NFL '09

[H-Bomb Henry]

Watching the Patriots run up the score on the Titans 3rd string DB's was great. It pretty much confirmed my suspicions that Bellichick would punch a toddler in the face to win a football game.

 

I really missed Tom last year and I'm glad that the NFL has created a rule that says you cannot tackle Brady or it's 15 yards.

[caliber66]

That dude lives to hate people associated with sports teams he does not like.

[Good Old Neon]

Malcolm Gladwell has written a pretty disturbing article pointing out the similarities between football and dog fighting, and the degenerative neurological damage many players subject themselves too unknowingly. It is not anti-football, just a sobering look at the sort of future some players have in store.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell

[Guest Runaway Jim]

I really missed Tom last year and I'm glad that the NFL has created a rule that says you cannot tackle Brady or it's 15 yards.

 

That one hit from Chris Hope was clearly helmet to helmet and late. 15 yards - automatic first down.

[Oil Can Boyd]

Watching the Patriots run up the score on the Titans 3rd string DB's was great. It pretty much confirmed my suspicions that Bellichick would punch a toddler in the face to win a football game.

Y'know, despite the score I really don't think the Patriots ran up the score (and believe, me, there were times in 2007 when I think they did). Brady played for one drive in the second half and a rookie quarterback played the rest of the game. They mostly ran the ball in the 4th quarter. Should Brady have started taking a knee before halftime?

[caliber66]

As a Redskins fan, I said (if not here, then in RL) after their 52-7 loss to the Patriots in 2007 that if the Redskins did not want the Patriots to keep running up the score, then they should have stopped them from continuing to score.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

Y'know, despite the score I really don't think the Patriots ran up the score (and believe, me, there were times in 2007 when I think they did). Brady played for one drive in the second half and a rookie quarterback played the rest of the game. They mostly ran the ball in the 4th quarter. Should Brady have started taking a knee before halftime?

 

I have no issue with a team running up the score. I flat out like it. But I was surprised to see Brady in there. It was pretty clear that the Titans stood no chance. I'd have liked to see Brady on the sideline purely because there was no point in him, or anyone even a tenth as valuable as him, playing.

[bobbob1313]

There is no such thing as running the score up in the NFL. Anybody who believes this must also believe that there is such a thing as a company making too much money relative to their competitors. If you can't compete, that's your fault.

[rareair]

There is no such thing as running the score up in the NFL. Anybody who believes this must also believe that there is such a thing as a company making too much money relative to their competitors. If you can't compete, that's your fault.

 

i agree. the titans replacement cbs were incompetent and the team quit. blame the titans.

[Guest Jules]

Malcolm Gladwell has written a pretty disturbing article pointing out the similarities between football and dog fighting, and the degenerative neurological damage many players subject themselves too unknowingly. It is not anti-football, just a sobering look at the sort of future some players have in store.

 

http://www.newyorker...a_fact_gladwell

What "sort of future" would most of them have if they never played football?

[Good Old Neon]

What "sort of future" would most of them have if they never played football?

 

It’s impossible to say, but had they not played football, it’s likely that many of the players discussed within the article would not have experienced dementia-like neurological decline in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. The only person who could answer “was it worth it?” is the individual, and unfortunately, some of them couldn’t comprehend the question. If it were me, given a choice between a.) fame and fortune with a side of dementia, and b.) a long, yet fame and fortune free life with my wits intact, I’d take b. Which is not to say those are the only two choices, as the majority of players will suffer from little more than (debilitating?) arthritis – but it’s an aspect of the sport that shouldn’t be overlooked.

 

As for what their futures would have looked like without football, probably not all that different from the majority of folks, some would have found success, others would not – most would probably fall somewhere in between the two poles.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

There is no such thing as running the score up in the NFL. Anybody who believes this must also believe that there is such a thing as a company making too much money relative to their competitors. If you can't compete, that's your fault.

 

Exactly.

[bjorn_skurj]

What "sort of future" would most of them have if they never played football?

They'd work for a living, struggle to make ends meet, worry about money, retire and die without their brains turning to mush inside their broken and agonized bodies, maybe. I don't know if that is better or not. I do feel that the modern football game is pretty dangerous, as the increasing strength and speed of the players has not been matched by the players' abilities to absorb punishment. Maybe it is time to switch to robots like they do on The Jetsons.

