The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Russian Generals Keep Getting Killed

Posted on | May 2, 2022 | Comments Off on Russian Generals Keep Getting Killed

This is either the ninth or 10th killed so far:

Russia has lost another general in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to top Ukrainian officials, The Kyiv Post has reported
Maj. Gen. Andrei Simonov was killed near the city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region, which is currently occupied by Russian forces, Ukrainian authorities said.
The Ukrainian military attacked a field command post of the Russian 2nd Army on Saturday, striking more than 30 Russian armored vehicles, including tanks, according to the paper.
Footage posted on social media appears to show the command post being bombarded by rockets, said the Kyiv Post.
The general was among 100 Russian soldiers killed in the attack, President Zellenskyy’s military adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said, according to The Kyiv Post. Arestovych said well-placed army sources had confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Simonov in a YouTube interview, per the Mail Online.
The claims by the Ukrainian authorities have not been independently verified.
Russia has not as of yet confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Simonov.
Simonov was a senior commander of electronic warfare, Ukrainian government advisor Anton Gerashchenko said on his Telegram account.
His death would make him the tenth Russian general to die in Ukraine, according to a count by The Kyiv Post.

Different sources give different counts of how many Russian generals have been killed in Ukraine, but as I said the last time it happened, “Look, I know this might seem far-fetched, but hear me out. Maybe if you’re going to have a meeting of your army commanders, you should try to choose a location that is not within range of the enemy’s artillery.” You don’t need to be a military genius to figure this out. Meanwhile:

Vladimir Putin’s top military commander has been flown out of the war zone with shrapnel wounds after being to sent to Ukraine by the Russian president to secure victory, a former Russian internal affairs minister has claimed.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the Russian army, was today wounded in Izyum in Ukraine’s Kharviv region, which has been at the centre of intense fighting since Russia’s invasion.
Putin had sent Gerasimov to the region to take personal control of his push to grab territory in eastern Ukraine, after the Russian army abandoned its plans to take Kyiv at the end of March in favour of a concentrated assault on the Donbas region of Donetsk and Luhansk.
An unofficial Russian source reported that Gerasimov sustained ‘a shrapnel wound in the upper third of the right leg without a bone fracture.
‘The shard was removed – there is no danger to life,’ he said.
But Gerasimov’s injury was severe enough to have him flown away from the frontlines and back to Russia to undergo further treatment, marking another embarrassing defeat for Putin’s forces. . . .
Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said the attack on Izyum was ‘the very place where…Gerasimov, who personally came to lead the attack on Slavyansk, was located’.
A ‘large number’ of senior officers were killed in the attack which wounded Gerasimov, Gerashchenko said.
Pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel Vertikal also alleged Gerasimov had been ‘wounded near Izyum’, citing unspecified sources.
‘Our source reports that his legs and hips are damaged,’ Vertikal said.
It suggested that three of Gerasimov’s entourage had been killed before he was evacuated.

Such a high number of casualties among senior leaders is certain to degrade the effectiveness of Russian forces, which haven’t been very effective so far, and it’s difficult to see how they can maintain offensive operations much longer. What’s happening in this war?

You can click that map to enlarge it. The Russian command post that was struck over the weekend was in Izyum (circled in the center of the map), and what the Russians want to do is to push south from there toward Sloviansk, about 30 miles to the south. Taking Sloviansk would put the Russians athwart the supply lines of Ukrainian forces operating farther east toward Luhansk. The tactical objective of the Ukrainians must be to isolate the Russians in the Izyum salient, and the fact that the Ukrainians were able to strike the Russian command post there suggests that the invaders have lost the initiative. If Ukraine can develop momentum in its counterattack, it’s possible that the Russian invasion could collapse rather quickly. Remember that the Russians went from besieging Kyiv to being forced to withdraw in just a matter of weeks.




