Folks, it is that time again to do a general catch-up post! I figured now would be a good time to do this because to be honest, I really don’t have much to say about ND’s game this past Saturday against Boston College, nor do I really have much to say on a preview against Washington State to justify an entire post. However, if that is what you came here for, feel free to skip down to the end of the post for a ND quick-hit.
There are several other things to catch up on that are of interest to me. The Cowboys played surprisingly well this week, the Stars season is well underway, the Mavs have kicked off their season, the Evil Empire is in the World Series against the City of Brotherly Shove, and Microsoft released a little something called Windows 7. That’s quite a bit to run through, so let’s just get to it.
Dallas Cowboys
You may (or likely may not) remember that I have been writing for DallasProSports.com on both a fantasy panel as well as doing a weekly article on the “Romo Friendly” offense.
Save for Twitter, I have been doing a really awful job at promoting my work. I assure you though, that I have indeed been writing my opinions on the offense. So you can check out all my opinions on the offense there; in fact, writing those articles has been the reason I haven’t bothered to say much on the ‘Boys in this space. I will be sure to actually remember to post here when my articles go up.
Beyond the offense though, I will say the defense is, thankfully, improving from the looks of things. Ware finally seems to be getting back into the swing of things, and the secondary looked like it could actually defend something as well last week. This trend must continue because what we all should have learned from the past couple of years is that a Cowboys team 100% reliant on Romo and the offense to bail the team out flat out doesn’t work.
Dallas Mavericks
I went from being extremely excited about the new pickups of Shawn Marion and Drew Gooden to being extremely concerned after their defeat to Washington in the first game of the season. The main reason being that I saw absolutely nothing different from the Mavs in that game than I did last season.
It was the same old, same old: play small and jack up threes when we trail. Also, defense is optional.
I’m hoping that won’t be the same story for the whole season. I do believe the Mavs have improved their team this year, but until our overall attitude of how to play changes (i.e. DRIVE THE FREAKIN’ LANE!), we will continue to struggle.
Dallas Stars
Well, what a difference a coach does make. While I’m not going to say we are Cup bound, Stars hockey is a hell of a lot more fun to watch this season. We have a lot of young kids and a very wide open style of play, meaning far more scoring than I can ever remember seeing.
I wish I could actually give more hockey insight than that, but beyond knowing the rules of the game, I am pretty much only able to give “Hockey for Dummies” type commentary.
One thing to watch this season though is the play of Marty Turco. Last season he took a lot of abuse from fans and media about his play severely declining. I do believe Marty is one of the better goaltenders in the NHL, but the season he had last year simply can’t be repeated if we want to be a solid playoff team — you need your goalie to be a wall.
Last year Turco turned in 2.83 GAA (goals against average), and thus far he is sitting at 2.26 GAA (just as a reference, two seasons ago, Marty finished at 2.32 GAA). Much better to say the least thus far. Hopefully last season will prove to be the exception and not the first warning of a declining Turco.
World Series
I’m going to be very quick on this one: I hate the Yankees. I can’t believe A-Rod is actually hitting clutch in October. Seeing Teixiera playing in the World Series is making me sick.
Go Phillies!
Windows 7
Hey, remember those few times I actually wrote about technology in here? Yeah me too. It’s really been a while. Mostly that is due to the fact it is football season and it takes far too much of my attention span as far as writing goes.
However, I must say at least a little something on Windows 7 (as I’m not sure if I’ll actually spin out a full-blown post during football season). First off, it is nothing like Vista.
Let me repeat that another way: We have a new Windows Operating System that doesn’t completely suck like Vista.
The first thing that popped out to me was the amount of resources the system was using at idle. Vista was very infamous for sucking the life out of RAM (memory) and processor power by just having the so-called “great” Vista features active like Aero and Index Searching. Windows 7 has removed whatever was severely bloating Vista as very little strain is being placed on the system in comparison.
So what does that mean? In short, quicker performance for just about anything that you want to do. Initial startups are quicker, opening programs takes far less time, etc.
