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He described the players as "hands twitching and legs shaking." I don't think that's from the cell phones.......

It was especially funny (by funny I mean grating!) to me in this episode when the girl that burnt herself, while crying over the burn, managed to slip in a "back home in Texas!"

... fish sticks and instant mashed potatoes (and I'm not saying that's a bad meal!) This is certainly a big part of it. Most kids have never heard of half the stuff cooked on this show, nonetheless cooked them.

Almost every episode there's a decision that needs to be made like this. I think it comes down to some combination of 3 or 4 things: 1. The owner is so enamored by some idea that they are blinded to the obvious thing: that a second location is wasting money, that a manager is completely useless, that they don't need to invest $1mm into a new building, etc. 2. The owner knows what needs to be done but just needs validation to make difficult decisions. especially when they've put countless hours and dollars into the thing. 3. The owner knows what needs to be done, but doesn't want to be seen as a bad guy (or can't bring themselves to be the bad guy) when it affects people's jobs. Since Marcus is "100% in charge" the burden is no longer on the owner (especially when it involves firing someone they're close with).

Didn't Sandra have an equally awkward sex gesture in a previous season? I can't remember what it was but I think Amy and Jonah corrected her.

I love that this experience perfectly exemplifies what Marcus pointed out about why BBQ restaurants are hard to franchise. There are big differences between what people expect from barbecue, mostly based on the region they were raised in. I imagine that someday, someone will extract all the personality and flavor from barbecue and build a nationwide BBQ equivalent of Pizza Hut, complete with lifeless, listless food and cheese stuffed everything. And while I will surely love that the same way I love the likes of Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, I'll still be inclined and required to travel 1000 miles to find the real thing.

Students were frequently "missing" from class in the first season as well. They introduced a somewhat large supporting cast but they don't always have stories for them, so we simply don't see them. (Cheaper, I'm sure.) There are also students there each week that don't get any lines. I thought the joke about the girl that Jack thought was new to the class was a little bit of a meta commentary on this. This show has sadly not fixed any of its problems from season 1. (However, the secretary blithely telling the principal that she likes women could easily be an intentional jab at anyone criticizing the show's lack of diversity.) It's still a good, cheap half hour filled with a few big laughs, which is fine by me. But it doesn't give me much hope for its continuation. Although I too thought that Nuns was its best episode yet. The three women teachers are still entirely separated from the main characters and do nothing but detract from the show. It's like when background characters from the Office got their own distinct plots in certain episodes, except that we didn't get the chance to love the characters first, and they get major screen time in every episode which massively overplays the amusing side character and makes you hate them. Why are they still spending time on them instead of on the much more likable students?

Not a bad episode. It was light on drama which is good in my book. But it seemed like all the important stuff happened off camera. Marcus told them to consolidate the two locations, then he comes back and they're consolidated. He told them to fix the packaging and branding, then comes back and it's (sort of) fixed. While the packaging was a step up from what they had before, one of the given critiques of the original packaging is that it looked dated. Well, the new packaging would look right at home on a commercial break during the Andy Griffith show.

It's widely accepted that the handing over of the check is for TV only, and they don't usually get the money right away. It's never been made clear at what point they get the real check, but it's likely sometime after the initial filming ends. Any money that Marcus invests into remodeling or repairs is usually lost to him, but he has been known to ask for expensive equipment back (e.g. a $200k 3D printer in season 1). If the money is invested into inventory, or towards paying off debt, that might be harder to recover and I don't recall reading any instances of him attempting that. You will notice that he often makes the big purchases on his own credit card, and invests in property as his own company rather than the company being featured. This is deliberate in order to make it easier to recover those funds if needed.

Immature whiners are tolerable if they have the talent to compensate for it. I don't know enough about Rosen to say if he's a whiner, but I've seen enough to question if he has the talent. Still, the idea that you could get a passable starter for say, a third round pick (seems to be the current consensus among fans), is just too enticing to let go of for most people.

Or like... Odell Beckham for the first 5 years of his career? ;-)

They said that you can stand in the tent, and we saw one person stepping into it upright (okay, hunched over), but he immediately sat down. So it seems you could stand in it but I'm not sure if it's something you'll do often. Don't see a reason why inflatable chairs couldn't be added, that'd be my first addition.

Oh come on, Marcus! You're letting me down! OutdoorSmith! It's the perfect name. It invokes the "Smithy" idea even better than SmithFly does. And it covers all of the product lines. I should head to the Trademark office now so I can sell it to him. Anyway, good classic Profit episode, and a much needed one at that. No one was hateable, and the business actually has the potential for big growth. They pitched the business 3 times (not counting the pitch to Marcus) which was interesting.

Thinking back on this episode, I find it funny that Marcus worked hard to convince the guy to use a co-packer (Mr. Green Tea) for their ice cream, when a major plot point of the first Mr. Green Tea episode was moving them away from a co-packer into their own facility. Situations and business were different obviously, but amusing to watch them back to back.

That's far from the worst reason he's gone into business with someone... I think Marcus' original goal with these guys was to set them up as the social media marketing team for all of his brands, the same way he uses the two guys from (I can't remember the name of the company) as his design experts on the show, and the lady from (it's late, it'll come to me tomorrow) as his so-called fashion guru. Even though they were annoying "bros" who failed at managing their own money, their style appeals to a certain demographic that Marcus desperately wants to be a part of. So it should have been a good match up, I guess. Marcus played it all sorts of wrong, and then for some reason the guys were going on a witch hunt for Marcus's profit and loss statements.

