Is it Monday Already?

Is it Monday already? I guess it is.

I spent the weekend teaching a Hunter Education Safety Course at the San Leandro Rifle and Pistol Range. Hopefully our aspiring Nimrods will now be safety conscious when they head into the field, and will have respect for fellow outdoorspeople, the environment and the game they are after. One hopes.

This was an unusual class in two respects. First, half of the class was made up of adults. Usually it's around 25 - 30 percent. Secondly, everyone in the class passed the test. This is the first class I have ever been involved with that had 100% of the students pass. What made that doubly unusual was the fact that two of the students had English as their second language. One was German, one Hispanic.

I guess either our teaching abilities are improving, or this class just had students who really had a desire to pass.

One thing about doing something like that on a weekend, it sure makes it go by too fast and the next week start too soon.

Oh well, off to work. Have a great week!

Bye Weeks

Judging by the time that has passed since my last post, you folks probably think I have taken a few "bye weeks." While I was gone for a week during that time, I have just been very busy.

Today, I want to air a gripe about the National Football League and the way they schedule the bye weeks for teams. For those that don't know, the NFL has a 17 week season during which each team plays 16 games. The bye week started a few years back when there were 31 teams in the league, meaning each week had to have a team who didn't play. When the 32nd team was added, the bye week remained as a way to stretch the season by an extra week and maximize television revenues. The bye weeks begin in Week 3, and finish in Week 15, meaning all teams play Weeks 1,2,16 & 17. Sometime the bye week comes at a good time for a team, when a key player (or players) are a little dinged up and the extra week to rest & recuperate is helpful. Other times they are just an extra week off, which I am sure is always appreciated.

For my example, I am going to use the schedule of the Dallas Cowboys. I am not a Cowboys fan. It would make me happy to see them lose all 16 games, and at the end of the season see the visiting team gather at the star in the middle of the field at Texas Stadium and pee on it. That said, the Cowboys have been dealt what is surely an unfair hand. Beginning next Monday, 11/14, they play 3 games in 11 days. 11/14 at Philadelphia, 11/20 vs Detroit and their traditional Thanksgiving Day home game, this year against Denver on 11/24. That's 3 games in 11 days. Their opponent on Thanksgiving, Denver, plays 3 games in 12 days. Their opponent on 11/20, Detroit, hosts a similar game every Thanksgiving, this year against Atlanta, both of whom will also be playing 3 games in 12 days. Football is a rough sport. That is a lot of abuse for the bodies of the players to take in a short amount of time. Detroit had it's bye week in Week 3, Atlanta in Week 8, Dallas & Denver both had theirs this past weekend, Week 9.

There is no reason for this. Since the Thanksgiving games are considered part of Week 12, there is no reason the 4 teams playing that day should not have Week 11 as their bye weeks. As for the rest of the NFL, I would make the following changes. The remaining 28 teams will have their bye weeks in either Week 9 or Week 10, 14 each week. A team coming off a bye week will play another team that is coming off a bye week. In other words, no extra time to prepare for one team.

While I am sure my thoughts and solution on this are not perfect, I think they are better than what is currently being done.