Luigi74

10 minutes ago, DCarp1231 said:

Heinz Field is not renewing its naming rights with the Steelers

 

New corporate sponsor will be announced later

If the rumors are true and it's Acrisure, I'm really hoping the blowback is huge and The Rooney's back out and take less money from a local company. I know that'll never happen.

9 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Oregon is Nike USA. I'm shocked it wasn't included with the Big 10 move.

 

Washington is the Seattle market, but one that's pretty well saturated with pro sports. I don't know local numbers, but I suppose if it's good enough for NHL, MLB and NFL, then the NCAA wants that action too.

 

I'm bummed that Wazzu and UW are being split though. That stinks.

What happens with Oregon and Washington all depends on the B1G landing Notre Dame or not. If the B1G can get Notre Dame there's a good chance they add another team(most likely Stanford) and stop at 18 or get up to 20 by raiding the ACC. If they can't get ND, then you'll see Oregon, Washington and maybe another team or two from the PAC12 along with 2 or 3 teams from the ACC.

18 hours ago, cajunaggie08 said:

In the US its a brand that only has a positive image with people older than 60. Anyone younger than that sees it as a brand for older people. The only reason it wasn't scrapped along with Pontiac and Saturn was because it is popular as a semi-luxury brand in China. Anything that might help its image is worth trying if they aren't going to eliminate it

The biggest reason GM kept Buick was due to the brand being tied at the hip with GMC Trucks, plus Buick fit nicely between Chevy and Cadillac, while Pontiac and Saturn were on par with Chevy.

On 5/31/2022 at 6:15 PM, 8BW14 said:

Two things:

1. The quality of the Hawkins basketball uniforms  and warmups in stranger things season 4 is surprisingly good both in terms of the uniform design and construction (tackle twill numbers/logos). They also appear to be era-appropriate material as well.

Not a great picture but it was the best I could find. 
2. Lucas wears #8, which I found distracting and super annoying because that number would not be available to a high school basketball player. I told my wife and she shrugged and rolled her eyes. I guess it’s a Kobe tribute thing, but still, it made my uni-geek rash itch.

I doubt anyone involved knew High School basketball numbering rules.

2 hours ago, TheGiantsFan said:

MICHIGAN

 

 

Michigan’s license plate is a simple but bold design inspired by the state’s famous automaking industry.The state map is located inside a circular racing number on top of a Shelby Mustang racing stripe, and the bold industrial font is taken from the logos of Detroit’s auto companies. Waves surround the stripes as a reference to the Great Lakes that surround Michigan.

Nice! Earlier this year Michigan brought back the retro dark blue and yellow "Water-Winter Wonderland" plates, a lot of people have ditched the Pure Michigan plate for it.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/12/02/michigan-license-plate-water-winter-wonderland/8838020002/

1 hour ago, Crabcake said:

I’m concerned that that’s a sneaky-good move for the Steelers. 

It is, they don't have to give up any draft picks and if he's a bust they can draft a QB next year when the talent pool is deeper. 

51 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I'd say the same anecdote for WRs applies to Lynn Swann. I showed the stats earlier for someone complaining about Cliff Branch. Branch had almost 2,000 more yards receiving than Swann over the same amount of time. John Stallworth actually has better stats than Swann, 3000 more yards but not as many touchdowns, and had to wait an extra year longer than Swann though that could be due to the limit on class sizes.

Swann and Stallworth not going in earlier or in the same class is due to the "voting" system the HOF uses. There was a bloc of writers who represented the Raiders, Cowboys, Dolphins, Vikings, and Packers, who weren't going to let more 70's Steelers in unless more of their guys went in. 

10 hours ago, DJB said:

Please, then, tell me how these things are done.  
 

Look, We all love these fields. That’s why we are here. But we have learned things from the past that may effect designs. They kept the field numbers the Vikings used in SB 52. It looked like they were scrubbing one endzone last night but didn’t touch the other.  At SB 53 I spent 15 minutes talking to Ed Mangan trying to get info solely for this thread and he told me stuff that we never realized. He talked about how much the actual teams have input on the designs of the endzones.  He also said the NFL has the final call on the design and how they can only do so much in a short period of time.  If they had a full month to work on the entire field, I think it could be a different story. Now, they only have two weeks. I think they will save time as much as they can.  
 

I long for the glory days of the double helmets. i love looking at all the different designs that Pitt and others do. It’s so great. I just think they are up against the clock with the field this year, and may just settle with one of the Rams already made endzones because it could save time and two of them already look like they could be used in the Super Bowl.

They've always had two weeks and in some cases a week to get the field ready, I understand that there's always going to be a time crunch but that shouldn't be the excuse for the weak looking fields we've been getting. 

For some reason the NFL has an issue with using the conference logos, not just on the fields the hats both teams wore on Sunday just said Conference Champions with no conference name or logo. I'm assuming there's some ultra corporate speak reason for phasing them out.

