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I'm starting to think Marvin Lewis is one of the more underappreciated NFL coaches of the past couple decades. Staying 16 years in one place is TOUGH, and I feel like people have forgotten a lot of context along the way.

 In the 12 years before Marvin Lewis arrived, the Bengals were 55-137. In the two years since he left, they are 6-25-1. That's 14 years and 0 playoff appearances.

Lewis was 131-122-3 with 7 playoff appearances.
Lewis took over a 2-14 team in 2003. His first three years, he went 8-8, 8-8 and 11-5.

He got his QB in Year 2 in Carson Palmer and reached the playoffs in Year 3. But on his very first throw, Palmer tore his knee.
So, we begin the narrative that Lewis was 0-7 in playoff games. Fair criticism to a point. But here were his seven QBs for those playoff games:

Jon Kitna after 1 throw
Carson Palmer
Andy Dalton
Andy Dalton
Andy Dalton
Andy Dalton
AJ McCarron
The Bengals, who have a cheap owner as GM, not only struggled to find Marvin Lewis a QB but also struggled to get him much of anything. They consistently let good players walk, from Carson Palmer to Marvin Jones to Kevin Zeitler to Eric Steinbach to Leon Hall to Reggie Nelson.
Go ahead and find me the best free-agent acquisition the Bengals made in Marvin Lewis' 16 years there. Cedric Benson? Tory James? Bobbie Williams? Dhani Jones?

Do any of those scream, "Time to go win us a playoff game"?
But it's not just about excuses for Marvin Lewis' tenure. He won four division titles in an AFC North with the Ravens and Steelers, who combined for 8 AFC Championship Game appearances and three Super Bowl victories in those 16 years.
People will bring up the lack of discipline. It's a fair criticism. But you also take character risks as an organization when you refuse to pay top dollar.

To win consistently despite shenanigans, you need the respect of your players, and everyone will tell you Lewis had it.
Because Mike Brown refuses to hire a GM or scouting department, Bengals coaches have to do everything. They churn and burn the roster since they can't keep free agents.

Marvin Lewis hired Jay Gruden and Mike Zimmer as his coordinators and created a beautifully streamlined system
Marvin Lewis is 62 and is defensive-oriented. He hasn't won a playoff game and won't win the press conference. But those are some of the motivations that lead to awful hires.

I imagine what Lewis could do as a coach with a real GM and scouting department. I hope he gets a shot.
Casual NFL fans only tend to see the Bengals when they make the playoffs, when their lack of poise or a QB shine through. It took a LOT to get there.

Unless you're an organization saying, "We're tired of losing in the playoffs every year," you probably shouldn't thumb your nose.
This goes back to the fact that we react to the guy wearing the headset and standing at the podium and not the one who finds the players. All about visibility.

Again and again, coaches get fired while awful GMs keep plugging away.
It also shows how we judge the end of a tenure more than the full thing. Some guys are great with their second team — Andy Reid, Tony Dungy, Jon Gruden, Bill Belichick, Marty Schottenheimer.

A fresh start can be good, especially for a guy who worked for Mike Brown for 16 years.
Atlanta and Detroit feel like good matches for Marvin Lewis. Both have established passing attacks.

Lewis has the experience Dan Quinn lacked.

And the areas where Matt Patricia struggled — organization, relatability, staffing — are Lewis’ biggest strengths.

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Tears at La Bombonera \U0001f49a
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Ahead of Boca-River tonight, a LONG READ thread on River Plate's 2010/11 season: How did a massive club and institution like Club Atlético River Plate get relegated from Argentina's top tier in June 2011?

🇦🇷 #longread (3,000 words)

This thread is based on the fantastic When We Were Kings podcast with the blessing of its creators @ErikNiva & @andreassonhakan. Because the podcast is in Swedish, I wanted to translate the story and share it in English.

