Winning is Better than Losing

Fans of the NFL's premier garbage franchises such as myself aren't thinking about playoffs in December, they're thinking of how winning and losing the next 3-4 games will affect their draft position. Many fans are of the position that wins that can't get a team to the playoffs are useless and only hurt the team for next year. There is SOME truth to that, but the facts oppose that point of view.

These are FACTS about the NFL:

• Players do not stop competing once they step onto the field.
• Coaches do not stop game planning for opposing teams.
• Players do not care about where the team is going to draft when they are on the field.
• Players have extrinsic motivation to play at 100% in these games: namely their future in the NFL.
• The goal of every single team is to show up on Sunday and win. 

When evaluating players and coaches the record doesn't suddenly get wiped clean once playoff hopes are eliminated. The losses count just the same when discussing whether to extend or fire a coach. They know this and never go into a game thinking to tank just so whoever replaces them next year has a higher draft pick to work with. 

To summarize: the players and coaches of both teams are still trying to win the game, therefore a win isn't any less significant when evaluating the roster of a team simply because the team is out of playoff contention. 

At the beginning of the season given the choice of an 8-8 team or a 5-11 team I'd choose the 8-8 in a heartbeat. Why? Because the team as-is is a mere two games away from playoff contention. An extra play maker or two can be the difference in those two or three games the 8-8 team lost that year. This means that they need less help from the draft to become a competitive team. 

This leads to my next point: the draft is the furthest thing from a guarantee as you can image. The 2012 NFL Draft was heralded as one of the best QB corps in recent memory. The best QB out of that draft was picked in the THIRD round. Luck and Tannehill haven't played in years, RG3 is out of the league and Brandon Weeden is an unspectacular backup. Those are your first round picks from that year. 

In 2013 some of the best players were taken at the END of the first round: DeAndre Hopkins at 27th and Xavier Rhodes at 25th. Pro Bowl tight ends Jordan Reed and Travis Kelce were both picked in the third round. 

In 2014 OBJ and Aaron Donald, both top 5 players at their position, were picked outside of the top 10 at 12th and 13th respectively. Steelers' stued linebacker Ryan Shazier was picked at 15th. Meanwhile guys like Blake Bortles, Justin Gilbert and Eric Ebron were taken above them. 

I could go on but you get my point: the draft is an inexact science and talent can be found outside of the top 5 and top 10. Sure you miss out on the stud prospects like Cam Newton, Andrew Luck and Matt Stafford. But if you're winning enough games to get to 8-8 either you have somewhat-competent play at QB or the rest of your roster is so stacked it can make up for a below average QB. In case one you can draft pieces to give your average QB some help and in case two trading up to get that stud QB is an option if the rest of your team is solid.

AFTER a team loses one of these 'meaningless'  games I'm totally with everyone else going "At least we're getting a better draft pick next year!" But until that point I still want the team to go in to ea

The bottom line is that every action taken between the months of February and August is done with the goal of winning as many football games in the upcoming year as possible. To abandon that goal because a superbowl isn't going to happen this year is simply asinine and not what a single NFL team does. At the end of the day an 8-8 team is point blank better than a 5-11 one and just because some of those wins came in December doesn't negate those at all. 

How to Refinance Your Student Loans

After graduating college and coming to terms with my student loan debt I figured I should share what I learned about paying them back. To be upfront I am going to be discussing two student loan refinancing companies that will give me (and you) a bonus if you happen to use either one of them. There are many different banks and companies that offer refinancing and you should definitely shop around and find what works best for your situation. I'm only discussing companies that I've directly taken loans from so I can give a realistic representation of what they offer.

Assess Your Situation

First off, document all your individual loans. Look back on your financial aid statements for each semester so you have an exact record of all the federal loans that were issued to you. Do the same for any private student loans you took out. For each loan make sure you have the date it was disbursed, the principal (original amount of the loan), the interest rate, whether the loan is subsidized, and the date the first payment needs to be made.

With that information calculate how much interest will accrue on each loan. Once you combine the interest accrued with the total principal you'll have the total balance for all your student loans.

