Dappa Dan

The best football team I've ever seen... Granted I haven't seen the Hawks of the 80s up close. Or us in the fifties. But I put these guys ahead of Bombers in 2000, Lions in the years following...

Ashton "three goals straight as a sub" Hams? It's a promise. If I haven't caved to all the trade offers I've had for him. Massive win.

Won't be as bad as losing to Brisbane the way we did. Tigers aren't that bad a s a side. But the [censored] will hit the fan. I reckon we'll go into half time with a slender lead, then we'll run out of puff. Again.

I respect that they're both nancies... Look forward to it. I tremble in fear at the might of Will "[censored]" Minson.

Mitch and Magner played well. Very well. 5 goals in a team that played like that, with only 32 inside fifties... that's a pretty damn good return.

??? What is this about? We said all the same things 4 years ago.

You forgot the coach also booed the players, pretty much. rate: 2.5/10.

A year late.

I know them. Last time I saw them they were both huddled in the corner, shaking like frightened sparrows... Lightweights. Norm Smith league will teach them both a thing or two about UF.

I like Thomas' bluster and bullcrap... it's fun... but everyone knows he's the OPPOSITE of what the norm is for a successful coach. No-one was ever scared of him. He was a softly-softly coach that was touchy feely with his players, and despite having easily the best list for a few years, he never amounted to anything... A serious coach that players are TERRIFIED of letting down, would have won St Kilda multiple flags. So while his comments are possibly right, they're also possibly wrong. If he can get some wins, and earn soe respect... then the players following him will come naturally. Thomas can't predict that though... no-one could.

One thing I look for in a coach, that every major successful coach had, and every major disappointment didn't have... The aura that as a player you're totally afraid of letting him down. That's the bedrock. Be it fear, or love, or respect... the idea that when you come off if you've lost that you're MOSTLY worried about what your coach is going to put you through, how he's going to look at you, or even ignore you in the near future. If he's a serious premiership coach, he'll have that. So far I'm not seing it... but it's early days. I feel like he's made a positive impression on Watts... that's 50% of his battle right there.

1. The one minute countdown at the start of the game... How awesome was that?!!! They should do that every year. Unfortunately that's as exciting and hopeful as we'll get to be for this season.

That's a tough beat MM.

Yeah. Thing is so far he's right. He's also right about Watts. But then he's also only referring to what's in the past. Both these players aren't even 25 yet. And both will have undue attention put on them. But the difference between his opinion, and ours, is that we're in it for the long haul.

Not a whole lot of smack talk happening this year?

Green and Davey... put a fork in them. Sad. Two great demons. But they're done.

Got my nose in front of snomeD here. Despite Thompson, Bennell, Jetta all having big games. A fair few UF thrashings this first week.

What do you think snomeD? Evenly poised? I think I'd prefer to be you at the moment. But not by a large amount. I follow your post. I think the beauty of this is that EVERYTHING is adaptable. And we also don't have to worry about keeping it "traditional" because there's no such thing really in UF. At year's end, I anticipate people will float the idea of keeping more than the four. I also reckon ANY idea is possible to float. I think there's some sense in your idea of having 2 first round and no second round.... but I think there's more to it than just adapting the draft to keep people interested: Firstly, we had no dropoffs this season. It's reasonable to suggest NO-ONE is gonna get bored enough to NOT want to go straight into it the next season to reinstall their pride. If we DO lose 2-3 guys from UF from year to year, a suggestion was that any replacement players (from Robbie Flower League or elsewhere) get to pick from the outgoing players' list as to who he wants to keep. So they'll likely have 4 big names there to keep anyway. An alternative would be to offer any new player the first 4 picks in the draft, to get those big names in one fell swoop, after which the draft order resumes as usual. I think one thing you're missing here is that the whole REASON the keeper league was instituted was precisely so players who were out of luck at the start of the season could trade for injured stars, or young players they rate highly, safe in the knowledge their top 4 keepers would be good for the next year. Efectively trading away their chances this year to have a big chance next year. What I think we'll find is that the guys who you say are some chance of "losing interest" are actually the big traders... because they're in it for 2013... But yeah, you're right, EVERYTHING is adaptable... and I'd like to see that theory continue every year... adapting it for the wants of the 18 league players (democratically of course). We can all assist JA in this way by continuing the opinion sharing. He's usually 2-3 steps ahead of the groupthink on here (eg. the new token drafting system he put in this year), but he's been known to have been surprised by one or two suggestions in the past.