18 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

I'm not saying "squib".  I'm just saing have your kicker not put his full leg into it.  I'm not sure there's any risk of it going OOB or picked up by anyone before the 10 yard line or wherever.  Any NFL kicker should be good enough to place a kick in front of the end zone.

Yeah a kick down the middle with some loft so it comes down around the 10 was the best option, any return burns clock and if the returner gives himself up they're starting around the 10 with 12 seconds left in the game. If they were worried about the kicker shanking it by not going full blast jump offsides before the kick and get moved back 5 yards.

I vaguely remember someone on either The Sports Writers on TV or The Sports Reporters, suggesting a first team to score 8 points overtime format, this would have been around the time college started overtime. Sure the team that wins the toss still has an advantage but it gives the D a second chance to keep the game going.

36 minutes ago, Sport said:

 

Blame for me is 77% on the Chargers defense knowing full well the Raiders were going to run the ball on 3rd and 4 and still giving up 10 yards, but the other 23% is the timeout and my criticism with the TO is that the Raiders looked content to let it run down, Derek Carr basically confirmed as much after the game, and that felt obvious to me in the moment. The timeout gave the Raiders extra time to think about it, and then the Chargers blew their defense coming out with only 10 guys. I think Staley outsmarted himself because he wanted to be in control of the ball at the end, which is the Prisoner's Dilemma playing out right there on that one play. It was a matter of who was going to blink first. The Raiders looked like they were gonna help the Chargers until that point and then the Raiders said "alright, you wanna do that? We were gonna be cool, but we'll  take 10 yards here too. No skin off our d***s."

I think Carr saying the Raiders were going to let the clock run down is just him and the Raiders sticking it to their division rival Chargers. They were in the shotgun so it's doubtful they'd risk a bad snap if Carr  was going to take a knee, he'd be under center if that was the plan. Had they not picked up a yard their FG attempt would be 56 yards, I bet the Raiders attempt that kick, their in a dome so it's highly unlikely the kick is short and returned, plus the fear of a block returned for a TD is pretty much the same at the distance they ended up kicking at.

21 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I admit that I haven't read every post in this thread, nor have I closely kept up on the news on this issue.  So please forgive me if this is a stupid question.  But why is Halifax not being considered?  The CFL once had notions of putting a team there.

Also, even though I think it's criminal that only two of the six cities listed are Canadian (and one of those is unrealistic), I wonder about the lack of mention a particular U.S. city: Cleveland. 

 

While the populations of Halifax and Cleveland are a lot smaller than those of the six cities on the NHL's list, surely there is a more receptive audience for hockey in either of those cities than in the four U.S. cities listed.  Is it just down to the assumption that there are no people in Halifax or Cleveland who are rich enough to pay what the NHL will expect in expansion fees?  I believe that the people who own Safeway are from Atlantic Canada; and there just have to be some billionaires in Cleveland.

Cleveland is in the same boat as Pittsburgh when NBA expansion comes up, there really isn't enough corporate money in the region to spread around among four major league teams for sponsorships, suites and so on, same when it comes to disposable income for the fans attending the games and their general interest. 

2 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

 

I agree. It makes sense, to a degree, for the USFL to start out this way. It allows them to start the league without having to secure stadium leases in cities across the country and eliminates some huge startup costs. 

 

But I also don't know how that works when one of your value propositions involves rekindling brands that are historically tied to specific cities. The stories on this league so far don't really get into how they'll brand these teams or whether they'd be tied to other locales. It would be super weird, though, to launch with a team called the Maulers and then have them end up in, say, St. Louis. 

Outside of the first home game no one went to Maulers games so there's no real history besides the cool painters hats they used to sell. Plus everyone who went to that first game was there to throw snowballs at Cliff Stoudt, not cheer on the Maulers.

20 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

 

I'm not so sure these new USFL team's won't be aligned with other cities, though. Several of the stories out of Birmingham make the point to say that one of the eight teams will be the revival of the Birmingham Stallions. And while it's not clear about the other brands, the USFL's own website is already selling merch for the Pittsburgh Maulers, New Orleans Breakers and Philadelphia Stars. 

 

Of course, they own the IP to those brands, so they could just be selling stuff out of nostalgic appeal. But it seems like the whole reason for launching a new league under the USFL brand was to capitalize on the nostalgia that still exists for that league and its teams. 

 

 

 

 

 

Unless they're going to play at Highmark Stadium, I doubt they'll be a Pittsburgh Maulers. Even though the region is football crazy there's no way minor league football will draw more than a few thousand people to games. 

11 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Why make these? Players will never wear these in public (because it signifies losing when it mattered), especially if you're a Chiefs player and have am actual SB ring from the year before.

Most of the team already having Super Bowl rings is the reason the 2010 Steelers went with an AFC Championship watch.

7 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

The refs got it right. Everything was correct. But they STILL stopped the the game for 10 minutes to confirm.

