On 27/10/2013 at 09:39, Strafford said:

Tongue firmly in cheek on my part mate

Yep the headline was misleading, but was being used to lead into the broader issue of concussions in American football, which of course would only be magnified in countries such as the UK who see the NFL as competition.

For all that I agree that there is some quality sports journalism in the US there is also as much rubbish there as there is in Australia. The around the league writers on the NFL site are woeful on the whole for example and I've listened to their podcast a couple of times and I swear you could gain us much insight into the game by having a convo in a pub with two Australians who had only ever watched one game. At times it seems as if the US sneezes we catch a cold, in so many areas, politics, culture, sports etc. So many things in the AFL are blatant rippoffs from the NFL.

Yeah, over the years and by wading through all the various forms of media on the NFL, you learn what to discard and what to look out for. I must say I still prefer to just gain an overview of what's going on so my standards aren't as high as others. The technicalities of the sport I find to be a bit too daunting. I enjoy reading those who contribute that sort of stuff on this thread though.

Just discovered MMQB and TMQ (thanks to 'tm' and 't_u') so looking forward to doing a fair bit more reading on the sport. I think what the Americans have over our sports journalism is quantity (which makes it just a matter of finding the quality)

For instance, there's very few writers on the AFL that I'll seek out. Connolly is good and obviously Flanagan can be exceptional. There's one or 2 others but 'land provides quite a bit of information really! Many of our journo's have a need to make the story about themselves. The cricket writers are often in the same boat.

We just need to find out what is going on without any lies, embellishment or bias. That's a big ask these days!

And yeah, as you can tell, I'm an unabashed Brett Favre fan!

  On 27/10/2013 at 10:04, Macca said:

And yeah, as you can tell, I'm an unabashed Brett Favre fan!

I did get that impression mate I apologise for disparaging the great man even if it was in jest I am the last one to be having a go at a guy with memory problems, and although I have taken a few whacks in my time, I haven't taken anywhere near the punishment he has.

I'm an American football nut. Truth be told I even prefer it to modern Australian rules. I have umpteen books on the American game, but it has been a gradual process to being my fav sport, the timezone being an obvious impediment, as not being able to see many games live is a bit of a downer. Sadly as we all know work must come first.

Playing Madden has probably helped in the process as sad as a bloke nearing fifty playing video games may be Although in my defence aren't we all still kids at heart and isn't the average age of video gamers in the 30's these days?

OK, Ive had a gutful of getting 2 out of 3 most weeks, quite often MNF cruelling my chances of a precious point.

Rarely pick my own team, superstitious reservations aside this week I have no choice:

Niners, Steelers, Seahawks

I cant believe we're up to week 8 already, seriously we're on the cusp of the halfway mark! In some ways I love the succinctness of the

NFL 16 game schedule, as a direct contrast to watching the Dees after about Round 8 every year knowing theres 14 more lousy onesto go.

But another part of me could watch this game for 24-28 weeks of the year, its always interesting!

  On 27/10/2013 at 11:43, Strafford said:

I did get that impression mate I apologise for disparaging the great man even if it was in jest I am the last one to be having a go at a guy with memory problems, and although I have taken a few whacks in my time, I haven't taken anywhere near the punishment he has.

I'm an American football nut. Truth be told I even prefer it to modern Australian rules. I have umpteen books on the American game, but it has been a gradual process to being my fav sport, the timezone being an obvious impediment, as not being able to see many games live is a bit of a downer. Sadly as we all know work must come first.

Playing Madden has probably helped in the process as sad as a bloke nearing fifty playing video games may be Although in my defence aren't we all still kids at heart and isn't the average age of video gamers in the 30's these days?

I'm with you on preferring the NFL but I know we could all enjoy AFL so much more if our own team was up there again. The footy club needs to learn how to win again. Winning cures just about everything.

My main hope is that Roos, PJ and Bartlett set us up for the future (and no more bottoming out again please)

Used to watch 5 or 6 whole games of NFL but I'm down to 3 or 4 now (all on delay so as to FF through the numerous adverts and breaks in play) Avoiding the results is an artform though - I go to extraordinary lengths!

