Sport

This is why I never hated the Ravens the way I do the Steelers. Even in years when the Bengals had good teams and were making the playoffs the Ravens were never the same mental hurdle for them the way the Steelers were. They'd steal at least a win every season it felt like, even though the Ravens were/are consistently in the top half of the league. The Ravens also didn't have a habit of injuring our players either. The other thing is I only know one Ravens fan and he's a nice guy whereas I have met hundreds of Steelers fans and, best friend included, they're all the Worst People AliveTM. But it's been a bloodbath since Lamar came along. First win against the Ravens since 2018. First win in Baltimore since 2017. They didn't score a TD against the Ravens last year and it was probably Burrow's worst game of his rookie season. Regardless of how the rest of the team looks they needed to prove they could beat ole Lammy Jaxx and prove they could play with Baltimore. That TD pass to Brown to put them up in the second half is why he's so scary - He's a legitimately great passer. I was very impressed with the secondary's coverage and the line's disciplined contain.

We do! Since at least whenever it was that Guns and Roses released "Welcome to the Jungle", but probably before that too. Their new thing this year is the ultra corny "Ruler of the Jungle" for each game. Here's first ever draft pick Bob Johnson getting the honor. I love it. The good news is the o-line has improved to league average and he's taking way fewer hits. And with the defense being what it is they don't have to throw the ball 60 times a game to keep up. It's always in the back of my mind, but I'm a lot less worried about it than I was this offseason.

That was a watershed moment. That's my favorite Bengals win since they came back from 17 to beat Seattle in 2015. I was expecting a hard lesson because that's what always happened in these kind of games in the Marvin Lewis era and I'm conditioned to expect the worst. Instead they just went into Baltimore in a prove-it, measuring stick type game and bullied the Ravens. Ja'Marr Chase is amazing (and amazing the Bengals, the BENGALS!, actually made the right pick), the defense is actually good, and Joe Burrow is exceeding expectations. That's the second time this season they've politely escorted the home fans out of a divisional opponent's stadium well before the final gun. Love a boring game with the backups in with 5 minutes left. I think the rest of the NFL should get used to the idea that the Bengals are for real.

I like having the shot totals on the scorebug. Shots aren't a perfect metric for telling the true story of a hockey game, but they do a better job than nothing. I know I could just Watch The GameTM, but I like having them right there to refer to throughout. And it's helpful if I tune in late and see a team losing, let's say, 2-0 halfway through the second period, then it paints a better picture of what I've missed if I can immediately see what the shot totals are.

I like the updated bolt, but that bolt is hard to screw up. I'll give them credit for at least not overhauling something that only need a small adjustment. That font is no good, though.

There's a gaggle of issues with the Panthers update too. I like it better than the original, but it's really sloppy and has some really amateurish rough parts that should've been caught and corrected before it was approved as final. It's been a while, actually, since the NFL released a new logo for a team that I didn't find some fundamental basic error in the logo's construction.

The original is fantastic. My thoughts on the new one are above. In short, it's an over-designed, over-detailed illustration that sanitized away all the charm and character. The Bucs new logo has the same problem, come to think of it.

If you think it's 10x better then I'm not sure I can explain why one is good and the other isn't because that comes down to personal taste, but I'll try. I don't want my sports logos to be photo-real depictions of the thing they represent because at that point you might as well just use a photograph of the animal as your logo. This is the emblem for your team, not just a depiction of the animal you're named after. I want the logo to be a logo because these aren't literally jaguars, they're a football franchise named the Jaguars. That's an important distinction. I want it to convey the subject in a sharp way while also being the instant identifier for that team. One of these accomplishes that, the other is an overly-detailed illustration reminiscent of the cheap images found on stock websites. One is a bespoke sports logo befitting a franchise in the National Football League, the other would look at home on the wall of a high school gymnasium. Fundamentally speaking the old logo is stronger, literally. Uses heavier, consistent line weights throughout, conveys motion, and manages to cast it all with a not so serious tone, which gives it a charm and character that the new one lacks. The new logo uses lines too thin, colors too many, and is just too literal for my liking. Is the new one mechanically better? Yes, but I don't always want mechanically better. Same reason I'd rather listen to a human play a guitar solo than listen to the same guitar solo played through Garage Band. When you get too technical and literal you lose some soul. Does that make sense? I want a logo a kid could effectively draw on his notebook, a logo that could be easily embroidered on a hat without losing too much detail. The current logo on the other hand is so detailed you need to be a studied artist to replicate it.