Dunno about Tynan. I didn't see him warrant selection. Must have trained hard. Also looks a fraction light...

New coach though... That's a bit of a worry. I remember two seasons ago they came out of nowhere to make the playoffs... But I dunno... I find it hard to EVER go past Rivers. There's no way they were supposed to go as bad this last year as they did. Somehow he went from a top 5 QB to somewhere near the middle. Makes no sense, and I expect him to hit back HARD this coming season. And while they're third in line, I don't think the Raiders can be dismissed. Funny that the team that won the division is the one I'm just confused about. Not sure if they're going to do anything in 6 months. They shouldn't have won anything this last season. Just on Rivers... The top 5 QBs is something I always watch with interest. This last season you'd have to say the top 5 were Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Stafford and Eli... with maybe one of Big Ben or maybe Romo if you like skirts and handbags. The season before it was Peyton, Brees, Brady, Vick and Rivers. This coming season it could be one of sooooooo many. I'm relatively new to the NFL, so I wonder if the top 5 changes that much fromyear to year... but coming into this year, obviously the big 3 stay in Rodgers, Brees and Brady... But who after that? I look forward to running it by the group here to see who has it right. For mine, there's another 5-8 serious contenders to jump into the top 5. I reckon P. Manning, Romo, Ryan, Rothlisberger, Rivers, Vick, and even Newton could come into it... with a few other names I like but not THAT much, like Smith. I don't rate Eli as highly as he played this year, and I think Stafford is a little too young to be called as reliable as some of the older guys who had sore luck this year. So I'm going for Vick and Rivers to slide back where they belong in the top 5. But then Im biased.

Just saw this on Foxtel IQ... Wow... Take a good look at his face. He doesn't flinch. Well done Garry, you could see his hands shaking at one point. It doesn't get much more touching than that.

Welcome! I love this thread. And I'm PUMPED for next year. You'll get to know everyone's favourites on here. There's Texans, Packers, Hawks, and 49ers fans here among other I think. I'm Philly (Did I need to say that with my avatar?) I reckon it's win/win for everyone. Firstly, the Broncos, especially Elway must have been thinking, "how the HELL do we get rid of this kid? He's in his early 20s, is a media darling, but he can't throw. What the hell am I going to do? I don't wanna run a club with a QB that takes all day to get rid of it? The only thing that'll save me here is an aging hall of famer who'll have a couple more years before we retire him and trade up for the next QB phenom. How often do they become availab.... sorry hang on... phone's ringing.... Yes? Oh hey... Sorry... Who's asking to get traded to us????!!!!" Then consider the Jets. Rex is sitting there thinking "I can't get rid of Sanchez... he sucks... he's middle of the road, and always will be... How do I get rid of him? Jesus... it's like having Kyle Orton as your starting QB going into the season. Speaking of which... how DID the Broncos get rid of that guy?.... hmmm....." And if it all breaks down, at least they've put a rocket up Sanchez's behind. You're missing the point. It's not what they got. It's what they got rid of. Oh jeez. The only thing I can think of that's more depressing than the Giants lucking into a superbowl win after only just sneaking past the Eagles and Cowgirls in their division. And that's the next Mike Vick (only taller and better) playing for the Skins. That basically means that every team in the NFC East now has a good or scary QB. Romo, Manning, Vick and RG3... Ye gods.

Hooooly crap. That's devastating. That's really devastating.

Just a quick question... His dad, Brian. Is he still with us? I haven't seen him mentioned once, so I assume he's long since departed. I never got the news of this (I've been overseas a long time), but he'd occassionally popped into my head. I don't mean to sound morbid, but he'd be the biggest tragedy out of this... No parent should bury their child.

While that makes sense, the regular way of doing thing... ie the reverse order of the ladder at year's end... would, you'd think, be enough to ensure the bad performers from one year get first crack the following year. Unless I'm wrong, your suggestion works something like this.... The lowest ranked teams from 2012 will get picks 1-6... and THEN get picks 7-12 on top of that. I reckon that mightbe a little too much advantage there. Not to mention the fact that during the season, once you KNOW you're not going to make it to finals, or if you know you're too injury decimated to stay in it long, you might trade some of your short-term quality (Sandilands, Cox, Hayes etc) for some long-term prospects (Le Cras etc). To me, using crafty trading in 2012, along with 2 picks inside the first 12... that's going to be too much. UNless I read your post wrong. Did I?