 

Category: Russia, Ukraine

Rule Five Sunday: Lisa Gerrard

Posted on | May 2, 2022 | Comments Off on Rule Five Sunday: Lisa Gerrard

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Australian singer Lisa Gerrard is probably best known as half of Dead Can Dance, but she’s also done a lot of movie music with Michael Mann and Hans Zimmer, and more pertinently for our purposes, a couple of collaborations with the late Klaus Schulze, Farscape and Rheingold.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1701, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Golden Years Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon

EBL: MAGA Musk, The Fall Of Saigon, April, Stock Market Babes, Botany Bay Babes, Fire Twitter’s Trust & Safety Council, Billy The Kid, Helen Of Troy, and Luv’

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Witcher Women, Fish Pic Friday – From Down Under – Sarah Van Den Broek, Tattoo Thursday, Real Housewives of MAGA Country?, Your Wednesday Wetness, Truckin’ Into Tuesday, Democrats in the Dumps and More, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Retired Wrinklenose Will Return to DS9, If Allowed To Lecture You and Palm Sunday

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: RIP Klaus Schulze

Posted on | May 1, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: RIP Klaus Schulze

— compiled by Wombat-socho

This week we lost one of the pioneers of electronic music, Klaus Schulze, who died Tuesday from what appear to be complications from kidney failure. Briefly a member of seminal Krautrock bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, Schulze went on to release over sixty albums in his five decades of work, much of it being in a classical music style often inspired by Richard Wagner.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Klaus Schulze, 1947-2022

Rule 5 Sunday: A WILD PARAGUAYAN MODEL APPEARS!
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Disney Got Woke, Now Going Broke
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

“The Enormity of the Crime”
The Political Hat
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Here’s a Completely Crazy Idea
357 Magnum
EBL

‘The Nicest Kid in Our Grade’
357 Magnum
EBL

Humans Dying in Mayor Frogface’s Town
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Youth Gone Wild
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
EBL

Go and Do Thou Likewise
357 Magnum
EBL

A Genuinely Weird Rock ’n’ Roll Story
357 Magnum
EBL

So…Is #FreeStacy Trending Yet?
The First Street Journal
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.25.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Killadelphia Update
The First Street Journal
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.26.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 04.27.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Spring Means It’s Time for the Joyous Return of the Big Yellow Button
EBL

Belichick’s Strange Choice Confounds Critics Who Don’t Understand 4D Chess
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.29.22 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 04.29.22 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending April 29:

  1.  EBL (18)
  2.  357 Magnum (13)
  3.  A View From The Beach (9)
  4.  Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Back Where She Belongs

Posted on | May 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Back Where She Belongs

Kathleen Kane is behind bars, after being arrested for a probation violation and returned to Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Norristown, Pennsylvania. A judge ordered her arrest after Kane was charged with drunk driving after a March 12 car crash in Scranton.

In case you didn’t know it, Kane was once a “rising star” of the Democratic Party after being elected as Pennsylvania’s first female attorney general in 2012. In her victory speech, Kane boasted that her election had “expanded the boundaries for women in Pennsylvania.”

As it turned out, these expanded boundaries would include getting locked up and disbarred. Kane was sentenced to jail after a jury in 2016 convicted her of felony perjury and multiple misdemeanor charges related to a scandal over leaked grand jury evidence.

What happened was that a story appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Kane’s decision to drop prosecution of a case that one of the prosecutors in the attorney general’s office had developed against six black Democratic legislators in Philadelphia. Stung by the bad publicity and believing that the prosecutor in that case had leaked information to the media, Kane set about retaliating in 2014 by leaking confidential grand jury information to the Philadelphia Daily News in an effort to discredit the prosecutor. This in turn provoked an investigation that resulted in the charges against Kane, who claimed she was the victim of political enemies seeking to “overturn an election of somebody they just don’t like.” At her 2016 trial, part of the evidence was an FBI recording of two Democratic political operatives discussing Kane’s decision to leak the grand jury information:

Kathleen is unhinged,” [consultant Josh] Morrow said, in the recording. “She doesn’t even have a strategy to do this — just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.”
[John] Lisko, former chief of staff to state Treasurer Rob McCord, used an expletive in response to Kane’s request that Morrow help her leak the documents, adding: “I just don’t see. It doesn’t even make sense.”

