CS85

25 minutes ago, Carolingian Steamroller said:

I know the red helmet is popular but I LOVED this look.

 

This is the Falcons, pretty much, in my mind.

It wouldn't be as good nowadays because Nike doesn't believe in shiny uniform elements anymore, but I'd much prefer it over the constant ugly crap they've been shoveling out for 20 years now.

After watching the Vipers play in someone's backyard surrounded by crumbling scaffolding and a couple rows of bleachers, this league can't sniff at maximum attendance.  If the field and venue are in decent condition, that is a gift horse.

6 hours ago, ruttep said:

Not too bad looking of a Winter Classic

Agreed, it was a pleasant watch, and not only because of the score.

The Golden Knights fauxbacks weren't great on first inspection, but in the context of a Winter Classic I thought they held their own nicely.

1 hour ago, WJMorris3 said:

Point of order: the NCAA has nothing to do with this.

Ah, sorry; updated my post.

2 hours ago, CS85 said:

TL;DR:  the college football "how to choose a champion" methodology was dramatically botched one final time before playoff expansion, and the elite shadow cabal of knights templar* looks forward to screwing around again in the coming years.

TL;DR:  the college football "how to choose a champion" methodology was dramatically botched one final time before playoff expansion, and the elite shadow cabal of knights templar* looks forward to screwing around again in the coming years.

Personally I'm fine with an 8 team league to start things off. Teams gotta have home fields and not hubs, and they have to be close enough to keep travel costs down and likely all teams will again practice/operate out of a central location.  They have to stabilize next season to demonstrate that they can begin and end a season without issue, turn a profit that stirs interest, and ideally build off of the gains the 2023 XFL made during their regular season.

They can likely keep the branding and materials allotted to un-included teams for easy, quick expansion should the league have a huge debut season, which would also be appealing financially, you'd think.

I'm assuming they'd also have to acquire the UFL trademarks and such.  It's a poor name for a league, IMO, but whatever.

I still think they should go with LOAF:  League of Alternative Football, with the catchphrase, "Let's Get This Bread."

Reaching the point of the Bears season where I give them about a half of football before opting to do literally anything else that is in any way productive.  There's absolutely nothing to look forward to about the team.  The coaching staff will all be fired, Fields and Bagent are both pretty crappy, they've struck out on most of their free agent signings, and the season is a long way from over. 

I wish I could smother this franchise with a pillow so we could all just move on with our lives and properly grieve for an organization that's been chugging arsenic for decades now but has a Rasputin-esque unwillingness to die.

21 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

HE'S BLOCKING HIS OWN LINEMAN WHO EVEN DOES THIS

I was browsing my Facebook memories yesterday and my status from 13 years ago was "Once again, the Chicago Bears continue to curate new and fascinating methods to lose that defy belief."  

An evergreen take on this bumbling-ass franchise, it appears.

There's a thread in the goldmine, some of you old timers may recall, that had a "concept" done in msPaint for the...steamboats, or something?  I can't recall if that was Lee's work or what.

WEEK 7

Jaguars/Saints

Falcons/Bucs

Raiders/Bears

Browns/Colts

Commanders/Giants

Lions/Ravens

Bills/Patriots

Cardinals/Seahawks

Steelers/Rams

Chargers/Chiefs

Packers/Broncos

Dolphins/Eagles

49ers/Vikings

WEEK 6

Denver @ Kansas City

Baltimore @ Tennessee

Washington @ Atlanta

Minnesota @ Chicago

Seattle @ Cincinnati

San Francisco @ Cleveland

Carolina @ Miami

Indianapolis @ Jacksonville

New Orleans @ Houston

New England @ Las Vegas

Arizona @ LA Rams

Philadelphia @ NY Jets

Detroit @ Tampa Bay

NY Giants @ Buffalo

Dallas @ LA Chargers

It looks like the "Who's that Pokemon?!" silhouette for a lame pokemon that's a cartoony steak.

Chicago vs. Washington

Jacksonville vs. Buffalo

New Orleans vs. New England

Tennessee vs. Indianapolis

Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh

Carolina vs. Detroit

Houston vs. Atlanta

NY Giants vs. Miami

Cincinnati vs. Arizona

Philadelphia vs. LA Rams

NY Jets vs. Denver

Kansas City vs. Minnesota

Dallas vs. San Francisco

Green Bay vs. Las Vegas

25 minutes ago, ManillaToad said:

Why doesn't the UXFL just find a billionaire who will give them free money?

Make fun if you want, it's the only way this nickel-and-dime endeavor succeeds.

On 9/10/2023 at 6:33 PM, CS85 said:

Being a Bears fan is torture. 

They need to realize that the XFL and USFL brands have so very little equity.  You're better off looking for a Shad Kahn/AEW situation where an ostensibly non-insane billionaire can be the owner/backer to provide the surface legitimacy of a new brand straightaway and cover the up front cost hurdles of localization, travel, facilities, etc.   

Without that, this league is going to be just another bubble scam that lasts for a year before some scoundrels pick the bones after it inevitably perishes.

You can't do football in front of no fans and expect engagement or success.  It doesn't work.

People don't want to go back to covid-era games.  Football can't be golf.

I know it's expensive as hell but local investment has an enormous long-term ROI compared to hoping for a couple years at best of TV ad buys before you founder the league and run away with what little money is left.