Edited October 27, 201311 yr by Macca

Calvin Johnson. Wow.

  On 28/10/2013 at 09:07, titan_uranus said:

Calvin Johnson. Wow.

What an animal. Great game.

Just saw Patterson's 109-yard kickoff return TD for Minnesota. Electrifying.

KC gets away with another sleepy performance, but now the schedule gets tough. And hell freezeth over - we're actually on TV by the choice of CBS/OneHD this coming week at Buffalo for the first time this season (week 3 at Philly was a Thursday night game). Good times.

Oh, and classic stuff after Dave's mournful tipping tale given that Pittsburgh went down at Oakland. I feel ya.

Edited October 28, 201311 yr by pantaloons

Whodey they think gonna beat them Bengals...no-body

Pretty complete performance by the Bengals. Dalton looked like a gunslinger, but I'm scratching my head a bit as he hit AJ for two fifty plus passes in the air without a trace of his previous arm strength issues. Still had one inexplicable interception that will give the Dalton haters something to hang their hat on. Bengals fans are a funny bunch. I can see Dalton's weaknesses, but he has a lot of strengths as well. He won't be elite, but we can still win a bowl with him if the haters don't overwhelm him by impacting his confidence. You don't have to have elite arm strength to win a bowl, although it certainly helps:)

The Master you really don't want the Jets version of defence, unless you have two elite man to man corners who are fully fit. Milliner?Island just isn't the same as Revis island. The Jets pass rush was woeful and we just torched their secondary. Buyer beware with corners from the Alabama Crimson Tide, our first round guy Kirkpatrick has struggled and Milliner looks worse and was benched.

Short turn around against the Dolphins and we have some injuries.

  On 28/10/2013 at 09:07, titan_uranus said:

Calvin Johnson. Wow.

Yep beast mode. Dez seemed to have a meltdown on the Boys sideline Not sure exactly what happened there, considering his comments during the week, media twisting his words or not, Bryant would have been under a fair bit of pressure.

  On 28/10/2013 at 09:53, pantaloons said:

What an animal. Great game.

Just saw Patterson's 109-yard kickoff return TD for Minnesota. Electrifying.

KC gets away with another sleepy performance, but now the schedule gets tough. And hell freezeth over - we're actually on TV by the choice of CBS/OneHD this coming week at Buffalo for the first time this season (week 3 at Philly was a Thursday night game). Good times.

Oh, and classic stuff after Dave's mournful tipping tale given that Pittsburgh went down at Oakland. I feel ya.

The Chiefs unstoppable The Browns really do have a pretty good defence this season. Patterson's run was great, he should be a good replacement for Harvin with a bit of development and without the character issues. Macca has been spoiled with the QB's at Green Bay. To me Rodgers is the man.

By sheer coincidence, I'm in London at the moment and so are the San Francisco 49ers.

I didn't get to see the game but was wondering why there were so many fans with their uniforms and caps wandering around Piccadilly. The closest I got to the game was when we drove past Wembley Stadium on the way to dinner with my London cousins. Only discovered afterwards that we won comfortably.

Did the televise the game on Foxtel?

  On 28/10/2013 at 10:55, Strafford said:

The Chiefs unstoppable The Browns really do have a pretty good defence this season. Patterson's run was great, he should be a good replacement for Harvin with a bit of development and without the character issues. Macca has been spoiled with the QB's at Green Bay. To me Rodgers is the man.

And hopefully we're already planning our succession plan - Roos style

I'm absolutely convinced that if you've got an A grade QB, you can't help but get into contention. Not many top QB's switch camps though so you nearly always need to draft one. Rodgers went at pick 36 from memory and Wilson 73 (?) And we all know the Brady story hey!

The Packers are developing a good all round game (Lacy and Starks were good again today) Rodgers is throwing a lot less and thus his sacks are way down (50+ last season) Great win by your blokes though - a statement game?

