Sport

I'm sure someone's done this 50 times by now, but I'm in a meeting that I don't need to be in so I'm goofing around with this instead. Here's the NFL realigned using only geography: Eastern Conference Southeast Dolphins, Bucs, Jags, Falcons Northeast Patriots, Jets, Giants, Eagles Rust Belt Browns, Bills, Lions, Steelers Atlantic Commanders, Ravens, Panthers, Bengals Western Conference Northwest Seahawks, 49ers, Broncos, Chiefs Southwest Rams, Chargers, Raiders, Cardinals Central Vikings, Colts, Packers, Bears Gulf of Mexico Cowboys, Texans, Saints, Titans

I've thought for a while about doing a chart where the Y axis is how much a team spends and the X axis is how stupid they are, but I've been too lazy to execute it. To give you an idea, the Dodgers would be in the top right corner, the Reds would be in the bottom left corner, the Rays would be in the bottom right corner, and the Red Sox would be somewhere in the upper middle.

That was only the second time I've watched old Tom Brady this season, but dude finally looks old. Putting on football pads and running around at 45? So childish. Grow up and go home to your family, ya freak. Also please eat something with fat in it. Some fat is good fat.

I think Yankees fans should all be held down and forced to watch Four Days in October on a loop while having their eyes held open Clockwork Orange style for 16 straight hours. No bathroom breaks.

Fine. They have to watch this play on a loop with their eyes held open Clockwork Orange style for 16 hours, but they get a 15 minute bathroom and/or food break to take whenever they choose. I think that's very generous considering what they did to the rest of us over the last 20 years.

This is unbelievable. I've never seen anybody try the Stanford Band play when the game is tied. This is catharsis distilled into a heroin injection for 31 NFL fanbases. The Pats could lose humiliatingly like this for another 20 to 35 years and I don't think I'd feel bad for them. I want every Pats fan to watch this with their eyes held open Clockwork Orange style for the next 16 hours. I know Belichick didn't call this and the players went maverick, but this is the kind of you do in year 30 of your Madden franchise when you're bored and dont' care anymore. He's got his doofus mulleted kid running the defense, he's got random guys he knows suck running the offense and he doesn't care. Dude's washed and should just retire before more dumb like this further taints his legacy. Same for Brady too.

Ideal scenario last night - Ravens lose, Watson looked like butt. Now the Bengals need to take advantage of the gift and not lose to the Bucs.

White facemasks are the superior color choice for the Browns. Just wish they'd stop with that semi-matte finish on the helmets and go back to gloss.

That's actually a relief in a sad way. Weird and tragic coincidence that it happened while he was in Qatar covering this event and he died very soon after reporting about the less than ideal conditions and events going on there, but it is good news that nothing fishy happened. His brother emotionally shooting off that he was murdered didn't help, but I can see where he was coming from because that's where my head went too.

My wife owns a pair of teal leggings that are almost that exact same color. They look good on her. They look very silly on the Jaguars. If they wore black socks that actually would’ve been a pretty sharp look.

49ers Vikings Browns Bills Eagles Lions Panthers Chiefs Falcons Cowboys Broncos Raiders Titans Bengals Commanders Packers

All four cat teams won yesterday. Someone less lazy than me look up the last time that happened. With that collection of teams it's probably very rare.

Anecdotal accounts I've heard from people who were there say the Bengals fans outnumbered the Rams fans at the Super Bowl, which was played in their home stadium.

The 0-2 and then 4-4 Bengals are now 9-4, which is very fun. First win over the Browns since 2019. Really relieved to see Burrow and company finally got the Browns monkey off their back. The Browns are a bad matchup for the Bengals - Their strengths line up with our weaknesses and I don't really know how to explain that if you haven't watched the games. The Browns in the last two that counted* have gotten a couple early bounces and taken leads and then from there the matchup problem just gets worse, which has lead to some misleadingly lopsided scores. Yesterday the Bengals were finally able to get ahead and flip the tables on that. Run defense looking very stout, rookie Cam Taylor-Britt is filling in for Awuzie better than I could've hoped, and they always seem to come up with the big stop in the redzone. Be really helpful if the Browns and the Sentient Pornhub Video were to get their act together next week against a very beatable Ravens squad. *Week 18 last year was a JV scrimmage (Bengals had already clinched the division and playoff seeding was locked) and if you count that as a W as a Browns fan then you're a DORK.

