Bad luck is good Luck for several teams entering 2011

by | Sep 10, 2011 | 2011 season, NFL Draft, NFL Random Thoughts

Most years most teams like to go into the season creating at least some sort of vision that they can be the last team standing, the franchise hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy handed out at the end of the Super Bowl in February.

Arguably one-quarter of the league this year appear to have their sights set much lower … or would it be higher? They will be competing less for the championship and more for the consolation prize – first pick in the draft and the rights to draft Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck.

By most accounts, Luck would have been the first pick had he chosen to leave Stanford after his junior year. That honor went instead to Auburn signal caller Cam Newton.

Several teams spent their off-seasons not getting better, some of them barely masking the fact that they are sacrificing 2011 for the potential riches that may follow.

Eight teams vying for Luck: (more…)

Forte equal to Peterson? Not even close

by | Jul 20, 2011 | NFL Random Thoughts

Sometimes sports statisticians find new measurements that shed light on players in ways that old numbers never did.

Sometimes they try a little too hard.

The latter happened today to KC Joyner, who calls himself the Football Scientist, when he tried to convince himself that Chicago Bears running back Matt Forte “stacks up evenly with” the Minnesota Vikings’ Adrian Peterson.

Now, are there things Forte does better than Peterson? Yes. He is a better receiver out of the backfield. Forte has 51, 57 and 63 catches in his three seasons. Peterson is not terrible catching the ball, with 119 catches in four years, but I would give the Bear the nod in that area.

I’m not an expert in pass blocking either, but the Vikings routinely remove Peterson from games on third downs. Joyner claims Forte is a better blocker. Some seem to agree he prevented Jay Cutler from getting killed at times. I haven’t seen enough to judge so I’ll concede the point (though at least some seem to feel Forte and his fellow backs could improve in this area).

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NFL Sunday Ticket canceled

by | Jul 17, 2011 | NFL Lockout, NFL Media, NFL Random Thoughts

I canceled my NFL Sunday Ticket subscription tonight.

I actually started having second thoughts about it over the weekend, despite writing a week or so ago that I would do so if the NFL did not solve its labor issues by July 15.

They seem to be close to arriving at a deal. But they have seemed close to coming to a deal for two or three weeks now. Enough is enough.

Even as early as this morning, however, I thought DirecTV might get a reprieve. A friend emailed me information that DirecTV was offering its Sunday Ticket package for free for the season. That would seem to be a reasonable offer. But after a little reading and a couple of phone calls, I learned that, of course, DirecTV was only offering that deal to new subscribers.

Existing subscribers, I was told, are appreciated, but ineligible for the service. So DirecTV is competing with most cell phone companies and who the hell knows how many other businesses in treating new clients better than existing ones. Does nobody remember how much it costs to get a lost customer back?

So, anyway, for the 2011 season DirecTV is ineligible to keep my business, at least as far as Sunday Ticket goes. I can use that $300-and-change on other things.

Again, as I have written before, I am aware that my little protest alone is not going to have much of an impact on the business of the league or DirecTV. But I share in the hopes of AOL FanHouse Columnist David Steele, who writes at SportingNews.com that he hopes fans do not “give their love back to the NFL for free.”

I agree. Regardless of whether they return in time to play a full season or not, the owners and the players have cost us virtually the entire offseason. Let’s have some pride as fans and make them pay in the pocketbook enough so they can feel it.

Time for fans to send message by reducing NFL spending

by | Jul 1, 2011 | 2011 season, NFL Lockout, NFL Random Thoughts

The first NFL preview magazines have showed up on the shelves of my local bookstore. For the first time in many years I didn’t make a special trip to go find them. I stumbled on to them while I was in the store looking for something else.

I bought two fantasy football publications: Sporting News 2011 Fantasy Football and Fantasy League Football 2011. The NFL is largely about money for owners and players so I’ve made it at least somewhat about money for me too – I play in several fantasy football leagues and have had a fair amount of success over the years.

But as for buying the actual preview magazines, it seemed a bit pointless given the lockout and lack of a free agency period to this point. We’re a couple weeks off of when training camps would normally start and there has not yet been anything resembling an offseason.

Lindy’s, which publishes my favorite preseason annual, seemed to recognize this. They published their typical June version with a publisher’s note saying they planned to publish again in August if there was movement toward the season taking place.

With all due respect to Lindy’s, I’ll wait until then to buy the magazine.

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Owens done? Is he Hall of Famer?

by | Jun 27, 2011 | Hall of Fame, NFL News, NFL Random Thoughts

ESPN has reported that star wide receiver Terrell Owens tore his ACL last month, either while filming a “reality television show” or during a personal workout.

As a 37-year-old athlete who is not currently under contract, the injury obviously puts the controversial wide receiver’s future in doubt.

So, two questions: Is he done? And is he a Hall of Famer?

I don’t care for Owens. He’s definitely got some diva to him as an individual, prancing for the cameras and throwing quarterback Donovan McNabb under the bus as his two years in Philadelphia wound down.

But you can’t help but respect him as a player. No matter what his often strange life has looked like off the field, he is a workout warrior who always answers the bell on Sundays. His nine catch, 122-yard performance in Super Bowl XXXIX on a barely healed broken leg was as memorable as it gets, despite the loss.

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