Feldman on Eisen
Rich asked straight up if the coaches who commented were still whining about “muh signs”
ugh if anyone has the time/video editing talent please restitch this with clips of JJ crushing Bama to start off a glorious ‘24
December 20th, 2023 at 8:26 PM ^
huh?
...and Fuck Feldman. Hard pass.
December 20th, 2023 at 8:30 PM ^
He calls him out for his article.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:24 PM ^
That's not what I heard. He just let Feldman explain it and Rich didn't say as much. He went easy on him, it wasn't confrontational at all.
December 20th, 2023 at 10:03 PM ^
This is true. Feldman's a weasel.
Love Eisen, but in this case, he was very passive and certainly didn't press for more. Pretty soft, especially when Feldman was discussing the "anonymous" coaches opinions on the sign-stealing saga and its potential effects on our game against Bama.
December 20th, 2023 at 11:51 PM ^
Feldman has been a smug prick about it for months. Anonymous coach bs is just quote-mining until he gets the narrative he wants. Always does this then pretends it's research/journalism. "Working on a story" he calls it. Can't stand him.
December 21st, 2023 at 7:50 AM ^
The cherry-picking tells the story he wants to tell - signgate is the biggest scandal in the history of sports! I want to see all of the other quotes - the ones that didn't make his 'story'...
December 21st, 2023 at 11:45 AM ^
I find myself wishing Rich would press more and advocate more. He is too passive and doesn't simply walk the facts. He gets loud and proud on his victory laps but mumbles his facts in defense of Michigan. He even restates silly narratives and will do as little as add a question mark to his staff or the person in the chair.
December 21st, 2023 at 9:07 AM ^
He calls him out for his article
Feldman calls Feldman out for Feldman's article?
December 21st, 2023 at 12:18 PM ^
He (the host) calls him (the writer) out for his (the writer’s) article. While not super clean it’s all implied and easily extrapolated.
December 20th, 2023 at 8:47 PM ^
Can we maybe get a synopsis?
December 20th, 2023 at 8:56 PM ^
Rich’s assessment is the same as ours—cowardice of butthurt B1G coaches who hide anonymously. Feldman is cautious when he says there may be some merit to JJs having a different side of the season after allegations due to “not knowing where the blitzes are coming from” vs the actual step up in competition to three of the top five defenses in the country. He actually does appear to be neutral in the whole thing, and Rich gives some veiled not so veiled “this is garbage, the difference in level of competition is what explains the difference in play at the end of the season.”
there’s just a lot of very quotable questions that Feldman raises that everyone who assigns our dominance to signgate that he raises not as if they’re his, but as to the general tenor toward the offense especially.
it’s just the perfect overlay for an outstanding performance when it’s all said and done.
December 20th, 2023 at 8:57 PM ^
He also acknowledges injury playing a role; Rich is sarcastic and defends the team a lot. It’s a good watch and not all that long. That’s why I didn’t summarize, apologies.
December 20th, 2023 at 8:58 PM ^
not to mention, the last 3 regular season games played without our hall of fame coach against 2 of those top 5 D's. gosh, i wonder if that might've made a difference?
objectivity is driven into the ground by emotions and hatred.
December 21st, 2023 at 8:00 AM ^
Everyone also completely ignores the media and 'investigation' related circus around the entire program during those few months, and the exceedingly last-minute nature of the suspension rulings. Not to mention anyone saying that ESPN learned about Harbaugh's suspension from the B1G before Michigan did - intentionally. I can't imagine the effect that had on the team...
I'm hoping that some 'normal' stability has returned to the locker room and that JJ is completely healthy. Those things, coupled with some good practice time for Barnhart at OG and Jones/Hinton at RT, should go a long way to getting the offense we knew prior to PSU back on the field.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:04 PM ^
Feldman is such a disingenuous little shit. He can create any narrative he wants with his anonymous quotes and it's clear he does.
December 20th, 2023 at 10:25 PM ^
JJ didn’t not know where the blitz was coming from. Our offensive tackles-who-should-be-guards were getting spit roasted down the stretch. It’s as simple as that.
December 20th, 2023 at 11:15 PM ^
Also, didn't we score the most points against both PSU and OSU this season without our coach? Finding out after landing in Pennsylvania that he was banned from coaching.
Not to mention JJ hurt his ankle in that game and it lingered for the next 2 games.
Fuck everybody who continues this BS narrative!
What does Feldman think about the Helow hiring? Assholes, all of them.
December 21st, 2023 at 9:13 AM ^
We scored 15 ppg more against PSU, OSU and Iowa. According to the sign stealer crowd, with Stalions we would have exceeded the average by 36 points. In what world do people live in that think anyone is scoring 48 ppg against Iowa, PSU, and OSU even knowing the defensive signals. It still comes down to blocking and tackling, receivers getting open and QB delivering on target.
December 21st, 2023 at 10:15 AM ^
Isn't the argument that sign stealing helps the defense more than the offense, anyway?
All of the teams we played after Stalions's suspension (MSU, Purdue, PSU, Maryland, OSU, Iowa) scored fewer points than they did against us in 2022 except OSU - which scored one more point than last year.