Not a lot of upsets but the Detroit/Dallas game had an amazing finish. Arizona might be a team to watch and the NFC East is up for grabs - the Giants are only 2 games back! The Saints would have their eye on the 1 or 2 seed. They're at Seattle in a little over a month (that's a MNF game)

The juggernaut otherwise known as the Kansas City Chiefs just keep marching along. A road tip for next week? And are Seattle going to get up for a few of us tomorrow? A point is like a gold ingot!

  On 28/10/2013 at 11:32, Whispering_Jack said:

By sheer coincidence, I'm in London at the moment and so are the San Francisco 49ers.

I didn't get to see the game but was wondering why there were so many fans with their uniforms and caps wandering around Piccadilly. The closest I got to the game was when we drove past Wembley Stadium on the way to dinner with my London cousins. Only discovered afterwards that we won comfortably.

Did the televise the game on Foxtel?

Wasn't televised. The games played in London haven't exactly been top billing but that hasn't stopped them being well attended. I read somewhere that the other game played there a few weeks ago was sold out (Pittsburgh/Minnesota)

Your 49ers are 'travelling' quite nicely though. 6 and 2 but with a few tough games coming up in the next month or so (@ New Orleans, @ Washington and then 2 weeks after that you host Seattle) Most of your rivals have similar schedules though.

  On 28/10/2013 at 11:48, Macca said:

I'm absolutely convinced that if you've got an A grade QB, you can't help but get into contention.

The exception to that rule would be Atlanta right now. Matt Ryan's numbers are putting him up in the top 5 QBs in the league right now, but with a dodgy receiving unit and no running game to speak of (60 passing attempts this week!), they can't produce the goods on offence (not to mention their secondary can't stop anyone right now).

It's definitely a QB league at the moment, but a QB alone isn't enough.

  On 28/10/2013 at 11:48, Macca said:

The Packers are developing a good all round game (Lacy and Starks were good again today) Rodgers is throwing a lot less and thus his sacks are way down (50+ last season) Great win by your blokes though - a statement game?

Not a lot of upsets but the Detroit/Dallas game had an amazing finish. Arizona might be a team to watch and the NFC East is up for grabs - the Giants are only 2 games back! The Saints would have their eye on the 1 or 2 seed. They're at Seattle in a little over a month (that's a MNF game)

The juggernaut otherwise known as the Kansas City Chiefs just keep marching along. A road tip for next week? And are Seattle going to get up for a few of us tomorrow? A point is like a gold ingot!

Packers are amazing. Doing it all despite their injuries. Adding in a running game just makes them even scarier (and Clay Matthews has to come back too).

Arizona beating Atlanta wasn't expected. They're 4-3, just going about their business without anyone watching. Long term I don't think they can keep it up, Palmer's just too erratic and throws too many INTs. The two West divisions are so tight at the moment.

The fact that the Giants are two games out of the playoffs right now shows you how awful NFC East is. What a joke. San Diego has double the wins and they're 4 games back in their division!

In the NFC you'd expect one of Seattle and SF to get the first wild card (not a certainty, but the way they're both playing you'd expect them to stay in front of the other non-division winners). As for the other one, there's a fair bit of contention for it. Won't come from NFC East, but there's Detroit, Chicago, Arizona, and my smokey, Carolina (Newton's game right now is so good). In the AFC, after KC/Denver, the other card is up for grabs. San Diego currently has it from the Jets (would you believe!). Too early to call it, if Baltimore and/or Houston can get their act together who knows.

  On 28/10/2013 at 12:25, titan_uranus said:

The exception to that rule would be Atlanta right now. Matt Ryan's numbers are putting him up in the top 5 QBs in the league right now, but with a dodgy receiving unit and no running game to speak of (60 passing attempts this week!), they can't produce the goods on offence (not to mention their secondary can't stop anyone right now).

It's definitely a QB league at the moment, but a QB alone isn't enough.

Packers are amazing. Doing it all despite their injuries. Adding in a running game just makes them even scarier (and Clay Matthews has to come back too).

Arizona beating Atlanta wasn't expected. They're 4-3, just going about their business without anyone watching. Long term I don't think they can keep it up, Palmer's just too erratic and throws too many INTs. The two West divisions are so tight at the moment.

