In Episode 17 of the Deep Dig Podcast, Alex Dunlap recaps D'Onta Foreman's monster 2017 NFL pro day, recaps what he's hearing from NFL scouts since then, and compares Foreman to the other top running backs in the 2017 draft. He also gives some updates and nuggets from Texas spring practices and addresses his issue with Texas media relations policies as they pertain to last weekend's student appreciation practice. Of course he takes the usual eclectic set of questions from the Orangebloods community ranging from cannibalism to the possibility of living for a short period of time in a whale's stomach. Find all of his content and much more at Orangebloods.com. Music Clip: Christopher Cross, "Arthur's Theme".
You can listen here on iTunes
You can listen here on Stitcher
If you like the podcast, please take a second to rate give it a ranking or a thumbs up on iTunes.
Click here to listen to the podcast on Soundcloud or just listen in the embedded player below. You can also download the mp3 on SoundCloud for later listening on your jog or commute.
Alex Dunlap's work at Orangebloods.com is brought to you by Wendy Swantkowski, DDS. The best in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial area! Please support this content by supporting our sponsors. Find out TODAY why so many members of the Orangebloods community are patients of Dr. Swantkowski by calling her office at 281-293-9140 and scheduling an appointment.
SPOILER ALERT - CLIFF NOTES AND SHOW SHEET BELOW
*********************************************
Lots of Q&A this week so we'll just hit on a few topics before diving into those - lots of Longhorn questions ...
touch on the following
- Texas Pro Day/D'Onta
(will answer long-standing questions from @wgarnot and @Grey_Gordon about how I see Foreman stacking up)
- Notes and updates from practices
OL mixup post-Shackelford injury (shuffling along the right side)
QBs (Shane and Sam both getting first-team run now)
RBs (Everyone is hurt, hearing Warren will be back fairly soon?)
DBs (Brandon Jones getting work with the ones, Boyd, Hill, Davis still fighting it out)
LBs (Erick Fowler to second-team LB unseating Edwin Freeman for now)
WRs (Sounds like RHM got a little banged up at practice TUES, will continue to monitor)
- Media policy, just an addendum to explain what my beef was about student appreciation practice for those who are incapable of understanding
---
OB Q&A
1) If push comes to shove, would you ever consider cannibalism? @Dank Bank
- I looked into this and sociological and psychological studies say that, as humans, we are revolted by the idea of cannibalism, but are surprisingly empathetic and understanding of those who are "driven to it" out of necessity in life-or-death situations. We don't shun them but rather feel bad for them as someone who has been put through something horrible and damaging.
- The study of the "being driven" to cannibalism is a fascinating one with lots of great minds pitching in across numerous fields, mainly psychology. First people will eat food animals, cows, chickens, eggs, pigs. When they are unavailable they eat wild animals - birds, wild ungulates, large cats, rabbits ... then varmints -- rats, possums, raccoons, squirrels --- then bugs and worms and grubs. Only AROUND THIS TIME are the worker animals eaten. The horses and mules, etc. since we have a human connection to them in some way as helpers. We'll even go so far as to try to eat weird parts of their bodies like hooves and ears and stomach lining before moving on to the next step. Next comes pets which is clearly getting into desperate times. By the time you resort to cannibalism, psychologists say you still use a similar hierarchy.
- If looking at a group of cannibals in almost any observable situation, they'll start by eating the outsiders or the ones different from them. Just a few examples from history include the famous Andes plane crash of the rugby team from the movie "Alive." Even once they made the tough decision to start eating the corpses of those who died in the crash, the first ones they ate the pilot and crew before they got to their friends.
- The Donner Party was a group in the 1860s moving west across the frontier of the US and got stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountain range by a crazy snow storm. When help did not arrive and they got through the checklist above all the way to the cannibalism part, the first people the white people at were there two Native American tour guides. This despite the fact that those two guides were the reason they were all still alive and people they needed to get them out. In fact, those guides had been responsible for somehow acquiring mules and other emergency food the group would have had no way of getting on its own. Essentially, they ate their best assets as a group simply because those people were a little bit different from them and the mind is that powerful in not wanting us to eat each other. Just having someone who looks different can be enough.
- So, it's clear that there is deep-seated mental framework in place for what happens in a cannibalistic situation. I would never do it in my right mind, but who am I to say that I am above any other human and can somehow abstain from life-sustaining methods when I have no other choice? I don't think I'll ever be faced with this situation, but if I were ever in that situation ... I don't think I'd consider canniablism. I'm not sure it's as much "considered" as it is just something that happens.