December 21st, 2023 at 6:07 AM ^
McCarthy QBR against Bowling Gree - 14.9
McCarthy QBR against Ohio State - 94.4
What drop off are we talking about? Cherry picking stats, perhaps?
Knowing the opponents play? Try watching Russel Bellomy QB in place of Denard against Nebraska. Their whole defense was crashing to where Michigan was running the ball before the snap! (Painful to watch.)
Where is the play in the last three years where Michigan adjusted because they knew the play? Michigan runs the ball in unstoppable fashion and in spite of the advance scouting, Stroud still throws for 350 and 400 yards. I see no evidence that the information the analyst had was helpful or made it to the coaching staff.
December 21st, 2023 at 10:44 AM ^
So you complain about cherry picking stats by cherry picking stats?
Last four games (avg):
RTG - 130
QBR - 79
Yards - 124
First nine games (avg):
RTG - 191
QBR - 83
Yards - 237
There is a big difference in the stats, but most rational people will note the even bigger difference in the opponent..
December 21st, 2023 at 10:46 AM ^
The not knowing where the blitz is coming from is just mind boggling. People like Feldman go out there and sort of half ass pundit their way through how sign stealing could help a team without actually applying any critical thinking skills. Think about the actual chain of communication on offense - you have to decode a signal, figure out what it means based on the personnel you have already put on the field, come up with a play that will somehow punish that defense, which if it is a pass might be a specific route within the play, and communicate all of this to the offense in 20-30 seconds. Oh, and if the defense gets a new sign and makes a shift, you have to start all of this over again.
On the defensive side, the best you're getting is run/pass, which you can generally get a good grasp of based on offensive tackle stance/alignement, formation, and down/distance. Are you actually going to tell me that you're teaching your ENTIRE DEFENSE someone else's ENTIRE playbook in a week so they can "know the play?" This isn't fucking Tecmo Super Bowl. On defense you play at the tempo of the offense, so you are far more reactionary and have much less time to put in the "perfect defense" for a specific play.
You would have to build your entire game plan every week around your sign stealing intel to even come close to maximizing the knowledge of the signs. You would have massive performance drop offs if the other team changed their signals or went to a huddle. All of this is to remind everyone for the billionth time the rule that was likely broken was put in place to save small programs money and was never intended to negate some kind of competitive advantage gained by advanced in person scouting.
December 21st, 2023 at 8:40 PM ^
Most blitzes can be read pre-snap (though there is a possibility of bluffing, but if you are sign-stealing you are screwed if you miss that bluff sign anyway).
Besides relying on sign-stealing, rather than on proper alignment, reading your keys, and executing your assignment, is a a sure way to get confused and lose.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:05 PM ^
Thanks for sharing! Eisen is a gem, and a great Michigan Man. I’ll gladly watch his show, even when he has an absolute turd like bruce feldman on.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:08 PM ^
Feldman is a weasel and a hack. He had the perfect opportunity to write a nice puff piece on each CFP team. Instead he quotes whiny losers with a grudge against Michigan and puff pieces for the other 3.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:12 PM ^
Michigan vs Everybody
December 20th, 2023 at 9:25 PM ^
And I, for one, love it!
December 20th, 2023 at 9:24 PM ^
I don't know why Rich didn't go after Feldman on the tiny sample size Feldman used, and the tiny number of reactions he then included in his article. I understand that Feldman is pandering to clicks (as he has to) rather than undertaking actual journalism, but he could at least be honest about it.
Give me Joel Klatt any day.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:25 PM ^
When Michigan beats Alabama, I hope everyone keeps their receipts.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:32 PM ^
Feldman can fuck off.
December 20th, 2023 at 9:41 PM ^
He sounds like he smokes 3 packs a day
December 20th, 2023 at 9:55 PM ^
Yeesh, if Feldman is getting paid any money at all, he needs to use some of it to get his damn teeth fixed.
December 20th, 2023 at 10:03 PM ^
It’s a bull shit narrative.
JJ lit up both MSU and Purdue after sign gate.
PSU was all over him from the edge and he got hurt. And we were eating Allars lunch.
Maryland was a bad game. Injury still?
JJ played very well against OSU making some critical plays.
And he did what was asked against an anemic Iowa team.
All that being said please run some fucking play action pass against Bama and open up the offense.
December 20th, 2023 at 10:51 PM ^
Taking a step back and considering the season as a whole, it's kind of shocking how much rightful contempt so many of us now feel for our own conference. And because of the 2023 season, we'll likely feel this way for a long time, maybe forever.
I remember a quaint time when I'd root for Big Ten teams during bowl season. Now, I can't imagine ever again rooting for anyone in this conference. Fuck all of them, especially the second-fiddle State schools of course, but also Nebraska, Purdue, Rutgers, Illinois....
December 20th, 2023 at 11:18 PM ^
I'll be rooting for Washington, Oregon, USC, and UCLA, until they do something that pisses me off.
I'm willing to believe Iowa, Northwestern, and Minnesota did not join the chorus. But since they haven't come out publicly in our defense either, they will still suffer the guilt by association.
