PosterToBeNamedLater

I think the replacement ref thing is getting a tad bit overblown. They haven't been that terrible--and they seem to be a lot better than when they first started. I think everyone was expecting a lot worse. And it isn't like the old refs were that great. There was always plenty of bitching about refs in game threads for either bears or packers games in the past. I mean there were many times in the past that a team would challenge a play, the announcers, everyone at home, and head of officiating would clearly see it one way, and the ref on the field would still make a terrible call. I can't stand bad officiating, but the bad calls haven't been that egregious. To me it almost seems like they let a little more go than the refs have in the past few years. I would rather error on the side of "letting them play" than constantly making ticky-tack calls. I say this and I will probably be pissed about something in the Bears-packers game this week.

I've been doing this for 2-3 years now (at least) and it's very successful. I'm in 4 leagues this year and in every one, my last pick has been a defense. I don't even try for any stud defenses anymore, partially because of unpredictable variance and partially because I'd rather have the better offensive player and go with merry-go-round defenses. I would definitely do this if it was allowed, but our league rules only allow for a one-time pickup of a defense during the season to avoid this scenario. I am glad we have that rule.

McFadden Steven Jackson Either Kevin Smith or Fred Jackson It is an 8 team league with my close friends back home so you can end up with some pretty good rosters... although I was pretty surprised to end up with the RB's I did. Usually they go faster in our draft, but this year, I was able to get the Jackson's later than I thought.

What do your receivers look like that you have to decide between Welker and Bryant? No flex spot? I would assume you would start both? Dez Bryant if you can only have 1. You must have a pretty stacked team. I would go Fred Jackson over Smith. I just hate Lions RBs. Well, in my league we start a combination of 4 RB's and WR's--there must be 1 of each, but other than that, you could do 3 RB, 1 WR. I am starting 3 RB's, so was deciding between those two as my 1 receiver for the week. I hate Lions running backs as well. I drafted Smith specifically for early in the season when he is the only option, and the Rams were one of the worst Rush D's last year... I imagine the Lions will get a big lead and maybe run the ball more after that. But I think that hate is making it difficult for me.

I keep going back and forth on two options. Kevin Smith vs STL or Fred Jackson @ NYJ (right now I am leaning toward K. Smith with these matchups, despite liking Fred Jackson much more overall) Wes Welker @ TEN or Dez Bryant @ NYG

The current OT rules are a hell of a lot better than that suggestion, and I kinda hate the current OT rules. Do you hate it because it takes away a team trying to rush down the field at the end? I can see that. I guess it is just whether you want the excitement of someone trying rush to score at the end or being more fair. I didn't mind the old OT rules, but just thought this would be more fair. A tie game in sudden death is already exciting. I wouldn't really care either way--and honestly wouldn't totally mind ending the games in a tie. I hate it because football doesn't work as a "short game". Yes, occasionally there's a quick drive, big pass, etc. But generally it's a grind it out, get 3-4 yards, try to sprinkle in the occasional big play game, and I dont' think that fits well into a confined space. I think OT ends up giving a win to one team and a loss to another, for a game in which both proved equal over the course of 60 minutes of play. I'd rather give them a tie and move along. Obviously that's not an option in the playoffs, and something has to be done there. I wonder how ties instead of OT would have affected this past season? If I get some time later in my Friday, I'll see if I can figure that out. I could definitely go along with giving the teams a tie, but the comment about football not really working as a short game is why I always thought it would be better to just continue on from where they left off. It seemed strange to need to start the game over from scratch with another coin toss and play a mini game to see who wins, rather than just continuing on with a slightly longer game to see who is the leader. Again, it is already arbitrary that we consider the winner the team with the lead after 60 minutes. Why not just continue on until someone has the lead again and stop the game at that point?

The current OT rules are a hell of a lot better than that suggestion, and I kinda hate the current OT rules. Do you hate it because it takes away a team trying to rush down the field at the end? I can see that. I guess it is just whether you want the excitement of someone trying rush to score at the end or being more fair. I didn't mind the old OT rules, but just thought this would be more fair. A tie game in sudden death is already exciting. I wouldn't really care either way--and honestly wouldn't totally mind ending the games in a tie.

That would probably make the coin flip even more important. I would think it would be better to kickoff first in that scenario.

I don't really get why people were that upset with sudden death either. I know someone mentioned that the coin flip can greatly alter the odds of winning, but if I remember correctly, the team that wins the coin flip only wins 50-something percent of the time. I know they would never change it to this because they want the teams rushing to score at the end, but I always just felt that if the game is tied after the 4th quarter, they should just continue on from wherever they left off like it was a change from the 1st to 2nd quarter and finish in a sudden death style. The team that has the ball continues from the down and distance they left off at. Having the lead after 60 minutes is already completely arbritrary. Who cares if the winner is the team that takes the lead at 60+ minutes? Seems more fair than the coin flip, considering the team that just scored could get it right back.

