OC Soul Blog

Kittle is 100% Right and My Apology to Bills Mafia

The day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday. Period. Full stop!

Since the internet became the internet, I have been as vocal and as active as I could be about this topic. First, other than July the 4th and Thanksgiving, there’s no holiday more American than the Super Bowl.

  • Folks are tailgating (drinking) early.
  • The food is fattening AF and there are mounds of it.
  • The pregame anthem and fly overs are only a bald eagle away from an American trinity.
  • And the entire event is corporate sponsored.

If that’s not America, I’ll kiss your ass.

As a DFS addict, adding another week to the schedule last year was a dream come true. But it wasn’t until I heard the recent “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast with Josh Allen and George Kittle that I heard George Kittle propose the perfect solution.

Each Team Gets Two Bye Weeks!!

Before I get into the details, a few observations about this particular podcast.

First, I swear Josh Allen is forcing me to be a Buffalo Bills fan and I’m NOT happy about it!!

I love upstate NY. But I have always been a Bills hater. In fact, my first real  gambling success was that I was blessed to be in college in upstate NY during all of the Bill’s Super Bowl runs. With most of my campus being locals, I took action from everyone I could find. I think some of my fraternity brothers still owe me $ from those games. (I paid off my college truck with the winnings)

It’s been easy to dislike, or at least not like, or not care about the Bill’s organization ever since the mid 90’s. However, that changed when the six foot five gunslinger from Firebeaugh California, via Wyoming, came to town.

Yes, NFL fans now like Josh’s level of play. But, us DFS folks have been fans from the beginning. Quite frankly, being on the Josh Allen train early in the 2019 season, and SUPER heavy in 2020 bestball drafts, was one of the most profitable things I’ve ever done.

We all love the Konami-code of running QBs, but what really attracted me to Josh Allen was his accuracy improvement. Go pull up any quote from scouts, reporters, and commentators in 2017 or 2018. Pull the stats. They both tell the same story… Josh Allen was not NFL-level accurate.

Big, athletic, but not accurate. How many times have we seen this story play out poorly?

So what did Josh do? Just like he did growing up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, he got to work. Who doesn’t love that kind of work ethic?

Over the course of one summer he went from the bottom of accuracy to almost the top. And he’s not being compared to scrubs. Last time I checked: Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes, and Russ Wilson still play in the NFL.

Plus, he’s just the nicest guy in the world. And daggummit, I’m now a convert.

I’m a professional, so I still don’t cheer for laundry, but I wear my throwback Bills hat on most days, and on Sundays in the fall, I often sport the Allen jersey, with Bills belt, and Bills socks. Still no sheet pizzas, blue cheese, or Genessee products, but tons of Bills love.

You were right Bills Mafia, I was wrong.

George Kittle Rocks!

When the topic of 2 bye weeks comes up on the podcast, the banter among the boys quickly turns to people calling George Kittle “soft” and “weak”, for saying two bye weeks is a good idea. When I heard these things I was as shocked as the boys were.

I can tell you who wasn’t saying George Kittle was “soft” and “weak” and that’s NFL GMs, anyone who Kittle blocks on a regular basis, and NFL fans with working eyeballs.

Kittle is a beast. Period. End of story. Every GM in the NFL would LOVE to have him on their team and every QB and running back on his team is happy as hell he’s blocking for them.

And what he does after the catch is highlight reel gold. Even in SF’s run-first climate, and given the QBs that Kittle has had during his brief career, his numbers are already amazing, but if Kittle played in a pass-first offense, his numbers would be through the roof.

And his two bye weeks idea is the right approach! Here are the benefits of two bye weeks…

Two bye weeks enables these Sunday gladiators to gain some well needed rest during the season.

Less superstars being out due to injury.

One more week to gamble on.

One more week for TV rights.

One more week to hit the nuts for those DFS addicts out there.

And the BEST feature with two bye weeks and thus a one week shift in the schedule…

We would then get the day after the Super Bowl off thanks to it being President’s Day!!!

With many/most Americans getting off work the day after the Super Bowl would turn an already quintessential American event into American holiday gold.

Fire up Tom Cruise flying the jet overhead and resurrect Whitney Houston to sing that anthem, we’re all getting drunk, watching commercials, then sleeping in the next morning!!!

Bless you George Kittle and your wonderful mind.

Sincerely yours,

America

#2byeweeks

CEOs Want To Keep Their Jobs Too

Chairman Powell, under Congressional oath, just stated that raising the interest rate will have almost no effect on the price of oil and groceries.