2) Most underrated football player of the Mack Brown Era for the horns? (@TheIcebox and @TheMicah both randomly asked basically this same question)
- Maybe Jackson Jeffcoat, he doesn't get talked about like a defensive great in the same way as the recent DBU guys under Mack Brown or even the edge guys like Orakpo or Crowder, etc.
- Jeffcoat has second-most TFL ALL TIME in his career behind only Derrick Johnson. 6 more than Casey Hampton, 7 more than Shaun Rodgers and 11 more than Tony Brackens.
- Jeffcoat is tied for fifth ALL TIME in single-season sacks in front of Orakpo, Steve McMichael, Kenneth Sims and numerous others.
- He's No. 7 ALL TIME in total sacks (career) ahead of Orakpo, Tony Brackens, Aaron Humphrey and Cory Redding
3) Would you let a dude bang your wife for $10,000,000? @Tony3487
- No, that would ruin my life and my life is worth more than $10M. I'm going to have that by the time I am 50 by simply doing the things I love, why would I ruin my family over that? I'm a goal-oriented person and I accomplish my goals. One is to eventually have that kind of wealth. It's not just that one act, it's how you'll feel about eachother for a lifetime after that. We only get one of these and my family is my life. It's a super-easy question and the answer is no.
4) Don't hear much from other sports' from you. Did you grow up a fan of baseball/basketball? What teams/players did you follow? @jamesbillyhorn
- Fan of football-only for the most part and that's why you don't hear about other sports from me much.
- A lot of my family is teachers/coaches and stuff so I certainly went to a lot of those games but always loved football the most. The only sport I ever really played as a youth besides little league baseball and soccer. Played Western Union Rugby for the Austin Blacks after high school but rugby is not a fun sport to be a fan of and watch.
- Thanks to daily fantasy sports, I've begun to have a more and more growing appreciation for MLB baseball in the last two years but hated it growing up. I thought it was boring and for old people which could be an indictment on the fact that I'm getting older. As with other fantasy sports, I don't have teams as much as players I follow but guys who I really love to watch play baseball and use in fantasy are by position:
C: Last year it was Gary Sanchez and Wilson Contreras but in general my go-to is Buster Posey.
SP: Clayton Kershaw
1B: Lots of great players at 1B but my favorite despite a down 2016 is Paul Goldschmidt with a shoutout to TrumBOMB and E5.
2B: No question it's Jose Altuve, one of my favorite players in baseball.
SS: No question it's Carlos Correa, another favorite (maybe I sort of am, by random chance, an Astros fans)
3B: Lots of great ones, but I play Josh Donaldson almost any chance I get. Always play Danny Valencia vs. Lefties on the cheap.
OF: Again, lots of greats. Love Nelson Cruz, Adam Duvall of course Trout and Bryce Harper. Used to love G Stanton but he killed me in 2016
5) Thoughts on raiders moving to vegas? @Xbeehookem
- You can hear all of my thoughts on Tuesday's edition of my RosterWatch podcast (#12 at RosterWatch.com/podcast) By the way, if you like my work on the Longhorns, please subscribe to that bi-weekly podcast to hear my analysis on the NFL, NFL draft and fantasy side.
- In short, it was revolutionary, the original maverick franchise of the NFL continues to push the envelope and put everyone on tilt. Cannot imagine a better match for a franchise and a city, a wonderful outcome for all involved; feel bad for some of RaiderNation in Oakland - losing a team always sucks - but the team's relationship with the city, like most of its relationships in general under the Davis family - has been contentious from the start.
- The fact of the matter is that RaiderNation exists everywhere, it is bigger than Oakland and with this move will only grow. Fans of other teams will surely end up seeing the Raiders live more than they even see their favorite team simply because they'll go watch the Raiders when they're in Vegas.
- My questions: 1) How will players handle living there? Strip clubs have already offered players free lap dances and limo rides for life!
2) Will players be allowed to play blackjack, roullette, poker, etc? The NFL's gambling policy on this seems to speak out of both sides of its mouth, saying in one portion that all players and league personnel are allowed to go to "legally-operated casinos or horse-racing tracks for the purposes of wagering on casino games or races on their own time."
TECHNICALLY this means that Las Vegas Raiders players will be allowed inside a casino sportsbook to gamble. However, it says in a separate section which says players ARE NOT allowed to partake in activity that "can be perceived as constituting affiliation with or endorsement of gambling-related activities."
- So the act of gambling is not an inherent endorsement of gambling-related activities? Surely players will have this briefed prior to the move in 2019 as the NFL will now have to examine even more closely its official stance on sports betting and whether to soften it like it did for fantasy football after UIGEA was passed.