The fact that the Giants are two games out of the playoffs right now shows you how awful NFC East is. What a joke. San Diego has double the wins and they're 4 games back in their division!

In the NFC you'd expect one of Seattle and SF to get the first wild card (not a certainty, but the way they're both playing you'd expect them to stay in front of the other non-division winners). As for the other one, there's a fair bit of contention for it. Won't come from NFC East, but there's Detroit, Chicago, Arizona, and my smokey, Carolina (Newton's game right now is so good). In the AFC, after KC/Denver, the other card is up for grabs. San Diego currently has it from the Jets (would you believe!). Too early to call it, if Baltimore and/or Houston can get their act together who knows.

Atlanta should be much better than what they're showing. Biggest disappointment of the season - they've gone backwards at a rate of knots. All teams have injuries and lose players in the off season but the good teams can still win despite all that. Ryan is a notch below the very best but I see your point. It's amazing to think that they were so close to making the Superbowl last season.

The teams in the NFC East might still remain dangerous even though they're not performing well (right now) The Giants have been known to get on a roll and Dallas are capable of winning any game on their day. Whoever wins that division might still be hard to beat in the playoffs (and they'll get a home final first up)

It's quite conceivably that either San Francisco or Seattle will be at Dallas in week 1 of the playoffs. (the 4 seed plays the 5 seed) The NFL playoff system has it's quirks.

Winning your division has some huge advantages ... it was a 7/9 Seattle who hosted the 11/5 Saints in the 2010 post season wild-card game. Fairly sure the Seahawks won that game as well. The 12th man might have helped!

For mine, Seattle are the team to beat in our conference - if they win your division they could get home field advantage all the way to the Superbowl. Your game against them in 5 weeks or so could have a lot riding on it.

Agree with you re Carolina. I think they can get to 9/7 and that might be enough. Detroit are dangerous whilst the Packers have some tough games coming up. Chicago losing Cutler for a few weeks could hurt them. Even so, there's still a lot to play out.

  On 28/10/2013 at 11:48, Macca said:

And hopefully we're already planning our succession plan - Roos style

I'm absolutely convinced that if you've got an A grade QB, you can't help but get into contention. Not many top QB's switch camps though so you nearly always need to draft one. Rodgers went at pick 36 from memory and Wilson 73 (?) And we all know the Brady story hey!

The Packers are developing a good all round game (Lacy and Starks were good again today) Rodgers is throwing a lot less and thus his sacks are way down (50+ last season) Great win by your blokes though - a statement game?

Not a lot of upsets but the Detroit/Dallas game had an amazing finish. Arizona might be a team to watch and the NFC East is up for grabs - the Giants are only 2 games back! The Saints would have their eye on the 1 or 2 seed. They're at Seattle in a little over a month (that's a MNF game)

The juggernaut otherwise known as the Kansas City Chiefs just keep marching along. A road tip for next week? And are Seattle going to get up for a few of us tomorrow? A point is like a gold ingot!

Wasn't televised. The games played in London haven't exactly been top billing but that hasn't stopped them being well attended. I read somewhere that the other game played there a few weeks ago was sold out (Pittsburgh/Minnesota)

Your 49ers are 'travelling' quite nicely though. 6 and 2 but with a few tough games coming up in the next month or so (@ New Orleans, @ Washington and then 2 weeks after that you host Seattle) Most of your rivals have similar schedules though.

Thanks for that Macca.

I also discovered after the event that the post match function was at the hotel directly opposite where we were staying and the keynote speaker was former champion SF QB Joe Montana. There's a big move to have a franchise either established in or moved to London. Problem is that the sporting media here is saturated with soccer followed by the rugby codes. NFL managed a couple of paragraphs in the newspaper I read here.

In any event, I missed Joe and then I missed the storm that went through southern England last night. Slept through the latter and didn't know about the former until it was way too late.

Forty niners are meanwhile in the middle of a five game winning streak. I wonder how long before I'm able to say that about the Demons?

