WTKA Roundtable 2/1/2018: Man Up

Tone and direction are important, and you set those.

Things discussed:

• Superbowl: Does Philadelphia have enough talent to defeat one-handed, 80-year-old zombie Tom Brady with a bunch of Ed Fengs at receiver? No. No they don’t.
• Not talking about MSU: A lot of talking about MSU. Izzo’s response is wanting. The optics of John Engler as MSU president (problem with it isn’t politics but cronyism).
• What Michigan can do: Take the lesson in transparency and make the FOIA office the example for the country instead of a whataboutism target.
• Dantonio/Izzo: The ESPN investigation started in 2014 when Title IX office demanded every public university go back through their old sexual assault cases (e.g. the Gibbons one) and is separate from Nassar. The connection between the two is the institutional rot that allowed both to occur.
• Kudos to MSU students, faculty, some of the media (e.g. Jemele Hill) and some of the people we interact with online (Izzone, Jerbear, Vanini) who’ve been advocating strongly for their school to come clean. Some of the local beat writers like Hondo Carpenter, Graham Couch are part of the problem.
• Why are they culpable if they were duped? For YEARS they didn’t watch him, didn’t investigate it, didn’t take action.
• Dennis from the OC: You can run for these leadership positions—filing deadline is May.
• Caller: Insular attitude leads to this culture of hiding offenders.
• Superbowl: Nike Foles has a trio of good backs, the best OL in the country. Ed thinks New England will blow them out. None of the guys said this but I’m saying it because I have some thoughts and I’m writing this podcast up: Philly has to man up and not be afraid of New England’s pick routes—the Patriots are masters of putting you out of your gameplan and that’s the worst thing you can do against them (see: Jacksonville, who’s one the best man defenses in the country, going to softbatch Cover 4 in the 4th quarter). Your best weapon is Brandon Graham vs. not great pass protection. Take the occasional pick play in the face, and keep Brady under pressure.
• Blake Griffin to the Pistons: Over/under on how many games he plays before he breaks down. Long term this isn’t the answer except if it goes sour they can tank and get a real star to pair with Dre.
• Michigan-Minnesota: shocked how bad they’ve fallen, except Ed says he’s not shocked.