why was it absurd? The following grand dames of Hollywood were all listed outside the Top 12:

1. Lauren Bacall
2. Eva Gardner
3. Katherine Hepburn
4. Ingrid Bergman
5. Grace Kelly
   

At the same time, the following contemporary dames were ranked inside the top 10:

1. Angelina Jollie #2
2. Halley Berry #3
3. Julia Roberts #5
4. Jessica Alba #8
5. Michelle Pfifer
   

If you have seen a dozen photos of these women, let alone film, you have to laugh out loud. I want to go on the record and tell you that Angelina Jollie can't carry the jockstrap on any of the old dames on the upper list. There is no woman in Hollywood today who can compare to any of the classic stars I listed above. If there was even one Lauren Bacall--let alone an Eva Gardner--in Hollywood today, L.A. County would be crushed by a billion stalkers.

It is a total wipe-out in favor of the classics. Everybody knows that one of the most lamentable aspects of Hollywood in the past 20 or 30 years is that it has not produced the kind of absolute bombshells we saw in the 30s-50s. They haven't even gotten close.

Before you call me curmudgeon, understand I that I was born in 1966. All of these classic dames of Hollywood were already in their 50s and 60s by the time I was 10 years old. Most were dead of old age by the time I turned 30. These were not the contemporary stars I grew up with. No, Pfifer, Bullock, and Roberts were. I always knew they couldn't hang with the classics.

So why did TV Guide produce such a preposterous list? How could these gurus think or utter such nonsense, much less broadcast it on their own network? TV Guide is part of the Hollywood marketing force. They make money by marketing for Hollywood. As Hollywood makes money, they make money. They have a vested interest in telling you that the stars today are greater than the stars of yesteryear. Right now is the moment. Hollywood has never been better than it is today. The women today are much hotter than the women of the past. Why? Because we need to recoup our investment dollars on recent production right now, that's why!

That's like arguing that Michael Jackson was innocent of child molestation because you would like to make money selling his next album. There are about 10,000 logical fallacies in there.

When you think about it, tho, how much different is the policy of the NFL Marketing department on Park Avenue? I personally thought it was absurd when marketing forces inside the NFL began to propound that Joe Montana was better than Johnny U. So did Dan Fouts. Now that Joe is fading into the distant fog of the past, there is now a new drum-beat coming out of Park Avenue. Peyton Manning is the greatest QB of all time. This will accelerate dramatically if the Colts win SB44, and if Manning has a big day.

Now I happen to think Manning is a lot better than Montana, and I have seen both of their careers in their entirety. I am not sure Manning is better than Unitas. I think Manning would go easy on that as well. In fact he did precisely that recently when he busted up a bunch of Unitas's records.

Just like Hollywood, the NFL has a vested interest in telling you that the greats today are the greatest greats that ever played. The stars of today would crush the stars of yesteryear. This is the magical moment when things have never been better. Ergo, you should pay diligent attention to the present moment, and appreciate this greatness.

While I am all in favor of living in the present moment, but be careful of the marketing crap. There is a great deal of bullshit in the marketing. Buyer beware!

So when can we expect Ocho Cinco and Solomon Wilcots to bust each other up?

So, one of the best features of the off season this year has been watching Chad Johnson doing a little boxing training here in Los Angeles. As always, he is more fun than a barrel full of monkeys. By far, the most entertaining element within this entertaining saga has been Chad's warnings to Solomon Wilcots that he would like nothing better than to strap on the boxing gloves and show Solomon a thing or two. Solomon says he's going to take the little shaver down to the woodshed and sharpen him up with a leather strap.

I love it. Stop talking shit, both of you. I want a solid date, time and location so I can sell tickets to the event. I want to see to some real fighting also! No bullshitting, damn you! As Matt Millen says, always remember Raider rule #1, cheating is encouraged. As the late Gene Upshaw said, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. Despite the gloves, I want to see a Nightrain Closeline and at least 3 body slams.