Which, also means, that lowering of the fed target rate also has no effect on the price of oil and groceries.

Which means we should check-in on the 4 Horsemen of Surprised for their reaction to this obvious news.


Supply and demand are tricky things, and that dynamic acts differently across various industries. Oil acts differently than copper, which is different than corn, etc, etc. But we’re seeing weakness across all commodities. (even platinum).  Maybe it’s only a pullback, maybe it’s sustained weakness, too early to tell.

We’re seeing a significant breakdown of Dr. Copper over this past week. Today, FCX broke significant support (and triggered my stop/loss). The OIH and all of the major oils are down almost 15% during the past week as well. Again, maybe it’s only a pullback, maybe it’s sustained weakness, too early to tell.

One of the expressions that commodity traders have clung to for several decades goes a long way to explaining our current relationship with commodity prices. “The cure for high commodity prices is high commodity prices.”

Every commodity CEO in the world rushes to get their product to market when their products are at the top of their price range and every CEO pulls back their product when the price is at the bottom of the historic price range. And if they don’t act in this manner, they aren’t CEOs very long. And, not surprisingly, CEOs want to keep their job too

Father’s Day Advice

Best Father’s Day Meme ever

Gen X folks were soooo lucky to have many wonderful father role models piped into our homes via cable during our formative years. Names like: Archie Bunker, Homer Simpson, and Bill Cosby.

Fortunately for me, I had actual father role models in my life as well. But,tbh, when it’s time to dish out fatherly advice to my kids, this is the image that pops into my head right before I dispense the knowledge.

I take that Viktor Frankl moment and think which words will truly be helpful, and sometimes the answer is to not give advice and to let them figure it out for themselves. (parenting really should come with a playbook, guidelines, something)

This year, my Father’s Day gift is I get to deliver as many “that’s what she said” jokes as I want, with no eye rolls or complaining.” It’s a dad-joke firing range at my house today.

The Return Of The Phone Warrior

The year was 1998, I was in my mid 20’s, and I got my first company paid StarTAC phone, which was a great phone for the times.

Although it was so compact, it could easily fit into your pocket, many StarTAC users wore them clipped to a belt. I’m not sure why, perhaps it was a Batman fetish, perhaps it was to show everyone you had this phone. But wherever you stored it, it was a tremendous asset for anyone who needed to do business while on the go.

“Small and Powerful”-that’s what she said

Being A Phone Warrior

Most phone warriors become that way because they are also road warriors.

The Original Scaffolding Team

No, not that kind of Road Warrior. The kind that is constantly on the move, which I was.

After my second month with the phone, I got a call from our company’s VP of purchasing. He wanted to talk about my phone usage. That month, April of 98, my phone bill was around $1,100. But what Jason wanted to talk to me about was significantly increasing my time on the phone. More phone time, more, more, more.


I gave him what he wanted.

Unfortunately, during the pre-internet times, car buyers were on the phone constantly. I spent my entire 20’s and 30’s connected to a cellphone and a pricing guide (Black Book for me). I was a phone warrior and a road warrior.

But then, I left the car business, and left the constant phone work behind.  In fact, still to this day, I often don’t touch my iPhone throughout the day. Part of me is still repelled from heavy phone work as a throwback punishment to my youth.

These days, there are soooo many ways to get or stay in touch with someone. Email, Slack, Discord, Text, a private message on one of the gagillion social media platforms available, and on, and on the list goes.

But do you know what hasn’t changed since the 90’S?

People Still Need To Do Business

  • Doors need to be opened
  • Deals have to be closed
  • Product needs to be shipped
  • Returns need to happen

And on and on the business cycle goes. But which channel do many, if not most, people pursue in order to perform these business functions? They choose the most crowded channel possible.

“I’ll send so and so a cold email, that’ll get their attention”, says a person who is delusional about how crowded inboxes are. If you are a middle manager and up in today’s email-fueled world, your inbox is probably bulging at its digital seams. In fact, I think I’ve received 100 fresh emails while typing this sentence.

So, how do you break through this resistance? Let’s look to an American poet for the answer..”

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost

Take the path less traveled, especially if you are trying to sell to someone Generation X and older. All day, every day, many in corporate America type furiously on our keyboards answering emails, Slacks, etc. All the while, our desk phone sits silently on our desks.

So if you are looking to make a new contact, or move some deal forward, or open new opportunities, try today’s least populated communication channel, the telephone.

Pick up the phone and call. Do this all day, every day, like Bud Fox, and outsized returns should follow.

Persistence!!