Ritualised Warfare... the sports thread!

[sin]

I was wrong about Tom Brady being a first round pick in my fantasy draft; Vick went #5 overall (Rodgers was #2, and Drew Brees was #8.  Brady didn't go 'till the 2nd round).

I always liked Cunningham, though I was never a big Eagles fan, and I always thought McNabb was a better all-time Eagles quarterback.  Still great.  Not quite good enough all-time for the HOF, but pretty darn good.

[rokken like dokken]

Cunningham only showed flashes of his greatness because Buddy Ryan didn't give a flying fuck about offense; when Minnesota had him with Reed, Moss and Carter, it became clear exactly what he could do. 

If he had won a SB with Philly, or with Minnesota that year, he'd probably be in the HOF. 

Speaking of the all-time greats, the consensus around these parts is that Warren Moon was the best QB the CFL ever saw; I miss the early 90s Oilers. 

[sin]

When Favre broke the all-time yardage record, my friend who is a huge Packers fan was shitting his pants about it, and I couldn't resist reminding him that, if you combined NFL and CFL stats, he still trailed Warren Moon by a significant margin.  Of course there's a REASON you can't combine NFL and CFL stats, but I just wanted to burst his bubble anyway.

edit:  It's like when Bonds broke the home run record, and I insisted on reminding everyone that it was the MLB record, not the all-time record, as there was a player back in the old Negro Leagues who hit 850 or so, and a Japanese player who hit over 900 HRs in the Japanese leagues.

[rokken like dokken]

Yeah, if we want to go down that road, I think the all-time yardage leaders are guys who've played in the CFL forever - up until this year it was Marcus Allen's older brother Damon. 

[sin]

I WANT to make fun of Iowa State really bad for almost losing to UNI, but I can't, since WE almost lost to UNI in arguably our best season of the Ferentz era.  Northern Iowa is no joke; 4 wins against FBS schools, I believe.  Back-to-back FCS title game appearances during the '00's.

Really disappointed with Coker's performance in the season opener.  We're breaking in a new quarterback (although not untested, based off of him taking Ohio State into overtime AT the Horseshoe in his first career start back in 2009 when Stanzi broke his ankle), and we need to lean on the running game for a bit before Vandenberg can settle in and get used to game-speed.  Pretty happy with the first-team defense though, with Hyde and Prater being the beasts everyone expected them to be.

[rokken like dokken]

I'm just amazed at the Baylor-TCU shootout; I thought TCU was a defensive juggernaut?

[sin]

I know it means nothing NOW, but I swear that I called that.  I thought everyone was ranking TCU high because everyone wants to get behind "BCS Busters" now.  Boise State is for REAL (I ALSO called a blowout over Georgia), but TCU got a lot of credit for being good LAST year.  I think TCU was overrated, and Baylor was underrated.  The result was about what I expected.

[sin]

http://www.onionsportsnetwork.com/articles/ben-roethlisberger-close-to-completing-offseason-w,21311/

I think this is the funniest Onion sports segment I've ever seen, which is saying something.  I literally peed my pants a little watching it.

"This may be the best 9/11 YET!"

[rokken like dokken]

For the record, I unironically agree with everything they said about Dallas. 

Apparently NFL Films originally wanted the Steelers to be called America's Team; they said no. 

Also, this game is shaping up exactly like I expected. 

[naut]

AFL finals this weekend. We're playing the same team as in this clip. Arch rival. Knock-out final. We've been in finals last 2 years and lost both knock-out finals we were in by small margins.

If we don't fucking win I'm seriously going to cry.

Andrew Walker from Carlton Football Club (my team) taking what will probably be AFL 2011 Mark of the Year

http://youtu.be/ERTcZV7uTFU

Best thing about it is that it was against our arch rivals Essendon who we absolutely flogged 

[rokken like dokken]

So: 

-Dallas can't help itself from making game-losing mistakes.  I love it, not gonna lie. 
-Sanchez can only perform under pressure, apparently.  I mean only. 
-Detroit is going to cause QBs to shit their pants once Nick Fairley can play. 
-St. Louis needs a #1 receiver that can last a game without getting hurt.  Rams fans should hope Bradford's not too hurt.
-I'm actually really amused that the NFL's rules about touchbacks seem to have encouraged kick returners to go for touchbacks less. 
-Why does Kerry Collins keep getting starting jobs? Who is still under his spell? When the 2008 Titans were improbably good his numbers still weren't great. 

[sin]

My biggest impressions of the first Sunday were what the hell were going on with the Steelers and Falcons.  I expected Dallas to get smoked, and wasn't surprised when Kansas City got stomped either (those guys were just a flash-in-the-pan; they're playing like they should have last year now).

In my fantasy league, I elected to start Matthew Stafford over Ben Roethlisberger and got a lot of comments to the effect of "That's pretty risky," and they all said "risky" in a way that made it clear that they would have said "retarded" if they weren't my friends, but I had the last laugh when he threw for 300 yards and 3 touchdowns (although I imagine a lot of Detroit fans reacted to that first pick-6 to Talib the same way I did, which was to groan and lament "here we go again...")

[rokken like dokken]

KC had two teams over .500 last year - I don't expect much from them this year. 

Atlanta is way over-rated, I have to say, and I think Pittsburgh is getting soft.  Harrison's probably dogging it as some sort of petty protest. 

[rokken like dokken]

That or their run defense is suspect, but we'll see; Baltimore has one of the premier run games in the league. 

[sin]

I feel better about us losing to Iowa State now that they're 3-0 after an impressive win over UConn last night (TECHNICALLY a defending conference champion; even IF that conference is the Big East...).  However, unless I'm mistaken, ISU has Texas next, and I am skeptical that the Cyclones can beat the Longhorns 2 years in a row.

edit:  Steel Jentz (GREAT fucking name for a quarterback...) for ISU is like Ricky Stanzi for Iowa (or as we called him, "Pick-6 Rick") 2 years ago, as in, he plays maddeningly inconsistent for the first 3 quarters, but inexplicably turns into Joe Montana in the 4th.