Lazy Man and Money

Why NFL Franchises Fail

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Editor’s Message: If you are a fan of personal finance, I ask that you stick with me and read this article. Yes, it is going to focus on the National Football League (or “American” Football for my foreign readers), but many of the concepts can be translated to running any successful business and/or getting top value for your dollar.

This is also a unique article, because I drafted parts of it as long as a year ago. A lot has happened in that time, and I have very mixed feelings knowing that the the commissioner of the league openly lies. At some parts, you may see that I love the game, but at others, it will be a very different picture. Also, I’ve gotten into a time-crunch with life events and this article isn’t nearly as polished as I hoped it would be.

Tonight the New England Patriots open up the NFL season in defense of their world (well USA) championship. I’ve been following the Patriots since the sexual harassment of a female reporter “marred” their dreadful performance of a 1-15 season. Even before that… more than 30 years now. That’s just what you do when you grow up outside of Boston.

I’m a huge fan of the football in general. I think it is unique amongst the four major sports in America. It is a team game where a weak link can end the season (as explained in the beginning of The Blind Side). You have to do a lot more than piece together a “Big Three” and watch them dominate like in basketball. It is a sport where the strategy is always evolving and each game is a unique chess match that had a week of planning put into it. It isn’t like baseball where game strategy is very, very basic. It also has free agency and salary caps ensure that a team can’t hold a nucleus very long. Typically a team loses half of its players each year… and usually some very good ones.

Under those circumstances, I’m not sure if I am aware of another franchise that has had more success in the history of sports than the New England Patriots. The Celtics won many titles with Bill Russell, but they were able to hold that nucleus without fear of free agency. The San Antonio Spurs are probably the closest, but again they’ve done it with a nucleus of a few players.

I’ve put in countless hours into following football and the Patriots. If you have a life you probably have better things to do. I commend you. At the same time, I feel like I’ve learned so much that I wanted to give a little back.

So I decided to put together a “guide” for fans to help them understand if their favorite football franchise is moving in the right direction.

There Can Only Be One

Football, like many sports is a zero sum game. When one team wins another team loses. There are only so many wins and losses to be handed around the NFL… not everyone can be 12-4.

Success and failure is relative in zero-sum games. If the competition is terrible, you will be successful even if you are just less terrible. This is an important concept to keep in mind as you read this “guide.” Not every franchise is going to perfect in all these areas. When a franchise is extremely successful in one area it can even cover up deficiencies in other areas. Put a few successful areas together and it can take you a long way.

(By the way, did you catch the reference for the title of this section?)

Success Starts at the Top

A franchise will fail if ownership, the general manager, and the coach aren’t on the same page. Coach Bill Parcels was famous for saying, “If they want you to cook the meal, they ought to let you buy the groceries.” At the time, he was referring to how ownership didn’t allow him to draft the players he wanted. He was left trying to coach players who he felt weren’t a good fit for his system. That’s just asking for trouble.

The Patriots have had the same owner and general manager/coach for the entire millennium thus far. The level of trust there is unparalleled. This continuity allows them to make trades for the future in mind. It allows them to structure contracts for the future. Coach Bill Belichick can make unconventional draft picks without fear that it is going to cost him to lose his job.

This continuity is very important. It leads us to the next point:

Successful Franchises Avoid Buying on Credit

We live in a world where we demand success right away. A new coach feels the pressure to produce positive results immediately. This can lead to trades that may look good today, but hurt you down the road. It’s like buying a top of the line suit for a specific job interview on credit. In some world, that may make sense, but if you don’t get the job, you are left paying credit card bill for something that’s hanging in your closet.

Pressure can cause NFL franchises to buy on credit. They pay interest on that credit. It mortgages their future for success today.

Teams buy on credit when they trade a future draft pick for a player today. They buy on credit when they sign a player to a contract that likely leads to dead money in the salary cap in the future, when that player is no longer on the team.

New coaches aren’t the only ones getting pressured to succeed. Two of the most successful franchises in recent years, the Patriots and Broncos, have had pressure to add talent at any cost due to the “closing window” of their aging superstar quarterbacks. The two franchises got into “arms race” with all the moves they were making to get better.