All of this reminds me of my days at Edison High School in Fresno California. Icky (shuffle) Woods would play that game with Darnell Tatum. We used to joke that Darnell Tatum was the bastard son of Jack Tatum. (Oakland was only 168 miles away, but the time frame would not have worked out.) Darnell played Middle Linebacker. He played a lot like Jack Tatum. Of course, Icky was our fullback.

These two were always good for a practice fight. Icky wanted to run Darnell over. Darnell did everything necessary to ensure this wouldn't happen. Icky knew he would be an NFL superstar someday. He told us this many times. He didn't think any paltry High School Linebacker (Darnell) should even be able to smell his farts as he blew into the secondary. Of course, Darnell bitterly resented being taken so lightly. He planned to be an NFL superstar also.

Icky and Darnell would challenge each other to 101 fights per week. They would talk endless amounts of shit. The only problem was that the fight was all talk and no shock. They rarely swung a fist in anger. Truth be told, I never actually saw any fists flying in a public or private setting.

Somewhere around the end of our sophomore seasons, I think we all figured out that these two really had no intention of ever slugging it out. The both profited greatly from the illusion of a rivalry. Everybody in the school thought they were big tough nasty guys. Not the sort of fellows you would want to mess with. They gained a lot of prestige from this shit talk.

It was like pro wrestling, but without the wrestling. I have a suspicion that this is what Ocho Cinco and Solomon Wilcots are up to right now. This is good press for both of them. They both could use the notoriety.

Anyhow, I want to go on the record here and now: You can have all the notoriety you want out this deal, but you can't cheat us out of the fight. If you think you can talk shit and not settle it, you got another thing coming! We want to see you two bastards slug it out in a fight to the finish. Texas Death Match in the Steel Cage. One man lives. One man dies. Or maybe both die... That can happen.

Quick Blog about the NFL's Top 10 Innovations

So the NFL Network unveiled another masterpiece just last night: The NFL's top 10 innovations. For the record, those elements of the game listed as innovations are as follows:

1. The Zone Blitz
2. The West Coast Offense
3. The 4-3 defense
4. The Shotgun
5. The 46 Defense
6. The No Huddle Offense
7. The 3-4 Defense
8. The Run 'N Shoot Offense
9. The Tampa 2
10. The Wildcat Offense

So, here we have a laundry list of all the things we see on any given Sunday these days. As always I have a couple little quibbles with this ranking:

1. The 4-3 and the Tamp 2 are almost the same thing. The only minor adjustment is that you drop two DBs deep to ensure nobody gets behind you, and the MLB drops back and guards the middle zone of the field.
2. The Tamp 2 should be called the Steel Curtain defense. It was invented by Chuck Knoll. Tony Dungy learned it when he joined the Steelers in 1978. Dungy himself has always credited the Steelers & Knoll with inventing the scheme.
3. The 46 Defense is almost the same thing as the 4-3 defense. You merely adjust the lineup of the defensive linemen, and shift the Will and Sam linebackers over to one side.
4. The 46 Defense can't really be considered an innovation because it was more a crew of men in Chicago than a working scheme. It is said that Buddy Ryan was able to implement this scheme in Philly and Arizona. I deny that. The Philly defense was different in every respect. It was a 3-4 defense. The Arizona Cardinals never got that defense right at all. Ergo, you do not have an organized system of defense that is repeatable.
5. The 46 has not stood the test of time at all. Nobody plays this scheme anymore. As the documentary said, a certain dude named Joe Gibbs figured out how to block the thing. Also it did match well against the Run 'N Shoot at all. For those foolish enough to play 4 wide against the 46, touchdowns flowed quick and easy. You just needed a rugged QB who could take a hit.

Finally, I have to take serious issue with making the Zone Blitz the #1 innovation of all time. That's just one of those bizzaro things that make you ask "What the hell were they thinking?" Yes, it is a nice piece of trickeration. Yes, it is a recent innovation. Yes, it does mess with QBs big time.

