NFL '13 SEASON THREAD

[infrared41]

I think I'm gonna give the Bears 3 more years. Three more seasons to prove they're not incompetent before I take a season or two off. I can't keep caring about a team that plays like this. I don't know how there are any Browns fans in Cleveland.

Like that for example. Coming into the season, most people saw the Bears as, at best, a 9 win team. What exactly have they done to fall short of that expectation? They've played just like a 7-9 win team - not good enough to seriously contend, not bad enough to be talking draft position. Their #1 QB was out for how long? They've had injury issues, the whole bit. If anything, it's a minor miracle that they're still in the playoff hunt at this point.

EDIT: CBS Sports had the Bears going 9-7. Sports Illustrated had the Bears going 8-8. Seems to me, the Bears are playing exactly like they're supposed to.

[IceCap]

I have no idea why starters are still in at this point.

I think that's it. I can get worked up over sports (see the Leafs' playoff collapse), I just tend to internalize it.

[FGM13]

My one gripe with CS85's constant pessimism is that, other than the Cubs, his teams aren't all that bad. The Bears aren't the cream of the crop by any stretch of the imagination, but they're not terrible. The Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup, plus one in 2010.

Meanwhile, on my side of the board, the Oilers are an absolute trainwreck, the Eskimos are unwatchable and the Jays are pretty goddamn bad.

Stop whining.

[infrared41]

My one gripe with CS85's constant pessimism is that, other than the Cubs, his teams aren't all that bad. The Bears aren't the cream of the crop by any stretch of the imagination, but they're not terrible. The Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup, plus one in 2010.

Stop whining.

I've never bought the whole "one of your teams won a title recently so you don't get to complain" thing. And he isn't whining.

[CS85]

Look I mean I'll just quit posting in these threads if it's becoming a circle jerk.

Jesus.

[dbadefense1990]

I think I'm gonna give the Bears 3 more years. Three more seasons to prove they're not incompetent before I take a season or two off. I can't keep caring about a team that plays like this. I don't know how there are any Browns fans in Cleveland.

Just the same as how there are any Cubs fans left after all the sucking: they're both loyal as hell.

[BBTV]

Look I mean I'll just quit posting in these threads if it's becoming a circle jerk.

Jesus.

I'm going to assume now that you've never actually participated in a circle jerk.

[infrared41]

Look I mean I'll just quit posting in these threads if it's becoming a circle jerk.

Jesus.

Now you're overreacting. Seriously, you can't expect us not to bust your chops a little or point out the fact that your team isn't as awful as you think they are. C'mon, man, let's not get carried away here.

[Funky Bunky]

Can somebody explain to me how the Saints clinched? The Cards and Niners could both finish ahead of them.

Apparently the Saints didn't clinch, ESPN just :censored:ed up for a while.

[Lights Out]

Like that for example. Coming into the season, most people saw the Bears as, at best, a 9 win team. What exactly have they done to fall short of that expectation? They've played just like a 7-9 win team - not good enough to seriously contend, not bad enough to be talking draft position. Their #1 QB was out for how long? They've had injury issues, the whole bit. If anything, it's a minor miracle that they're still in the playoff hunt at this point.

EDIT: CBS Sports had the Bears going 9-7. Sports Illustrated had the Bears going 8-8. Seems to me, the Bears are playing exactly like they're supposed to.

Coming from a fan of a team who has been mediocre for YEARS now, it doesn't matter what the expectations are - a 7-to-9 win team is almost always frustrating to root for. Lots of false hope, plenty of inexplicable losses, and nothing to show for it.

[Kramerica Industries]

Man, after doing my usual late Sunday night walk, it really just dawned on me HOW MUCH that Arizona victory changed everything in the NFC discussion.

Mind you, I only say this because EVERYBODY expected Seattle to win that game. What were the effects? (I know you guys could figure this out yourselves; there are very smart people here. I'll still post this for the sake of posting.)

With a Seattle win:

Seattle would've clinched the #1 seed.

San Francisco would clinch a playoff spot.

New Orleans would clinch a playoff spot.

Instead:

The NFC West is still in the discussion, and New Orleans has to win next week or Arizona goes in with a victory at home against the Niners.

It was possible that the only real consequential game in the late slot next Sunday would've been the NFC North Championship Game. Now, we've got a mixed bag in the entire NFC late Sunday afternoon. I'm really looking forward to this.

--

This is the first time Andy has done an Andy like routine since, what, the night of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final? And that was greeted by an admiral specialty but, jeez, it was only one post and order was restored. I think we've completed this session in "Andy is overreacting and people are reacting to his overreacting.". See you again when the 'Hawks are screwing around in the playoffs.