I believe that the Broncos bought on credit for their run and have lost a couple of their best players (Julius Thomas and Terrance Knighton) because of limited salary cap space. The Patriots almost never buy on credit, but they did to sign Darrelle Revis one of the best players in the game. It didn’t disrupt the core salary structure of the team and the players they lost were ones they deemed were no longer a good value for their talent.

The turnover of coaches in some unsuccessful franchises has been so extensive that they’ve been buying on credit for more than a few seasons. Oakland is one franchise that comes to mind. They seem to have been digging themselves out of hole for years now.

The Patriots have been very successful in lending their draft currency to other franchises. I wrote about draft picks as currency back in 2007 and again in 2011. The Patriots traded #28 to the 49ers for their first round pick next year. The worst case scenario was that they’d get #32 then. However, the 49ers weren’t very good (as the Patriots suspected) and the pick turned out to be #7.

A #7 pick was very valuable and actually worth more than 2.25 #28 picks (there are mathematical charts for this stuff). Essentially the Patriots got over 125% interest in waiting a year. Patriots fans were very unhappy at the time to not have the asset right away. However, it was a great long-term move for the future success of the franchise.

Successful Franchises Find Diamonds in the Rough

Back in 2007, the Patriots traded a 4th round draft pick for Randy Moss, a superbly talented player. He had been on that Oakland franchise that floundered at the bottom of the standings year after year. He was labeled as a “malcontent”, which is natural if you are competitive and go home as a loser each week.

Randy Moss went on to score more touchdowns than any receiver in the history of the game that year. Presumably 30 other teams could have traded a 3rd round pick for Moss, which would have been tremendous value. To be fair to those teams, the Moss-Patriots break-up was ugly, probably what they feared. However, it was quick and the Patriots moved on without missing a beat.

Randy Moss wasn’t an isolated case for the Patriots. They routinely found value in other team’s cast-offs. They were able to win the 2001 Super Bowl, with a bunch of free agents that that were signed to very small contracts.

No one has played more defensive snaps in the last three years than Rob Ninkovich, who had been bounced around a few teams before becoming a core Patriot.

Last year the Patriots won The Super Bowl on the memorable play by Malcolm Butler, an undrafted free-agent rookie without any other offers. Butler’s agent tells the story, “[Patriots cornerbacks coach Josh Boyer called] and he said, ‘Is Malcolm still available? I can bring in one player in the country for a tryout and I picked Malcolm. I believe Malcolm can play in the NFL.'”

Every NFL team can point to successful diamonds they’ve mined. I don’t know of any way to quantify which ones are more successful than others. I can’t say that Patriots found more than other teams, but from my biased view it feels like it. (Though I tip my hat to Seattle on their diamond-finding ability). However, an important ingredient to success is finding value where others don’t.

I believe the best way to do that is to have a well-funded scouting department. Just like continuity of management is important, it is important to continuity of scouting, so you are comparing apples to apples year after year.

Successful Franchises Work Hard

This should go without saying, but let’s just say it. I love this quote:

“Welcome to the NFL. That will start Thursday. They’ll get a big dose of New England Patriots football over the next whatever we’ve got, six weeks — however long it is. We’ll give them everything we can in heavy doses, try to get them ready for training camp and they’ll get even more then… The strong will survive. The other ones will fall off. And we’ll keep going…

We’ve got 31 other teams competing just as hard as we are to do the same things. Yeah, we’re going to have to outwork people, out-hustle them and just do a better job. That’s what our business is.

Successful Franchises Maximize the Quarterback Position

The importance of the quarterback in football is crucial. He’s the leader. He touches the ball on every play. It’s become a passing league and they are the ones doing the passing.

There are arguably 5 elite QBs in the NFL (Brady, Manning, Rodgers, Brees, and Luck). Having one of these 5 players is almost a guarantee your franchise is going to win at least 10 of the 16 games and make the playoffs.

After the elite group there is another tier of very good QBs. That tier includes players like Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Russell Wilson, Joe Flacco, etc. You could have some losing seasons with these players. However, if a franchise surrounds these players with a good (or great) defense and they get hot at the right time, it can win a Super Bowl with them.

