It sucks that neither Mallett nor Savage got much of an audition, as it doesn't shed any light on how badly the club needs to pursue a QB in the off-season.
That they need one is lit up, not how badly, IMO. Do you need one so badly that you trade up to go for a college guy or just need one badly enough to seek another Fitz/Hoyer type retread?
They need a lot of players, and it's not clear to me that either of the two college guys are worth losing assets to move up in the draft. So, it's still unclear to me what they should do. What action does your absolute clarity offer, other than the obvious observation that Fitz ain't it?
I'm in the extreme minority, but I actually think the NFL as a product has become very trite. What are the notable football-related storylines this season? The Arizona Cardinals success? The shittiness of the NFC South? Aaron Rodgers? None of those are interesting. The memorable moments are all domestic abuse related.
Finally, someone more intelligible than me puts this into a column.http://deadspin.com/this-has-been-the-worst-season-in-nfl-history-1672165851
Why can’t they find announcers who talk normal? Is it so fucking hard to find a guy who’s like, "Hey, that was a nice pass," instead of "I TELL YOU WHAT … IF YOU WANNA MAKE IT IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, THAT’S A THROW YOU NEED TO MAKE FROM THE QUARTERBACK POSITION"? I don’t get TV people at all.
This was funny:
Works best if you read it in Phil Simms' voice.
I keep waiting to hear that the Texans have worked out a trade with the Bears for Cutler. It seems so... perfect for the Texans. And by perfect I mean idiotic.
I read it in Grudenese
Football commentators have A LOT of dead space to fill. Hence the need to use 30 words when 5 will do.The problem is that this necessary verbal diarrhea from football has infected pretty much everything else, and now everyone with a mic believes that the sound of their voice is what we tune in for, so they never STFU and let the pictures (worth a thousands words, right?) speak for themselves.
Agreed, which is why soccer coverage is generally great.It's one of the reasons I like Joe Buck so much, too. He doesn't seem to talk if it's unnecessary.
I admit to liking the Buck/Aikman duo when they are covering games. Generally pleasant to listen to and fairly intelligent discussions.
They are good, but I have found that I like Albert, Johnston and Siragusa even better.
I hope he's overcome the desire to run straight backwards for a 17 yard sack.
It sure is enjoyable watching Kubiak and his befuddled expression on the *other* sideline.
It's not over yet, Kubiak's halftime adjustments are looming.
Ohhh, nice play! Halfback pass for a touchdown! Hell of a play by Foster.
This just in: this turf is terrible.That was a nice play for the two Texans on punt coverage to take each out.
Red Zone play calling is palm-licker fucked up and stupid.
Running the 5th string qb out there has nothing to do with it.
It took Randy the kicker about 4/5 of his first season to shake the rookie jitters, but he's been pretty good in the interim.
Still scares the shit out of me. Maybe 5 years from now I'll think of him as money.
I think the quarterback is perfectly capable of handing the ball off to #23. Calling slants and outs to receivers at the three yard line is not a function of an inexperienced or unfamiliar quarterback. Fuck. Are you even watching the game?
Ok, I'm a little afraid to ask this question: should I be pulling for the Cowboys against the Colts?
Yes.
What the fuck? Why would you ever want the Cowboys to ever win another game?
Hey, wait, I got Fleener on my FFB team. I need him to catch a touchdown. Fuck the Cowboys!!!
Given the wretched "quality" of their division, the Cowboys are a lock for a playoff position, so if there's a possibility of fucking up the Colts, we might as well pull for them now. They'll screw the pooch soon enough.
They swept your division, so should you be judging other divisions?
and, if the NFC East is "wretched" WTF is the AFC South?
I don't get the play-calling criticism or the criticism of Crenel. This team is not deeply talented, with a fourth string QB. The fact that they are decidedly average is a sign of quality coaching.
Now the Texans will likely not make the playoffs because of O'Brien's situational play calling stupidity.
Yes, it has nothing to do with mediocre talent or terrible QB play, it's those plays at the end of the half in one game.
The coach has the responsibility to put them in position to win and not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. When he fails miserably at that, he shoulders blame too.
I'll be a big fan of the Chiefs and Browns next weekend.
But he's not the sole reason as was implied.
I know the theme of this thread is to second-guess every decision O'Brien makes in games, but I actually think he's done a great job this year.
Anyone know why Fox is doing AFC broadcasts this year? Texans fans in San Antonio are getting screwed by this for the second time this season.