Already been said but megatron got himself some madden numbers. You only see those kind of yards on a Xbox. Packers have the running game that can take them deep this year. Rodgers is staying up right and is a joy to watch with his precision. Shame it had to be against the vikes. The jets outlast the pats the week before and then get whooped. Are the bengals the real deal?

Dallas Detroit game was awesome to watch. It had touchdowns galore and a spaz attack by Bryant.

Gahh frustrating end to the Seahawks-Rams game.

Seattle only managed 135 total yards to St Louis' 339. Rams also had 23 first downs to 7. But an early turnover and one 80-yard play to Tate gave them two TDs.

Then, Zuerlin misses a 50-yard FG, meaning that on the final drive, the Rams were forced to get in the end-zone rather than settle for a FG. They swiftly get into FG territory, but botch their final set of downs, with an awful play choice on 4th and goal, emptying the backfield to pass the ball when they'd rushed so well all day.

At least it showed Seattle's big weakness at the moment - offensive line. They're a few down, but until they get Okung and Giacomini back, they're beatable on that line.

  On 29/10/2013 at 04:12, titan_uranus said:

Gahh frustrating end to the Seahawks-Rams game.

Seattle only managed 135 total yards to St Louis' 339. Rams also had 23 first downs to 7. But an early turnover and one 80-yard play to Tate gave them two TDs.

Then, Zuerlin misses a 50-yard FG, meaning that on the final drive, the Rams were forced to get in the end-zone rather than settle for a FG. They swiftly get into FG territory, but botch their final set of downs, with an awful play choice on 4th and goal, emptying the backfield to pass the ball when they'd rushed so well all day.

At least it showed Seattle's big weakness at the moment - offensive line. They're a few down, but until they get Okung and Giacomini back, they're beatable on that line.

Couldn't believe that st.louis had the chance to steal that game in the dying seconds. That would have been a huge upset. Seattle may drop a game soon but with Harvin due to make his debut soon I don't think we will see such low numbers on offence again.

  On 29/10/2013 at 07:11, cowboy_from_hell said:

Couldn't believe that st.louis had the chance to steal that game in the dying seconds. That would have been a huge upset. Seattle may drop a game soon but with Harvin due to make his debut soon I don't think we will see such low numbers on offence again.

Sidney Rice may be out with a knee injury though, so Harvin may just offset Rice. Either way, he'll help, but the main issue is the offensive line not giving Wilson enough protection. Until they get Okung and Giacomini back, they're not going to be as potent.

Devastated...

Long, Quinn, Stacy, great games.

Devastated.

  On 29/10/2013 at 08:56, Gorgoroth said:

Devastated...

Long, Quinn, Stacy, great games.

Devastated.

Long and Quinn were dominant, tore up Seattle's offensive line. Pretty good defence you've got assembled down there.

It's the first game they have really got on top, we have been giving away 26 pts per game prior.

Really the running game helped, we stayed out on offense longer which meant our D were not out there 75% of the game.

Hope Stacy isn't too injured. He ran extremely well.

Gutsy effort by the Rams - thought they were going to get that TD but not to be. A Rams win would have helped a few other teams in the conference (especially San Francisco)

Good tight game though and if that Rams 50 yard field goal attempt was successful, we might be re-evaluating the Seahawks going forward. (they've got Tampa at home next week so we can mark them down as 8-1 already!)

Points table in the comp ...

4 - cowboy from hell

2 - Strafford, Macca

1 - pantaloons

0 - Gorgoroth, DemonDave, 45HG, Norm Smith's Curse, bananas, Demon Land 7

2 points on offer for week 9 (the 2nd bonus round) ... it's a tough week to find 3 definite road winners though ... week 9 games

The BS Report (Cousin Sal not happy with his Cowboys - again)

What about Golden Tate and the taunting on his 80 yard TD? I t would have been hilarious if he had been knocked out of bounds at the 1 yard line.

0-8 for my Jags. At least we don't lose next week. Thank you Bye week.

I declared solemn hate on Tate at that moment.

Still shattered

Here's one for you fans of the only undefeated team in the league right now (odds on that 3 months ago?):