So realistically, the franchises with a top 12 QB are the ones that are successful. That may sound obvious, but it is interesting to note that 20 teams start the season in a difficult position.

There’s another level of this when it comes to the salary cap. Because QB is the most important decision, they command the most money on the market. A team putting a lot of money into a QB will naturally have less money to spend on the other players on the team. This gives an enormous advantage to teams with a QB in their rookie contract such as Russell Wilson (until recently) and Andrew Luck.

Taking that point from a Patriots point of view, they are fortunate that Tom Brady doesn’t demand top dollar. In fact, Over the Cap says, “Tier 1 [of salary caps] for ESPN is hampered because of Tom Brady’s incredibly ridiculous team friendly contract. It is almost unfair to include that.” They also show that his salary cap number is 19th among 22 non-rookie contract QBs, which is an extraordinary value.

These low numbers allow Seattle, Indianapolis, and New England to add a couple of extra stars that other teams simply can’t fit into the cap. Seattle is now paying top dollar for Russell Wilson, which may make them have to make tough decisions down the road on some players. Thus far, they’ve been very, very good at managing the salary cap, a credit to their planning.

If you can’t get one of these elite quarterbacks, perhaps the best plan is try to get one who doesn’t make mistakes. Alex Smith comes to mind. I believe a strong defensive team with a few other pieces could do very well with him. As a Patriots fan, I would be scared to see him on the Bills. Fortunately for Patriots fans, it seems like Rex Ryan is always going to be cursed with a bottom of the barrel quarterback.

Successful Franchises Build a “Complete” Team

When you think of the Patriots, you probably think about Brady, Belichick, and maybe Gronk. You probably don’t think of anyone on defense (unless you are a Patriots fan). Vince Wilfork and Darrelle Revis may have been the most obvious stars, but they aren’t with the team any more.

However, the Patriots have used 6 of their last 7 first round draft picks on defensive players. Four of the 6 are highly-ranked veterans. The other two are essentially having their rookie year this year (one was injured last year). It might not seem like it, but the Patriots defense compares to the Ravens and Texans, which is very good.

Patriots fans know that Father Time is undefeated and Tom Brady’s skills will lose to him at some point. I believe the Patriots are trying to put together a defense that can compete if Tom Brady’s performance becomes more like Joe Flacco’s.

The Patriots also happen to have one of the most accurate kickers in the NFL. Typically fans don’t think about the position much. Long-time fans of the Patriots know the value of this position as they went from Missin’ Sisson to Adam Vinatieri.

Successful Franchises Manage the Salary Cap

I touched on this a bit in the quarterback section. You have to know when you commit to a player and when you can’t… and you have to know how long you can. For the most part the Patriots have been very, very good at this*. They’ve moved on fan favorites such as Lawyer Milloy, Wes Welker, Randy Moss, Logan Mankins, Vince Wilfork, Richard Seymour, Asante Samuel, Deion Branch, Adam Vinatieri (before he came back), and more.

In just about every case, Patriots fans went nuts. They screamed that Bill Belichick had finally lost it. Then a funny thing happened. In almost every case, the players vastly under-performed on their new teams. (The exception being Vinatieri, but the Patriots replaced him with an equally good, younger, cheaper model.) Fans reluctantly had to develop an “In Bill We Trust” attitude.

Moving on from such players saved them a lot of salary cap money that could be used to retain younger talent. Sometimes they were able to trade them for additional draft picks.

Draft picks are an important part of managing salary cap. Players on their rookie contracts can be paid less than veterans and often perform as well as some stars. The Patriots like to draft and develop a quarterback to be the back-up, because it is cheaper on the salary cap than many veterans. I’m sure they’ve done the math and figured that over a 4-year deal they can save somewhere around $8 million in cap space vs. paying the market rate for a veteran. It all adds up.

The Patriots may have reputation for heartless when it comes to player contracts, but this frugality helps them get more their salary cap dollar. That translates to wins.

* This excludes the tight end who is rotting in prison for murdering someone. Whoops.

Successful Franchises Cheat

Just kidding, all NFL Franchises cheat.