[Good Old Neon]

They'd work for a living, struggle to make ends meet, worry about money, retire and die without their brains turning to mush inside their broken and agonized bodies, maybe. I don't know if that is better or not. I do feel that the modern football game is pretty dangerous, as the increasing strength and speed of the players has not been matched by the players' abilities to absorb punishment. Maybe it is time to switch to robots like they do on The Jetsons.

 

Yep - one of the scarier, more tragic parts of the article:

 

McKee got up and walked across the corridor, back to her office. “There’s one last thing,” she said. She pulled out a large photographic blowup of a brain-tissue sample. “This is a kid. I’m not allowed to talk about how he died. He was a good student. This is his brain. He’s eighteen years old. He played football. He’d been playing football for a couple of years.” She pointed to a series of dark spots on the image, where the stain had marked the presence of something abnormal. “He’s got all this tau. This is frontal and this is insular. Very close to insular. Those same vulnerable regions.” This was a teen-ager, and already his brain showed the kind of decay that is usually associated with old age. “This is completely inappropriate,” she said. “You don’t see tau like this in an eighteen-year-old. You don’t see tau like this in a fifty-year-old.”

 

McKee is a longtime football fan. She is from Wisconsin. She had two statuettes of Brett Favre, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback, on her bookshelf. On the wall was a picture of a robust young man. It was McKee’s son—nineteen years old, six feet three. If he had a chance to join the N.F.L., I asked her, what would she advise him? “I’d say, ‘Don’t. Not if you want to have a life after football.’

[bobbob1313]

I'm pretty sure these numbers are right:

 

In 1905, 19 college students died from playing football. President Roosevelt briefly toyed with the idea of banning it because it was so dangerous. In 1909, 33 college students died.

 

The game is far, far, safer now than it ever has been. Hell, just the style of play alone has made it a safer game.

 

It seems to me that GON is almost trying to blame the game for the punishment the guys take, but they all partake in it without being forced or coerced. Safety has improved dramatically, and new helmets are being created all of the time to help protect players. It's never going to be a safe game to play, but as long as people want to play it, advances will be made to make them safer.

 

As the latest innovation in baseball batting helmet technology has shown, most of the blame has to fall squarely on the athletes. When a new, safer alternative pops up, they resist it almost completely.

 

If you want to complain about something, complain about the NFL's pretty terrible treatment of the veterans of the 60's and 70's. The guys who weren't making millions of dollars and who weren't protected and given top notch treatment for injuries. Those guys don't get the type of help they deserve as retired players. I would be willing to bet when Adrian Peterson retires he'll be in much better shape than Earl Campbell when he retired. The players today are in much better positions than the ones from 20, 30, 40 years ago. I would guess many of the players who retire this offseason will be leaps and bounds better off than their counterparts from the 60's and 70's and 80's.

[Good Old Neon]

 

It seems to me that GON is almost trying to blame the game for the punishment the guys take, but they all partake in it without being forced or coerced. Safety has improved dramatically, and new helmets are being created all of the time to help protect players. It's never going to be a safe game to play, but as long as people want to play it, advances will be made to make them safer.

 

Yes, the game, by its very nature, is to blame for the injuries. Golfers don't suffer the same frequency of brain injuries. But I agree that players are responsible for their own safety. And individuals who choose to play the sport do so knowing the risks, and if they are not aware, they should be made so.

 

As for helmet improvements, it cuts both ways:

 

“Nowinski says, the better helmets have become—and the more invulnerable they have made the player seem—the more athletes have been inclined to play recklessly

 

“People love technological solutions,” Nowinski went on. “When I give speeches, the first question is always: ‘What about these new helmets I hear about?’ What most people don’t realize is that we are decades, if not forever, from having a helmet that would fix the problem. I mean, you have two men running into each other at full speed and you think a little bit of plastic and padding could absorb that 150 gs of force?”

 

Further:

 

Much of the attention in the football world, in the past few years, has been on concussions—on diagnosing, managing, and preventing them—and on figuring out how many concussions a player can have before he should call it quits. But a football player’s real issue isn’t simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too.

