BBTV

Maybe instead of kickoffs they could do free kicks like after safeties? Then a team could either kick it off or punt it, and the “on-sides kick” would just be a special punt that either falls fast, or is so hard that it bonks off of someone’s helmet and is caught by the kicking team. 

BLUE COLLAR, because marketers will have you believe that every city is BLUE COLLAR and that everyone in every city BRINGS THEIR LUNCH TO WORK IN A PAIL.  If you'll excuse me, I'm off to my management job in a downtown office building where I'm going to post on blogs about how certain athletes aren't "philly guys" because they're not BLUE COLLAR like me.  Hopefully my assistant doesn't disturb me by bringing me my coffee while I'm in the middle of posting.

8 hours ago, burgundy said:

 

Yes, the kicker needs to get the ball somewhere between the 20 and the goal line. If it lands in the endzone and stays inbounds, the returner has to either down it for a touchback to the 30, or they can choose to return it. If the ball hits inside the landing zone and bounces into the endzone, then downing it would be a touchback to the 20. If it lands short of the landing zone, regardless of bounce, the ball is placed at the 40.

 

I wonder if we'll see some attempts at low-angle, line-drive kicks to try and bounce them into the endzone. They don't need the hangtime anymore for players to get downfield, and the coverage can't even move until the ball is caught or touches the ground.

 

So the hardest sport to explain to anyone just got exponentially harder.  It's no wonder the sport isn't followed globally nearly as much as literally every other sport.  Way too much "if then then that, buttttttt if this and this, then instead of that, there's this, but this can be negated if the player does that, but only if there's 2 minutes or fewer left, otherwise that becomes this again, and this is nothing.  And now let's talk about tackling.   You can tackle like this, as long as you don't do that, but if you can do that, but if you only do it half way, otherwise this happens, but.......

I don't even know if I hate the play or not because I've never seen it, but I hate that the rules get more and more complex and difficult to follow every year.  I'd be almost embarrassed to have to and explain the rules to someone that's never seen it before.

So the "onsides kick" is now a totally separate "thing" from a kickoff.  The cool thing about it was that it was sorta like exploiting a loophole in the rule, and could be done by surprise.  But now if you have to declare your intent and there's totally different formations, it's fundamentally different from a kickoff, and is essentially a special "gimmick" play that can be used to retain possession.  And when it's so premeditated, and with the rule changes of the past few years, it's basically complete chance that you'll get it as opposed to having a good play ready to go.

I'm all for player safety and if the stats show that the new kickoff is safer then ok, but there should still be some loophole to allow for an "onsides kick" within the new formation (though I have no idea how.)

Question though - since the touchback is now the 30, does the kicker need to pooch it to fall in the "zone", rather than use his full leg?  I do like that part - kickers have become way too much a part of the game, so anything to reduce their impact - whether it's pushing the kickoff back to the 30 (or even 25 based on today's kickers) or narrowing the goal posts is a-ok with me.

With today's kickers, if you get a touchback and start on the 30, you only need to get 27 yards to have a shot at a 60-yard FG, which is no longer a mind-blowing achievement.  It kinda defeats the original intent of the game, and the goalposts should be narrowed to reward teams for gaining yards, not just having a good kicker.  

1 hour ago, WBeltz said:

They wear them in the post-season.

Some teams have rotating captains during regular season (hence no patch) and then permanent ones for playoffs (hence patch). The eagles were a team that didn’t use regular season captains or patches until the Pederson era, but I think they had post season patches before the.  

It's not even worth wasting bandwidth posting about this.  Anyone getting fired up about it is fooling themselves.

2 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Googled this also -- It was Eric Dickerson who opted out of TSB, partly because of the truncated name. I knew that story had applied to someone. Just assumed Cunningham because of his lengthy name

According to UW, Dickerson was "Dicker" in TB, but wasn't in TSB because of a dispute over his NIL, but they omitted him altogether rather than go with "RB Colts".  I didn't remember this.  I have the original game, so may try to validate this later.

And apparently the "QB Club" thing may not have happened until after TSB, but the three QBs that were omitted (including Cunningham) had already left the NFLPA.

https://uni-watch.com/more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-tecmo-super-bowl/

Is there a new template this year other than the silly "V" one that most teams used last year?  I'm noticing that some 2024-specific replicas, even the $$350 style, are on a template that doesn't have that "feature".

(this is not the top-model one, as Fanatics took that one down overnight, but the cut was more/less the same - definitely not the "vapor hyper super ultra mega fuse" or whatever dumb-ass name they call their dumb-ass crap.)

EDIT: something else I just thought of - since Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox are technically still on the roster since their retirements aren't technically effective yet, if you order their jersey, do you get the one with the new wordmark that they'll have never worn and never will, or one that's last-year's stock?  Ones with the old wordmark aren't on sale, which is what I would have expected, but that just be because Fanatics doesn't even realize that anything changed.

7 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Could be wrong, but I wanna say I head Cunningham opted out of the game because his in-game name would've just read 'CUNNING' and he wasn't for that

I think it was more to do with him and some other QBs leaving the NFLPA and signing some deal with NFL Properties that gave them personal control over their NIL, and TSB probably wasn't paying enough for some of them.  I vaguely remember the QB Club seceding from the PA, and it causing some tension between the two camps.

EDIT: yeah a quick Google search confirms that at least most of my old-ass memory is right... or close enough.

Is there really still a Shohei story?  This won't be a thing in a week.  Whether he did anything wrong or not, unless MLB games are involved by him or his guy (which is unlikely), it's not going to be a thing.

It'll be July and someone will be like "just remembered about that Ohtani thing... what ever happened with that?  Eh, I really don't care."

at least they got anniversary part right vs seasons.

