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1 hour ago, Blast_Brothers said:

I wouldn't mind if the NFL experimented with adding more divisional games. If each divisional opponent was played three times, that would be half of a hypothetical 18-game schedule. That feels like a little bit too much - maybe each year you only play one team three times. I dunno.

 

Of course, this will never happen, because one of the advantages (from the NFL's perspective) of the extra game(s) is that there are more "unique matchups" to market.

There are no "unique match ups" in the NFL. There are only match ups that don't happen as often as others.

42 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

They were premature in burying themselves. They might be the first team with a 150+ point differential that misses the playoffs (I'm making that stat up).

 

But they threw away winnable games that might be hard to dig out of. And because of that, they need help to get into the playoffs while they may be the most talented AFC team.

 

However the season shakes out, I think McDermott needs to go. Blowout win or close loss is not a recipe for long-term success.

All fair points. My counterargument is the Bills are heating up at the right time and I think they get in. Once they're in, anything can happen. Brilliant analysis on my part, right? (FWIW, I would have totally bought the +150 stat.)

11 minutes ago, BottomlessPitt said:

 

Divisions for scheduling purposes and keeping rivalries. 

Still pointless.

7 minutes ago, BottomlessPitt said:

The NFL should change the seeding to top 7 by record regardless if you win your division or not. 

If the NFL went that route, there would be no point in having divisions.

We might have been a bit premature in burying the Buffalo Bills. 

Just now, DCarp1231 said:

“You never know. He’s on the bench, all by himself, and he looks like he’s ready to hang himself and they’re winning.”

 

- My dad on Joe Flacco

Accurate.

2 hours ago, GDAWG said:

If Belichick stays and they end up with any of the top 3 picks, there's no way Bill passes up on Marvin Harrison Jr. is there?

Belichick isn't staying.

2 minutes ago, Cujo said:

Guaranteed there's going to be a 10-win team left out in the AFC

 

And an 8 win playoff team in the NFC.

1 hour ago, Discrim said:

Bears-Browns...what.  was.  That.

That was a Cleveland Browns win. (Browns fans take whatever we can get.)

2 hours ago, Brass said:

 

Zappe is 36 for 47 with 381 yards, 4 TDs (could have been 5 if not for a holding penalty) and 1 INT since this comment so I'd say he is doing pretty well in a small sample size...

 

My point was that the Patriots do not need a QB. They need people a QB can throw the ball to.

You quoted me from two weeks ago. I have no idea what I even said.

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Note that kids are never willing participants when their parents break up. But that certainly doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with divorcing. If Kekich's and Peterson's marriages had ended, and then each of those guys went on to be with other people, no one would have said anything about it, as that's the result of most marriages. The fact that each one ended up with the former wife of the other makes the situation no different.

What a crock of . But I'm glad you're OK with a situation that probably ed those kids up pretty good.

7 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Says the guy who's too young to know better.

 

When I started watching baseball and became a Yankee fan, it was the early 1970s, and being a Yankee fan was definitely not cool. The glow of the Mets' 1969 World Championship was still everywhere; and this was only exacerbated by the team's late-season comeback in 1973 to win the division and win another pennant, before taking the mighty Oakland A's to seven games in that year's World Series.

 

At that time, the Yankees were strictly passé. They were the team best known for hyping guys who turned out to be disappointments, guys such as Rusty Torres and Frank Tepedino. Even the supposed superstar, Bobby Murcer, who was indeed a quality player, was not the generational talent that the team had been touting, and would never equal his one great season.

 

The lone actual star on that team, Thurman Munson, had yet to blossom, while the consistent and underrated Roy White was most often overlooked.

 

The Mets were dazzling with their stellar starting rotation of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and later Jon Matlack; by contrast, the Yankees were trudging along with a fading Mel Stottlemyre, together with an inconsistent Fritz Peterson and the occasionally brilliant Mike Kekich (the latter two of whom were involved in a phony "scandal" when aspects of their private lives were reported on and unjustly mocked).