Taping Opposing Teams Practices

This never happened and the source, the Boston Herald printed a retraction. Media outlets, specifically ESPN, reported it as truth recently as a few weeks ago. When it was brought to their attention that it never happened they issued an apology to the Patriots past midnight when no one was watching.

Still when reporters report false incidents, a perception is created that the Patriots have a “culture of cheating.”

SpyGate

This actually did happen, but here’s what it amounts to:

“Spying” is perfectly legal. As John Madden said on live TV, it’s common place in the NFL. Jimmy Johnson admitted it as well.

It is exactly like going 66mph in a 65mph zone. It’s wrong and you shouldn’t do it. Everyone does it anyway. If a police officer wants to target you and let everyone else go 80mph, that’s an unfortunate part of life. You may be able to appeal it to neutral judge, but as we’ve found out with DeflateGate that process doesn’t exist in the NFL.

Worse, the NFL doles out punishment without any understandable logic. The Patriots got the equivalent penalty to a life sentence in prison for what was clearly a misdemeanor. The next time you break the speed limit, imagine being thrown in jail for life and having others say, “Well, you shouldn’t have committed the crime.”

DeflateGate

As Patriot-hater and New York Law School Professor on Robert Blecker points out DeflateGate never happened and the NFL cheated:

If you think it happened, you probably read the media headlines that were generated by the NFL leaking false information to media outlets such as ESPN. When you take the time to read analysis of the Brady’s appeal and the Judge Berman’s questioning, you’ll have a better understanding of what really went on.

Summary of cheating

So we have one event that clearly never happened (taping practices). One event that is widely considered to never have happened (DeflateGate)… and one minor misdemeanor (SpyGate). Lazy people group all three together ignore the real reasons for success above. They then jump to the false conclusion that their team was ripped off.

The Aaron Hernandez and Lisa Olson scandals were a thousand times worse than all of this combined. If you want to attack the Patriots, at least go after real events with real victims suffering real consequences.

Of course if you are going to do that, let’s credit the Patriots Vince Wilfork helping pull a car crash victim to safety on the way home from the AFC Championship game. That is a little more meaningful than air pressure in footballs, right?

Final Thoughts

If you got this far, congratulations… this was certainly a long read. I actually had more information in my notes (such as successful franchises don’t go “all-in” for a chance to win one Super Bowl), but at some point I simply need to stop writing and publish this thing.

I had hoped to tie in more of life lessons, but since this is the equivalent length of a week’s worth of writing, that will also be saved for an update down the road. Maybe some of those lessons are obvious in how I structured the article.

If you are a football fan, good luck to your team this year.

Eight Things I Think I Think

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  • Ready For Zero – I think I want to thank Ready for Zero for hosting a good San Francisco area meet-up this past week. The company has some free tools to help users help themselves get out of debt. If you carry debt, it can’t hurt to take a look at what they have to offer.
  • Dog Show at the Cow Palace – I think I probably shouldn’t have gone to a dog show at a local arena called the Cow Palace this past week. My wife went last year and due to many giveaways from vendors ended up with great value for her admission dollar. With the two of us going this time, the total cost was $36 ($12 for each ticket and another $12 for parking). From a financial perspective it wasn’t a win as there were fewer giveaways this year. As for the dog show itself, it wasn’t every entertaining with no announcer of the dogs and programs costing another $7. The highlight was seeing a couple dozen Golden Retrievers getting groomed. I’m secure enough in my masculinity to say that it would be hard to find anything cuter. (By the way, in case you were wondering the Cow Palace is the furthest thing from a palace, and there wasn’t a cow to be seen.)
  • Jayne Cobb Hat Arrives – I think that I’m proud to wear my Jayne Cobb hat in public. I wrote a post a little while back about Kimberly Palmer’s Planners. In it, I mentioned how I’m not really an Etsy fan, but that this Jayne Cobb hat had me interested. The creator of the hat offered to send me one for free, which I jumped on. For those who don’t know, the hat is from an episode of the short-lived Firefly television series. The big burley mercenary character got it mailed to him from his mother in a bit of comic relief. The hat itself matches absolutely nothing else that I own, but it is surprisingly warm. The downside is that in northern California it hasn’t been that cold.