What just happened. This episode was unintelligible. Sure, the guys were annoying, but what was in it for them? They didn't have a contract, they didn't get an investment, and they weren't getting paid, and no one wanted to work with them on Feat, they just wanted the Feat guys to work on their products. And when the guys ask this question, they get told that asking "what's in it for us?" is the wrong attitude to have and is in conflict with "Community." That they have a "me me me" attitude. Marcus brought them in to sell the other companies' products, to develop a new product line, and to start some half-assed startup accelerator, all with zero promise of pay. And then he chastised them for trying to focus on the products and businesses that WERE making money. (And let's be real, when he pointed out that there was no real difference between the phone case and a $1 phone case, that's exactly what everyone watching the two phone case episodes was thinking.) I think there was a good premise to this episode, but heavy editing butchered it. Like why were the guys so insistent on getting all the sales and marketing numbers for all the different businesses? That didn't really make sense to me and I don't think there was an explanation, yet it took up the last 15 minutes of the episode, and was important enough for one of them to go into a completely different office in a different city to try to get the data. And why would Marcus ask them to work on businesses without giving them relevant sales information? It seems that everyone involved in this, from the Feat guys to Marcus' own people were just as confused by what was happening as I was.

The franchise tag was intended to allow a team to lock in a player whose contract expired, so that other teams cannot sign the player while they continue negotiating a future contract. It can only be applied to 1 player per team per season, and pays the player an average of the top salaries in the league for their position. In reality it has been used by teams as a way to keep star players playing on what amounts to a 1 year contract with no future guarantees. The players don't want that obviously. They want long term contracts with guaranteed money. What if they get injured while on the franchise tag? They might never get that big contract. Since the rookie pay scale is pretty well set, most star players get 1 big contract in their career (although if they stay healthy, good, and lucky, (and play the right position) they might land a second one). So the franchise is a huge risk for the player. Take Landon Collins as the example. On his rookie contract as a second round draft pick he made basically $6 million over 4 seasons. If the Giants franchise him he'll make $11 million in 2019, which is great for a safety. If he gets injured he'll still get that $11 million, but it will potentially hurt his future earnings or even preclude a long-term contract. When he gets a contract he'll probably earn $9-$10 million per season for 4-5 years with $20-$25 million guaranteed. That's why so many players have been holding out when they get franchised. They don't get paid while they hold out, but they want the long-term contract (which gives them more guaranteed money). As more and more players start doing this, the franchise tag is going to become useless and possibly even a deterrent. It's keeping super star players like Le'Veon Bell out of the game, which the NFL doesn't want. When the collective bargaining agreement is renegotiated (after the 2020 season I think) I expect big changes to the franchise tagging system.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/28/johnny-manziel-missed-meetings-cfl-ban-report/

The conspiracy theorist in me says that it's an elegant way to get out of his broadcast career without egg on his face. Play one more year of football, retire again, then decide to not head back into the booth.

The revenue requirements for supporting an AAF team will be significantly lower than an NFL team. Just looking at players, the NFL salary cap is $190 million right now. AAF players get a 3 year contract at $250k, so a 53 man roster is under $5 million a year. With lower attendance they can also potentially play in smaller, cheaper venues. It also helps that all teams are owned by the Alliance. So each individual team doesn't need a certain audience size on its own, they can be supported by the success of other teams, for awhile at least. The in-stadium audience doesn't matter nearly as much as the TV viewership numbers. In my opinion they're hurting themselves by only broadcasting on closed networks right now (NFL Network and CBS Sports). I'd like to see the games at least on major cable networks. That said, you still may be right that some of these towns won't pull enough interest to keep their teams. Here are some unofficial attendance numbers. San Diego is doing okay all things considered. I thought initially that the AAF wanted to be successful enough at developing players that the NFL buys them in 5-10 years. However, with Dundon's $250 million investment I'm not so certain that's the goal, since it would take a multi-billion dollar buy out for him to turn a reasonable profit as an investor.

It will be interesting to see what the AAF does in the offseason. (Assuming all their numbers and financials work out and they have a second season, of course.) Since each player is on the same contract, and all the teams are owned by the Alliance, what will trades look like if they exist? Will the Alliance induce trades in order to build and maintain parity? Will there be any sort of free agency?

That didn't even occur to me! It's a good possibility he is the devil, or that Hell LLC (HeLLC?) is down there manipulating things the same way. Though if we're throwing out possibilities, I'll hedge my bets and guess the Devil in Disguise is either God himself, or his other personal assistant who has been visibly prominent and hasn't done much yet, but may be subtly pushing the right buttons to make things happen according to her plan.

At first I thought we were going to get Depressed God, which I think is much more interesting than what we got, which is Idiot Slob God. He's definitely an Old Testament God, which is probably good, but I feel it's going to be tough to sell Idiot Slob Old Testament God as any sort of sympathetic character. But it's dark comedy, so who cares? Radcliffe's character is fascinating, but I wish they would make him more the central character than Geraldine Viswanathan's Eliza, who is too much a straight sitcom caricature. (And let's be real, most people are tuning in for Radcliffe or Buscemi.) At the end of the season/show do we get a Men In Black style zoom out, where we discover the behind the scenes corporation that runs every little detail of Heaven Inc.?

It's one thing if he's paying for sex, it's a whole other matter if he's involved with (or aware of) forced prostitution. The fact that he was charged only with soliciting sex is probably the biggest tell, but who knows how this will play out.

I don't think you're making the point you think you're making.