NFL 100: Reaction To QB Picks

I found out today about the 10 quarterbacks selected for the NFL's 100th Anniversary All Time Team

Let's look at those 10

Tom Brady-Generally considered the greatest quarterback of all time. He's won
6 Super Bowls, he played great in most of those games, he has the individiual
numbers.  He's the winngest quarterback in league history, in both the regular
season and playoffs.  He took his team to 9 Super Bowls. Brady was a no brainer.

Joe Montana-Was the consensus greatest quarterbac of all time before Tom Brady.
Won 4 Super Bowls, and was one of the most efficient quarterbacks ever.  Was
also one of the greatest big game players.  In 4 Super Bowls he was 83 for
122 for 1128 yards with 11 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions.  Another no brainer

John Elway-Elway didn't have any single season that is one of the greatest in
NFL history.  He only threw for 4000 yards once, and that season, 1993, he barely
passed that mark.  The most touchdowns passes he threw in a season was 27.  Elway
just stuck around for a long time, and had a lot of really good seasons.  Still
his numbers by themselves aren't good enough to get him selected, but there are
other things to consider.  Elway didn't have very good wide receivers for most
of his career.  Then Denver got him some better talent at wide receiver, and
Shannon Sharpe emerged as a great tight end.  Elway put together a great six season run when he was 33-38 years old.  He took his team to 5 Super Bowls, and won the last two.

Peyton Manning-Another no brainer, and my choice for the greatest of all time.
Skip Bayless called him the greatest regular season quarterback of all time, and
while that was backhanded compliment, no quarterback has been more dominant, on
a season by season basis, than Manning.  He won a record 5 MVPs.  One of the
biggest criticims of him is that he choked it the big games, but his career
playoff passer rating isn't that far behind Tom Brady.  He also won two Super
Bowls.

Dan Marino-Was the all time leader in pass completions, attemps, yards, and
touchdowns when he retired.  His 1984 season is still one of the greatest seasons
for a player in league history.  He never won a Super Bowl, and that hurts his
legacy, but also didn't have a good running game, or a dominant defense to help him out.

Sammy Baugh-His numbers don't look that good by today's standards, but they were
astronomical for the time period.  Part of Baugh's legacy is what he did as a
punter, and defensive back. He played at a time before the specialist era, when
players usually played both offense, and defense.   That overall dominance had to
help make him a shoo-in for the team. 

Otto Graham-Had incredible efficiency for his era.  He led the league in passer rating 5 times,
and also led the league in passing 5 times(correction. he led the AAFC 3 times, and the NFL twice).  What stands out the most about him is that he led his team to the championship game in every season he played in, and won 5 of them (4 of those championship games, and titles were in the AAFC, not the NFL). It was obvious he would be selected.

Johnny Unitas-Was the consensus greatest quarterback of all time before
Joe Montana.  Was significantly more efficient than the league average, while
throwing the ball a lot for the era.  Led the Colts the 1958, and 1959 NFL
championships, and won Super Bowl V, with the Colts, though he didn't finish that
game.  Another no brainer.

Roger Stauback-The best quarterback of the 1970s.  Pro Football reference doesn't
show career Rate+, but if they did Staubach would have to be either at or near
the top all time. He served in the Navy before starting his pro football career,
so he didn't have the longevity, playing just 11 seasons.  Won two Super Bowls.
Was the #1 quarterback for 4 of the Cowboys' 5 teams that made the Super Bowl
in the 70's.

Brett Favre-Retired as the all time leader in completions, attempts, yards,
touchdowns, and interceptions.  Favre won one Super Bowl, and got to another one.
He played 303 consecutive games, which is the most in NFL history for a non kicker.
Favre won three consecutive league MVPs for the 1995-97 seasons.  He led the
league in passing yards twice, passing touchdowns 4 times, and on the negative
side led the league in interceptions 3 times.  Favre actually wasn't that bad
in terms of interceptions, when you factor in how much he passed the ball.

The 12 finalists who weren't selected for the team were  Bart Starr, Drew Brees, Aaron Rogers,

Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Joe Namath, Terry Bradshaw, Dan Fouts, Sid Luckman,

Bobby Layne, Norm Van Brocklin, and Fran Tarkenton.