Football Thoughts

  • Super Bowl Tickets – I think you won’t see me at a Super Bowl in my lifetime. More than a few people asked me if I’d be going to the Super Bowl to watch my hometown team, the Patriots. Even though I embody the term “superfan”, the thought never crossed my mind. The Super Bowl seems to have a ton of festivities and I think I’d just want to avoid all that and concentrate on the game. If I won free tickets, I’d surely go, but I doubt I’d pay more than a couple of hundred dollars for the whole experience.
  • Gronkowski’s Ankle – I think I’m not sure where Gronkowski’s ankle injury ranks in the last 10 years of Boston postseason sports history. Is it up there with the Brady’s in 2001 when he was knocked out of the championship game and some questioned whether he’d play in the Super Bowl or if the Patriots would go with Drew Bledsoe? Is up there with Schilling’s blood sock performance in 2004 (the sock is in the Hall of Fame)? It has to be somewhere in between right? I’ve heard just about every angle of this Super Bowl coverage, and no one has put it in that perspective.
  • Indianapolis Colts 1 – I think this might be the quote of the week. Someone told me that Indianapolis Colts’ coach Jim Caldwell said, “if you are prepared there’s no reason to sweat” before the Super Bowl on February 7th, 2010. For those who might not follow sports, Jim Caldwell got fired a couple of weeks ago, after his team had the worst record in football, which was attributed to the failure to prepare for an injury to the team’s star player Peyton Manning.
  • Indianapolis Colts 2 – I think everyone agrees that the 2nd best quarterback I can remember (sorry Montana, I didn’t follow you as much) has played his last game in Indianapolis. Some say that Manning might never play again. If true, it will be a big loss for the NFL. The show will go on, but I think the biggest rivalry over the last 10 years, the Patriots-Colts will not be the same.
  • Super Bowl Thoughts – I think that for all the coverage the Super Bowl is getting there are a lot of topics left uncovered. For example, there has been a lot of talk about how bad the Patriots defense was this year. A lot of that is deserved due to Patriots giving up a lot of yards. However, no one seems to mention that the Giants gave up a lot more points than the Patriots did. They also don’t mention that the Giants were 27th of 32 teams in giving up yards (while the Patriots were 31 of 32 teams). Despite how “bad” these defenses are made out to be by analysts they each shut out each other’s “great” offense in the first half of the first meeting.

Top Personal Finance Posts:

Five Things I Think I Think

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  1. Cocktails with SavvyMoney and DailyWorth – This Wednesday I was invited by SavvyMoney and DailyWorth along with some other San Francisco media types (bloggers and others) to a cocktail party. It was great to talk with both CEOs. I’ve been a big fan of both products. SavvyMoney is still viewed as DebtGoal in my mind, but I’m making the transition to the new branding. Loved talking with the founder about MLMs (he’s from Utah where most of them originate). I get DailyWorth’s emails every day (though it is more targeted at women) and there’s some great advice there.
  2. Free Tax Filing for those who make less than $57,000 – If you made less than $57,000 last year you might be able to get your taxes done for free through My Free Taxes, a company that seems to have partnered with the Wal-Mart Foundation, the United Way and other reputable organizations.
  3. Bad Technology Week – The week started with my website going down when I was ironically trying to fix things. I was able to get things in a couple of hours and it was the weekend, so hopefully not too many noticed.

    The bad week continued when I got the System Check virus. That knocked out my primary computer for about a day. Fortunately the advice at My Anti Spyware got me a virus free state. I also owe a little hat tip to to Bleeping Computer. One of the take away lesson is to have a thumb drive with Windows Defender Offline, Malwarebytes, Rkill, and TDSSKiller. If follow those websites directions and have that on hand, you can pretty much cure most viruses. It saved me from going to Geek Squad and spending $200.

    The week ended with Google announcing that they’ll penalize sites with too many above the fold ads. That seemed to earn me a penalty from Google. I admit that my site may appear a little ad-heavy, but most regular readers have fewer ads. I spent much of the day changing a few things on my site and I hope to make a few more changes this week.