It was just a tawdry scandal all the way around and — after resigning from office, exhausting her appeals, and being disbarred — Kane went to jail in November 2018, sentenced to 10-to-23 months. She was released from jail in July 2019 after serving eight months, but was still on probation when she got busted for DUI in March, so now she’s back where she belongs. Of course, I believe pretty much all Democrats should be behind bars, but we’ve got to start somewhere, and a former “rising star” who “expanded the boundaries for women” is a good start.




 

Category: Crime, Democrats, Pennsylvania

SJW Tumblrinas: The Root of All Evil

Posted on | April 30, 2022 | Comments Off on SJW Tumblrinas: The Root of All Evil

Back in 2014, when I started researching radical feminism, one of the first things I discovered was the phenomenon of Tumblr, a toxic cesspool that began as a blogging platform with an interface that allowed it to also function as a social-networking site. Tumblr users could “follow” each other, exchange DMs and, most importantly, “reblog” each other’s content. Feminist Tumblr was a notorious bedlam of craziness, where The Discourse™ spiraled into long threads of young women practicing “call-out culture,” i.e., accusing each other of transgressions against intersectional social justice. Whoever your favorite celebrity, whatever your favorite movie or TV show, it was sure to be denounced as “problematic” at some level by the social justice totalitarians of feminist Tumblr — all of whom proclaimed their mental illnesses in their profiles, and none of whom were heterosexual. Tumblrinas were always somewhere in the LGBTQ spectrum, and all of them were suffering from depression, anxiety, ADD, OCD, autism, bipolar disorder and/or PTSD.

What made Tumblr such a natural habitat for this insanity? Wombat explained to me that Tumblr was blogging for stupid people — no skill was required to participate in the discussion, because the “reblog” function made it possible to create a blog composed entirely of other people’s content, so Tumblr naturally attracted a core audience of low-functioning people. A fat bisexual teenage girl with purple hair and a cluster of mental illnesses, too unstable to hold down a part-time job at Burger King, could nevertheless be a fairly popular blogger on Tumblr, and these were the types of people who came to define the platform.

The World’s Worst Web Site™ “was considered a ‘hot’ online property in 2013, when Yahoo paid $1.1 billion for it”:

Three years later, however, Yahoo was forced to declare that Tumblr was “effectively worthless” — a net drain on revenue, with no prospect of future profitability — and in 2017, Yahoo was sold to Verizon for less than 1/10th of what Microsoft had offered for Yahoo in 2008.

In 2019, Verizon offloaded Tumblr for a nominal price, and everybody forgot about the site that once had seemed a potential rival to Twitter and Facebook. Except that what happened on Tumblr during the years when it was a “hot” site turns out to have played perhaps a pivotal role in contemporary culture. Bill Hurrell at American Greatness has a brilliant analysis of how Tumblr fans of the TV show “Glee” were the online laboratory from which “cancel culture” emerged.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)




 

Category: Culture

In The Mailbox: 04.29.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | April 30, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.29.22 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Smert’ DGB!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: When Seconds Count, The Police Are An Hour Away
EBL: Baldilocks & The Two Bears [N.B. no, not that Baldilocks], also, The Liberation Of Dachau
Twitchy: Elon Musk’s Response To Occasional Cortex Is “LOL Of The Century”, also, @Jack Lies About His Mistakes Leading Twitter
Louder With Crowder: Highway Patrolman Shot, Heroic Bystanders Swarm The Scene To Subdue Perp And Help Officer
Vox Popoli: No Unity With The Devil, also, Congress Goes To War
According To Hoyt: Principles Are A Grand Thing [John Ringo], also, You Go To War With The Underwear You Got On
Monster Hunter Nation: We Knew The Twitter Game Was Rigged, But Damn…, also, Capitol Punishment – The Movie
Stoic Observations: On Slow Horses