Earlier today Dan Marino was trending on twitter.  I clicked, and the reason
was trending was because Marino was the last member of the team to be revealed there was some debate on whether he should've been picked ahead of Drew Brees.   It's tough to compare
quarterback from different eras, and one of the reasons is the increasing effectiveness of passers, and the way that teams pass the ball more often than in prior eras.  Both quarterbacks dominated in the eras in which they played in, and both played in pass happy offenses.  Brees has the career records for completions, passing yards, passing touchdowns, and completion percentage. When Marino retired he held all of those records except completion percentage.  While Brees didn't have any year in which he stood out from the pack like Marino did in 1984, he had a steady run of great seasons.  Marino had
several other great seasons, but 1984 was clearly his best.  Marino's Rate+ was 141 that season.  His next two best seasons were abbreviated.  In his rookie year he started just 9 games, and only threw 296 passes.  In 1993 Marino got injured in his team's 5th game, and only threw 150 passes.  His 4th best season in the category was 1986 with a Rate+ of 124.  Drew Brees has 5 seasons over 130,
and that is counting this season which finishes tomorrow.  The voting for the team was done following last season, and he had 4 of those seasons at the time.  Brees has led the league in passing yards 7 times, and passing touchdowns 3 times.  Marino led the league in passing yards 5 times, and touchdown 3 times.  Brees does have one Super Bowl to none for Marino.  Both guys have really low
sack percentages for their career with Marino at 3.1, and Brees 3.9.  If you judge by how they were viewed relative to their contemporaries then the edge would go to Marino.  Marino was considered by many to be the greatest pure passer in league history when he played.  It's a tough choice, but if I had to pick between the two of them I would pick Brees, but that's really splitting hairs.  I would put both in my top 10 quarterback of all time.


Another standout among those not selected was Steve Young.  Young didn't have the
longevity for several reasons.  He started his career in the USFL, and didn't play in the NFL during the 1984 season.  He played on bad Tampa Bay teams to start his NFL career, and only played 19 games in two seasons with them.  He then went to San Francisco and was Joe Montana's backup for 4 seasons. The majority of Young's stats came from 1991-98, and he was amazing in the 8 season run.  He led the league in passer rating 6 times, and threw for 195 touchdowns with just 76 interceptions in that period.  He was also a really good running QB.  His career was cut short in next season when he suffered one of numerous concussions.   He didn't get the chance pile up numbers over a large amount of games, or passing attempts, and that along with some playoff struggles is why he probably wasn't close to being selected.

My own selections wouldn't be fair to quarterback from long ago.  They were before my time,  and honestly they weren't as good as modern players.

FBI Murder Stats For 2018

The FBI released their crime stats for 2018 yesterday, and I wanted to go over it and see the murders stats compared to the last few years.

The murder rate declined from 5.3 per 100,000 to 5.0 per 100,000.  The numbers changed up because the rate per 100,000 was listed at 5.4 in 2017 when the data was released a couple last year,  and the number from 2016 was changed from 5.3 to 5.4.  The murder rate for 2018 is the lowest since 2015.

Black people are still overrepresented in murder statistics.  When it comes to known murder offenders black people made up 6,318 out of 11,514.  That's good for 54.9%. The percentage was 53.3 in 2015, 53.5 in 2016, and 54.2 in 2017. Based on demographic data from the link I have below (which is from July 2017), black people were 7.4 times more likely to commit murder than white people.  The demographics shouldn't have changed that much from 2017-18.

Single victim, single offender data is still similar to what it was the past couple years.  If anything it looks worse for blacks.  Just going by that data 82.3% of white people killed were killed by other white people, while 91.2% of black people killed were killed by other black people.  Those are the percentages when you only count those murders in which the race of the offender was known. Regressives have often given similar numbers and used that to argue that murder isn't that much of an issue for black people.  What those percentages don't show is that there were 2677 instances of one white person murdering another last year, and 2600 instances where the victim, and offender was black.  When you adjust for population black people are 5.5 times more likely to kill each other than white people are to kill each other.  According the same data there were 514 instances of a black person killing a white person, and 234 instances of a white person killing a black person.  Mainstream media might lead you to believe it's the other way around.  Looking at news stories it seems like there are always stories of black people being victimized by white people, and little stories in which it is the other way around.  Those stories also get more traction.  They lead to trending topics on twitter, and get a lot of mainstream attention.  The problem is that the stats consistently show that black people kill white people over 2 times as often as white people kill black people.  This year's ratio of 2.20/1 is almost identical to the 2.21/1 in 2015, 2.19/1 in 2016, and 2.18/1 in 2017.