If they're going to do hub cities, which is league suicide, they need to drop all the cities from the team names.  Don't insult our intelligence.

It's an improvement.

Detroit vs. Green Bay

Atlanta vs. Jacksonville

LA Rams vs. Indianapolis

Baltimore vs. Cleveland

Minnesota vs. Carolina

Cincinnati vs. Tennessee

Tampa Bay vs. New Orleans

Miami vs. Buffalo

Denver vs. Chicago

Washington vs. Philadelphia

Pittsburgh vs. Houston

Las Vegas vs. LA Chargers

Arizona vs. San Francisco

New England vs. Dallas

Kansas City vs. NY Jets

Seattle vs. NY Giants

43 minutes ago, tBBP said:

Wellp, the plot thickens...

 

I'm not sure whether this should go here or in the SiG forum, I definitely ain't finna start a new thread on this, and mods can feel free to MOD EDIT this completely out of the conversation, BUTTT...the Washington former Football Team formerly known as the R-words name and identity plot drama just took on yet another level of uh-oh.

 

Just a little bit of a snippet:

 

 

(Spoiler alert: George Soros' name pops up in this drama.)

 

Now, I will say this, having traveled all lower 48 states and 49 of 50 and having seen/known this myself with my own eyes/experience: there were and are plenty of tribes in the upper midwest, mainly in North Dakota,  Oklahoma, and Montana, who embraced the former Chief  White Calf-inspired logo, just based on that fact that a/ I saw some indigenous wearing the merch and b/me asking them about it. (Shoot, somewhere in I believe Oklahoma was a Native hihh school whose athletic nickname was, in fact, the R—well, that.) That said, support/dissent of the name/identity varied from tribe to tribe, and sometimes even within tribes/Native ingroups, as evidenced by the number of Lakota who nearly chewed my head off for me daring to wear my Florida State Chief Osceola hoodie my first few times traveling/working and eventually living up in South Dakota...which just about all of them thought was the Washington Re—well, them, until I explained it was for Florida State. Didn't make a difference to many, which is why I eventually quit wearing anything Chief Osceola-related up there out of respect to them, once I heard and understood their perspective on the Re—umm, that controversy. 

 

That said, obviously as is reported in the link above, there's always been dissenting views of the controversy, and the story should also serve as further evidence that no one body speaks nor should try to speak/spin the narrative for an entirely of a particular population—and that "special interest politics" abound even amongst the Indigenous peoples of this nation (then again that's also been going on since even before the confederation became a "nation". Anyway, so there's another perspective out there is all, and coupled with Harris' reported abhorrence of the current Commanders identity, perhaps this may further fuel the flames of change in DC??

Cormac McCarthy rolled in his grave at the amount of punctuation in this post.

On 9/10/2023 at 6:33 PM, CS85 said:

Being a Bears fan is torture. 

9 hours ago, McCall said:

Hub cities are a joke. If it's not the actual team representing that city, it's like watching football in 2020 - in empty stadiums. Even if St. Louis, who has set spring league attendance records, has a second team playing there going by another city, nobody's gonna go and watch them.

Hub cities is the death knell of the league.  Local support is all that keeps business and interest going.  Just call the whole operation now and don't waste anyone else's time.

3 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

The first football game I remember watching was SBXX, so my Bears history  starts with Jim McMahon.  Besides your list, off the top of my head I have:

 

Jim Harbaugh comes to mind, but I only know about that from Tecmo Super Bowl.

 

Rex Grossman - proof that anyone can trip and fall into a Super Bowl appearance every decade or so.

 

The guy with the neck beard - can't remember his name.

 

Jay Cutler - straight up comical that they thought he was their guy, and then double-downed on it.

Ye verily, to my everlasting suffering, I have seen the Bears trot out (and I'm probably forgetting some)

ABHORRENTLY AWFUL:

• Cade McNown
• CFL legend Henry Burris
• Jonathan Quinn
• Craig Krenzel
• Jimmy Clausen
• Caleb Hanie
• Todd Collins
• Chad Hutchinson
• Kordell Stewart
• Mike Glennon
• David Fales

FORGETTABLE:

• Shane Matthews
• Chris Chandler
• Brian Hoyer
• Jason Campbell
• Matt Barkley
• Andy Dalton
• Nick Foles
• Nathan Peterman
• Trevor Siemian
• Brian Griese
• Chase Daniel
• Tyler Bray

DECENT I GUESS, AT LEAST BY BEARS LOW STANDARDS:

• Rex Grossman
• Jay Cutler
• Kyle Orton
• Josh McCown
• Mitch Trubisky
• Jim Miller
• Justin Fields (trending down)

GOOD:

HALL OF FAME:

• Tyson Bagent

6 hours ago, Lights Out said:

So either the Bears' PR department is even more inept than their play on the field

The Bears have, especially in recent years, been Not Great at PR basics. They don’t handle the unexpected well at all. 
 

As far as the Williams stuff goes, as of now it’s an addition by subtraction.  Eberflus calling the defense could mean he’ll be too occupied to push dumbass strategies on the offense, which is already run by a Rodgers beneficiary, so I dunno.  This whole mess is just another in the long miserable tenure of Bears fandom.