DeeSpencer

Reason why I don't mind this 1. Jetta does have reasonable skills 2. His tackling and agility/sidestep are towards to top of our talent 3. Whilst he's been on the list for ages he's never had consistent preseasons 4. It's nice to have a more experienced Indigenous player. And I don't mean that as a reason why I'd keep him but now we have kept him it's a positive And mainly 5. He was the final round of the rookie draft. When you see what we got in the third round and even from the third round of the main draft we were taking athletic smokies so we clearly didn't have a lot of names left on the list.

I'd say Vick is done with the eagles unless Foles has a huge dip in form. That said I'm not convinced Foles is the man for them either but I'd keep him as the presumptive started and hit the draft again. Vick should be out looking for work and might make sense backing up a read option QB in Washington, Seattle or even the 49ers. As for the NFC East what you really need to do is call up Indy and ask to swap with them in to the AFC south. Imagine 6 games a year against Tenn, Houston and Jacksonville. That's the gift that keeps on giving. At least the poor old NFC East has decent QB's in Romo, Manning and RGIII to navigate.

Ahhh November, the month that so often sees Jay Cutler go from hero to zero. Played injured when he shouldn't have which you respect but also frustrates. He still played ok and a huge part of this loss is on the fact we just couldn't run the ball this week. Was the week for dominant front 7 defense though with Carolina and St Louis getting it done. Oh and Strafford I don't want to make things worse but there's a big fat sleeper team out west with one hell of a defense, one hell of a rookie head coach and a good friend of yours no doubt at QB. GB and CHI have hit the skids with injury. The NFC East dont deserve 1 play off spot yet alone a WC. And the Carolina bandwagon is powered by the defense but steered by Cam Newton and Riverboat Ron. A visit to Jacksonville (they wouldn't dare go 2 in a row would they?) will see the Cardinals move to 6-4, they couldn't possibly take an NFC wild card could they? Are you on the Carson Palmer express yet Strafford?

I just think it's a bad pre snap read to throw in to 2 deep safties then once the play unfolds he should see the underneath coverage and be even more scared as he then can't be long or deep. Much safer to take a shot out wide or angle in at the seems between the corners and safeties that the linebackers probably wont be covering as they'll be up watching AP. And deep balls down the middle don't test true arm strength as much as the deep darts between the seems and down the sides because the only way to catch them generally is to put air up under the ball. You see QBs throw fast and deep and over throw receivers all the time. If you've got a good receiver you are much safer to put some air under it, the proviso being the guy is double covered. All in all it was a poor play call, poor read and poor throw and a typical Ponder mistake. But he came back an played great (Or good enough to torch Washington's rubbish defense) anyway so 1 mistake per game can be tolerated.

No play caller ever says go long up the middle to 2 deep safeties. It's Ponder's inability to either read the defense pre snap or vision to see the play. Whatever you make of Ponder's accuracy, mobility, heart, arm strength it's his lack of vision that is his greatest undoing. Misses open receivers and then throws in to coverage.

Please never mention Thursday night football as prime time. You can almost feel the hatred that everyone has towards it haha. Felt bad for Ponder doing such a great job of rebounding from an awful start to playing a pretty good game then getting injured on a desperate attempt to score. Cassel looks like the Vikings best quarterback. I think Freeman gets another shot right at the end of the year but right now the Vikings future is probably going to be in the draft with another QB with Cassel as back up. With a top 5 pick and some good QB's coming out of college you have to ask if it's worth persevering with Ponder or Freeman in any role next year. Washington's offense is still handy but that defense is a complete mess. Conceding that amount of points to the Vikings despite doing an ok job on special teams and not huge turnovers or even getting torched by AP is embarrassing.

Well shock horror I can't believe it the bears did it! Although we caught a lucky break with McClellin not only playing the game of his life but taking out Rodgers. From then on it was just a matter of playing something close to decent defense. Green Bay looking very silly now not getting an adequate back up BEFORE preseason so the player gets full reps in OTAs/camp/preseason and preseason games. That was the reason why Wallace looked rubbish and McCown looked better than most starters. No doubt having the bye week and knowing he was going to start helped McCown as well. Best bit about the win - according to his twitter Cam Schwab was fulfilling a life long dream going to GB to watch the pack. Sucked in mate. Spend your pay out some other way. Bears season on the line again though this week. Beat Detroit and go to the top of the NFC North and we are every chance to win the division or a wild card. Lose and we are in trouble. Not that I expect us to win or make the play offs. The defense is just too banged up and rubbish.