The single victim/single offender data gives a slight difference in terms of how likely a black person is to commit murder.  White total offender stats mean black people are 7.4 times more likely to commit murder than white people, single victim/offender data translates into black people being 6 times more likely to commit a  murder that would fit into that category.  There are a large amount of murders that aren't single victim/offender, and many have unknown offenders or victims.  According to this chart https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-4.xls  29.1% of murders have unknown offender or offenders. If you take away those instances with unknown offenders, 69.4% of the instances of homicide are single victim/single offender.  So those are part of the why there is that discrepancy.

Links
Murders Per 100,000
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/table-1

Murder Offenders
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls

Single Victim/Single Offender
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls

Demographics
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045218

Using WWE KPI To Estimate Wrestlemania Attendance

The WWE released their 2nd quarter numbers yesterday.  I wanted to see their attendance numbers, so I looked at their Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the 2nd quarter.   The WWE listed their average attendance at 5.8 thousand, or 5800 in 53 shows.  Not counting WrestleMania it's 4700.  Now those averages aren't exact.  It they are just rounding to n If they rounded to the nearest hundred , the  high estimate for the attendance at WrestleMania 35 is 68249, and the low estimate is 57751.  If you treat it like the averages are exact, WrestleMania attendance would had to have been 63,000.  Now the WWE announced an attendance of 82,265, and even the high estimate comes well short of that number.  It is well known that the WWE lies about their attendance.  Each year right after WrestleMania, I wait for the real WrestleMania attendance to be revealed.  Prowrestlinghistory.com list the attendance for the event at 74,000, but even that is well above the high estimate, and 11,000 more than the middle estimate of 63000.  Now the WWE's averages could be paid attendance, but their KPI doesn't mention that it's paid attendance.

Whether the attendance averages listed in the WWE KPI is paid or total attendance, it's obvious that the WWE lies about their attendance.  They routinely list attendance figures stadium shows that they can't get in those stadiums, especially when you factor in how many seats are blocked by the WWE set design.



WWE Key Performance Indicators
https://corporate.wwe.com/~/media/Files/W/WWE/press-releases/2019/q2-2019-kpi.pdf

McNabb vs Aikman

To be fair to Donovan McNabb he didn't say he was better than Troy Aikman, but in making his case for why he was a Hall of Famer, he said that he had better numbers than Aikman.  So I figured that I would compare McNabb's career to Aikman's.  From the standpoint of traditional passer rating McNabb does have a better career rating to Aikman, but things tend to be easier for passers as the years go by.  McNabb has a career passer rating of 85.6, which is better than Aikman's 81.6.  Pro Football Reference has a stat called Passer Rating Index, or Rate+, that compares a quarterback's rating to the league average, where the league average is set at 100.  They don't show the career rating for either McNabb, or Aikman, but that's where some good algebra comes into play.  I can take a very good guess as to each player's rating by looking at their rating each season, and factoring in their pass attempts in each season.  My estimates are 106.29 for McNabb, and 105.79 for Aikman.  That's a slight edge for McNabb, but it's not much to choose from.  While they don't have Passer Rating Index for the playoffs, Aikman's career postseason rating is 88.3, and McNabb's is 80.0.  So Aikman has the edge there without even adjusting for the higher passer efficiency in McNabb's era.  McNabb was obviously the better runner, but he also got sacked more often.  While people may talk about how great the Cowboys' offensive line was, when you get past the Super Bowl years, there were some tough years for the Dallas' offense.  One of the drawbacks about running quarterbacks is that they do get sacked more often, so this isn't all out offensive line.  McNabb's sack percentage is 7.1 for his career, and for Aikman it's 5.2.  In the postseason it's 6.3 for Aikman, 7.7 for McNabb.  Lower is better for that stat.  Sack Percentage Index works much like Passer Rating Index, adjusting for league average with 100 being average.  In terms of that statistics a higher rating means that a quarterback was sacked less often compared to average.  Once again using some math, I estimate Aikman's Sack Percentage Index at 110.11, and McNabb's at 95.52.  Another thing to factor in was that Aikman was on more of a running team. Having Emmitt Smith around certainly helped Aikman, but it didn't help his touchdown numbers.  The Cowboys usually gave the ball to Emmitt when they got close to the goal line. Football Outsiders' stats are very complex.  When it comes to their DYAR (Defense Adjusted Yards Above Replacement) stat, Aikman had 7602 DYAR on 4932 pass plays, compared to McNabb's  5338, on 5776 pass plays.  The Dallas Cowboys offense, in their 90s peak, was a ball control offense, and Aikman was one of the most accurate quarterbacks of all time.  That helped Dallas to move the chains, and keep control of the ball.