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Honoring Cesare Santangelo’s Victims
American Greatness: McConnell’s “Exhilarating” Insurrection, also, Ron DeSantis Leads The Republican Charge Against The DGB
American Power: College Graduates Head For Amazon & Starbucks In Search Of Jobs, also, Kara Swisher On Elon Musk
American Thinker: This Scary Experiment Explains Two Years Of COVID Hell, also, What Would Rush Say?
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Golden Years Friday
Babalu Blog: Dem. Rep Val Demings Holds Town Hall With Cuban-Americans, Praises Castro Supporter, also, Cuban Peso Continues To Lose Value As Inflation Skyrockets
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For April 29
Behind The Black: Red China’s Long March 2C Launches Two Earth Observation Satellites, Surprise! FAA Delays SpaceX Approval At Boca Chica Another Month, and Today’s Blacklisted American (RIP)
Cafe Hayek: Once Again, Effort Is Only Productive If It Enhances Consumption
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Maura Healey’s Climate Plan Will Decimate Massachusetts’ Economy, also, One Thing The Left Should Remember About The DGB
Don Surber: Household Income Dropped 10.9%, also, DeSantis To Fight Biden’s DGB
First Street Journal: The Journolism Of The Philadelphia Inquirer, also, Freedom Of Speech & The Special Snowflakes 
Gates Of Vienna: They Have Plans For Us, also, Palestinian Demo Thwarted In Berlin
The Geller Report: “Nonprofit” Pushing 1/6 Ballot Disqualifications Funded & Led By Democrats, also, Hunter Biden’s Emails Provide Ample Evidence to Warrant Special Counsel
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, I’m Not Making This Up, You Know, and The Storm Around Saturn’s North Pole
Hollywood In Toto: Hollywood’s Franchise Infatuation Hits New Low
The Lid: “The Closet Is Bare”
Legal Insurrection: Derek Chauvin Files Appeal, Catalogues Pervasive Trial Misconduct & Irregularities, Chuck U. Schumer Thinks Higher Taxes Will Solve Inflation, and Biden’s Plans To Cancel Student Loan Debt Will Make Things Worse
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Danica Patrick Has Tupperware Tits Removed, Says She Feels Healthier, MLB Suspends Trevor Bauer For Two Years For Domestic Violence Allegations, and Mets Hurl Second No-Hitter In Franchise History
Power Line: How Much Longer Can This Go On? also, Speaking Up For The MPD
Shark Tank: Demings Meets With Progressive Supporter Of Convicted Domestic Terrorist
Shot In The Dark: All In The Timing, also, Ignorance Is Strength
STUMP: All Men Must Die, But They Don’t Have To Die In Office
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Marine Corps Vet Killed In Ukraine, and Biden Complains Textbooks Being Banned, “Burned” For Not fitting Someone’s Political Agenda
Victory Girls: Biden’s “Mary Poppins Of Misinformation”
Volokh Conspiracy: Higher Education Makes People More Libertarian
Watts Up With That: Climate Colonialists Disrupt African Pipeline, Perpetuate Poverty
Weasel Zippers: Growing Number Of Black Republicans Driving “Erosion” In Biden’s Polling, also, Does Being A Lesbian Make You Better At Jeopardy?
The Federalist: What Has Murkowski’s Vote For Deb Haaland Done To Alaska?, Special Forces Vets Rescue Afghan Family Biden Abandoned, and America Isn’t Responsible For My Student Loans – I Am
Mark Steyn: The Clock Just Struck Thirteen

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 04.29.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | April 29, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.29.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Fire Twitter’s Trust & Safety Council
Twitchy: Jonathan Turley Shines A Light On Biden’s DGB In Brutal Thread
Louder With Crowder: Elon Musk Mixes It Up On Twitter – Torches WaPo, Pledges To Put Coke Back In Coca-Cola
Vox Popoli: Global NATO Threatens Red China, also, He’s Not American