The other great touches that I’ve encountered so far are the, dare I say, intuitive additions to Windows 7. The new taskbar helps decrease what is usually extreme clutter on the desktop and allows you to get to you want even quicker than alt-tabbing. Programs/windows open, now group to an icon on the desktop. Say you have five Word documents open and three Windows Explorer windows open, along with whatever you are looking at on the web. Well, simply hovering over say the Word icon will open up a small window dubbed “Aero Peek” that will show small window previews of all five documents along with their titles, allowing you to quickly and easily select the one you want to view instead of jamming on alt+tab until you finally highlight the right document you want, or trying to remember the exact window/document name from the old taskbar groupings in XP/Vista.
There are even shortcuts that use window positioning to automatically maximize, minimize, and compare windows. Want to compare two open windows? Drag one to the left side of the screen and it pops into place, filling the left side. Then drag the other window to the right side of the screen, and it fills the other remaining 50% of the screen. Want to minimize all the junk on your screen and just focus on one window? Shake the window you want and away goes everything else.
I’m not used to Windows working like this at all — it is almost as if they stole some Apple programmers.
Granted, I haven’t had too much time to really run into many problems yet, but it is something I am keeping an eye on. Compared to Vista though, this is a freakin’ walk in the park.
Notre Dame Football
Now for the ND football talk!
The game against Boston College was just more typical Irish football this season: play to the level of your opponent and decide the game at the end. Also, give all of ND Nation a freakin’ heart attack while doing so.
Clausen and the offense played very well. BC’s game plan was the same as last season: cover the deep play, give up the short passes. This time around, Clausen did a superb job taking exactly what BC would give him and not force the ball downfield needlessly. While it made for a very low scoring game, it was the right way to attack them. Credit both Clausen and Weis for this one folks.
Defense though — oh dear Lord…what has happened? Getting a lot of tunrovers was very nice, as was actually hitting the opposing QB for a change, but the secondary still looks awful. Harrison Smith looked lost anytime he was dropped back as a safety, and even had coverage issues when he was lined up at LB. The rest of the secondary (save for McCarthy) isn’t exactly making major plays on a consistent basis either.
However, the best positive note on defense: Mantei Te’o — see ball, see player with ball, hit player with ball, wash, rinse, repeat.
Final note on BC: can we punt? Seriously, I don’t think we got a punt past 35 yards. That is flat out AWFUL, especially since this punters are on scholarship. This isn’t like Mike Leech pulled someone out of the stands after a punting competition. Yeesh.
Now to preview the Washington State game…
…
…uh…yeah I got nothing. Honestly, I don’t even care if they are trying to dip into the ND kryptonite and starting a freshmen QB. They are awful — end of story. This game shouldn’t be close. Crist should be starting in the second half and Sharpley should be the QB as time winds down.
Now will this likely happen? Your idea is as good as mine.
Seriously, how in the world do I preview games for a team that seems to take a sick pleasure in torturing its loyal fans? It boggles the mind.
This game should be an obvious blowout on paper. Therefore, let’s expect the game to go down the wire yet again right?
However, I will not be watching this game live. It will sitting at home on my DVR as I will be attending a wedding of a good friend of mine (PS: you know you are a great friend if I go to your wedding on a day I had tickets to go watch ND play — in Texas no less!). So Saturday night, I will be throwing myself into a black hole (that may or may not include an open bar) and pretending my phone and the Internet do not exist as I want to experience the heart attack first-hand.
So if you were looking forward to any commentary via Twitter on the game, apologies, there will be none. Nor will there be a prompt post on my postgame thoughts as well.
…oh man, prompt posts in this blog…that’s a good one…
GO IRISH! BEAT COUGARS!
The article that I mentioned earlier today about the “Romo Friendly” offense will be split into two parts this week. Part 1, covering week 1 against Tampa Bay, is up now. Part 2, which will cover the disaster that was the Cowboys home opener, will be up tomorrow.
If you remember, recently I made a post about being a part of a fantasy football panel on DallasProSports.com, which has now gone to a weekly appearance. Starting this week, I will be writing yet another weekly article for them as well. My focus will be a week-by-week breakdown of the so-called “Romo Friendly” offense. I’ll be looking at the play call balance as well as how effective it seems to be working for the Cowboys and Romo.
I don’t have the exact days that I will be published there as of yet; however, I will be sure to update with a link here (possibly with a more in-depth breakdown of other Cowboy happenings if I have the time).
