Oh, Franchise Savior Josh McCown, I pity you

I have ridiculed the signing of McCown ad nauseam, but now I actually feel bad for him in this latest piece from Mary Kay Cabot.

“When I’ve been able to operate in a system that’s organized and been around for awhile like I did in 2013 with the Bears, I’ve been able to play at a high level.”

So, in other words, he’s predicting he’ll suck. Admittedly, two whole seasons with the same coach does seem like continuity for Cleveland, but hey, the next season hasn’t started yet. At least he understands his role.

“It’s always my mindset with any room that I go into as a quarterback, especially at this point in my career, just to help those guys that are in that room to be better, because it helps our team to be better,” he said. “I’ll give them the knowledge I have to help equip them. Obviously whatever the expectation is for Johnny or Connor, I just want them to know I’m there and to be able to help them any way I can. That’s the main thing.”

Of course, even he recognizes his talents are limited (bolded for emphasis):

“That’s what they can expect from me, once we get Flip’s system up and running, that I can manage a system, that I can get us in and out of the plays and take care of us at the line of scrimmage and give us a chance to be in the best play possible. We’ll run the football, but if they have to take that away, hopefully I’ll be able to attack a defense with the passing game and things we can do outside. That’s what i hope to bring to the table.”

His objective: to successfully call plays. It’s good to see that people have lofty goals for themselves.

Contract details for the Franchise Savior

McCown could earn up to $7 million dollars his first year with the team. All the guaranteed money is in the first year, which I think is fair. It’s a bit much to pay for a (hopefully) backup QB. McCown admits in the article that he’s partially there to instruct Manziel, but the author drops this two line bombshell to close out the article.

At $5.25 million for 2015, with a chance to make $2 million more this year, McCown comes to town as the current leading candidate to start this season.

But his signing won’t preclude the Browns from signing another veteran or drafting a top prospect.

I loathe the sports storyline that “Player X is making a lot of money, therefore he should start.” I get why, from the owner’s perspective, it makes sense, but it’s such lazy sports journalism to make a claim like that, especially when you giftwrap the job for McCown despite Manziel still being on the roster and making a serious go of it, evidently.

Mary Kay Cabot is neither one of my favorite or least favorite beat writers for the Browns. She’s just kind of there.

Pluralsight Review: Practical IoC With ASP.NET MVC 4

While reading Mark Seemann’s book and after watching Jeremy Clark’s course on dependency injection, I was ready to introduce it in Paskala.  This enthusiasm turned into confusion, oh, about halfway into the project.  I had some ideas about what to do (and admit that I could very well be doing it wrong today), but wasn’t quite sure how to close the loop, so to speak.  This is where John Sonmez’s course on inversion of control in ASP.NET MVC came in handy.  In this course, Sonmez focuses on using an MVC application for his examples; this is in contrast to Clark, who uses WPF.  Sonmez walks through “poor man’s DI” and then discusses Unity and Ninject.  The latter part is particularly useful because I decided to use Ninject in my project, and I really just needed a boost to get started.  I recommend checking out these resources in the same order I did them:  read Seemann’s book, watch Clark’s course, watch Sonmez’s course.

Our franchise savior has arrived!

…Said nobody in reaction to this announcement. Possibly ever in the history of the NFL. Signing Josh McCown for three years is a bit of a head scratcher (even in the NFL, where contracts aren’t guaranteed.) There’s not a lot to recommend him over Brian Hoyer. Take a look at the stats:

Year Age Tm Pos No. G GS QBrec Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD TD% Int Int% Lng Y/A AY/A Y/C Y/G Rate QBR Sk Yds NY/A ANY/A Sk% 4QC GWD AV
2002 23 ARI 12 2 0 7 18 38.9 66 0 0.0 2 11.1 26 3.7 -1.3 9.4 33.0 10.2 5 50 0.70 -3.22 21.7 0
2003 24 ARI qb 12 11 3 1-2-0 95 166 57.2 1018 5 3.0 6 3.6 60 6.1 5.1 10.7 92.5 70.3 25 174 4.42 3.53 13.1 1 1 3
2004 25 ARI QB 12 14 13 6-7-0 233 408 57.1 2511 11 2.7 10 2.5 48 6.2 5.6 10.8 179.4 74.1 31 263 5.12 4.60 7.1 2 2 7
2005 26 ARI qb 12 9 6 3-3-0 163 270 60.4 1836 9 3.3 11 4.1 49 6.8 5.6 11.3 204.0 74.9 18 101 6.02 4.93 6.3 5
2006 27 DET 12 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 0
2007 28 OAK QB 12 9 9 2-7-0 111 190 58.4 1151 10 5.3 11 5.8 46 6.1 4.5 10.4 127.9 69.4 27.49 14 92 5.19 3.75 6.9 1
2008 29 CAR 12 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 11.07 0 0 0
2009 30 CAR 12 1 0 1 6 16.7 2 0 0.0 0 0.0 2 0.3 0.3 2.0 2.0 39.6 0.7 1 6 -0.57 -0.57 14.3 0
2011 32 CHI qb 15 3 2 1-1-0 35 55 63.6 414 2 3.6 4 7.3 49 7.5 5.0 11.8 138.0 68.3 30.82 7 43 5.98 3.73 11.3 2
2012 33 CHI 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2013 34 CHI qb 12 8 5 3-2-0 149 224 66.5 1829 13 5.8 1 0.4 80 8.2 9.1 12.3 228.6 109.0 85.09 11 37 7.63 8.54 4.7 1 1 8
2014 35 TAM QB 12 11 11 1-10-0 184 327 56.3 2206 11 3.4 14 4.3 56 6.7 5.5 12.0 200.5 70.5 35.71 36 235 5.43 4.30 9.9 4
Career 73 49 17-32-0 978 1664 58.8 11033 61 3.7 59 3.5 80 6.6 5.8 11.3 151.1 76.1 148 1001 5.54 4.74 8.2 4 4 30
4 yrs ARI 36 22 10-12-0 498 862 57.8 5431 25 2.9 29 3.4 60 6.3 5.4 10.9 150.9 72.1 79 588 5.15 4.29 8.4 3 3 15
3 yrs CHI 11 7 4-3-0 184 279 65.9 2243 15 5.4 5 1.8 80 8.0 8.3 12.2 203.9 101.0 18 80 7.28 7.54 6.1 1 1 10
2 yrs CAR 3 0 1 6 16.7 2 0 0.0 0 0.0 2 0.3 0.3 2.0 0.7 39.6 1 6 -0.57 -0.57 14.3 0
1 yr DET 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 0
1 yr OAK 9 9 2-7-0 111 190 58.4 1151 10 5.3 11 5.8 46 6.1 4.5 10.4 127.9 69.4 14 92 5.19 3.75 6.9 1
1 yr TAM 11 11 1-10-0 184 327 56.3 2206 11 3.4 14 4.3 56 6.7 5.5 12.0 200.5 70.5 36 235 5.43 4.30 9.9 4
Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/27/2015.
Year Age Tm Pos No. G GS QBrec Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD TD% Int Int% Lng Y/A AY/A Y/C Y/G Rate QBR Sk Yds NY/A ANY/A Sk% 4QC GWD AV
2009 24 NWE 8 5 0 19 27 70.4 142 0 0.0 0 0.0 17 5.3 5.3 7.5 28.4 82.6 48.41 2 18 4.28 4.28 6.9 1
2010 25 NWE 8 5 0 7 15 46.7 122 1 6.7 1 6.7 42 8.1 6.5 17.4 24.4 69.3 45.43 0 0 8.13 6.47 0.0 0
2011 26 NWE 8 3 0 1 1 100.0 22 0 0.0 0 0.0 22 22.0 22.0 22.0 7.3 118.7 96.35 0 0 22.00 22.00 0.0 0
2012 27 ARI qb 6 2 1 0-1-0 30 53 56.6 330 1 1.9 2 3.8 53 6.2 4.9 11.0 165.0 65.8 34.57 4 30 5.26 4.04 7.0 1
2013 28 CLE qb 6 3 3 3-0-0 57 96 59.4 615 5 5.2 3 3.1 47 6.4 6.0 10.8 205.0 82.6 47.54 6 48 5.56 5.22 5.9 1 1 1
2014 29 CLE QB 6 14 13 7-6-0 242 438 55.3 3326 12 2.7 13 3.0 81 7.6 6.8 13.7 237.6 76.5 43.08 24 160 6.85 6.11 5.2 4 4 8
Career 32 17 10-7-0 356 630 56.5 4557 19 3.0 19 3.0 81 7.2 6.5 12.8 142.4 76.8 36 256 6.46 5.74 5.4 5 5 11
3 yrs NWE 13 0 27 43 62.8 286 1 2.3 1 2.3 42 6.7 6.1 10.6 22.0 80.2 2 18 5.96 5.40 4.4 1
2 yrs CLE 17 16 10-6-0 299 534 56.0 3941 17 3.2 16 3.0 81 7.4 6.7 13.2 231.8 77.6 30 208 6.62 5.95 5.3 5 5 9
1 yr ARI 2 1 0-1-0 30 53 56.6 330 1 1.9 2 3.8 53 6.2 4.9 11.0 165.0 65.8 4 30 5.26 4.04 7.0 1
Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/27/2015.

I’ll wait while you try to find the differences. Let’s see… McCown is more prone to interceptions. He’s also older. McCown gets slightly more yardage per game. That’s about it.

I admit that Hoyer hasn’t done much to impress me. So why get somebody who is an older, worse version of Hoyer? For three years!! The only thing I can think of is that McCown is totally cool with being a backup, while Hoyer still wanted to start. Maybe Coach Flip (FLIPFLIPFLIP) owed McCown a favor. The point is, the signing is a weird one that makes very little sense. If McCown starts as the #1 QB next year, there will be no joy in Cleveland.

Pluralsight Review: Dependency Injection On-Ramp

While reading Mark Seemann’s book on the topic, I decided to watch Jeremy Clark’s series on dependency injection.  I think that the combination of these two resources helped me understand dependency injection a lot better.  Clark starts off with a few sections using “poor man’s DI” to show us dependency injection in the context (primarily) of a WPF application.  One thing I like about this series is Clark’s use of the decorator pattern to implement a caching layer invisible to the rest of the application—this is something I will need to implement in the future and I’m glad I had a nice walkthrough on the topic.

Early Travel To Tampa

My original plan was to travel tomorrow morning to Tampa for SQL Saturday. Nature, apparently, has something else to say about it. The flight I originally had booked has been cancelled due to the threat of 8 inches of snow. Fortunately, I changed the flight this morning to go out tonight, before snow hits Raleigh-Durham. Now we’re just going to see if that flight takes off or if it gets cancelled like all the others.

Given the way the weather looks directly in my flight path, I could see this flight get scrubbed, leaving me a difficult choice of flying in Friday or cancelling. I definitely want to speak at SQL Saturday so I’m rooting for an uneventful trip to the airport.