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Care Factor Zero
American Conservative: More People Should Get Jury Duty
American Greatness: Tearing Down The Silicon Valley Wall, also, Education Dept. Training Session Attempts To Change Biology Facts In Favor Of Transgenderism
American Power: How The Elites Lost The Twitter War, also, Just Keep It Off My Timeline!
American Thinker: Democrats – “It’s Not Us, It’s You!”, also, Mounting Debt & Misguided Foreign Policy Risk A Dollar Doomsday
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Student Loan News
Babalu Blog: “President” Of Cuba Says They’re Ready To Go To War To Protect Castro Family Dictatorship
BattleSwarm: Ukraine Update For April 27, also, Switchbladeapalooza
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, Red China Plans Constellation Of Comsats/GPSsats Around Moon, and Dunes On Io?
Cafe Hayek: Speaking Of Liberal Values
CDR Salamander: Return Of The Black Sea Convoy?
Chicago Boyz: Nuclear Power – Has The Time Finally Come?
Da Tech Guy: Lefties – Let Me Introduce You To Twitter’s “Block” & “Mute” Functions, also, Five Fast Thoughts Under The Fedora
Don Surber: Media Spins Recession, also, Joy Reid Loses Half Her Audience
First Street Journal: The Truth Shall Set You Free – Will LibsOfTikTok Set Some Democrats Free? 
Gates Of Vienna: Does Being Vaxxed Increase The Risk Of Traffic Accidents? also, The Violent Fashion Critics Of The Left
The Geller Report: DGB – Biden’s Ministry Of Truth To Police Internet Speech, also, Biden Admits “We’re Out Of Money” But Wants Another $33 Billion For Ukraine
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, It’s A Bad Idea, But Is It Also Illegal? and The Central Scrutinizer
Hollywood In Toto: How A Healthcare Professional Rediscovered Denver’s Grand Musical Past, also, Bill Burr – Liberals Proved Gina Carano’s Point By Firing Her
The Lid: Orwell Got The Story Right But The Year Wrong
Legal Insurrection: Mich. Mom Sues School District Over Wokeness In Kid’s School, NC Lawmakers Stop CRT Seminar From Returning To UNC Chapel Hill, and Energy Secretary Granholm Struggles With EV Charger
Nebraska Energy Observer: Heads Up!
Outkick: Lawsuit Alleges Ryan Clark Refused To Work With Sage Steele, Eight Times ESPN Allowed Lib Pundits To Do What Sage Steele Wasn’t, and Raiders Owner Open To Enslaving Colin Kaepernick
Power Line: Speaking of “Disinformation”, Sheriffs Protest Biden’s Open Borders Disgrace, and Who Will Speak For The MPD?
Shark Tank: Nikki Fried Fundraises Off Charlie Crist’s “Pro-Life” Flipflopping
Shot In The Dark: The Choppers Are In The Air, also, Civil Rights
The Political Hat: Euthanasia – Kill The Anorexic, Kill The Healthy, Just Kill ‘Em All
This Ain’t Hell: The Death Of SPC Bishop Evans, Clouds On The Horizon, and Biden’s DGB
Transterrestrial Musings: The Next Phase Of The War, also, Is Elon Musk A Racist Who Wants To Restore Apartheid?
Victory Girls: GOP Senators Push Back On Student Loan Freeze, also, Boys, Toxic Tractors, & Masculinity
Volokh Conspiracy: New Textbook – Firearms Law And The Second Amendment
Watts Up With That: Morano Explains How Climate Agenda Is Pushing The “End Of Private Car Ownership” And The End Of Meat-Eating
Weasel Zippers: Sec DHS “Doesn’t Know” If Biden Has Released Terrorists Into The U.S., also, Pelosi Mystified Why Americans Blame Democrats For Gas Prices & Inflation
The Federalist: GOP Jumps To 10-Point Lead In Generic Ballot Test, The WaPo’s Repulsive Defense Of Twitter Execs, and Asian Students Excel Because Of Hard Work, Not Rich Parents
Mark Steyn: Sticking It To The Kids, Make The Internet Fun Again, and The Clock Just Struck Thirteen