On that same note, if you have Twitter, you can follow DallasProSports.com and get their feed of website updates (which will include my articles and fantasy panel updates) and other sports news from the Dallas area. You can also follow my Twitter feed to get updates for this blog as well as other random things that I find amusing (as well as random commentary, especially during ND/Cowboy games).
Hopefully in some near future I will soon be able to overhaul this site and make it a little bit better than it currently stands now. I’ve got a bunch of ideas; however, the free time is lacking as of now. Considering I’m already behind on actual blog entries, I wouldn’t expect to see any major changes anytime soon; however, I might have the time to plug some things in here and there.
So there you go, my shameless self-promotion for the day. Now time to get back to work on things you might care a little bit more about like breaking down the ND/MSU game and previewing the ND/Purdue game. Being behind is fun!
This time last year, Hard Knocks was showing the Cowboys off to the world, complete with the attitude and thought that the Cowboys had a one-way ticket to the Super Bowl, and Valley Ranch was making arrangements for the shipment of their 6th Lombardy Trophy. Then just a couple months later, Pacman got into a fight, T.O. was yelling at everyone on and off the field, Romo broke his pinkie, and the Cowboys started their downfall that would leave them out of the playoff picture.
Funny how humbling a NFL season can make you.
Now on the heels of a draft that was called “dead” by Todd Archer today on the Ticket’s “Ranch Report” (and for good reason, the biggest impact will be a kicker…ouch), the Cowboys go into this season trying to pick up the pieces of 2008. There are no Super Bowl projections at the Ranch this time around; in fact, things have been rather quiet all around…well save for the $1.2 billion dollar stadium that is now the Cowboys home…
So what will this season have in store for the ‘Boys this time around? Will they, like Notre Dame last season, break their postseason winless streak? Or will we have yet another season of failed execution, excuses, and yet another miserable December swoon? I’ll attempt to hit some of the keys for the Cowboys season as well as try to make a season prediction. And then, come January, I can link this post in another entry we can all laugh as I am dead wrong on everything.
The Circus Has Left Town
The biggest change this season has been the attitude of the team, and no, I don’t mean Wade going up to the podium like an idiot, trying to be a hard-ass and saying “It’s time for football!”
No, this time around Jerry has decided to remove any player that either was, or had the potential to be, a major problem and distraction for the team. Gone now are T.O. Owens, Adam “Pacman” Jones, Tank Johnson, Roy Williams (the safety), and Greg Ellis. The first three are rather obvious for either dividing the locker room (T.O.) or off the field issues (Pacman and Tank). With Williams and Ellis though, the issue was slightly different. In Williams case, not only were the Cowboys tired of seeing him about 10 yards behind a receiver, but also his blasting the media for pointing it out. Ellis has been a contract negotiating nightmare recently as he couldn’t quite handle having a diminishing role with the Cowboys and made it known quite often (enjoy the Raiders buddy, also, try to avoid being pancake blocked by a QB in the future).
The message delivered this offseason has been rather simple: if you have any potential of being a headache, be one for another NFL team (or in Pacman’s case CFL, or well, any league/team crazy enough to take that mess on).
While this has done wonders for training camp and the preseason not being filled with tons of ridiculous stories or questions about T.O.’s bike riding habits, the removal of potential distractions will not equal an automatic cure for the team. Mike Rhyner of the Ticket’s Hardline has it right. Getting rid of distractions such as T.O. is only about 50% of what’s wrong with this thing. There is something to be said for Romo being able to have an easier time commanding the huddle without the shadow of T.O. looming, as well as not needing to worry week to week whether or not Pacman will make it rain at a local strip club.
The chemistry of the team will definitely have a marked improvement; however, there are a couple of other more important keys to this season’s success.
For the Love of God, BLOCK SOMEBODY
Someone needs to explain how we have a single Pro Bowl player on this line. I went into looking into some of the reasons for the infamous “December Swoon” of recent years. Romo tends to take much of the blame for this, but let’s take a look at the sack numbers (with Romo in as QB) month by month:
| Month | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
|---|---|---|---|
| September | DNP | 6 | 3 |
| October | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| November | 4 | 5 | 1 |
| December | 13 | 8 | 12 |
Those ever so slight increases in sacks in December may just be a little bit of the problem. While 2007 wasn’t as bad, you may also remember that year the ‘Boys didn’t do so bad themselves going 2-2. As I said before, I think I’m noticing a pattern here. It is hard to win games when your best player is on his back half the game. Keep in mind these are only the numbers of how often Romo was sacked and not how often he was hit as well.