The biggest difference between Aikman, and McNabb's Hall of Fame credentials is that Aikman won 3 Super Bowls.  The list of quarterbacks with 3 or more Super Bowl victories isn't long.  In fact it's just Aikman, Montana, Bradshaw, and Brady.  3 of them are in the Hall of Fame, and the other, Tom Brady, is a shoe in to get in, and the consensus greatest quarterback of all time. Aikman didn't just win 3 Super Bowls.  He was important to those teams.  He had one of the all time great postseasons for a quarterback in the 92-93 postseason where he threw 8 touchdowns without a single interception.  In all three of those seasons Troy was one of the best quarterbacks in the league in the regular season, and he was very efficient each of postseason.  McNabb never had a playoff run as good as what Aikman had during those Super Bowl seasons. McNabb has no Super Bowl wins.  As unfair as it may seem, that is a large part of how quarterbacks are judged.  McNabb led his Eagles to five NFC championships games, but lost 4 of them.  They lost the 1 Super Bowl he got to, and his performance in that game wasn't that good.   In terms of stats McNabb has the edge on Aikman in when it comes to traditional stats in the regular season, but Aikman has the edge in the playoffs.  In terms of advanced statistics, the edge is clearly on Aikman's side.  Should McNabb be in the Hall of Fame?  That's hard to say.  Right now I would say no.  He put up good stats, but he did it in an era where a lot of quarterbacks put up big numbers.  If McNabb had won 1 Super Bowl, he would probably be in the Hall of Fame right now.

Is There A Racist Agenda To Put Attention On Black Men For Sex Crimes: Rape Statistics

In wake of the allegations against R. Kelly there were a number of black people who just didn't want to say bad things about R. Kelly.  One popular thing to do was to divert attention away from R. Kelly and to some white men who been accused of sex crimes.

I'm not completely against diverting as a argument, but it depends on what point are you trying to make.  If that point is that white men are getting away with these things, and the media wants to put the attention on black men, then I don't believe that is a good point.  Still numbers are important.  What are the statistics

Let's look at some rape arrest for the past five years of full FBI crime data (2013-2017).  It's worth noting according to how the FBI counts race, in which many Hispanics are counted as white, there are about 6 times as many white people in the country as black people.  So if rape arrests happened at an even rate there should be 6 times as many arrests for whites as there are for blacks

Rape Arrest  2013-17

Year       Black      White
2013       4,229        8,946
2014       4,888       10,977
2015       4,907       11,809
2016       5,412       12,571
2017       5,182       12,187
Totals     24,618     56,490

So there were 2.29 times as many arrests of white people for rape as there were for black people.  Adjusting for population, a black person is more likely to be arrested for rape than a white person.  Over these five years totals arrests for rape add up 83,880.  That means that black people who make up 13% of the population accounted for 29.3% of rape arrests, and whites who make up 77% of the country accounted for 67.3% of rape arrests.  So while black people are overrepresented, white people are underrepresented.  Now when it comes to people that get away with rape, it's tough to assume.  Some would think that white people get away with it more, but you can make an argument it's the other way around, because black people are less likely to call the police.  Whatever the case, the numbers don't back up the idea that this is a white problem.  So next time I see, or hear some black supremacist talking about all the white racists, I will know that the total numbers show that rape is more of a problem among black people.  Based on numbers they aren't putting a black face on a white problem.