Also fun that at least two of those buildingsin the backdrop didn't exist when the park opened. Interesting that there's no green in the logo, since most CBP marks have green in them.

philies are not giving out a pennant to fans on opening day, which shows that they're not going to hang a lame-ass wild-card pennant like some lame-ass teams do.  This would have been the first opportunity they had to do so, as they've never made the playoffs and not won some championship along the way.  Pleasantly relieved by this.

I'm a weirdo in that I think "word" helmets in HS and college are cool.  I like the Gators, UCLA, the ILLINOIS , et al.  There's just something refreshingly "amateur" about it that warms my heart.

The worst helmets in HS or NCAA are any that use a "paw print" logo, which seems to be the default for low-budget high school programs named after something with paws.  When in Jr High, if we played one of those teams (and we played at least 3 teams that used the same stupid paw every year), I always thought their cheerleaders looked stupid with paw prints painted on their faces.  Why would you want to look like some animal just ran across your face?

 

Nice work... except didn't the Browns have Bernie?

35 minutes ago, LMU said:

Considering that Ohtani's team has contacted law enforcement and is calling for a full probe into the theft, unless they're setting themselves up for what may in fact be the most significant self own in the history of professional sports it would appear that the theft angle would be likely what transpired in the same vein as the take old as time of associate of millionaire athlete getting greedy.  The shifting stories probably had a lot to do with them being overseas and not being in the most convenient situation to kick the guy to the curb when he still has tickets reserved on the team charter.

 

Of course, the hot takes about Ohtani not talking to anyone are hilarious considering that he's probably taking legal advice on that front.

I saw on some show yesterday where the idiots were getting all worked up at how Dave Roberts was avoiding questions, and how that meant he "must know something and doesn't want to blow the whistle", and it's like no - of course he's been instructed to not comment.  I get that media has to ask and hope for a slip-up, but "no comment" doesn't mean anything more than "no comment".

And in the extremely-unlikely situation where Ohtani did anything wrong, there's zero chance MLB will sweep it under the rug and figure out some way for law enforcement to "go away".  This is a complete "story that's not a STORY."  Will be forgotten about by April.

1 hour ago, stumpygremlin said:

THIS is why TV numbers are necessary. Or how often do you see an injured player with training staff over them, and we can't tell who it is for a while because their torso is being obscured?

Basically never?  If watching on TV, there's always replays of how the injury occurred, and live (at least at LFF), they say on the PA who the injured player is (I forget if there's live replays.) 

And if the guy is on his back... you couldn't see the TV numbers anyway.

1 minute ago, WSU151 said:

 

He’s wearing #75

LOL!  So apparently they weren't even fully effective back then!

As the lone fan of the Blues Gretzky-era look, I'd love to see that Blues prototype in action.

TV numbers absolutely served a purpose at a time.  arguing against that is silly.  When editors were captioning photos in newspapers or looking for photos to put in a magazine story, sometimes those numbers were the only way to identify the player.

TV numbers were invaluable to whoever had to identify the KC player in this photo (who's oddly wearing #15 - what is this, 2024?)

Whether they're still relevant in 2024 is certainly debatable, and we've heard arguments on both sides.

As the judge, I've rendered my decision - they should be optional only, and aesthetics should be the driving factor.

10 hours ago, TrueYankee26 said:

After 1 game MLB is going to get overshadowed by controversy. Lol that sport can not catch a break.

Nothing will come of this, if it's even anything at all.  It will be forgotten about within two weeks.  

This will not overshadow anything, no matter how hard any media outlet tries to force the story (and I'im not sure that any will after maybe today and tomrrow.). Ohtani isn't getting into any trouble, and we'll never hear about it again.

10 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

orry (not sorry) I've upset the Vet.

LOL what?  Try harder.

10 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Any time (almost) that someone claims that nobody uses them, or that nobody sees them in the stands, I'll point out that they are, in fact, used and seen.

I didn't say any of those things.

They're called "TV numbers", not "Section 53 numbers".  They help when watching the broadcast (before all the different camera angles and HD) and they helped identify players in still photographs like in newspapers, SI, etc.  But now that most media is moving videos or gifs, they're just to that important.  

If anything, putting numbers on the helmet bumpers would solve a lot of "problems" that may or may not actually exist.

Or F it - we have the technology to have a hologram of the number floating above the player's head so you can easily tell who's running down he field, or which fat F on the line just got pancaked.

The OG ReeBox which soon took over the NHL 

edit;

and it’s not a manufacturer’s logo, it’s an advertisement. Reebok didn’t make those, and even if they had, they paid for the space. 

But I think that as usual, either way, I'm right, and these debates are futile.   Just bend the knee so we can move on.

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

to make the Nike logo a part of the design rather than a functional addendum to it. 

That's probably better wording than what I said. Nobody noticed if in the early '90s, Reggie White's Eagle sjersey was Russell, Randall's was Wilson, and then they mixed russell, Starter, and Puma in the midnight green era.  They were just logos slapped whereer tehyd' fit.  The jersey was desinged first and foremost to fit the team, and then the ads were tacked on.

Now the ads are integraded into the design, so switching them to another one would almost make it a different jersey.  It would be much more noticeable that it's a new logo than if it was just a patch placed wherever.   Titans is kind of another example, where the swoosh is the only red, which inherently makes it a design element, and not just a logo.  

I'd love the logo to be over the nameplate, but that doesn't work for obvoius reasons.  Or beloow the numbers on the back, but also, obvious reasons that won't work.  If they must sell ad space to Nike, maybe put it inside the number (towards the bottom) like they do in soccer?  It'd suck, but maybe suck less.