    Finally, I got word that my old hosting company, Dreamhost got hacked and some websites that I had stored there may have had their passwords compromised. I haven’t seen them offer me any free service, yet. Bad times, bad times.

  4. NFL Championship Week Review – If you watched the two football games yesterday, you were treated to a pair of nail-biters. Typically, I would put the day high on my list of great football games for that very reason, but not this time. Each game was won more by a team making a mistake on basic fundamentals rather than the opponent forcing them into an error. I’m not sure if either winning team was really the better team on that day. A case could be made for the games going either way. I feel for the local 49ers, though I am happy that the my hometown Patriots were able to pull through. It could have been a long two weeks having to be the “bad guy” amongst the locals.
  5. SuperBowl Preview – It will be a long two weeks anyway, because the Patriots face a rematch of the 2007 season Super Bowl, the game that lead to this depressing post. The Patriots and the Giants are completely different teams this time, but they still have many of the same underlying traits. I think a lot will come down to the health of Patriots’ Gronk, the protection of the Patriots offensive line, and turnovers. (It always comes down to turnovers it seems.)

Seven Thoughts (and Personal Finance Links)

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  1. Clark Howard is my twin – This weekend he said that he never had a cup of coffee. Ditto for me. Personal finance, geeky, non-coffee drinkers unite!
  2. 2 Minute Finance – Personal finance that fits my attention span, sign me up! I think you should look up Bobby Lee’s videos at 2 Minute Finance.
  3. Feeling for Revanche – My heart goes out to Revanche from A Gai Shan Life. Losing a parent is tough.
  4. DSW Clearance is Awesome – We finally got a DSW shoe store in Silicon Valley. I used to love them when I lived in the suburbs of Boston. However, the only one I knew of was in San Francisco, which had no parking and just far too much effort than it was worth. On Saturday I was able to pick up a pair of stylish Reebok Vibes (looks like these shoes and a pair of Keen’s for hiking/nature walks… for a total of $90. The Keens themselves would likely have cost $100 retail. My only complaint was that DSW didn’t open until 11 on Sunday… that just seems absurdly late to me. What about you?
  5. NFL Thoughts – As a Patriots fan, I feel like I’ve been on the roller coaster the last week. Thirty-six hours ago the media was wondering if the Patriots would make the playoffs with the Bills and Jets tied with them for first place. One game later and the media is wondering if the Patriots have won the division with nearly half the season to go. It seems like everyone in the AFC is on a roller coaster though. Pittsburgh comes to mind as a team that started down, but surged… hit the expected tough game with Baltimore and lost only to bounce back. Balitmore lost to Seattle just yesterday. The Texans have emerged as a better than expected team. The afforementioned Bills are going downhill from the rollercoaster. I can’t even get into the Chargers season.

    I don’t follow the NFC as much, but it seems like the Packers and 49ers are just rolling along in line to get playoff byes. I can tell you that the locals here in San Francisco are pumped to have the 49ers back playing great football.

  6. Breaking Dawn on Schedule this week – Thanks to the NFL schedulers for putting the Patriots’ game on Monday, I’ll be free this weekend to catch Breaking Dawn, that Twilight movie thing. I would pay double the money if it were just 20 seconds of this still frame. Another side of me feels that I’ve come this far, I might as well finish off the series and earn my merit badge. I was looking at some Breaking Dawn party ideas from my friend’s site and it seems like this one centers around a wedding. They certainly aren’t trying to make this easy on me.

On that note let’s get to the personal finance links:

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Ten Things I Think I Think (and Personal Finace Links)