If nothing else, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone (and this applies for sports fans everywhere, not just here) that none of us are "better" fans than anyone else. We all have our own ways of watching sports and watching our teams; the only thing that serves as a "grade" of sorts for seeing how good we are as fans is how much we stick by our teams and support them. Andy could only bitch so much about the Bears, really, if he had a strong passion for his team.

[Cosmic]

I find it very weird that I'm the only one around here who gets worked up about sports. Maybe I'm the only one who posts it online.

No offense, but there's getting worked up and then there's what you do. Constant fatalism is a little beyond "worked up."

I'd like to think I'm the pagan heathen of the boards. Where everyone is looking at the game with logic and a steady hand I'm throwing blood on the wall and praying to a variety of invisible sports gods.

You are mostly a rational person; you just lose it sometimes. When I think "pagan heathen", I think crazy all the time. You're more like the guy that you've talked at work who seems normal, then when you ask him what he's doing this weekend starts talking about his friend Gary the unicorn who's coming to pick him up in his spaceship to take him back to the unicorn homeworld where he'll be an exchange student at their university studying accounting. More or less.

FWIW, I enjoy your rants.

[drdougfresh]

The Derptroit Lions. 6-3 and division leading to out of the playoffs in SIX EFFING WEEKS. Schwartz has lost all control of this team, Stafford has had zero discipline this year, and even Reggie Bush is starting to look Lionized. I can only hope we go with an offensive minded HC, and that Schwartz's staff goes too. No more Linehan, at least.

I've never been so happy to read of someone's impending firing than when I saw Schefter's report this morning. The fact that we still owe him $12M over two years is mind-blowing. I have no idea how he commanded that much from the start. Also a report today came out that said Mayhew wanted to fire him last year, but ownership wouldn't allow it.

Thanks for making us sit through this another year, Ford family.

[CS85]

I'm just saying I'm tired of my clearly heat-of-the-moment text farts become so over-analyzed to where it's defining my fandom. I personally have never felt like I'm much different than anyone else as far as overreactions go, but for whatever reason my constant presence in live threads draws a lot of negative attention.

[ninersdd]

This Washington State rep is a little butthurt about losing to Zona.

[Kramerica Industries]

There is going to be something so grossly unfair if Arizona misses the playoffs at 11-5.

[rams80]

There is going to be something so grossly unfair if Arizona misses the playoffs at 11-5.

Who would have thunk that that Week 1 loss in St. Louis would be the difference.

This Washington State rep is a little butthurt about losing to Zona.

Yeah, it should say "losing to a football team from a desert racist wasteland"

[ninersdd]

There is going to be something so grossly unfair if Arizona misses the playoffs at 11-5.

They should take the NFC East slot, after all, they were in that division before.

Its gonna be so weird when the 49ers play in the new stadium next year. Its too bad that they couldn't still be playing in the city someway or somehow next year. That was where I went to my first baseball game, and saw the Giants win the NL West in 1997. Even though its easily one of the worst stadiums still around, and I've never been to a football game there, I will still miss it to some extent. The perfect way to close out the stadium would be to pound the living crap out of an old divisional rival.

[Chicageaux]

I'm just saying I'm tired of my clearly heat-of-the-moment text farts become so over-analyzed to where it's defining my fandom. I personally have never felt like I'm much different than anyone else as far as overreactions go, but for whatever reason my constant presence in live threads draws a lot of negative attention.

Why shouldn't you be able to let it out? The Bears went into that game knowing that all they had to do was win and they clinched the division. Instead, they go into next Sunday playing the Green Bay Packers, whom will most likely have their starting quarterback. It's the same crap every year, the team can't ever finish. They should have walked onto that field and played like a team that had a playoff spot on the line.

I had the displeasure of watching that game in a bar where "fans" booed when Cutler went down. Ignore the fact that no one on that team showed up to play. As a "diehard" fan, I can understand CS85's frustrations with the game. It was absolutely pathetic. I also understand people are gonna rib a little. Hell, you guys made a suicide watch for LightsOut, it's all in good fun. But I think I understand that at the spur of the moment, this is where CS85 can let off his steam. There's nothing wrong with that.

The Bears suck. If by some chance there finally able to close next week and not make fools of themselves, they're more than likely going to get bounced the following week.

[The_Admiral]

There is going to be something so grossly unfair if Arizona misses the playoffs at 11-5.

Who would have thunk that that Week 1 loss in St. Louis would be the difference.

This Washington State rep is a little butthurt about losing to Zona.

Yeah, it should say "losing to a football team from a desert racist wasteland"

Hey, with 140 characters, sometimes you gotta trust that people can understand synecdoche. That's great, though. He must be my spirit brother.

lollin' at the Bears, by the way. Sounds like that was some real dynamic synergy.