Decide Which Loans to Refinance

This is where all those banks and loan companies come into play. You need to go and see what interest rate you'll get when you refinance. I shopped around a ton of places and LendKey gave me the lowest fixed interest rate. However, it turns out they didn't refinance ParentPlus loans because they weren't technically in my name. I ended up getting my ParentPlus loans refinanced with SoFi. Once you get your rate go back to the list of loans you've taken out and see how many of them have interest rates above the rate you were quoted from one of the companies (this will be referred to as the refi-rate). Those will be on your list to refinance.

If you have a good job out of college that pays well and you feel is relatively secure, refinancing all your loans above your quoted refi-rate may be a good option. If that isn't the case for you, federal loans might be ones you leave off the refinance list. There are benefits to those such as income-based repayment and potential forgiveness if you fall under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Those benefits may be of great use to you until you find yourself on more stable financial footing. Regardless of your situation, most private student loans don't have such benefits and if your refi-rate is lower than the interest rate on those loans then you will still be better off refinancing.

Term and Rate Type

You will be asked to select a term of repayment and a fixed or variable interest rate. The terms start at 5 years and go to 20 years in 5 year increments. The longer your term, the higher your interest rate. Fixed rates also start out higher than variable: you pay a premium to shield yourself of the risk of interest rates increasing in the future.

While it's true that you'll pay much more over the life of a 20 year loan than a 5 year loan you may consider the longer term loan for its lower monthly payments. There are no prepayment penalties so you can still pay more than the required monthly payment each month and still pay off the loan early. The advantage here is that you're on the hook for less each month so if your circumstances change you can go back to paying only the required amount. The disadvantage is that your interest rate will be slightly higher for the longer term. Choose what fits yours needs.

Gather Documents and Apply

You will need:

• Government ID
• 2 Pay Stubs (SoFi verifies this electronically)
• Proof of Graduation (can usually verify electronically)
• Pay-off statements for each individual loan

If there's anything else required from you both SoFi and LendKey have friendly people call and try to get everything resolved quickly. They are pretty helpful and U.S. based for whatever that's worth. Once everything is approved you receive some final disclosure statements which you can sign electronically. Then they send the checks to your original loan providers and you now have all your loans in one place at a lower interest rate.

Start Paying!

Seeing a large chunk of your paycheck go to paying student loans isn't fun. For many of us however, it was the only way to pay for our college education and should have been a worthwhile investment. It's likely that you didn't end up consolidating all of your loans. I still have mine split between Federal, SoFi and LendKey. I'm paying the minimum monthly payment for LendKey and Federal and putting all available extra cash toward the SoFi as it's my highest interest rate group. Once I finish paying that off I'll shift all extra cash towards paying off my LendKey loan and move on to the lowest interest rate federal loans. That minimizes the total interest I pay over the life of my loans and the emotional scarring all this debt brings with it.

TLDR: Organize all your loans by interest rate. Check with lenders such as SoFi and LendKey to get an interest rate (refi-rate). Take all loans that are currently above the refi-rate you were quoted and apply to get them refinanced. Pay off the higher interest loans first. 

Leave a comment if you have any other tips/suggestions or questions!

Faraz Builds a Garage: Prologue

For those lucky enough to have gotten my snapchats as I was building the garage congratulations on your exclusive early access! Those who know me know I enjoy working on cars, and for the past seven years have been working outside, usually in a covered driveway but still exposed to the elements for the most part. I'm used to freezing in the winter and sweating bullets in the summer. Having a completely enclosed garage would make working on cars more comfortable. Wiring the garage with electricity would let me power my tools without extension cords, and the lights would let me work at any hour of the day. It's also secure storage for my motorcycle and tools and can protect one of my family's four cars (mine) from the elements.

Rear subframe with differential removed

So before I could get started on the garage I needed to clear it out. My dad's old Toyota Highlander Hybrid was sitting in there rotting away. Something was wrong with the hybrid system and the dealer wanted around 5 grand to TRY and fix it. No guarantees. So it sat in the driveway for a year until I tried to fix it. I spent a few weeks working on it: first by swapping out a giant wiring harness that ran the length of the car.