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Category: Linkagery

Belichick’s Strange Choice Confounds Critics Who Don’t Understand 4D Chess

Posted on | April 29, 2022 | Comments Off on Belichick’s Strange Choice Confounds Critics Who Don’t Understand 4D Chess

BERRIEN SPRINGS, Michigan
Last night my wife and I had dinner with our 19-year-old daughter and her new boyfriend (he passed muster) at a Mexican restaurant, and there’s nothing like a belly full of Mexican food to put me to sleep, so as soon as we got back to our AirBNB, I crawled into bed and crashed. I’d forgotten that it was NFL Draft night, even though I’ve been following all the pundits’ predictions for weeks. Everybody agreed that the New England Patriots — my team, because Mac Jones, Roll Tide! — should focus on defense, particularly cornerbacks and linebackers, as well as looking for a top wide receiver. So I woke up about 4 a.m. today and checked the headlines and HOLY FREAKING COW!

Belichick did what is called “trading down” in the NFL Draft, exchanging New England’s first-round pick (#21 overall) for the Kansas City Chiefs’ first-round pick (#29 overall), as well as third-round (#94 overall) and fourth-round (#121 overall) picks. The reason the Chiefs were willing to do that is they saw a player they wanted badly (University of Washington cornerback Trend McDuffie) available, while the Patriots — despite their own need at cornerback — apparently weren’t high on McDuffie. So they “traded down” and, in the process, gave themselves 11 picks in the seven-round draft. (The Patriots also have two extra sixth-round picks as a result of previous trades with the Rams and Texans.)

Still, the experts were befuddled by Belichick’s choice of University of Tennessee-Chattanooga offensive guard in the first round, because everybody figured Strange for a second- or even third-round pick. Ah, but they don’t understand four-dimensional chess! The players that Belichick might have picked at #21 (including offensive lineman Zion Johnson of Boston College, Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams and LSU defensive back Derek Stingley Jr.) got taken earlier in the draft and, as I say, they obviously didn’t like McDuffie as much as the Chiefs did. However, there were other cornerbacks still available, including Florida’s Kaiir Elam, who got snapped up by the Buffalo Bills at #23, not to mention Georgia linebacker Quay Walker, who went at #22 to the Packers. But the Patriots definitely needed a real stud on the offensive line, and of the first 20 players picked this year, six of them were offensive lineman. In other words, Belichick could see that there was an unusually high demand for quality linemen in this year’s draft, and if he didn’t get one he liked in the first round, the choices available in the second round (where the Patriots have the #54 overall pick) might not be to his liking. Cole Strange is a genuine beast, 6-foot-5, 307 pounds and incredibly athletic, with the best broad jump performance of any offensive guard at this year’s NFL combine. He’s also smart, with good technique, played in every game for his entire four-year career at UTC, and is exactly the kind of rookie who should be ready to be a starter for the Patriots on Day One in September. Even if nobody else projected him as a first-round pick, think about the psychological factor of Belichick’s choice. It sends a message to Strange: “We believe in you. The team is counting on you. Give us 110%. Don’t let us down.”

Two words: Logan Mankin. A tackle from Fresno State, Mankin wasn’t projected as a first-round pick, but Belichick picked him and switched him to guard, where he became a seven-time Pro Bowl selection, anchoring an offensive line that twice took the Patriots to the Super Bowl. So don’t tell me Belichick can’t pick em.

Something else to think about: Over the past 10 years, no team has gotten higher CAVOE (Career Average Value Over Expectation) from the draft than the Patriots, and Belichick is especially good with late-round picks. Last year, they took running back Rhamondre Stevenson from Oklahoma in the fourth round and, as a rookie, Stevenson was good enough to rival veteran RB Damien Harris (who was himself a third-round choice in 2019). The other starting guard for the Patriots, Mike Onewenu, was a sixth-round pick in 2020, so it’s not as if the extra draft picks that New England got from Kansas City in Thursday’s trade might not produce a starter, or perhaps even a star. You see, back in 2000, Belichick took a player in the sixth round who turned out to be pretty good.

Kid from Michigan. Maybe you’ve heard of him.




 

Category: Football
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