No, the big Harrison play in the Super Bowl was not a Zone Blitz. James Harrison is an outside linebacker. It is not unusual for one of these guys to fake the blitz and drop back into coverage. I have seen this every year since 1979. If Harrison were a nose tackle pulling off the center of the line, and then made the big interception, that would have been the Zone Blitz. This is not what happened.

I am absolutely fucking amazed that the guys at NFL Films and the NFL Network promoted this play as the ultimate example of the Zone Blitz? What the fuck? Didn't you guys realize that this was a mistake?

Please, please, please don't try to tell me that this is the #1 innovation of all time because it won SB XLIII. You know that just isn't true. If the real motive is to get Dick LeBeau into the Hall of Fame, I am all in favor of it. Still, let's not make factually false statements to get him there.

One other comment: I really enjoyed the diagrams and the explanations. More please. More detail please. Diagram the plays for these schemes. Show us the common plays. You should have shown the people how the 49er triangle pattern works.

Steve Sabol of NFL films had a conversion experiance about three years ago

I am a huge fan of NFL Films.  I grew up on them.  They taught me the structure and strategy of the game.  I owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Sabol for this.  However, Mr. Sabol has pissed me off many times.  It is kind of a love-hate thing.

Why?

The early portion of the man's career (late 1970s to the late 1990s) basically focused on mythologizing NFL history (both players and teams).  His myths are full of men of destiny who rarely or never failed.  Invincible juggernauts who could not be defeated.  Men who could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat despite major orthopedic injury, etc.  These are all miracle stories of a sort.  They are close cousins to tales of feeding thousands with 7 loaves and 5 fishes, or walking on water.  We love a good Paul Bunyon, Perseus, Samson, Hercules, Beowulf story, and so we sit transfixed and listen.

The interesting thing is Steve has been experiencing a change of religion in the past 3 to 5 years.  It would be hard for me to put my finger on the exact moment when his conversion happened.  Two different series of programs have manifested a fundamental shift in his goals and purposes.  The first is the "America's Game" documentary series.  The second is "The NFL's Top 10" series.

Both of these are hard documentary series.  Both of these try to do the most objective job possible of ranking important events and teams and players and facts about NFL history.  The focus is about who, what, where, when, why and how.  Myth makers are sitting on the bench.  Smart players who lived through it all are asked to be brutally honest about tough subjects.  Ugly flies in the mythological ointment are exposed.  Controversial subjects are argued well by many sides.  Some youngsters are shocked by what they see.  

This is especially true with the "America's Game" documentary series.  There are many youngsters who cannot remember the Steelers or the 49ers first hand.  They never saw them play during their classic eras.  I remember it first hand.  What these youngsters see of the Steelers and 49ers often shocks their minds.  They can't believe the real Terry Bradshaw was on the bubble for several years.  They can't believe the 49ers wanted to replace Joe Montana in 1988.  Their eyes bug out of the skulls when they see this.  I know.  I have dis-infected several true believers by showing them these documentaries on DVR.  Their reactions have been funny to watch.

This series plays like a Mea Culpa from Steve Sabol.  It is as if he feels he must correct the distortions of NFL history he created in his earlier life.

I love both of these new series.  The older I get, the more NFL history I know.  It is hard for me to believe that I have seen and understood every Super Bowl since XIV.  I saw a portion of XIII, but I didn't really understand what I was looking at.  I was just 12 years old.  I have watched (closely) every season since 1980.  I know this history first hand.  I lived through much of it.  I remember it well.  For this reason, the myth making thing has become very tired and very transparently false in many cases.  Lately, many myths, particularly those surrounding the Raiders and 49ers, have irked me a great deal.  For those who do not know, I grew up in Fresno California during the 1980s.  Believe me, I saw the Raiders and 49ers every week.  There was no NFL Prime Ticket or Super Fan in those days.  You watched what NBC and CBS showed you.  NBC showed the Raiders.  CBS showed the 49ers.  I know them well.  You can fool some of the people most of the time, but you can't fool me.