 

In this environment, the Met fans were the know-nothing trend-followers, and we Yankee fans were, yes, the scholars. We were the ones who were actually familiar with the players and the teams from both leagues. When the Mets would acquire a new player, the Met fans at my school would have to ask us — the Yankee fans, and therefore the serious baseball fans — about that player. When a Met fan was about to go to a game, that Met fan would ask us for a rundown of the opposition. For we were the Yankee fans, the keepers of the knowledge.

 

Then the Lean Years ended, and we Yankee fans got our championship teams. Still, immediately thereafter, we were knocked down again by having no World Championships in the entire 1980s, during which time the Mets once again became the media darlings — and, therefore, once again became the go-to team for the empty-headed know-nothings. And so for a second time, now as an adult, I had the experience of my Met-fan friends asking me for information on new acquisitions, on call-ups, and on opposing players.

 

I retired from following current baseball after 1996, when the Yankees were nice enough to play me out with a championship. So I watched the Yankees' resurgence after that as an outsider. And what became clear to me was that the nature of Yankee fans had altered radically. While Yankee fans of my generation were arrogantly haughty, the Yankee fans of the latter generation were just loutish.

 

In the 1970s, Yankee fans would cheer for many great opposing players. Amongst the opposing players who always got great receptions at Yankee Stadium were Brooks Robinson, Andre Thornton, and Rod Carew.  This recalls the stories of Dodger fans at Ebbets Field always cheering for Stan Musial. 

 

The character of Yankee fans of my generation can be illustrated by two events involving Tom Seaver. First, after Seaver was traded from the Mets in June of 1977, his first appearance in New York came a few weeks later at the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. His introduction before the game elicited the biggest ovation of the night, bigger than that for the several Yankee players in the game, or for Yankee manager Billy Martin, who was managing the American League.

 

The second event came in August of 1985, when Seaver faced the Yankees at the Stadium going for his 300th career victory. During that game, something remarkable happened: the crowd turned. This had happened for individual moments, for instance, when Reggie Jackson made his first appearance back at the Stadium after signing with the Angels, and was cheered for homering against Ron Guidry. But for the first and only time in history, an entire packed Yankee Stadium turned for the whole game, rooting against the Yankees as they cheered for Seaver. After Seaver got his complete-game victory, the capacity crowd stood and roared, and demanded a curtain call.

 

This is what my kind of Yankee fandom had been about. Seaver, unlike Jackson, was not a former Yankee. Rather, he was a former Met. Yet Yankee fans, being at that time the epitome of great and knowledgeable baseball fans, ignored petty partisanship to pay appropriate respect to greatness.

 

There is a profound difference between the Yankee fans of my day and those of the current day. If the Seaver scenarios had played out at any time after 2000, the Yankee fans of today would certainly have booed a longtime Met, rather than cheer a baseball hero.

This post would have been way more entertaining in Esperanto.

With regard to Kekich and Peterson, were the kids "willing participants" as well? What say the "scholars of baseball" on that part of the "phony scandal?" 

I'm not "too young to know better" and the whole family swap thing was pretty ed up. Even for the swinging 70s.

11 hours ago, tBBP said:

 

Okay, I seriously just had to go look and see if that name was real...

 

...Turns out, it is. Sheesh...

Easton Stick. Sounds like a baseball bat.

LA Chargers vs. Las Vegas

Minnesota vs. Cincinnati

Pittsburgh vs. Indianapolis

Denver vs. Detroit

NY Giants vs. New Orleans

Chicago vs. Cleveland

Atlanta vs. Carolina

Tampa Bay vs. Green Bay

NY Jets vs. Miami

Kansas City vs. New England

Houston vs. Tennessee

San Francisco vs. Arizona

Washington vs. LA Rams

Dallas vs. Buffalo

Baltimore vs. Jacksonville

Philadelphia vs. Seattle

13 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

And I do think it’s relevant in the grander scale of things because it’s following the same pattern. It’s taking some of the other, seedy aspects of our society and throws it into the same circle with something that’s supposed to be an escape from all of that. And in an era where people are whining about rainbow armbands (somewhat similar complaint, but much dumber and lacking any actual relevance), I think I have the room to complain about that. Because that’s the actual problem! 

And it will remain that way exactly as long as we stay focused on the dumb stuff - which is the goal, I guess.