If the Cowboys are to improve in 2009, it all starts up front. Romo has been getting sacked far too often and our running game hasn’t been exactly what I’d call stellar recently either. If the line continues to be Swiss cheese, expect yet another December Swoon.
The Romo Friendly Offense
A lot has been made about there being a Romo friendly offense this time around. What does that mean exactly? Balance. Again let’s use the past three years (the start of the current Phillips/Garrett era) and check out the spread of play calling in comparison to the rest of the NFL:
| Year | Rushing Attempts (NFL Rank) | Passing Attempts (NFL Rank) | Percent Pass Plays Run |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 472 (12) | 506 (20) | 51.7% |
| 2007 | 419 (21) | 531 (18) | 55.9% |
| 2008 | 401 (25) | 547 (8) | 57.7% |
Saying that this team has been relying on the pass increasingly year after year is an understatement. The offense has been leaning on Romo to score points. The running game must not only improve this season, but become a more prominent part of the offense.
The term “Romo Friendly” to me is two fold. First, the offense is not dependent on Romo to try to create/force pass plays and have more balance. Second, Romo isn’t forced to try to feed T.O. the ball in attempts to shut him up week after week. Like I said before, T.O. is 50% of the issue. With a more balanced offense, Romo should have a much better season as balance will keep a constant pass rush off of him and discourage teams from sitting on pass all game long.
A balanced offense is even more crucial this season now with the departure of T.O. As much as I love to bash him, he was a TD machine and major deep threat, and now he is gone. Of course Roy Williams is supposed to fill in, but he has yet to show he can be the kind of threat that T.O. was. Plus, if Williams is doubled this season, what happens to the passing offense then? It will be just like when T.O. failed to escape the double coverage himself, leaving Witten as Romo’s main option. While Witten is a great option to have, as great as he is, he won’t exactly be burning the defense on a deep route very often.
The rushing attack must step up and Marion Barber and Felix Jones must have big seasons for the Cowboys to have any shot at the playoffs.
The Predictions
So with all that being said, what do I see as the end result of this season? In looking at the schedule I can see either a 9-7 or 10-6 season. At best, the Cowboys will be looking to fight for a wild card spot once again this season as I simply can’t see them topping the Giants (even if they did lose Plaxico Burress) in the East with that record.
If they do make the playoffs though, I do believe this will be the year the playoff winless streak does end; however, that is all that will happen. This team is only good enough this season to take a first round victory. Beyond that, there are just simply too many teams in the NFC that will be able to beat them. Ending the streak will be enough to drive the one needed win, but after that, reality will quickly set in.
As far as this week’s game against Tampa Bay goes, I am looking for the Cowboys to win. The Bucs are simply in shambles right now. When you fire your offensive coordinator before week 1, you have issues. The Cowboys are already the better team on paper — there is literally no excuse to lose in week one.
Lot of news to catch up on, so I’m just going to bypass some form of witty (or not) introduction and just get to it.
Weis Drops Bombshells in Presser
Charlie Weis made two major announcements in his last spring ball presser.
The first of which was that Weis is petitioning the NCAA to give Brady Quinn and extra year of eligibility. This news comes somewhat on the heels of Cincinnati head coach, Brian Kelly, getting a sixth year of eligibility for DB Drew Frey and petitioned for USC transfer Vidal Hazelton to have the usual “sit out year” waved. This news, it seems, was the catalyst for this rather bold and slightly insane move by Weis:
“Well, you see the reasoning is really two fold,” Weis responded, “First of, I figure that if Kelly can make up the rules as he goes along why can’t I? Seems the NCAA doesn’t have too much of an issue with it, so why not. Secondly, it seems there was a rather large contingent that wanted Kelly to be sitting in this chair rather than myself. So I took at look at the two of us. What does he do differently than I do? I am simply giving the fans what they want.”
“Also think about it. Imagine Quinn throwing downfield to Floyd and Tate all day long. We will be unstoppable and get the National Title everyone wants to desperately.”