7) What pisses you off more? Getting all the way to the 14th floor with all your shit and your family's shit only for the key card to not work to your room Or Standing in line at the grocery store and some lady sends a 6 year old back to the isles to try and locate some shit he's never even heard of before and after 5-6 mins nobody's heard from him @A-10HORN
- I can't believe the dirtballs even exist who send people back to grab stuff while holding up the line.
- How selfish can you be?
- It makes me realize the coaches who complain about players being not necessarily "more selfish" but more "self-centered" these days make sense. There is a difference between the two, but people just don't seem as concerned with being considerate in the same ways they used to.
- The hotel scenario is not a decision someone made to inconvenience you, it was a mistake.
- You leave your bags and wife to watch the kids, you go downstairs to get the key fixed.
- At the store, someone made a decision that your time is not as valuable as theirs, and have decided, knowing that time = money for all of us on Earth, that they are going to rob you of some.
- I hate the person who runs back to grab anything.
- The better question would have been go-back-to-grab-stuff guy vs. reclines-in-his-seat guy in coach.
- Both of those people are inconsiderate shit bags.
8) Should the 40 yard dash be the gold standard of football speed measurement? Wouldn't a 20 yard sprint be more practical given the distances covered on the vast majority of football plays? Maybe keep 40 yds for cbs and wrs? @Hookah Horns
- There is no gold standard, but it's the best we have. Even in WRs we can't put everything into a drill where Jerry Rice the GOAT ran a 4.6.
- It's not the best, but it's the best we have. From my study and through my interviews with great minds in the field of human performance such as Dr. Brian Hoffman at the University of Georgia, I've learned that it's actually the only physical test at the NFL combine which has a true correlation with future NFL success. The 10 and 20-yard splits across all positions are statistically negligible.
9) If you found out tomorrow with 100% certainty that there is an afterlife, would it change the way you live right now? @Hornius Emeritus
- I believe with 100% certainty in my heart that there is an afterlife, so I don't think I'd change much.
10) If you were swallowed by a sperm whale, how long could you survive in his stomach? @cacahaute
- I would never be swallowed by a sperm whale, they don't swallow people. They are much smarter than humans and I don't think they accidentally swallow anything. They are certainly capable of it, they can swallow giant squid which are bigger than us. There are stories online of people surviving inside one's stomach, but a quick search of Snopes shows they are fake. One account from 1891 said that James Bartley had a similar few days inside a whale's stomach but investigations show inconsistency after inconsistency in that story. I personally called BS when I read that the whale was "ATTACKING" his boat and he happened to fall in its mouth. When was the last time you saw a sperm whale attacking anything?
You can listen here on iTunes
You can listen here on Stitcher
If you like the podcast, please take a second to rate give it a ranking or a thumbs up on iTunes.
Click here to listen to the podcast on Soundcloud or just listen in the embedded player below. You can also download the mp3 on SoundCloud for later listening on your jog or commute.
Alex Dunlap's work at Orangebloods.com is brought to you by Wendy Swantkowski, DDS. The best in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial area! Please support this content by supporting our sponsors. Find out TODAY why so many members of the Orangebloods community are patients of Dr. Swantkowski by calling her office at 281-293-9140 and scheduling an appointment.
SPOILER ALERT - CLIFF NOTES AND SHOW SHEET BELOW
*********************************************
Lots of Q&A this week so we'll just hit on a few topics before diving into those - lots of Longhorn questions ...
touch on the following
- Texas Pro Day/D'Onta
(will answer long-standing questions from @wgarnot and @Grey_Gordon about how I see Foreman stacking up)
- Notes and updates from practices
OL mixup post-Shackelford injury (shuffling along the right side)
QBs (Shane and Sam both getting first-team run now)
RBs (Everyone is hurt, hearing Warren will be back fairly soon?)
DBs (Brandon Jones getting work with the ones, Boyd, Hill, Davis still fighting it out)
LBs (Erick Fowler to second-team LB unseating Edwin Freeman for now)
WRs (Sounds like RHM got a little banged up at practice TUES, will continue to monitor)
- Media policy, just an addendum to explain what my beef was about student appreciation practice for those who are incapable of understanding
---
OB Q&A
1) If push comes to shove, would you ever consider cannibalism? @Dank Bank
- I looked into this and sociological and psychological studies say that, as humans, we are revolted by the idea of cannibalism, but are surprisingly empathetic and understanding of those who are "driven to it" out of necessity in life-or-death situations. We don't shun them but rather feel bad for them as someone who has been put through something horrible and damaging.