Tariq Nasheed has started this ThemFirst thing. The main purpose of it seems to be when a black celebrity, especially one he likes, is facing serious charges, just divert by talking about some white people who may or may not have done similar.  Nasheed is a major racist, and just wants to throw white people under the bus, but what he's doing isn't uncommon among blacks people.  T.I. mentioned Elvis Presley, and Hugh Hefner, even though I don't know of sexual crimes that they were charged for.  Harvey Weinstein has been a popular name.  The main feeling they have is that black celebrities are being targeted, which is just not true.  There have been plenty shows, and documentaries talking about foul shit done by white people, whether it's sexual or not.  Tariq must not be paying much attention to those.  Before there was Surviving R. Kelly, there was Scientology and The Aftermath.  While it hasn't been about sexual offenses, the show just finished it's third season going after the Church of Scientology, and destroying it's image.  The Church of Scientology has used plenty arguments to defend themselves, and tricks to get people to pay attention to it.  One thing they didn't do was throw black people under the bus by talking about black religious organizations, or leaders, that have done bad things.  Imagine if a famous person defending Scientology said that this was a part of an agenda to put the attention on white people, and then named several black people who they wanted to get similar attention.  That strategy wouldn't work.  Another thing about this.  When I was looking up Elvis, I found out about Chuck Berry getting locked up for crossing state lines with a 14 year for sexual purposes.  Even if this whole, put the attention on whitey, thing took off (it probably isn't going that far), it's simply going to lead to more attention being put on black people. That could bring up some things from way back, and have us looking things people did a long time ago with 2019 lenses.  While some people may be thinking of all the white men that they think did similar wrongs, another person might be thinking of men that did similar wrongs, and not specifically for men of one race.


https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-43
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/table-43
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/table-21
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-43

For Michael Jackson's Legacy Things Are Going To Get Worse

The Leaving Neverland documentary has caused a lot commotion to say the least.  The documentary has mostly received negative reviews, from a general public that still loves Michael Jackson.  Wade Robson, and James Safechuck have received much backlash.  A popular opinion from Jackson fans is that they lied for the money, but seems to be a strange way to try to get some cash.  Even if they would've won and gotten millions from Jackson's estate (which they didn't), their reputations are in shambles.  Who knows what backlash they receive from Jackson's fans, but you have to think it's really bad.  With all the video they have of themselves hanging out with Michael Jackson there had to have been an easier way to cash in.  Robson, and Safechuck are not icons.  That is what Michael Jackson is, and it will be his image that will take the biggest hit over time.  I believe Michael Jackson molested some boys, but even for some who don't believe, or who aren't sure, it might be easier to just avoid the controversy.

We are already starting to see it.  His music has been removed from some streaming services.  An episode of the Simpsons from 1991 that features Jackson's voice, has been pulled.  For Michael Jackson's fans, things are going to get worse before they start to get better. I don't expect these accusations to just go by the wayside, and be forgotten about a few months later.  Now Michael Jackson is dead, so, you can't get justice on a dead man, but I want to compare Jackson's situation to others like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and R. Kelly.  While the Cosby thing got big before the Metoo era, it follows a similar course.  When it rains it pours.  While there have been some instances of people being accused of one case of sexually inappropriate behavior, when we've had someone facing a number of accusation of sex crimes, it doesn't stop at a few here or there.  In the case of Cosby, comedian Hannibal Burress called Cosby a rapist in October of 2014.  Cosby already had allegations against him before that, but it was Barbara's Bowman's article from November 2014, that really inspired more women to come forward.  Before the end of November a number of other women had come forward with their own allegations against Cosby.  In fact a number of them came out within a week of Bowman's article.  The Weinstein thing started out with stories of sexual misconduct, and then went on to include charges of rape, as well as other charges of sexual misconduct.  Not long after Surviving R. Kelly, the singer was accused of sexually abusing four girls.  Then lawyer Michael Avenatti said he had a sex tape of R. Kelly with a 14 year old. Leaving Neverland is the type of powerful documentary that could inspire more people to come forward with claims against Jackson.  The attention around this document is going to lead to more details being exposed.