When asked if Weis would be willing to sacrifice the integrity of the school in order to pull of such a maneuver he simply replied, “The hell is wrong with you? Do you read what people write out on NDNation.com? No one cares about academics or head coaches that keep their noses clean — they only care about titles and that is what I am doing.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Weis then, in a very unprecedented move, announced the pep rally speaker for this years ND/USC game:
“I know we usually don’t do this, but I feel it would be an important boost for our fans and our team for this year’s game against USC. The pep rally for that game should needs to be something that can help put or team over the top because we are all sick of losing to USC. Therefore, we have invited President Barack Obama to speak at the USC weekend pep rally, which will be held in Notre Dame Stadium and he has accepted.”
When asked what business Obama had at the pep rally of a Catholic institution, Weis responded, “Well, he clearly has some ideas for the BCS and there will be a Congress investigation into it, so firstly, we need to make sure we protect ND’s interests in the matter. Secondly, I’ve been reading the Viewpoint in the past few weeks — let me tell you, this man hasn’t even said a word on campus yet and more people are calling for his head than yous guys were calling for mine after the Syracuse game. This should be a great way for everyone to completely ignore any of my faults on the football field while at the same time, getting our fans so riled up and pissed off that I can guarantee they will take it out on USC at the game.”
With a smirk he concluded, “I’m killing three birds with one stone. It is a schematic advantage.”
I’m not sure if Weis has completely lost his mind or if he is a complete genius. All I know is that I’m going to find it very funny as people write into the Viewpoint saying they will no longer go to a ND football game again in their lives and the 2009 season will still see a full stadium for every home game.
Brey Attempts to Explain ND’s NIT Loss, Fails Miserably
Mr. No-Tie was back at it again in his post game press conference, desperately making excuses for his team that failed to show up in a horrid loss that more or less summed up the ND B-Ball season in a single game.
“Well you know, when we were seeded #2 in the NIT tournament, I thought to myself, are we really the #2 seed? I mean, take a look at the bracket we were in, we easily had the toughest possible bracket schedule in the NIT and I just knew it would be a tough road. In fact, on the plane to New York, I called my wife as we were boarding and told her ’0-1′, I’ll be home Wednesday.”
When pressed on how in God’s green earth that would cause the Irish to have the worst scoring first half in Brey’s tenure, he replied “Well, I mean that’s what happens with a tough schedule. It finally gets to you and wears you down. Our guys just hit the limit.”
Brey was also questioned about how he handled the comeback attempt — most notably why he didn’t have the Irish try to draw fouls when in the bonus with over 5 minutes to go in the game and why he called his last timeout with over a minute left and only 8 seconds on the shot clock (which turned into a shot clock violation). Brey answered “Well, we were down by 6 once we finally hit the bonus I think. At that point the answer was simple — two threes and we are tied up. Why drive the lane? You can only get two points on those free throws if you draw the fouls. I’d clearly want to try for that extra point no matter what every time down the court. As far as the timeout goes — we needed to take the time to plan a three point shot. We were obviously going to press a bad shot inside the arc at that point and I couldn’t allow that.”
…uh yeah, no real comment here.
Texas Ranger’s GM John Daniels to Make “Major Changes”
Upon hearing time and time again on how the Texas Rangers by far have the best farm system in baseball, John Daniels feels now is the time to make some “major changes” that will “define his GM tenure.”
“As I look at all the young talent we have in our system, I think to myself — why are we keeping that all to ourselves?” Daniels asked. “We clearly have a lot of room to make a lot of trades here. I know we have been saying we were rebuilding for 2010, but seriously, why should we wait any longer? I am confident we can make some major changes to get solid veteran talent in here to make a pennant run this year! These trades will definitely be something that will define my GM tenure as the man that was able to turn this franchise around.”
Rumored top interests of Daniels are Chan Ho Park, Reuben Sierra, Ricky Henderson, Kenny Lofton, and Byung-Hung Kim.
If anyone wonders why I feel so tortured as a Rangers fan — well, there you go…
Jerry Jones Receives Naming Rights Offers for New Stadium
It looks like Jones’ struggles for selling naming rights to the new Cowboy’s Stadium may soon be at an end. From a recent report:
Sources within the Cowboys organization have said that Jerry Jones is now considering a few different offers for the naming rights of his new stadiums. The top bidders appear to be Tampax, Midol, and Kleenex. The front-runner right now seems to be Kleenex as they have even put together a few different ads for the stadium. We were able to get our hands on one of the proposed ads:
Oh boy can’t wait…
Well the past 24 hours have been more than interesting for the Cowboys to say the least. While I’m being a complete baseball nerd and enjoying a bit of MLB: The Show 2009, I got the following text from my sister:
“We just got rid of T.O.!”