Jacksonville is NFC, road teams determine which network has broadcast rights in inter-conference play. Cowboys always trump Texans in SA and Austin when they play at the same time on the same network.
The Browns' personnel department has been instructed that everything is on the table for 2015 in terms of the quarterback. That means the Browns will scout top college prospects such as Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota of Oregon and Jameis Winston of Florida State, although Winston is a character concern and the Browns have had enough of that with Manziel. The Browns have two first-round picks again: the No. 12 overall and No. 19 from Buffalo. They can also try to trade [Josh] Gordon and possibly Manziel to get more ammunition if they choose to pursue Mariota.
Browns may be moving on from Johnny Fuckup.
They think they can trade Manziel? They're more deluded than I thought. He'll be lucky to get a job on a practice squad.
I suspect he doesn't really give a shit either way.
The time to not give a shit is after you get off your rookie contract, not before. Not that anybody's ever accused him of being too bright.
He's already made $100MM in endorsements.
Panini must have sold a helluva lot of football cards and autographed helmets.
his Nike deal alone was over $60MM.
As serious as the NFL takes itself, it sure looks illogical with its playoff structure. Arizona at Carolina has to be the worst playoff matchup I can remember. I think there are 14 teams better than those 2 at this point.
You're right. It would be far better and more accurate to have a committee of a dozen or so informed members evaluate all the teams based upon their enlightened criteria and decide who should make the playoffs.
Or maybe a computer. One that's programmed to take interesting story lines into account.
A simple caveat requiring a winning record to make the playoffs would fix this.
I guess they could do away with divisions, add two expansion teams (London and LA?) and have everyone in each conference play each other and take the top 6 from each conference.
Have team six and team seven play a thirty minute game to determine who advances and then figure out how to make the Pro Bowl affect the Super Bowl and then I think we'd have story lines a-plenty.
...figure out how to make the Pro Bowl affect the Super Bowl and then I think we'd have story lines a-plenty.
And I'm sure he's made a pretty penny from his autograph too. Word is he mad around $2MM his last year at A&M on autographs.
"Fix" it? There's nothing wrong with it. You've divided the league into divisions. Your playoff system states that division winners compete in the playoffs. That's what's happening. I get that you don't care to see Carolina, but the system is not broken.
I'd argue that a team with a losing record hosting a playoff game is a broken system.
If you have divisions, then the division winner needs to be in the playoffs. It would be broken to win your division and not be in the playoffs.
It is a completely predictable that you would have an occasionally below .500 division winner with 8 4-team divisions. It might occasionally happen with 6 5 team divisions. I bet it didn't come up at all during the discussions because those are not the numbers they care about.
I remember about 10 years ago that an Irish guy was telling me that MLS was doomed because they adopted the American season-playoff structure versus the Euro competition structure where you have separate elimination play and season play going on simultaneously (or whatever is going on, I don't really follow Euro sports). MLS seems to be doing ok despite this, but it is a little weird that we have settled on this one way of organizing sports leagues.
Ok I guess what I'm saying is the *structure* is broken...not the *system*. Is that more accurate? Feels like we're parsing here....
Europe has moved away from the separation of league and knock-out play, notably for the big money Champions League that features a combination of both (mostly as a vehicle to have more games so as to make more money - which is why you can finish 4th in the Premier League and still play in the Champions League). The domestic league title in all cases is still decided purely on league play, but lower divisions have a playoff system for promotion.What US sports get by having a combined league and knock-out system does do, though, is teams being a champion of their own division even though they may have the 4th, 5th, 6th or worse season record overall. I still don't understand the logic of Uncle Drayton claiming the Astros to be Wild Card "Champions" *, but winning your division has more cache than earning a place in next season's Europa League.* Full disclosure: Crystal Palace received a trophy for finishing 6th but winning the promotion playoffs in 2013.
I don't follow European leagues either, but it was my understanding that the Premier League and the Champions League were two different things. Their "seasons" were played simultaneously, but one was an actual "league" and one was a cross-league open tournament, so to speak. A team could theoretically finish last in their "league', but still win the championship "tournament". In US sports, there is but one championship, but they're all decided by a playoff system. This is done for two reasons: 1) so teams aren't out of the race half-way through the season, taking their fans with them, and 2) to make it more difficult for the New York Yankees one team to win every year, decreasing general interest in the league.