- The study of the "being driven" to cannibalism is a fascinating one with lots of great minds pitching in across numerous fields, mainly psychology. First people will eat food animals, cows, chickens, eggs, pigs. When they are unavailable they eat wild animals - birds, wild ungulates, large cats, rabbits ... then varmints -- rats, possums, raccoons, squirrels --- then bugs and worms and grubs. Only AROUND THIS TIME are the worker animals eaten. The horses and mules, etc. since we have a human connection to them in some way as helpers. We'll even go so far as to try to eat weird parts of their bodies like hooves and ears and stomach lining before moving on to the next step. Next comes pets which is clearly getting into desperate times. By the time you resort to cannibalism, psychologists say you still use a similar hierarchy.
- If looking at a group of cannibals in almost any observable situation, they'll start by eating the outsiders or the ones different from them. Just a few examples from history include the famous Andes plane crash of the rugby team from the movie "Alive." Even once they made the tough decision to start eating the corpses of those who died in the crash, the first ones they ate the pilot and crew before they got to their friends.
- The Donner Party was a group in the 1860s moving west across the frontier of the US and got stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountain range by a crazy snow storm. When help did not arrive and they got through the checklist above all the way to the cannibalism part, the first people the white people at were there two Native American tour guides. This despite the fact that those two guides were the reason they were all still alive and people they needed to get them out. In fact, those guides had been responsible for somehow acquiring mules and other emergency food the group would have had no way of getting on its own. Essentially, they ate their best assets as a group simply because those people were a little bit different from them and the mind is that powerful in not wanting us to eat each other. Just having someone who looks different can be enough.
- So, it's clear that there is deep-seated mental framework in place for what happens in a cannibalistic situation. I would never do it in my right mind, but who am I to say that I am above any other human and can somehow abstain from life-sustaining methods when I have no other choice? I don't think I'll ever be faced with this situation, but if I were ever in that situation ... I don't think I'd consider canniablism. I'm not sure it's as much "considered" as it is just something that happens.
2) Most underrated football player of the Mack Brown Era for the horns? (@TheIcebox and @TheMicah both randomly asked basically this same question)
- Maybe Jackson Jeffcoat, he doesn't get talked about like a defensive great in the same way as the recent DBU guys under Mack Brown or even the edge guys like Orakpo or Crowder, etc.
- Jeffcoat has second-most TFL ALL TIME in his career behind only Derrick Johnson. 6 more than Casey Hampton, 7 more than Shaun Rodgers and 11 more than Tony Brackens.
- Jeffcoat is tied for fifth ALL TIME in single-season sacks in front of Orakpo, Steve McMichael, Kenneth Sims and numerous others.
- He's No. 7 ALL TIME in total sacks (career) ahead of Orakpo, Tony Brackens, Aaron Humphrey and Cory Redding
3) Would you let a dude bang your wife for $10,000,000? @Tony3487
- No, that would ruin my life and my life is worth more than $10M. I'm going to have that by the time I am 50 by simply doing the things I love, why would I ruin my family over that? I'm a goal-oriented person and I accomplish my goals. One is to eventually have that kind of wealth. It's not just that one act, it's how you'll feel about eachother for a lifetime after that. We only get one of these and my family is my life. It's a super-easy question and the answer is no.
4) Don't hear much from other sports' from you. Did you grow up a fan of baseball/basketball? What teams/players did you follow? @jamesbillyhorn
- Fan of football-only for the most part and that's why you don't hear about other sports from me much.
- A lot of my family is teachers/coaches and stuff so I certainly went to a lot of those games but always loved football the most. The only sport I ever really played as a youth besides little league baseball and soccer. Played Western Union Rugby for the Austin Blacks after high school but rugby is not a fun sport to be a fan of and watch.
- Thanks to daily fantasy sports, I've begun to have a more and more growing appreciation for MLB baseball in the last two years but hated it growing up. I thought it was boring and for old people which could be an indictment on the fact that I'm getting older. As with other fantasy sports, I don't have teams as much as players I follow but guys who I really love to watch play baseball and use in fantasy are by position:
C: Last year it was Gary Sanchez and Wilson Contreras but in general my go-to is Buster Posey.
SP: Clayton Kershaw
1B: Lots of great players at 1B but my favorite despite a down 2016 is Paul Goldschmidt with a shoutout to TrumBOMB and E5.
2B: No question it's Jose Altuve, one of my favorite players in baseball.
SS: No question it's Carlos Correa, another favorite (maybe I sort of am, by random chance, an Astros fans)
3B: Lots of great ones, but I play Josh Donaldson almost any chance I get. Always play Danny Valencia vs. Lefties on the cheap.
