no, you are claiming they are exceptions to the rule simply because they dispute your assertion. their ability is the result of their drive and motivation, not the cause of it. that's backwards. LeBron wasn't simply born the greatest basketball player in the world and then formulated his motivation because of his skill, he had to work to be so. what drove that work? your argument puts the horse before the carriage and wants to claim the result is what determines their motivation simply because they are great. c'mon, you have to recognize how ridiculous a claim that is. but to even dispute that qualification further, are only the greatest players the exception? what about great players who aren't the greatest of all time? are they motivated by external fear of losing their jobs just because they are just a tier below the greatest players but still better than everyone else? where does your qualifications stop? you are going to have such a long list of qualifications the more you have to defend this silly position. and the moment you have to qualify and narrow your argument, the more flawed it becomes. that's a basic tenet of logic. you started with a broad claim, and now when it has been challenged are going to qualify and narrow it. That's illogical. you made an absolute statement that is outright false. sure, when someone is losing they may push themselves harder. but others may not push themselves harder and will fold. you claimed that ALL athletes, when faced with competition, will perform optimally, which would mean no athlete would ever quit, they would all raise their effort and performance when faced with competition. your personal experience clearly does not create a valid argument, unless you are going to claim you have never seen another athlete fold under pressure and every athlete, when challenged, raises their level and performed optimally. the reality is some athletes are motivated by external competition, others are not. but the determining factor is not their ability which is a result of their motivation, not the determining factor of their motivation.
I think many of the truly great players are only really competing against themselves and they're never happy with the status quo. They have to do that because competing with the other guys would be holding themselves to a lower standard.
There's something about competition that is just different. It is normal for Olympic runners to have their personal bests only in competitions. I wasn't an elite runner in high school by any stretch, but I know from my own experience and observations that there's something about competition that takes you up to a level you just cannot psych yourself into. You can be hardcore with training, try as hard as you can- but your best performances will still be when you're fighting neck and neck with with your rival from that other high school, and he beat you two weeks ago and you'll be damned if he's going to slip ahead at the last moment this time. There is something fundamentally different about that than timing yourself with a stopwatch and charting progress. Common sense says that you'd try your hardest all the time, given the money at stake in professional sports, but reality just isn't like that. Steve Prefontaine was an amazing runner in the 70s; but if he was a 25 year old today, he'd be much faster than he was as a 25 year old in the 70s, because the competition would have pushed him to be that much better. His times, though elite in the 70s, would be nowhere near Olympic quality today- yet I don't doubt that he would have been an elite runner in any era. I know it doesn't sound like it should be that way, but it is. Just like how you'll involuntarily slow down / stop running if you see a wall in front of you, you will go harder than you could ever voluntarily make yourself go if it's a race you've been training for and you're very close. I can't explain it. But that's why in general, athletes just get better and better through the decades- the competition keeps making the top athletes better. I don't think anyone seriously accuses Mark Sanchez of sitting around eating burgers and pizzas all day, not watching any film, etc. He was trying really hard. Just- not as hard as he would if they'd brought in a QB who could actually challenge him. Knowing that his job was safe, that he had a huge guaranteed contract, etc - he would limit himself to just trying as hard as he voluntarily could. If there was another QB waiting in the wings, and if it was said "Hey Mark, if this other guy is better than you, he is the starter"- I guarantee you Mark would've been better prepared. Would he have been dramatically better? I have no idea. But he would've been better.
Are you saying that most of the posters here aren't NFL fans? You are free to think what you will about this team. Not living in NYC, I don't get the hate or the jokes anymore out here and news flash, I live at the junction of 3 fan bases. The Ravens, Eagles and Steelers. All of these people are "NFL fans" and when I wear my gear, I get good conversation only. Nothing dismissive. Lighten up. I realize your namesake signed with the enemy but that's no reason to hate your own team. Considering Revis most likely will never play for the Jets again, a name change might be a better way to spend your time instead of insulting Jet Fans.
I never liked Idzik's approach to FA. He had a lot of money and was and still sitting on it like it's his own. Now he lost Cromartie to Arizona. What a joke. We will have a very good front seven and will have a crappy secondary that will be burned over and over again. Rex will be crying for a CB (I don't blame him) and we will once again draft a CB in the first round, not a top receiver. The idiot Jets front office will draft a receiver in the second round and we will miss a number one receiver that would have helped Geno. Idzik needs to be fired and Woody needs to sell the club. That is the only way we will improve.
I do not think Cromartie would make our secondary less crappy. In fact, he contributed to making it more crappy last year, and last time I looked, he is not getting any younger. Adios, Cro.
I don't hate the team but fans of other teams don't respect us at all,everyone checks off a win when they see the Jets on the schedule ,I don't care if they hate us but want them to atleast respect us like the Seahawks,Ravens,Patriots and so on.They look at us like we look at Jax or The Browns
Why did we hire a money man AGAIN, we should have hired a real GM. Someone that knows talent rather than dealing with the money aspects. I hope I am wrong about Izdik. Being a fan since 1966 and one SuperBowl, it makes you skeptical about the front office.
It seems GM's he has worked under thought he had some experience evaluating talent. Too many people here take what Mehta writes as if it is actually true. The below was originally posted by Jets Esq.
maybe there should be stickied thread that reads "Idzik didn't just crunch numbers" with that in it. I don't even get the way "cap guy" is used as derogative. It seems the definition as it relates to JI is to mean a poor evaluator of talent who won't pay anybody worthwhile well in a fit of unwavering frugality, presumably because all he can do is budget well and all he wants to do is stay under budget for the sake of being there. oh and he's a poor evaluator of talent because most of the rookies he picked struggled in their first year and he didn't value certain free agent players highly enough to pay them more than he would have liked too... so he didn't evaluate them well or something.
Lol we need a robot on this site that scans the posts, any that have the words "Idzik" and "cap guy" in them instantly receive a message in their inbox with the above clarification.
It's a shame U didn't say this when U took the time to blast me for saying the very same thing in another thread.
Seriously? In my first response to you in that thread I posted this Instead of this below, which was my response to another poster in this thread Followed by the same block of text which outlined some of his experience as well as quotes from 3 GMs who brought up his previous scouting experience You then went on to claim that they were possibly misquotes and that if others wanted to believe it they could but you weren't going to. You keep saying you want to just drop it but you brought the same thing up in 2 separate threads tonight along with emailing 2 reporters. If you don't bring it up again I promise I won't either.
Basically whoever that GM is just confirmed what the "FO Homers" have been saying for a couple of months.
But wait, did that GM take the same approach or is he just applauding the Jets because that is one less team he has to worry about?