That was a play that shouldn't have been reviewed, it was a clear catch, run and fumble with clear recovery by Seattle, when the Seahawks spiked the ball was irrelevant since the call for the review guaranteed they'd get a shot at a field goal.

The over/under for the game was either 42 or 42.5 in most sports books, going to OT all but guarantees that the final total is 43 or more.

On 9/28/2021 at 5:58 PM, DG_ThenNowForever said:

That week one loss by the Bills to Pitt is a real head scratcher now.

Watt and Bush both played in that game, when those two are healthy the Steelers D is one of the best in the league. 

I think the Steelers would have traded up(the 5 to 10 range) the past few seasons if they saw there was a "QB of the future" for the taking, but there really wasn't. 

Was Colorado State even on the Big 12's radar? To me it seems like they'd be #5 on the list behind the 4 teams that were added, maybe even a notch above BYU since they don't bring all that baggage.

4 hours ago, See Red said:

Feels like there would be more sense in the Big XII poaching some AAC teams, like UCF, Houston, Cincinnati, and Memphis, no?

 

I feel like either way you still have a second tier conference that lacks any star power, for lack of a better term, but at least that way some of the deadweight gets shed.

 

But then again it's probably ESPN behind all this, so what makes sense to them is what matters. 

 

 

ESPN is the one pulling the strings, if the Big 12 goes kaput Texas & Oklahoma can start SEC play before 2025 and the remaining Big 12 schools combined with the AAC is an upgrade from the current AAC. 

Bowlsby is fighting this since he's out of a high paying cushy job that pretty much anybody could do.

4 minutes ago, heavybass said:

So where does this leave:

Kansas State
Oklahoma State
Texas Tech
Baylor
TCU
West Virginia

Raiding the MTN West and AAC for their better schools and basically form a new conference that would use the Big 12 name.

I can't see the Big 10 adding Kansas and Iowa State just to help them out or as a knee jerk reaction to what the SEC is doing.

Maybe the PAC12 looks east and takes Texas Tech, OK State, Kansas and maybe New Mexico or Houston to get to 16 with two 8 team divisions that sort of make geographical sense.

9 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Actually they’re talking now like the Big 12 would start poaching MWC and Pac-12 schools. Which if the latter happens you’d have to think would lead to the Pac-12 raiding the Mountain West.  Silly season has begun again!

No one from the PAC12 would move to a Big 12 that doesn't include Texas and Oklahoma, without those two schools the Big 12 is slightly more attractive than the AAC. The Big 12 will raid the AAC and MTN West for their better teams and the PAC12 will stay the same unless something crazy happens like the Big Ten expanding to 20 teams.

13 hours ago, Magic Dynasty said:

I'm thinking implosion, because with the SEC going to 16 I don't see the other conferences being fine staying at 14. Kansas and Iowa State to the Big Ten (they fit geographically and are the only AAU members available for the taking), West Virginia to the ACC along with Notre Dame finally giving up and becoming a football member, and as for the other 5 who knows, maybe they poach a whole bunch of top G5 programs and start a constant debate on whether the "New Big 12" is a power conference or not. 

The Big Ten isn't going to add a school in a state they already have a member, so no ISU or Pitt.

Would the Big Ten look west? The PAC12's media deal is up in 2024 so no GOR holding schools down like the ACC targets, plus culturally the nine PAC12 AAU schools are more of a fit than the ACC schools,

On 12/25/2020 at 12:43 PM, dont care said:

You say that like championship rings haven’t been comically huge for nearly 2 decades.

They have but the Lakers rings take it to the next level. 

On 12/22/2020 at 10:52 PM, BC985 said:

 

The ring ceremony was on before the game the other night, those rings looked comically huge on the players fingers. 

On 12/5/2020 at 11:55 PM, the admiral said:

 

What determines whether a market gets Washington-Steelers over the air on Monday afternoon: the league permitting that market, or the affiliate clearing it? It seems kind of haphazard, but at the same time, no affiliates west of Wichita would want to carry the game in middays and preempt Maury? Why is most of the Southeast not getting a Washington game?

 

EDIT: this is where we really could have used dfwabel had he been able to resist making death threats toward posters' wives

It looks like most of the Fox owned and operated stations east of the rockies are showing the game, those stations would be in Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, Orlando, Tampa-St. Pete, and Washington DC, for some reason the FOX O&O's in Atlanta and Houston aren't carrying it. The other cities were probably slated to show it before the scheduled got trashed thanks to the Ravens. I'm a Steeler fan(moved away from Pittsburgh) living in Detroit and we weren't getting the game if it was played on it's original date since the Lions were playing at the same time.

I can see two reasons why the game isn't being shown in more markets, the first being the NFL doesn't want to devalue Sunday Ticket more than it already is by making the game national and local stations not wanting to give up the revenue from their ad slots during syndicated shows and local news.