I can't ignore the dumbest looking helmet in NFL history because it was the biggest part of the whole uniform. Also, the logo was and continues to be a PROBLEM. But here's my issues with the rest of that Jaguars set: - The weird patterns and materials on the neck and shoulders, plus the shield logo on the chest were too much "this is what the troops would wear if they played football". - But the single biggest thing signaling the faux military cosplay those uniforms were trying to evoke is that awful awful number font. That was absolutely hideous. - Teal should always be their primary jersey color. They accidentally got this correct when they used teal numbers on the white jersey, which is why the decision to use black numbers on the teal jersey is so baffling. - I have a pretty hard rule on that. Only in rare exceptions does a dark number work on a color jersey and the black numbers on the teal jersey violate that rule hard. It's the kind of decision amateur designers with poor taste make. Plus they're basically illegible from any distance. You cannot go wrong with white numbers. - I actually don't hate the pants stripe on its own, but it didn't really match with anything else in the uniform. Seeing the Bucs use a similar stripe around the same time makes it feel like someone in NFL properties just really wanted to stripe some pants like that at the time. - I don't have a problem with the contrasting color sleeves, but if you're going to use contrasting color sleeves then put the logo or numbers on the sleeve. If you fill the sleeve with something then the sleeve's differing color looks considered and thoughtful. When you leave them blank it looks like a college or high school team who was just handed a Nike template. - Every color is used in every part of the uniform, but it's not done elegantly the way the original uniform was. Every piece of the uniform is turned up to 11 and there's no visual focal point. There's no restraint, no thoughtful consideration for how each piece of the uniform would look with the others. It's like the helmets, jerseys, and pants were all designed by different people at different times who weren't allowed the see the others' work. And the person who designed the helmet was both blindfolded and high. The person who designed the logo works for stockvectorlogos.com. I wish they'd made the super bowl while wearing it. It's pure, uncut, tasteless trash. I'm glad it's dead, and it would've been hilarious for it to be preserved on a stage like that for all-time.

edit: wrong thread.

I can't think of a uniform in football that sways so far between great to not good at all depending on the combination than the Detroit Lions. If they wear the correct combination like they did yesterday I really really like these Lions uniforms. When they stray into the all-blue, the all-white, or the dreadful all-gray jumpsuits they don't work at all.

Burgundy pants feel like it would overload the road uniforms with too much burgundy and not enough blue. Between blue and burgundy blue pants are the right choice because it balances the colors, they just went too bright with the blue numbers. I agree they need to add a blue stripe on the jersey - like they had back in the day.

They were one of the few teams who didn't adopt the new Nike templates when Nike first took on the league contract, which I want to say was 2012. And they held onto their old supplier with the old cut and the dazzle fabrics for a while. I guess I want to know when that change happened. I admit I haven't been paying that close attention to the Carolina Panthers. Their tiny TV numbers are literally a little thing that bugs me in sports. They're comically small now and if I was the Panthers I'd just drop them altogether now that TV numbers are no longer required. I'd also replace the Panther head logo with a full body panther logo because the logo on the helmet and sleeve is redundant.

I refuse to believe the only option to "make them stretch the right way" was to cut off the end. Nike doesn't seem to have any problems with with making other non-standard stripes "stretch the right way". The only explanation is that's how the Panthers want the stripe to look now, which is lame and why it's a little thing that bugs me.

That doesn't explain why the new Nike pants have to cut off the end of the stripe.

The Panthers pants stripe pants bug me. How it's supposed to look. How it looks now Why'd they start cutting off the point like that?

People who I know at Ohio State who sort of know him said he was going to be a disaster in the NFL, but I cannot believe it's been even worse than I imagined. He's been bad in every single way a head coach can be bad. Not so easy when you can't just out-recruit every single opponent.

Urban Meyer's not finishing this season with the Jaguars.

I was thinking this the other day when watching Titans highlights. That helmet logo could not be a worse shape for this specific helmet model.

I can't believe they're now staring at year 3 with zero plan for Ben's successor and it's very very unlike them to let it happen. I think they thought Mason Rudolph was the answer, but by the end of 2019 they should've known he wasn't gonna work. The whole offseason was head-scratching because they're usually so good at filling weaknesses one or two years before the weakness becomes a glaring problem. I've always envied it as a Bengals fan because the Bengals don't address their weaknesses until two years after the weakness is a massive hole cratering the rest of the roster. I wonder if they were blinded by their own bullcrap with that 11-0 start last year. A lot of us felt like that was smoke and mirrors, but to say anything would've just come off as biased and bitter. But it really was a top heavy team with a bad offensive line and a QB who couldn't throw the ball anymore all propped up by a good defense. They were exposed by the Football Teamers, Bills, and Bengals and then trounced by the Browns in the playoffs. That should've been the sign that they had problems that won't be solved by the magic of "We're the Steelers", but they didn't really do anything to fix their problems. They're also not running an offensive scheme that masks Ben's deficiencies. I hope Roethlisberger stays healthy enough to continue to drag the team down like a big, dumb, stupid, fat, garbage-human anchor. Making The Worst People AliveTM watch that pile stomp around and throw ugly interceptions won't be enough justice for the atrocities they've committed over the last 17 years, but it's a good start. The next step will be a Browns/Bears-esque 30 years of wandering in the QB desert.

That looks great! Before releasing the new look they said there would be 9 different combinations, which led me to believe they'd have white pants, black pants, and orange pants. 2 different sets of white pants doesn't make 9 combinations because they can't wear the Nemo pants with the white jerseys (I mean, they can, but they shouldn't). Actually the Nemo pants look worse with every jersey in my opinion so technically it is 9 different combinations, but 3 of them look worse than 3 of the other white panted combos. Maybe they figured orange pants would step on the Browns turf too much? The good news is there's nothing stopping them from adding these orange pants at any time.

That was a vintage Bengals-Steelers game yesterday. One team pounded the football, spread it around to receivers efficiently, punched a big play right before halftime, stuffed the run on defense, hit the quarterback with complete disregard for his health and safety, and forced bad turnovers. I have been on the receiving end of that beatdown so many times over the last 25+ years. Watching the worst people alive file out of their dumb yellow stadium well before the final gun was so tasty. The Steelers look BAD and Roethlisberger might be the worst starting QB in the league. I'd gladly take 20 more years of this please.

The only time I can remember a team ever trying it was in the UFL and it looked dumb.