Another great MMQB article. And written by a woman! And yet we put up with dribble like Mark Robinson's trash on the Essendon sage and Damian Barrett's sliding doors segment on AFL.com.au

Whilst we are on rule changes the other thing the NFL must do at the end of this season is scrap the redskins nickname. It's appalling.

Nope only way to get positional play back is to paint big lines across the field and enforce how many can be in each segment of the ground at a time. Changing from a bench to soccer style subs would only mean more talls and smalls are replaced by midfielders and guys who can play flexible positions. Thus ruining one of the great things of our sport that it's not based purely on guys of a specific size and shape. Luckily for the AFL we already have those lines placed on the field. Not to mention umpires who do nothing when the play is at the other end or middle of the ground (goal umpires). All we need to do now is enforce a rule that says at any stoppage of play (ball up or throw in) each team must have 3 players inside each of the respective forward or back 50's.

Yeah but that was round 1 and a Bengals special effort with brainless penalties and dumb coaching that got us to that win. Don't get me wrong I like the Bengals and watched Hard Knocks, really like some thing Marvin Lewis does but also doubt whether he's quite championship quality. The bears can beat good defensive teams with the offense at its best. But any team with a good offense will beat us. Hence the giants got close even with their O crawling along and Wash, Saints and Lions beat us. 4-3 seems to hold up really well when you get a pass rush from the front 4. I'm thinking Giants superbowl runs and when the bears have been good. Seattle at the moment are the same. But when you don't get anything from consistently rushing 4 I like the flexibility a 3-4 provides. The league is heading that way as well. Time for Trestman to make a statement on his defense after this season. I know he wanted to keep a good thing going but now that's over he has to show he can get a coordinator to shape a defense. Otherwise he's just the inverse of Lovie.

Yep heads up football is what they are preaching in high schools now and it should slowly follow through to the Pros. The idea is you tackle with your head up. That way your arms and shoulders make the contact not the helmet. They will react to the targeting of the knees as well. It's come about from players not being allowed to go high so they now go low. The other thing that the NFL needs desperately is a MRP. I know our one is a joke but they hand our indiscriminant fines that don't touch the surface on what these guys earn. They then rarely hand out suspensions but the most recent guy got his 2 game downgraded to 1. The two 1 game suspensions before that got let off on appeal. NFL is a lot of ways would be much easier to get clear definitions of illegal hits considering all the camera angles in HD and the helmets and so forth. If they are serious about preventing concussion then a simple MRP and demerit system will do wonders for weeding out dirty players. A proper fines and carry over point system will allow players to actually understand what they've done wrong.

Schiano is out Neelding the great man himself. Just replace Freeman with Moloney and a few other names and you get Mark Neeld at Melbourne. A power hungry fool is Schiano. And that cannon might just be Tampa's version of Melbourne's bugle. Anyway my frustrating sports fan life continues with the Bears. We finally get a coach in who has a clue about offense, O line play and protecting and utilising your above average QB in Cutler and our successful defense goes over the hill age wise and then has injury after injury. 3 DT injured, 2 starting line backers injured, gun CB Tillman playing on a dodgy knee and most of the rest of the defense is average as well. Bears are 4-3 and we've been in the games in the losses but the combined win total of our opponents isn't pretty (Minn, Cinn, NYG, Wash). Anyway it might be a slow decline for the bears this year with Cutler out injured. Wouldn't be surprised that despite being 4-3 now we finish 6-10 or 7-9. Major off season remodeling of the defense coming up. The offense got retooled nicely last year and this year we should re contracted Cutler and have contracts and talent in place on the O line, at TE and receiver. Defense need the past rush and front 7 completely remodeled and fresh talent in to the secondary. Change of plans to get back to good special teams would be nice as well. Losing our special teams coach to KC was a big loss. Seeing what Rob Ryan has done with the saints and watching Rex get the Jets back and going this year I think it might be time that the Lovie Smith 4-3 Tampa 2/cover 2 is out and we go for a 3-4 defense.

If you dont think Cross is AFL standard anymore then that's the reason not to go for him

I didn't read it as sinister. I saw it more as Lyons being contracted is happy to stay in Adelaide. Adelaide are happy to keep him. Both have the potential to move but it would take a good offer to both and in-particular Adelaide for it to happen.

Michie, pick 40 I agree. But Vince and Lyons are going to take value. Roos did some cheap trades but he also gave up a bit. Pick 28 for Marty Mattner, pick 28 for Mumford, pick 15 for Jolly. Plus at Sydney he was often trading in strong drafts for mature guys who no one was really sold on. Vince and Lyons in some ways have more value than that and their contracts mean we have to pay up. Giving away both pick 20 and the Sylvia pick would be a shame but if it got the deal done then it might be required. We can't trade pick 20, 40 and the Sylvia pick for just players though. We need to get some draft picks back and preferably in the top 40 to get some more youth in.

