NFL '13 SEASON THREAD

[FiddySicks]

Yeah 10 a.m. football is fine. I can even deal with the 9 a.m. college starts on Saturday.

But Lord knows I am not getting up at 6:30 a.m. to watch the Falcons play the Lions in London. Somebody else can tell me how that one plays out.

Yeah, I've heard some complaining about this from east coasters, and as a west coaster, I have zero sympathy. We have to get up at 6:30 to watch the game (HA! Not gonna happen).

[BlueSky]

The NFL will televise next year's Falcons-Lions game in London live...

...at 9:30 AM Eastern time.

Test run. If this gets decent ratings then their push harder for a team in London full time. If Americans can't be bothered to watch football that early then we can (hopefully) forget about that ridiculous idea once and for all.

People on the left coast have been accustomed to seeing games at 9:30/10am local time. I don't know why people on the right coast have to throw a fit over it.

Then again, those people have killed another unorthodox start time before: the 8:30pm local kickoff time between the Raiders and Chargers, a rare instance of a PST, prime-time kickoff time, leading to boosted ratings in the home markets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/sports/football/east-coast-calls-it-a-night-for-a-west-coast-game.html?_r=0

Who is throwing a fit? I posted it without remarking pro or con and a few people commented. I haven't seen a fit yet.

I lived in the Bay Area for 2 years so I know about watching early football. Imagine being in Hawaii.

[IceCap]

Fans of the 49ers, Raiders, Chargers, Seahawks, and (until DST ends) Cardinals have been watching 10am football for years.

Not all Chargers and Cardinals fans

Still, you're missing the point. Yes, the west coast is used to 10am football. The east isn't though. So the two questions this live London game will answer will be...

"Will east coasters want to watch football at 9:30 am?"

and...

"Will west coasters want to watch football at 6:30 am?"

I for one like it. THink about it on the London days, you will have football from 9 am to 12 am

Why is this a good thing? The NFL is over-exposed as it is. And we already have football for eleven hours anyway (not counting the early morning pre-game shows). Do you REALLY need more of that?

[The_Admiral]

The scary part is that a Falcons-Lions game could very well be bad! Nonetheless, everyone is like WOOOOOOOO FOOTBALL ALL DAY! Well, why is that good if it's bad? And you'll just be watching more commercials anyway! My God. Go out for breakfast, do the Sunday crossword. No one needs a quadrupleheader.

[HedleyLamarr]

Looks like I'll be watching a game at 9:30am.

Not sure why London would like a 2:30pm start, though. Seems to me that all parties involved in the game would prefer the 6pm local start and have each game have the feel of a primetime game, even if it starts at 1pm ET.

[Kramerica Industries]

The scary part is that a Falcons-Lions game could very well be bad! Nonetheless, everyone is like WOOOOOOOO FOOTBALL ALL DAY! Well, why is that good if it's bad? And you'll just be watching more commercials anyway! My God. Go out for breakfast, do the Sunday crossword. No one needs a quadrupleheader.

Yeah, well, hate the league, not the game.

[NEW.ERA]

They want the game to be watchable from a global audience. My timezone knowledge isn't the greatest and wouldn't this still be a late start in Asia and Australia?

[DS729]

They want the game to be watchable from a global audience. My timezone knowledge isn't the greatest and wouldn't this still be a late start in Asia and Australia?

Would be roughly 10:30 for China, 11 for Japan, and 1 AM in Australia. Not exactly "reeling it in" in that standpoint. It's watchable throughout the Middle East, though.

[Rockstar Matt]

Fans of the 49ers, Raiders, Chargers, Seahawks, and (until DST ends) Cardinals have been watching 10am football for years.

More like West Coast fans. My Cowboys regularly have games scheduled at 10am PST.

[DG_YouKnowWhatThatMeans]

Fans of the 49ers, Raiders, Chargers, Seahawks, and (until DST ends) Cardinals have been watching 10am football for years.

More like West Coast fans. My Cowboys regularly have games scheduled at 10am PST.

I watch Bills games generally at 10 a.m., and have the rest of the afternoon wide open to bitch about my teaming sucking. It's awesome.

[roxfan00]

A little cold at Broncos practice today...

[NJTank]

Awesome hope we see the same thing at the Super Bowl

[dbadefense1990]

I for one like it. THink about it on the London days, you will have football from 9 am to 12 am

Why is this a good thing? The NFL is over-exposed as it is. And we already have football for eleven hours anyway (not counting the early morning pre-game shows). Do you REALLY need more of that?

The scary part is that a Falcons-Lions game could very well be bad! Nonetheless, everyone is like WOOOOOOOO FOOTBALL ALL DAY! Well, why is that good if it's bad? And you'll just be watching more commercials anyway! My God. Go out for breakfast, do the Sunday crossword. No one needs a quadrupleheader.

[FiddySicks]

Awesome hope we see the same thing at the Super Bowl

I don't think New Jersey gets nearly as cold as Denver does in the winter. Denver is downright MISERABLE right now.

Speaking of that, I wonder how much consideration Manning put into playing in the cold as much as the Broncos do. It's Peyton Manning so I'd suspect a lot, but he hasn't won too many big games outside late in the year.

[LAWeaver]

If I heard correctly on SportsCenter, right before they went back to covering Robinson Cano, it sounded like they said "We'll get back to covering the Gary Kubiak firing in Houston in just a minute".

Yep, he's out.

EDIT: Wade Phillips is now the interim head coach. I could see him getting the nod to be the new head coach for next season

[Kramerica Industries]

Wade Phillips serving as an interim head coach?

Well, can't say I've ever seen that happen before.

[dfwabel]

If I heard correctly on SportsCenter, right before they went back to covering Robinson Cano, it sounded like they said "We'll get back to covering the Gary Kubiak firing in Houston in just a minute".

Yep, he's out.

EDIT: Wade Phillips is now the interim head coach. I could see him getting the nod to be the new head coach for next season

Wade Phillips, the self-proclaimed "Mr. Fix-It" is NOT going to get another opportunity.

That said, I hope Kubiak didn't collapse from hearing he was terminated.

[See Red]

Awesome hope we see the same thing at the Super Bowl

I don't think New Jersey gets nearly as cold as Denver does in the winter. Denver is downright MISERABLE right now.

Speaking of that, I wonder how much consideration Manning put into playing in the cold as much as the Broncos do. It's Peyton Manning so I'd suspect a lot, but he hasn't won too many big games outside late in the year.

Having lived there, I don't think the cold is a huge issue. It's not always cold in Denver this time of year and they actually get a good amount of warm days there in the winter time. I don't think the weather there in winter time is anywhere near as bad as people probably think it is.

As far as Manning goes, I think he gets a bad rap regarding the cold weather games. I mean, he's spent the entirety of his career in a timing-based offense where the run game serves mostly to keep defenses honest, which is not really ideal when the conditions get cold and wet. On the other side of the ball, the Colts defenses were undersized units basically built to play with a lead and get after QBs and they struggled against the run. You're not going to win a lot of games in those conditions when your team is built like those Colts teams were.

[CS85]

https://twitter.com/JayGlazer/status/409006632631156736

Gary Kubiak has apparently been fired.

[BigEd76]

These 1:00 games are gonna be fun. It's snowing in Philly, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Green Bay