When that didn't work I tried dropping the rear suspension and sub-frame to change the hybrid electric motor. About $2000
later and no closer to fixing it I ended up selling the car as-is for $1500. I took a gamble not knowing exactly what the problem was. If I had fixed it I'd be able to sell the car for around $5000 and be able to fund the garage from that and make my money back. You win some you lose some.

All the various automotive fluids

With the car on it's way out I prepped the driveway by cleaning it out. I had about seven years worth of used motor oil and transmission fluid stored in various containers so I got those out first. I took them to the local recycling center where I found out they had a a five gallon limit. The guy was cool though and went "If you pour it out yourself I'll pretend all that's only five gallons." So I ended up getting my hands a little dirty but I got rid of all the oil free of charge. Hooray taxes!





Finally I removed what I could to the basement and under the deck that resides right behind the driveway. Then I put whatever was left to one half of the driveway, swept up and power washed half, and then did it again for the other side. All that prep cost about three days time. After this was done I could get started on the actual construction of the garage which will be in another post! Enjoy these pictures pre-construction:

In Defense of Kirk Cousins

I know I said I was done with football articles, and I know it's been a while since I've written anything on here. However with my heart bleeding from the pain us Redskins fans became so used to over the past twenty years I felt the need to break my silence in the aftermath of the gut wrenching 19-10 loss to close out the season.

Here are the facts:

1. Cousins choked in two critical games this year. A win against Carolina would've cemented our standings in the playoffs at the time and given us control of our playoff fate. A win today would've overcome that game but he put up a stinker: throwing two devastating interceptions, the latter of which ended the game and the Redskins season.

2. He is the best quarterback to play for the Redskins since they moved to FedEx field, period. He's 6th all time in passing yardage and passing touchdowns in franchise history, 1st ever to go back to back seasons with 4000+ yards, and third in the NFL in passing yardage this year. He also led five 4th quarter comebacks -six if you want count the Lions game- this season alone. That's four out of the team's eight wins plus the tie. Last year he clinched the division by drubbing the Eagles in Week 16.

3. He is at the bare minimum an average quarterback. Few would disagree with this statement. He isn't Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. He will not win 13 games a year on his arm alone. However, by definition he is better than 15 or 16 other quarterbacks in the NFL. We can win games with Cousins at the helm. He has shown that more often than not he is accurate, capable of letting it fly and makes good decisions. Every now and again he's shown he can be clutch in the 4th quarter.

The Denver Broncos last year showed us that a great defense and mediocre quarterback play is enough to win the Superbowl. Cousins led the NFL's third best offense and the fact is you can do a lot worse than average over 400 yards of offense per game. My only point in writing this is anyone who wants a switch at quarterback is short sighted and can't see the big picture.

The Kansas City Chiefs are 12-4 with a quarterback that threw for 10 less touchdowns and around 1400 less yards than Cousins did. You can win games with competency, not excellence, at the quarterback position. If anything the end of the season gives the Redskins more leverage in paying less money for his services but they would be completely moronic to not try and get an extension at all.

There is no Andrew Luck in this year's draft. There may be a Russell Wilson or a Dak Prescott but there is no way they will perform better than Cousins will next season. The free agents options aside from Tony Romo (who is injury prone and unreliable as a starter at this point) are either garbage or unproven. And I don't need to remind Redskins fans how one season of great quarterbacking means absolutely nothing. See RG3, Nick Foles & Matt Cassel for examples.

As a final note I don't want to diminish the potential Cousins has shown. This is only his 2nd full year as a starter and his first year having gone through the off-season getting all the reps the starter gets. Cousins has similar stats to Matt Ryan, Phillip Rivers, Andrew Luck and Big Ben when you look at their first two years starting. And in general when compared with those four he has more touchdowns, yards and less interceptions in those first two years. Having around eight fourth quarter comebacks/game winning winning drives in his career demonstrates that he has the potential to be clutch under pressure and win games, it's just a matter of if he can do it just a bit more consistently as time goes on.

Ultimately Kirk Cousins is the Redskins best option at quarterback for the next season and moving forward. He provides stability the team can build around and will rarely be the limiting factor in football games, pushing the team to win more often than he holds them back.