We'll have to see what happens.  What will happened the immediate future.  Will the negative news on Jackson calm down soon, or will this be the tip of the iceberg.

MAGA Hat Teens. The Regressives Get It Wrong Again

By now we all know the story.  The original video seemed to show kids from Covington Catholic High School mocking a Native American man, Nathan Phillips, or at least that's what most believed.  To add to it Phillips was said to be a Vietnam Vet (The Washington Post said he was but got it wrong).  I myself was skeptical even before seeing more video from the event.  I mean the kids appeared to be having fun, and while the one kid who was standing in front of Phillips had a smirk on his face, he wasn't acting violent, and wasn't mocking him.  Still when it comes to white males it is easy for regressives to be tricked, even if it's just teenagers.  They were demonized throughout social media, and school said that they would investigate.

Turns out what happened was more of hoax, based on lies, and deception.  Like a clever magic trick, it wasn't about what was shown as much as it was about what wasn't shown.  Yesterday I saw a link to this article
 https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/interview-parents-and-students-from-covington-catholic-demand-apology-from-diocese/?fbclid=IwAR0ciqZUDeEM_4k2F7CY8D_FElu3cPMb5_XYl8WZSyAX4zFryS920FIR0KU

Boy did it give a different perspective.  Phillips walked towards the boys.  There was one guy telling the boys to go back to Europe.  I already felt that people had overreacted, but this took things to another level, but wasn't anything compared to the video that I watched last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVtYPRAjYY8

Black Hebrew Israelites were involved.  I found out later that the video was first recorded on facebook live. They were saying a bunch of racist shit about white people.  In fact even before they turned their attention to the boys, they said plenty bad things to Native Americans.  Why would these Israelites be interested in this Indigenous Peoples March?  They think that Native Americans are also Israelites, and they were out there to teach their religion to these Indigenous people, and did so in their usual disrespectful manner.  When they turned their attention to the Covington students things got nasty quick.  They called them crackers, talked about how America would be destroyed, said they were incest babies.  The video speaks for itself.  The boy responded by doing their school chant.  It was interesting because they didn't return the Israelites hate with hate of their own.  They were whooping it up, and acting like they were having a good ole time, and this annoyed the shit out of the Israelites. Then came Phillips, in the supposed peacekeeper role, which I will get to later.

Looking at this video really puts things into perspective.  It has gone the point where mainstream liberal news outlets are going out of their way to tell the real story, after first falling for the portrayal of the boys as being racist. Of course some other people further on the left wouldn't have it.  It was almost like a witch hunt on the boys.  One of the biggest reaches was a picture of Covington students yelling at a black basketball player, in an image where a couple of them are painted black, which some thought of as blackface.  Problem number one is that the game was one of the "blackout" games that the school has.  Students dressed in black, and some painted themselves black, but it clearly wasn't racist, and was just those students keeping up with the blackout theme.  Another thing is that the photo was from 2012, when the boys involved in the incident a couple days ago wouldn't have been in high school.  You wouldn't be a good far leftist if you just admitted that you got it wrong.

Then there is Phillips.  If he was being peacekeeper then why would he walk up to a group of students that weren't the cause of the problems, and even if he had it confused, he had to have heard some of the things that the Israelites were saying, yet when interviewed by CNN he gave an inaccurate account of what happened.  He talked about the boys surrounding him, when he walked right towards them.  He said that Nick Sandmann blocked his path, when the fact is he walked to the middle of the group of boys.  If wanted to get to the Washington Monument he could've walked to the side of the group. He also didn't mention the Israelites in the CNN interview that I saw.  When Phillips and his group approached you can hear one of the Israelites say "Here come Gad" more than once. I don't' know what Israelite sect these guys were from, but the different sects, whose 12 tribe breakdowns I have seen, list GAD as being North American Indians.  He even refers to Phillips as "our elder". It seems that Phillips may have had some affinity toward the Israelites, because he let them, the main bad guys in the scenario, off the hook.  I would like to know more about Phillips, and I think there are some questions he needs to answer.  What are his feelings on the Black Hebrew Israelites, and why didn't he confront them?  Then again Phillips has stood by his false statements, so being honest about it is just going to further expose him as a liar.