I loved that about the XFL, but I'd be very surprised if the NFL ever does it. Transparency and gimmickry were in the XFL's best interests. The NFL knows we're all little addicted pigs who will eat their slop regardless of what they do and they like having the ability to nudge a game in one direction or the other however they wish and will never show us behind the curtain.

Horrific and tragic. Read Grant for forever and I just watched Good Rivals in which he appears frequently. It’s surreal and almost difficult to believe. At best this was an unfortunate coincidence, at worst it was nefarious. Either way, I was already struggling with watching these games when the US was still in the tournament, but I’m fully out now. Whole thing feels incredibly gross.

I don't agree, but that's an opinion you're allowed to have. I don't do it every time, but if you have a problem with it you can educate yourself on where to find the "Ignore" feature. I agree. That's actually laughable. Nobody hated their uniforms from 2004-2020 more than me. I had no problem trashing them for 17 years. I have no problem pointing out some of the current uniform's flaws (the Finding Nemo pants, for instance). I'm not a fan of the uniforms because I'm a fan of the team. I'm a fan of the uniforms because I think they're good uniforms. If I didn't think they were good uniforms I'd say as much. I'm just honestly asking Red what he thinks is so wrong about them.

Normally I agree with your football uniform takes, but I don't get what's so offensive about the Bengals uniforms. They're not monochrome, they wore socks that contrast with the pants, there's no ugly side panel or yoke, they don't have some dumb number font or striping treatment, and the jersey stripes match the helmet stripes. As far as a modern football uniform goes they're pretty restrained. What's the problem? My only criticism is they keep wearing them against the Chiefs, but at least the black pants are there for contrast. Would've been harder to watch if they'd worn the white pants.

Tage Thompson looks like a longer, rangier Connor McDavid. It's really fun to watch. Not fun against the Blue Jackets, but it's fun to watch. He reminds me a basketball player out there and I mean that as a compliment.

LOL at "Arson Judge"

Right. Like it's so stupid that sometimes the SEC championship game is a blood battle for the right to go to the playoff and sometimes it's a pointless exhibition that doesn't matter for either team (as was the case this year). They should all have the same stakes every year otherwise what's the point? Championship weekend would be more entertaining, the games would matter every year, and something like TCU's loss would carry the same weight as USC's. It's the expanded playoff without having to actually expand the playoff and you keep the regular season meaningful. I don't get why any football fan wouldn't love that. Edit: Here's another example that shows why the 12 team playoff will suck. 2013. The Kick Six beats previously unbeaten Alabama. Bitter rival eliminates them from the National Title in a humiliating way. Auburn fans will tell the story and replay the clip forever. It's legendary because it meant something. Auburn goes to the SEC Championship Game and has to battle with 11-1 Missouri and that's a great game because that game had actual stakes on it for Missouri too. Whoever loses that game is out of the BCS. Auburn ultimately loses to FSU in a phenomenal game. Now let's pretend that season had a 12 team playoff. The kick six happens, it's Alabama's first loss, but they still get an at-large bid so it doesn't sting nearly as much. Other than losing to the rival it doesn't really matter at all. Auburn goes to SEC Championship where they play Missouri who also doesn't need the automatic bid so it's a whatever game for both sides. All 3 go to the playoffs where they IDK maybe rematch*, none of it matters, and Kick Six is a footnote from a mostly pointless and then forgotten game. This is what our future holds and it will be lamer. *and I don't know about you, but I don't like rematches. Rematches are almost never better than the original and inherently unfair to the team who won the first time.