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  1. Steven Wright Performance and a Financial Joke – I’ve been huge fan of comedian Steven Wright since I saw his first HBO special when I was about 10. I just loved the dry humor. I’ve probably see that special a couple of dozen times (it’s second place to Serenity on my all-time watched list. Last night, I got to see him in person for the first time. The seats were awesome (second row in a small theatre), and “relatively” cheap at $40 a ticket. I had 1985 Steven Wright in my head and I wasn’t prepared for the 2011 version. He’s still very much the same, but like anyone – they don’t look they did they 25 years earlier. The jokes weren’t quite as good as HBO special, but there were some good laugh-out-loud moments. I took care to note the one financial joke for this space: “24 hour banking? No thanks. I don’t have that kind of time.” The part of me that loved linguistics a decade ago just gets a mental workout during his routine. (Mr. Wright, if you are reading this, get some new web hosting. I would have linked to you, but your website was down.)
  2. Amazon Kindle Fire and Privacy Concerns – I mentioned it over at the The Soap Boxer’s on their Kindle Fire Review (check the comments), but I was surprised that no one brought up the privacy concerns of the new Amazon Kindle tablet. Well my own congressman, Ed Markey seems to be on the ball: Congressman raises privacy concerns over Amazon Silk. I like that he’s taking the extra step and not just letting Amazon allow people to opt out of it, but making sure they know issue and choose to opt-in. Too many times technology companies give the “opt-out” method to appease the people realizing that 99.99% of people won’t know to opt-out or figure out how to opt-out.
  3. Chase Sapphire perks at the Eater’s Choice SF Event – My wife and I ventured into San Francisco for a food truck event this weekend. I don’t know if food trucks are a big trend everywhere else, but they are big here in San Francisco. The event had the top 10 in the area as voted by the people. We got there knowing that my Chase Sapphire card was going to get us early entrance and a VIP seating area. Chase surprised us with better perks than promised. We got special menu items, a dollar off of most items, free “high-end” beverages (such as Coke in a bottle made with cane sugar not high fructose corn syrup), and a Chase Sapphire picnic blanket to bring home. I particularly liked the fact that there was a Bacon mobile. One items ingedients list was just bacon listed 6 times.
  4. Retirement in Focus – This week, the plan is to focus on retirement – specifically my wife and my own early retirement plans. I wrote about it almost three years ago: Our Early Retirement Plan: Introduction (Part 0). It’s time to re-evaluate and see where we stand.
  5. Cobb Salads – While on the topic of bacon, I have to say that the Cobb salad is my favorite “new” food. It’s not that new, but it’s new to me in the last year or so. It’s like they took everything I like and said, “we are going to actually make this healthy for you.” I’ve never had it with salad dressing – it simply is unnecessary.
  6. Craigslist Frustration – I’m 0 for 2 over the last week in getting a fitness item that I’m looking for on Craigslist. The items are sold out within a few hours from posting. The prices have been around 40% off of Amazon’s, which is pretty low to start with. I’d tell you more about the item in future weeks, but I really don’t need any more competition from my fellow San Francisco readers. I’ve got time and I’m going to wait for the right price.
  7. NFL Thoughts – I heard today that about 66% of America watches the NFL. This gives me a little confidence that I can put forth a few thoughts here. I’m content with where my favorite team, the Patriots, are. Given the 5-1 record, it “content” shows how spoiled I am now. It will be hard to see Tom Brady retire. While on the topic of great QBs, it looks like the Colts are in position to “Suck for Luck” as the saying goes. For those not into football, Andrew Luck is expected to be the best QB to come about in a decade and it just so happens that the Colts could replace what is arguably the best quarterback of all-time with the next great QB in a few years. In other thoughts, the locals are starting to fall in love with the 49ers. It’s almost like when the Giants won the World Series.
  8. World Series – Since the Yankees got eliminated, I haven’t followed a single game. It turns out that baseball isn’t all that interesting to me anymore when the Red Sox or Yankees aren’t involved. I can’t give a real reason – maybe I’m just more involved with my businesses. My pick for the series is Texas in 6. That’s not so much an educated guess, but it’s more of a wish. It would be good to see those Rangers fans get a title.
  9. Red Sox drama – There’s a lot of drama involving the Boston Red Sox of late. I’ve watched an average of 130 Red Sox games a year since I was 9 and I haven’t followed any of it. I guess Josh Beckett ate some fried chicken and everyone is up in arms. (Note: It’s actually a lot worse than that and it seems that people should be upset, but I’m in some seriuos denial and don’t want read the drama.)
  10. Financial Fixit Friday – I’m curious if anyone actually got any financial fix-its done this Friday or if it was just me. I got about 1/3 of the main things that I was looking to do. Considering my previous progress, it was very substantial.

And now for the personal finance links…

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