pantaloons

So with Collingwood's salary cap squeeze (assuming Cloke stays), if you had to pick one, give or take some mid-late draft pick shuffling, who would it be: Wellingham, Dawes or someone else?

KC, Denver and San Diego are all in the same bracket - contenders for a playoff spot and maybe one win in the playoffs, but not contenders to win or make the Superbowl. If one of these three teams can dominate against their divisional opponents, they will almost guarantee themselves the division title. The AFC West will be a bit of a lottery and often teams will split their games against each other. Even Oakland could bob up and beat any of these teams on their day. It's shaping as one of the more entertaining divisional races again.

Collingwood's second round pick will be in the 37-43 range. Computer says no.

What an exciting game - so glad it was one OneHD! That was a really important win for us. Understatement of the year perhaps, but at 0-3 it's season over, which would have been a disaster given there's expectation for KC this year for the first time in a long time. 1-2 puts us one game behind the division lead! We still have a few things to iron out (red zone offence was terrible today) and hopefully the injuries we had today weren't too serious, but there were some good signs. Jamaal Charles was back to his old self, which is a huge relief after the NFL's #2 RB in 2010 missed last season with an ACL. Cassel has some legitimate weapons to throw to, I just hope he can be competent enough to take advantage of them. The D was very good today after the Saints opening TD drive. Their other two TD scores came from very good field position. So yep, I'll take the win and hope we've turned the corner. We just need to bring our best every week. The only teams we play for the duration of the season who are clearly better than us are Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Great day's action today - so many exciting finishes and crazy results.

Frigging hell. Why do I do this to myself? You couldn't script a more cruel result if we led by 120 points in the last quarter of a grand final only to have our entire team struck dead by lightning. Flaming Shakespearean tragedy.

I don't see why we can't combine our heritage with our clash uniform. The royal blue outfit doesn't clash with anyone except the Dogs, and is an easy fix. Failing that, how about the kit we wore as the Invincible Whites? Sans caps of course. Our current away gear isn't disgusting, but it's pretty much a Sydney guernsey.

To take him away from Collingwood we'll have to overpay. He'd be in our best 22, but here are his career disposals in finals, in order from most recent: 16 19 16 12 13 21 20 13 14 6 7 17. I'll take him, but not for the earth.

Pick 93 should get it over the line. Not the big game performance I was looking for.

Deers, I think what people are saying though is that if we front-end his contract severely, almost like the first year has a signing bonus, then his salary won't be outrageous in 3-4 years time.

Gotcha! Good to put a face to the username. And yes, good locale - provided it's an all you can eat affair again.

What you call soft sausage, I call mind tricks. If Adelaide lose by anything under 76 points tomorrow, they will have performed majestically. Why not throw some mental trickery out there? It probably has about a 1% chance of having any impact, but that's the same chance the Crows have of actually winning anyway.

Intrigued! Actually, if demonland ever had a get together, I'd probably see a few friends I didn't know posted here. Oh, and I'll keep the donuts in mind.

Another brief snippet in The Age today about Melbourne being interested in Wellingham. No more info than that. The sooner Cloke makes up his mind, the sooner we'll find out if Collingwood has the means to retain the likes of Wellingham.

I just re-read my original post. It was poorly written. You and poita were right to call me out on it. I put it down to insanity caused by excessive waiting for the offseason.

While I think Port would be better served interviewing the silver-haired old chook in the crowd who gets shown on camera at every Port home game, I'm pretty sure I read Bailey wasn't interested.

Hey, I was just spewing out a possibility! Not saying I'd be happy with it. I don't want Gysberts traded at all, for the record. I agree with your post.

Gee, what's the sales pitch like for Richmond, Carlton and Port Adelaide who actually LOST to one of the expansion teams?

Ha! While I still get her a membership, my wife generally stays home with the kids during Melbourne games. I'm able to vent and debrief with the rest of the crew before I get home so it doesn't normally get discussed beyond "How'd we go?" *throws scarf on ground* "Oh".

They could do a lot worse.

Grew up in Camberwell! Wife and two young kids - Melbourne. Dad, brother and sister are Melbourne. Both uncles, three of six cousins are Melbourne. Two brothers in law and a sister in law are Melbourne. Three guys I go to games with and have been mates with since primary school (including one who converted me in 1985) as well as the wife of one of them - Melbourne. Including myself, there are nine from this list who have reserved seats and sit together at home games. Growing up, I just thought this was normal and that Melbourne was one of the best-supported clubs.

I have a 2 1/2 year old and a 10 month old so it's a bit early to tell, but they've both had memberships from day one. They both have guernseys, though my son's is now too small so once I know Jack Viney's number I'll get him a new one this summer with Jack's number on the back. Most of my close friends and family are Melbourne supporters so there won't be any treachery from within the inner circle. If they want to go to games, they'll follow Melbourne.

So... Melbourne give Gysberts to Geelong Geelong give pick 35ish to North North give pedersen to Melbourne

No apology necessary. Even if Nic Naitanui was our QB, Kevin Bartlett would still not squeeze us in. Even accounting for the injuries on D, it's a disgraceful start to the season. At least we're on tv this week so I get to have a good look at what's going on.

It'd take something pretty epic for me to not support the club. Obviously if we merged or folded that'd be the end of my interest in AFL, and I'd stick to cricket and US-based sports. As for making my kids support Melbourne, they've got no choice.

Memo KC: please fold. I can only take one pathetic skidmark of a football team at once.