December 20th, 2023 at 11:28 PM ^
Yeah perhaps it's going too far to be against all of them. It would be interesting to know whether any of them stood up for us or at least abstained from pressuring the nitwit leadership of the conference.
December 21st, 2023 at 8:05 AM ^
It was a unanimous vote to penalize Michigan during the season, before any 'investigation' was completed.
Even if they offered some defense of Michigan initially, they still fell in line behind the ringleaders. Fuck each and every one of them.
December 21st, 2023 at 10:54 AM ^
None of the schools had any "vote" in that process. It was a call by the Commissioner in his role as tin despot of the conference (subject only to the approval of the Joint Group Executive Committee, which is not the Joint Executive Committee that has a rep from each school). Where are you reading differently? And if the vote was unanimous, that would have to mean that Michigan had to vote to punish itself, which seems unlikely.
December 21st, 2023 at 2:31 PM ^
Also, how does the JGEC contain two PSU people, one OSU person, and one NW person, and how did the OSU and PSU people not have to recuse themselves, since they were approving a Harbaugh suspension for games against their own schools?
December 21st, 2023 at 4:27 PM ^
I’ve been wracking my brain to figure out what this situation with our conference reminds me of.
Remember the Brady Bunch episode when Marcia got her best friend to come up with a lot of baseless crap about Greg because Marcia was jealous of him for being more popular? Then the friend went to Mr and Mrs Brady with her accusations while Marcia anonymously shitposted all the baseless stuff on Instagram and Facebook, and got all her brothers and sisters to anonymously shitpost the same empty nonsense about Greg too. Classic sociopathic mobbing situation because they almost all in some way were jealous of Greg and Marcia used that to her advantage.
The whole thing became an echo chamber and Mr Brady grounded Greg until he was 18 because he had a Playboy hidden under his bed, and he might have liked The Bee Gees.
If I remember correctly, that was the end of the series, because the Brady Bunch were no longer a family, really. And Greg went off to join the cast of Happy Days.
December 20th, 2023 at 11:02 PM ^
Isn't this the guy who asked, which font should Michigan use when they put an asterix next to their National Championship?
Probably the same font he uses for his title of "journalist".
December 21st, 2023 at 9:57 AM ^
Asterix? Come on man!
December 21st, 2023 at 10:17 AM ^
Do you want to ax him why he spelled it that way?
December 21st, 2023 at 10:19 AM ^
Who is our Obélix? Mason Graham? Kris Jenkins?
December 21st, 2023 at 11:03 AM ^
Asterix? Come on man!
Agree, I was always more of a Tintin fan myself.
December 20th, 2023 at 11:58 PM ^
Watched it. People will hear what they want to hear, I think. Feldman was mostly just reiterating his story: "Other coaches said..." He wasn't necessarily agreeing with it, just saying others said it.
At the end, Rich asked if Feldman had any sense that it was just butt hurt coaches being whiney little butt hurts (paraphrasing) and Feldman said, "It's possible." And then he went on to talk about how there's some "personal animus" and some may have felt that Michigan was "gettable," which I took to mean vulnerable to a PR hit because of Stalions.
December 21st, 2023 at 2:34 AM ^
Yea I didn't think Feldman came off as believing what was said, more just reporting it. I think the most interesting thing was he pointed out how a Michigan commenter pointed out the SEC stands up for its own, the big ten eats their own. He tried to be neutral but he seemed to think their was a lot of hostility from other coaches to Michigan.
December 21st, 2023 at 6:20 AM ^
Disingenuous. Make a story out of anonymous quotes but the story is not very credible, and it is one-sided but, by golly, it is somehow still journalism. Unfortunate soul.
December 21st, 2023 at 8:17 AM ^
Two other things he said that I took note of were:
1) Other Big Ten coaches haven't really seen Alabama play this year. They watched the game vs. Georgia because their season was over, but they didn't watch the Auburn game because they had their own game to coach. I made this point in the other thread. These coaches don't know anything about Alabama this year.
2) It occurred to Feldman that the other coaches were talking about Michigan as though they were a 10-point underdog as opposed to a 1-2 point favorite. That ties into the whole "Big Ten eats its own" and more than that, I think, just the incredible personal hatred of Harbaugh and Michigan.
It's not reasonable to act like Michigan is a shit team when they just beat everyone in the conference and are favorites to win the CFP. It's one thing to nitpick things like, "Their running game was more explosive last year." But they didn't stop there, they were saying Michigan basically can't compete with Alabama. There's no reason to say that other than wanting it to be true. This conference really is just full of bitter, whiney babies.
What Feldman really did (in effect) is acknowledge that his story was pointless and misguided. It just gave air to people to continue their vendetta and not give honest analysis. People here are mad at Feldman, and you can be mad at him for giving them that chance, I guess, but that wasn't his intent. He did one of these for all four teams, and for three teams, it was the total puff piece you'd expect. It was a hit job for Michigan because the other schools made it a hit job, not Feldman.
This really is about how the rest of the conference treats Michigan, not about how The Athletic treats Michigan.