What happened with that rookie punter that was competing with Podlesh last pre-season? I seem to remember thinking he outplayed Podlesh, but since Podlesh was a veteran who we paid some money to, he didn't really have much of a real chance. Did he end up somewhere else?

I like to make Excel spreadsheets for all of the players that could be drafted. I enter their stats from the previous year and calculate how many points they would score per game with my leagues scoring system. In the past, I have just entered all of the stats manually using a magazine. Last year, I was just using online data and typing it in manually. I would like to be able to just copy all of the data for a position off of a screen and then paste it into excel if possible. It just seems like not all of the data is on one page. For example, QB's might have all the passing statistics on one page, but their rushing stats might be somewhere else. I noticed that Football guys has most of the stats I am looking for on one page, but it doesn't show the number of games they played the previous season, just the totals for the categories. It would still save me a lot of time by just having to go and search the games and enter that one thing myself, but have you guys found any good sites that might be even better that show as much as possible on one page (showing all of the players for a given position at once)? Here is the example of Football Guys: http://subscribers.footballguys.com/players/historical-qb-2011.php

I am glad the bears still have a classic look. I am not liking the jerseys with the different color around the collar. It looks like a collar from a polo shirt.

It looks like the replay is being shown late Thursday night and then Friday morning as well on NFL network. I have the DVR set for it. They are replaying a lot of preseason games on Friday.

So is simultaneously blaming the game 3 loss on Noah's injury, and Noah playing. Whatever, this doesn't matter. I don't really even care. But obviously both Noah's injury and his playing on a horribly sprained ankle can both be negative things. Maybe they should have played Rose on his torn ACL while they were at it. We would have been contenders again. And yeah, the score changed by 2 when he was in the game, but they did go up by 13 on the first possession (he did hit the shot). Then, I believe the 76ers got an offensive rebound over him and the putback... and the next possession they scored on him again. The lead was cut to 9 and the momentum clearly changed. The 76ers had a bounce to their step and the crowd was getting back into it. The main point was just that it is a little more complicated than: Bulls lost to 76ers, so Bulls must be worse than 76ers.

and noah Yeah, I think it is disingenuous to think the bulls aren't better than the 8 seed without rose. I don't think they are a great team or anything without him, but those games weren't played in a vacuum. It was an absolute gut-punch to lose Rose the way they did. They had worked hard all year to get the #1 seed (even without him most of the time) just to have everything wiped away in one play. They went from thinking they could win it all to knowing they had no chance. It isn't like the rest of the team could think, "hey, if we play hard and win, we can expect rose back next round." He was done. No matter if they beat the sixers (and maybe even beat the celtics in the next round), there is no way they could win the East. It was a futile effort at that point. Losing in game 2 was fairly predictable. But they came back strong in Game 3 and were well on their way to an easy victory and a 2-1 lead when they get punched in the gut again with Noah's injury. They still would have even won that game (I think they were up 14 points with only a couple of minutes left) had Noah not come back in. There was a stretch when he came back in where I think the Sixers had 3 straight drives to the hoop where they scored right over him because he couldn't jump. That started the comeback in that game. Now, they are down 2-1 without their two best players. At that point, I stopped caring how the rest of the series went and I am sure it was difficult for the players to be as mentally engaged as they could be.

Kobe is an idiot. Kobe is 33 years old. Magic was only 32 (and 10,000 less minutes or so) when he was on the Dream Team. Only Bird was older than Kobe and past their prime. I heard that like Dream Team avg age is like 28 and 2012 is 26, but 2012 team could be "older" if you looks at minutes played by each guy due to guys leaving college early or went to NBA from high school compared to the Dream Team at their point of their career. But at the same time, we're seeing guys play longer at a higher level now than they did in 1992 for a number of reasons (better training, advances in medicine, etc.) Yeah, and although Magic was 32, he had been out of the league for a year at that point. But, it is Magic on a team full of legends. He is probably the best passer ever and all he needs to do is pass. Really only Bird was old (or at least played older than his age at that point), and in this game he might not have played much. It was fine that he was on the 92 team because they were going to destroy everyone anyway and he was an all-time legend. But yeah, that would be fun to watch. However, if they played a series, I don't see how 92 doesn't sweep them. Clearly Lebron is the best player on this years team, and yet the 92 team has perhaps the best perimeter defender in history to guard him in Pippen. It would also be interesting to see how Lebron would handle some viscious trash talking from some of the 92 team.