Agree with your point, but I'd say whist Freo will always have a strong base in Fremantle they really are the second Perth or even second WA team. I've never been there but from what I here Fremantle still has it township feel but it also a part of Perth. Geelong are really one out in maintaining a club based in one set community. I saw Freo fans campaigning to keep Freo's training base in Fremantle and I thought they were foolish. The hawks wouldn't be what they are today if they stayed at Glenferrie and same with the Pies at Vic Park.

What the hell is a social club? Who goes to one? Is this still in the 1960's? We have coteries and we have bars at the MCG. That's where our power base is. We don't need a social club. It would be lovely to have everything in one spot and to have a place where we can make money from members selling food, drinks and functions after games. But lets focus on what we do have in great facilities at AAMI and our admin being inspired to work every day at the MCG and staying out of the FD's way.

Jetta can pretty much play any position forward, midfield or back.....in the VFL.

It's both the for and against in the one argument. The last line is particularly telling - he is not a genuine AFL player yet in the eyes of Roos. So people who keep pumping him up can you please understand that. Roos will determine based upon the skills and intent he sees from Watts what position will best suit him. I for one certainly don't think it will be as a contested marking key forward. It's much more likely to be as a ball user between the arcs or on a wing. Then Roos will take the time to teach him the skills needed for that position and I believe will finally do what no MFC coach has been gutsy enough to do with Watts and will give him an extended period in the reserves if that dictates or will give him an extended period in one position even if he's been beaten a lot of time. That's what we are getting from Roos, a guy who is stubborn and has the runs on the board and wont be undermined by the media or perception. As for the debut can we all get over the aspect that he wasn't ready from a footballing perspective. He was extremely talented, our side sucked, he played decent VFL. He was well and truly due to come in to the team at some stage. It was the marketing campaign and external pressure that was the problem, not any Collingwood defenders bumping him around. Kevin Sheedy has debuted younger players on big occassions plenty of times, but he sets them up for it and doesn't pump the entire game around them and then he also protects them in the aftermath if things don't go so well.

Well he played a hell of a lot more games than Toumpas, who is his first year and I damn well hope by the time he's in his 5th year is way better than Watts. He might also get above Kent because he played some ok games, he had a real purple patch against Coll and StKilda in the middle of the year. But where Watts will finish in this years B+F is irrelevant. It's how he helps the team and in more games than not this year he's provided nothing. His game against the Kangaroos was a disgrace to name 1.

Obviously you mean Jack Riewoldt because Nick was as star from day 1. Hawkins was a mile off physically and as such struggled, but I don't see why Watts should be. Looking at him he's around 90kg and should be playing to those strengths already. I don't expect him to be playing as a true key forward because he doesn't have the body for it yet and I don't think he ever will. I've got no problem with what he does with the ball. I actually use to love watching Trav Johnstone lope around at half speed before delivering a lace out pass and the same for guys like Dal Santo or Pendlebury who have that vision and skill that make them look like they are playing a different game to everyone else. It's Watts' work rate to win the ball or win the ball back that is a mile off and hasn't improved whatever position he's been trialled in. I believe he's been lucky to escape most major injuries and to have decent preseasons. So why hasn't he developed the work rate to succeed. He's been on the list for 5 years now. That's 2 years more than Tom McDonald who will run all day at CHB and much longer than Toumpas and Kent who both came in under done and you can't say that Watts was head and shoulders above those 2 on output.

How can you say he's developing nicely if he hasn't laid a tackle, put his body on the line or chased hard since he's come to the club. Dean Kent developed nicely as a flanker this year. Watts wasted another year shuffling between positions because he either can't or refuses to play physical football.

He doesn't have the speed to match Watts on a powerful hard lead. Which is how he got 3 goals. The other came from a rubbish free kick. It was certainly an open match without much pressure. Morris still shut him down and stopped him touching it for most of the game.

He started as pretty much all round soft. Then he developed courage in the air with his marks but still liked to very much take a big chest mark and protect his ribs. Certainly never saw him attacking the ball on the ground like a Jack Viney does now or a Nathan Jones. He went from a bit of a soft crafy forward pocket to a decent outside wingman to a full forward who hit the ball hard on a lead but didn't really do a lot else hard or otherwise. Certainly wasn't an ideal career progression for a guy with lovely skills, good reading on the play and strong hands for a guy of his size. Like Bruce he was never developed properly to maximise his strengths and minimise his weaknesses