 

That’s why, Cantu says, so many of the ex-players who have been given a diagnosis of C.T.E. were linemen: line play lends itself to lots of little hits. The HITS data suggest that, in an average football season, a lineman could get struck in the head a thousand times, which means that a ten-year N.F.L. veteran, when you bring in his college and high-school playing days, could well have been hit in the head eighteen thousand times: that’s thousands of jarring blows that shake the brain from front to back and side to side, stretching and weakening and tearing the connections among nerve cells, and making the brain increasingly vulnerable to long-term damage. People with C.T.E., Cantu says, “aren’t necessarily people with a high, recognized concussion history. But they are individuals who collided heads on every play—repetitively doing this, year after year, under levels that were tolerable for them to continue to play.”

 

I’m not suggesting we do away with football, I just found the article is interesting and illuminating.

[bjorn_skurj]

And, pro football is much much safer than gladiatorial combat, which had a pretty high fatality rate, helmets or no. But everyone will get to take a break next year, as there will be a lockout, sources say.

[Good Old Neon]

I’m still waiting for someone to marry football, with dog fighting. Maybe replace all the players - with the exception of the quarterback – with steroid enhanced, super pit bulls, and see how that plays out.

[Guest Jules]

I’m still waiting for someone to marry football, with dog fighting. Maybe replace all the players - with the exception of the quarterback – with steroid enhanced, super pit bulls, and see how that plays out.

You ever tried to throw a football to a dog? Not pretty.

[Good Old Neon]

You ever tried to throw a football to a dog? Not pretty.

 

I haven’t – do you think it would help if we were to cloth both the dog and the football in state of the art Velcro? That way, the quarterback only has to hit the dog with the ball, who, now hit, will have to decide if he’s going run for the end zone, or just turn around and attack the asshole who just hit him in the schnawz (sp?) with a football – either way, it’s sure to be entertaining.

[Winston Legthigh]

I remember a Sports Illustrated article from a number of years back. A survey was sent to various doctors, asking what changes they would support to make football safer. Surprisingly, a large number advocated taking away helmets altogether. They claimed that helmets made players too fearless, and they would have to learn to tackle and hit with head-safety being their number one concern. Certainly someone without a helmet wouldn't tackle by leading with their face.

 

I would like to see a study done on concussion rates for professional rugby players.

[Gobias Industries]

Ok, since the Patriots are playing the TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (worst pass defense, ever) in London, it's time to start taking the over/under on point differential AT HALFTIME. So:

 

Spread greater than 24 points at halftime

Spread 24 points or less at halftime

 

Let's see your calls, everyone.

[cryptique]

I'd have to take the under on that one. Though a 24-point halftime lead is quite possible for that game, I'd never put money on it.

[Kevan]

Last year, NYG v Miami was a mess. If I remember correctly the condition of the field was not conducive to an nfl football game. I believe there were bad weather conditions preceding and during that game, but the consensus was the field was the worst playing surface many of the players could remember playing on. I could be wrong here, just going on memory of a game I didn't watch (but read about), but I wonder if that comes into play. If so, could be another 5-2 game like last year (kidding, but wouldnt that be the worst score of any nfl game in history? that or 4-2. Wonder if those have ever been final scores).

[Gobias Industries]

Last year, NYG v Miami was a mess. If I remember correctly the condition of the field was not conducive to an nfl football game. I believe there were bad weather conditions preceding and during that game, but the consensus was the field was the worst playing surface many of the players could remember playing on. I could be wrong here, just going on memory of a game I didn't watch (but read about), but I wonder if that comes into play. If so, could be another 5-2 game like last year (kidding, but wouldnt that be the worst score of any nfl game in history? that or 4-2. Wonder if those have ever been final scores).

 

It wasn't pro ball, but an Auburn game (Auburn-USC?) game ended at 3-2.

 

I read ESPN's power rankings, and they say that it's possible that the Colts go 14-2. I looked, and it's entirely possible. Just absurd.

 

7 Sun, Oct 25 @ St. Louis

8 Sun, Nov 1 San Francisco

9 Sun, Nov 8 Houston

10 Sun, Nov 15 New England

11 Sun, Nov 22 @ Baltimore

12 Sun, Nov 29 @ Houston

13 Sun, Dec 6 Tennessee

14 Sun, Dec 13 Denver

15 Thu, Dec 17 @ Jacksonville

16 Sun, Dec 27 NY Jets

17 Sun, Jan 3 @ Buffalo

 

Tough teams are NE, Baltimore, Denver. And it's HIGHLY unlikely that they'll go 0-3 vs. them. They can easily sweep the rest. That is freaky business, man.