Listening to the Bill Simmons Podcast today...                                                                    

Simmons: “The Chiefs are #11 in the AFC playoff standings.”                                                                                

Cousin Sal: “The committee will still vote them in though, right?”

26 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

 

It's not even that somebody saw a person and mistook them for Shohei. It was college football-esque tail number tracking because someone noticed a private jet chartered from Anaheim to Toronto along with all these "reports" saying Shohei signing with the Jays was a done deal, so it just had to be him. Then later, better, reports said Shohei was still at home outside Anaheim with no decision from him yet and then the plane landed with Mr. Dragon's Den, further confirming that Shohei wasn't signing with the Jays tonight.

My version is better.

31 minutes ago, LMU said:

 

To be fair, I'd have a hard time telling these two apart myself. They're very close in age, they're almost the same height, and their resemblance to each other is uncanny.

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

College football is the most awful sport we have

I'm guessing you've never seen college and high school basketball up close.

Quote

Adding in Bama just made me wish for the fall of college football, the elimination of national champions in the sport, and for people to disengage with a truly rancid sports product.

All due respect, but that seems a tad dramatic. Maybe even more than a tad.

40 minutes ago, Sport said:

It’s more like saying the Yankees were better than the Dbacks because their division is harder and then using that logic to give them the Dbacks’ spot in the wildcard round. 

Don't speak that into existence.

22 hours ago, sayahh said:

 

Just elaborated why I thought it was relevant. Mod removed it so I'll drop it.  Was looking for a dos and don'ts and didn't find it but I will respect the mods.

Which part of this tripped you up?

5. No Politics

• Posts and artwork of a political nature or referring to politics, whether explicitly or implicitly, that are not relevant to the topics of sports or graphic design are expressly prohibited on the CCSLC. 
• This includes but is not limited to: jokes; links to news stories; concepts depicting political figures or using partisan political symbols; or any other content the moderating team deems to be of a politically incendiary nature. 
• Such content also may not be used in members' signatures, user titles, avatars or profiles. 
• Posts and artwork referring to politics that are relevant to sports or graphic design must not be overly partisan or incendiary. 
• Posting politically incendiary content may result in a suspension, up to and including a permanent ban.

On 12/5/2023 at 7:21 PM, sayahh said:

 

Thanks. I didn't think it was partisan nor incendiary and (I thought) it was very relevant to sports (in particular college football), but the second bullet point was a catch-all, so, again, I will leave it at that since I did not mean to break the rules (even unintentionally) and mods have the final say and they've spoken.  It's just football and should be about fun and games anyway (especially since I don't play nor gamble).

Your post was irrelevant to the conversation. You posted a couple things about Alabama, said "in other news", and then you linked to something that was blatantly political, partisan, and entirely unrelated to college football. If there is any connection to what you  linked and college football, it would take Alex Jones to find it.

You've been a member here for 13 years. Call me a cynic, but I'm having a tough time buying that you didn't know bringing up politics is against the rules.

Hope that clears it up.

On 12/5/2023 at 6:48 PM, McCall said:

Hmm. Now I'm curious what was said.

He used a political post to suggest that there was some sort of conspiracy behind Alabama being in the playoff.

4 hours ago, Sport said:

What you and the committee are saying is FSU's perfect record essentially doesn't count because of an inconvenient injury to a QB, which is unfair to them and sucks for larger competition reasons.

Of all the reasons the committee could have used to justify their decision, bringing up injuries was easily the worst one. I'd respect it more if the committee had used strength of schedule as its rationale for leaving out FSU. At least that is a somewhat legitimate take. Honestly, I would have had more respect for the committee if their reasoning  was "we screwed FSU because you, that's why."

New England vs. Pittsburgh

Houston vs. NY Jets

LA Rams vs. Baltimore

Carolina vs. New Orleans

Indianapolis vs. Cincinnati

Tampa Bay vs. Atlanta

Jacksonville vs. Cleveland

Detroit vs. Chicago

Seattle vs. San Francisco

Minnesota vs. Las Vegas

Denver vs. LA Chargers

Buffalo vs. Kansas City

Philadelphia vs. Dallas

Green Bay vs. NY Giants

Tennessee vs. Miami