Yeah there is no way this team should be in the conversation as being better than 1992. Would the games be relatively close? Maybe, but just because two really good teams will usually have close games. But like Barkley said, there would be very few players from the 2012 roster that would even make the 1992 team--Lebron, Durant and Kobe. I mean this team has Rudy Gay, Iguodala, James harden, eric gordon. Then even some of their "stars" like carmelo, bosh, and griffin aren't that great. Tyson chandler vs David Robinson and Ewing? Who is stopping barkley... or Karl Malone when he comes in? Yeah, bird and magic were old and past their prime (Kobe isn't in his prime anymore either), but magic was still pretty good and his backup is John Stockton. I would take stockton over chris Paul a million times out of 10. The 92 team would be much better defensively. And that team had some of the most competitive athletes of all time. I think they would be much more mentally engaged in wanting to not only beat this current team, but embarrass them as well.

http://whatdoumeme.com/media/created/dtz465.jpg

This year? Not very likely. For 2014? I could see them doing it. Yeah, there's so little to be gained by amnestying him this year. I agree with that, I was thinking about future plans. I hope I am wrong, but I could see him not wanting to pay the money just to release a player.

When I have seen people talking about a Howard trade with Deng included, it seems like they have Hedo's contract coming back--in which case I am sure the magic would be happy to have deng instead. However, I agree that howard to the bulls won't happen. Also, I know bulls fans (myself included) love the idea of being able to amnesty boozer, but what are the odds of that happening? I just don't see Reinsdorf being willing to pay a guy 15 million a year to not play for the bulls.

True... but don't you have to be under the cap by a good amount to throw around the [expletive] you money? It isn't just about being willing to pay the luxury tax. If they have Deron Williams and possibly Joe Johnson, I would assume they couldn't sign him. If they don't have those players, would he be willing to leave a contender to go there--for less money than the team that had him could offer?

This is the best scenario for Howard if he wants to win. He is pretty stupid for not wanting to come to Chicago. It might not be a bad bet by the bulls either. He says he won't resign with any team but the Nets, but he may not have much of a choice. Will the nets even have enough money next offseason to sign him? Right now, he wants to have his cake and eat it too by picking the team he wants and getting more money by re-signing there. But if they don't have enough room, or even if he can get more from the team that trades for him, I would bet he re-signs. I think this is just a threat he thinks will trick orlando into trading him to the nets. His image has already taken a huge hit obviously, but what if he were to go to a team like the bulls, have them looking like a legit contender and then walks. That would be a massive hit to his image.

You might be right. I'm sure there would have been a dislike just from "The Decision" (I personally didn't really care about the show... except that it almost brought Jim Gray back to relevance and then his actual decision brought Steven A. Smith back to relevance). However, I really think there wouldn't have been as much hate if he chose Chicago. Before the decision, nearly every analyst agreed that Chicago would have been the best fit/move for him. They were a team full of strong role players and rose. And while Rose was a good player, he wasn't looked at like he would be today. They were an 8-seed kind of team that needed a player like Lebron. Cleveland was a lottery team without Lebron. I think that would have been a team that people said, "sucks for cleveland, but we understand." He clearly would have been the man, but now with a much better supporting cast that would help him win championships--but not guaranteed. I think most of the hate came from "needing to" join two superstars and everyone thinking that he wanted to win without really having to work at it. Miami would have been a high seed in the East without him (they already now had bosh). There was just an extra dirty feeling when he announced Miami that I don't think any other team would have had.

I actually think he could have gone multiple places and people wouldn't have hated him--at least not to this extent. I wish he would have stayed in Cleveland as well, but if he went to the Knicks, Nets, or Bulls, I think people would have been OK with it considering he would have still been the obvious main guy on the team (Rose wasn't an MVP caliber player in people's minds). I think it specifically that Miami created their superteam that people hated him. And the shirt doesn't make me hate him, I was just joking. Although I wouldn't call it awesome. If he was doing it to be funny, it would be awesome, but I really don't think that was his intention. It sort of reminded me of when everyone hated on AROD, and you want to defend him, but he keeps doing weird things like magazine shoots where he kisses himself in the mirror.

Steven A was saying they have no time to do anything other than generalized statements. No tape watching, no in depth analysis. It was interesting how quickly Cuban got that out of him. He went right to it. Which is ridiculous considering the show he is on. That point might be valid (despite stupid) on some of their shows like PTI or Around the Horn or something, but they spend 2 hours talking about 1 or 2 stories... and they are the same stories every day.