I couldn’t believe it. I flew to ESPN to see if it was true. The irony of the opening sentence was quite delicious:
The Dallas Cowboys have released controversial wide receiver Terrell Owens, sources told ESPN’s Michael Smith late Wednesday.
Oh yeah, more anonymous sources! For all the Cowboys spin of trying to claim such sources were only full of lies about problems with T.O. and the Cowboys, it is once again said “mysterious” sources that break the news of T.O.’s forced farewell. How fitting.
One of my friends (an Eagles fan too at that) pointed out that three years ago, I was happy with the signing of T.O. In thinking about that, I realized that there are really eight steps a fan goes through when T.O. gets involved:
- While not on your team, you make fun of him and take pleasure in the horrible things that happen to him.
- Your team shocks you by signing him. You don’t know if you should be cheering or be pissed.
- You begin to think: “Wait a second, this might just work!”
- Season 1 you are singing his praises, have your popcorn ready, and you sit and think that your team found that magic “make T.O.” happy formula. You are loving it!
- Season 2 some drama creeps up. But hey, no big deal. That is just T.O.’s competitive spirit and people just can’t see that right….RIGHT?!?!
- Season 3 you see the writing on the wall. You start going back to step #1, but then you still try to mix in #4 when things actually go well.
- Step #6 drives you mad. You want T.O.’s head on a platter and off your team’s roster.
- Once cut, you revert to step #1 in earnest and prepare to laugh your ass off at the poor bastards that will be stuck with T.O. next and watch them follow all these steps like you did.
Here’s my proof of said eight steps:
A picture really is worth a thousand words.
Now, of course I am happy, but I do realize that there is a good chunk of offense walking out the door. However, despite the fact that Roy Williams may not be able to completely “replace” the production at the #1 WR receiver slot, the Cowboys have just gotten rid of the biggest crutch for failure that they have been leaning on for the past two years.
When you have the kind of drama T.O. brings, it clouds the whole situation. Why aren’t things clicking? Is Romo just not a good QB? Is Garret a horrible coordinator? Is Wade Phillips just an awful coach? Do we simply just not have the talent to win? The drama T.O. stirred up made these issues secondary. Problem is, these issues are the heart of the problem and you can’t win unless you fix him. On the same side of the coin, you can’t look at them unless you are focused on them.
With the source of distraction gone, it is time to focus on these issues. Releasing T.O. won’t be a cure-all, but we will sure as hell know what we actually have.
The excuses end today for the Cowboys offense. It is put up or shut up time for all of them.
However, if I encourage those screaming “great, now we have no WR” to look at the bigger picture. We have three supremely talented RB ready to roll for next year in Barber, Jones, and Choice. There is no reason in the world we shouldn’t be running this three headed monster down everyone’s throats next season. We don’t have to worry about T.O. getting his touches now, time to game plan like we did in the Green Bay game last season: run their ass over and launch it over their heads when they sell out on the run.
Also keep in mind, we have one of the best TE in the NFL in Witten. He will definitely command more attention this year, but I still think he will be able to handle it. Witten is Romo’s security blanket. Teams not respecting that connection will get burned.
As for Roy Williams, if he actually has some kind of a breakout, that completely spreads the ball out. Defenses won’t key on him — they will focus on Witten or the run. He’ll have fimiliarity with the playbook this time around and he should have room to work. It is now or never for him to prove he is not deserving of the “bust” label he currently holds.
Worst case senario though is the Cowboys have a bad season. If that does happen though, we should have a clear picture of where we go from that point to rebuild this team. I’d rather have a crappy season and make some actual progress in fixing this thing than to deal with another T.O. drama-infested year and feel like we took 10 steps back once again.
In other Cowboys news, the other Roy Williams (the Safety), has also gotten the ax. I don’t think there should be any surprises there. He wanted out and he hasn’t done anything of worth for years.
The way I see it, Jerry got rid of two anchors weighing this team down and also seemed to reclaim his balls by making tough decisions, especially in the case of T.O.
Today won’t fix everything, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.