Disclaimer: this is NOT a dig at River Plate. My book's title/front cover overwhelmingly suggest that it's exclusively about Boca Juniors - that's not the case. I'm 100% neutral when it comes to Argentinian fútbol. This thread is not written to antagonise River fans!

June 2008. River Plate win the Clausura 2007/08 title (a 19-game half season) with Diego Cholo Simeone as manager. It's their 35th league title! River's attacking players: Radamel Falcao, Alexis Sánchez, Ariel Ortega, Sebastián Abreu, Diego Buonanotte, amongst others.


10/08/2008: The story of River Plate’s relegation in June 2011 starts on 10th August 2008! River Plate draw 1-1 away to Colón de Santa Fe on the opening day of the Apertura 2008/09 - it would be a bad campaign:
P19: W2/D8/L9. Cholo Simeone resigns after 1 win in first 14 games
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“Mastering the basics” is a long-standing pillar of cricket coaching. I want to challenge the idea because I think removing it will lead to more effective cricketers.

Welcome to my TED talk.

Most of us have been brought up that nailing the basics equals success. I remember being a kid reading and re-rereading my coaching manual, knowing it contained all the answers. The idea is simple and intuitive: the basics provide a template.

Copy what works. No need to reinvent the wheel. Play straight. Sure, there is some natural variation but the basics are always at the core. They are the spelling and grammar of cricket.

We can see this at the highest level. TV commentators criticise technical flaws (against a template) in every player. When they fail we see this as the cause. When they succeed we see the player as finding a way to compensate in spite of this basic error.

We also see it when coaching. We use the basics template to tell players how to bat, bowl and field. If they get it wrong, they need to identify and correct their errors through hard work. You can add flair, but not until these basics are firmly in place and the flaws ironed out.
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Kirsti Miller
Kirsti Miller
@KirstiMiller30
Female athletes are still subjected to the equivalent of a sex test, based on whether they appear feminine.


Dutee Chand in her successful appeal against the validity of the IAAF’s hyperandrogegism regulations, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) originally began investigating her after complaints that she “ran like a boy”.

Chand was banned in 2014 after the AFI decided that her androgen (testosterone) levels were above the 10 nmol/L permitted by the IAAF’s hyperandrogegism regulations, resulting in her missing the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.


Androgens, including testosterone, are naturally produced in significant – but varying – levels by both men and women.

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Peter A. L\xf8hmann
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#swfc are finally back in league action tonight 8pm GMT away to Coventry #pusb

A relegation six pointer to kick off our second half of the season with 7 points separating us in 23rd and them in 16th.

A look of our numbers and theirs below and what they can tell us.

[thread]

I looked at the survival prognosis for teams in our position yesterday (https://t.co/rmVT8b5sFl).

Thankfully a prognosis is not a prediction, but it does bear out just how important tonight's game is.


Can we quantify match importance then?

Well, @FiveThirtyEight have given it a right good go and how they've done it is explained here: https://t.co/ObjB079Fjw

Their match importance rating ranges from 0 to 100 for a team.

In a game with a high match importance vs. a team with low match importance, a team's likelihood of winning increases: All else being equal, if match importance is 100 for the home team and 0 for the away team, the home team's odds of winning drop from Evens (50%) to 8/11 (58%).

If we look at the combined match importance ratings for both teams, tonight's game ranks 14th of the 317 matches with match importance ratings. Pretty important then!

Of our matches only the win against Bournemouth had a higher combined match importance than tonight's match:
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Kirsti Miller
Kirsti Miller
@KirstiMiller30
Semenya is an in­cred­ibly powerful runner from South Africa, a two-time Olympic champion. She has also been the subject of controversy since the beginning of her career over decade ago.


Semenya has an intersex condition, though she doesn’t publicly speak about it: Her body allegedly produces testosterone at a higher level than most women.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that if Semenya wanted to continue to compete, she would be required to take medications to lower it.


The CAS, which was upholding a previous ruling by the @WorldAthletics , admitted that the decision was tantamount to discrimination. But, a statement read,...

“discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics.”
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