OF: Again, lots of greats. Love Nelson Cruz, Adam Duvall of course Trout and Bryce Harper. Used to love G Stanton but he killed me in 2016
5) Thoughts on raiders moving to vegas? @Xbeehookem
- You can hear all of my thoughts on Tuesday's edition of my RosterWatch podcast (#12 at RosterWatch.com/podcast) By the way, if you like my work on the Longhorns, please subscribe to that bi-weekly podcast to hear my analysis on the NFL, NFL draft and fantasy side.
- In short, it was revolutionary, the original maverick franchise of the NFL continues to push the envelope and put everyone on tilt. Cannot imagine a better match for a franchise and a city, a wonderful outcome for all involved; feel bad for some of RaiderNation in Oakland - losing a team always sucks - but the team's relationship with the city, like most of its relationships in general under the Davis family - has been contentious from the start.
- The fact of the matter is that RaiderNation exists everywhere, it is bigger than Oakland and with this move will only grow. Fans of other teams will surely end up seeing the Raiders live more than they even see their favorite team simply because they'll go watch the Raiders when they're in Vegas.
- My questions: 1) How will players handle living there? Strip clubs have already offered players free lap dances and limo rides for life!
2) Will players be allowed to play blackjack, roullette, poker, etc? The NFL's gambling policy on this seems to speak out of both sides of its mouth, saying in one portion that all players and league personnel are allowed to go to "legally-operated casinos or horse-racing tracks for the purposes of wagering on casino games or races on their own time."
TECHNICALLY this means that Las Vegas Raiders players will be allowed inside a casino sportsbook to gamble. However, it says in a separate section which says players ARE NOT allowed to partake in activity that "can be perceived as constituting affiliation with or endorsement of gambling-related activities."
- So the act of gambling is not an inherent endorsement of gambling-related activities? Surely players will have this briefed prior to the move in 2019 as the NFL will now have to examine even more closely its official stance on sports betting and whether to soften it like it did for fantasy football after UIGEA was passed.
7) What pisses you off more? Getting all the way to the 14th floor with all your shit and your family's shit only for the key card to not work to your room Or Standing in line at the grocery store and some lady sends a 6 year old back to the isles to try and locate some shit he's never even heard of before and after 5-6 mins nobody's heard from him @A-10HORN
- I can't believe the dirtballs even exist who send people back to grab stuff while holding up the line.
- How selfish can you be?
- It makes me realize the coaches who complain about players being not necessarily "more selfish" but more "self-centered" these days make sense. There is a difference between the two, but people just don't seem as concerned with being considerate in the same ways they used to.
- The hotel scenario is not a decision someone made to inconvenience you, it was a mistake.
- You leave your bags and wife to watch the kids, you go downstairs to get the key fixed.
- At the store, someone made a decision that your time is not as valuable as theirs, and have decided, knowing that time = money for all of us on Earth, that they are going to rob you of some.
- I hate the person who runs back to grab anything.
- The better question would have been go-back-to-grab-stuff guy vs. reclines-in-his-seat guy in coach.
- Both of those people are inconsiderate shit bags.
8) Should the 40 yard dash be the gold standard of football speed measurement? Wouldn't a 20 yard sprint be more practical given the distances covered on the vast majority of football plays? Maybe keep 40 yds for cbs and wrs? @Hookah Horns
- There is no gold standard, but it's the best we have. Even in WRs we can't put everything into a drill where Jerry Rice the GOAT ran a 4.6.
- It's not the best, but it's the best we have. From my study and through my interviews with great minds in the field of human performance such as Dr. Brian Hoffman at the University of Georgia, I've learned that it's actually the only physical test at the NFL combine which has a true correlation with future NFL success. The 10 and 20-yard splits across all positions are statistically negligible.
9) If you found out tomorrow with 100% certainty that there is an afterlife, would it change the way you live right now? @Hornius Emeritus
- I believe with 100% certainty in my heart that there is an afterlife, so I don't think I'd change much.
10) If you were swallowed by a sperm whale, how long could you survive in his stomach? @cacahaute
- I would never be swallowed by a sperm whale, they don't swallow people. They are much smarter than humans and I don't think they accidentally swallow anything. They are certainly capable of it, they can swallow giant squid which are bigger than us. There are stories online of people surviving inside one's stomach, but a quick search of Snopes shows they are fake. One account from 1891 said that James Bartley had a similar few days inside a whale's stomach but investigations show inconsistency after inconsistency in that story. I personally called BS when I read that the whale was "ATTACKING" his boat and he happened to fall in its mouth. When was the last time you saw a sperm whale attacking anything?