Exactly. And this whole thing started a few pages back because I've always said it's dumb when this happens in the SEC too. It's not extremely silly that Alabama and Georgia played for both the conference championship and national championship last year? Why'd they even play the first time? The worst ever was 2011/2012 when LSU beat Alabama in the regular season and their reward in the BCS title game was Alabama again who got a second chance with the unintended advantage that they, unlike LSU, didn't have to incur the extra punishment of the SEC championship game. It was so stupid then and it's stupid with OSU now. Again, I say all of this as a Buckeyes fan. They didn't get it done and if they beat Michigan in the National Championship game I don't know how I'll feel in the moment, but I'm imagining right now that it would feel a little bit hollow. For this reason I won't be terribly upset if they lose to Georgia because I don't feel like they should be in the playoff to begin with.

I don't think that's contradictory, but you also didn't highlight half my point there. Regular season would still matter because the games in my preferred system determine the participants in the final four. Not a committee, or a computer system, or voters. And it's only 4 out of 100+ plus teams so it would still require exceptional regular seasons from each of the 4 best conference champions. Who's the worst team who's ever won a major conference championship game? It might be this year's Utah or K-State. The winners of these games are usually pretty good, just by nature. Because Utah had to perform well enough in the regular season to qualify for their conference championship game and then went out and won the game. That's how the regular season games matter. And most of the time the 4 best conference champions would be better teams than Utah and have fewer than 3 losses. Crossed off part is because my system basically eliminates the necessity of thinking this way. If you win your conference championship game this "X is better than Y who lost to Z, but they were ranked n at the time" nonsense is almost entirely irrelevant. The only place my system asks for some subjective ranking is when it comes down to selecting the 4th vs. the 5th best conference champions. I mean, we might put Kansas State over Utah as the 4th best conference champion because they beat TCU. IDK. I'll discuss with my oracles and the council of elders on top of Mount Olympus. How so? They all still matter because at the end of the season you still need to be one of the 4 best conference champions to qualify for my final four and you still need to have a good season to reach your conference title game. Alabama didn't qualify for the SEC championship game because they didn't win enough regular season games so all their games mattered. OSU didn't qualify for the Big Ten championship game because they didn't win enough regular season games so all their games mattered. How'd TCU qualify for the Big 12 championship game? They won enough games to be there ergo the regular season games still matter. If TCU doesn't like that they won't be in my hypothetical Final Four then they shoulda beaten Kansas State when it counted and if you couldn't beat Kansas State* in a "play-in game" then I don't really have much sympathy for your case that you belong in the playoff that determines the national champion. To put it simpler, why does OSU get another shot at being national champions when they weren't good enough to be conference champions? We decided it on the field already. I'm an OSU fan and I think it's sort of lame that they're still alive. *no offense to Kansas State. They're just the convenient example here. So that's kind of my entire point. Those conference championship games shouldn't be redundant. If we're going to have them then they should mean something, right? The SEC championship game last year between Georgia and Alabama was kind of a farce because it meant a lot for Alabama and basically nothing for Georgia. It should mean the same thing for both teams and would have if it was the only ticket to the playoff for both teams. That's what I'm getting at. My idea removes the Calvinball and the moving goalposts that we deal with every year where the line for acceptance into the playoff is constantly changing throughout the season. If the definition to make the playoff is set at Conference Champion then every team has the same goal at the beginning of the season and the goal is fixed in place. If the definition to make the playoff is set at Conference Champion then these subjective top 25 rankings we discuss all season long are almost entirely irrelevant. RE: the super league, I think a huge problem in college football is the scale of it, but we already kind of naturally solved that issue with the segmented conferences that breaks it down into smaller groups defined by regions (more or less). Why not actually use those conferences for something when we already have them?

Terrible time to trip over my own butt. That 8-6 skidmark probably just killed me. Raiders Vikings Steelers Bengals Bills Cowboys Eagles Titans Chiefs Seahawks 49ers Dolphins Patriots

49ers need to bring back the enormous pants stripe and striped socks and the uniform is complete.