Here are the games I’m interested in this week: Saints at Jaguars (obviously), Lions at Cowboys (lovable baby blue vs. detestable baby blue), Jets at Ravens (AFC East defensive standoff — should be an excellent game), Panthers at Bears (is Cam Newton for real?).
In the interest of sportsmanship trash talk, let’s go.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a series this past week commemorating the 2006 reopening of the Superdome for the New Orleans Saints’ home opener a little over a year after Hurricane Katrina, and a lot of people are remembering the spectacle of U2 and Green Day arena-rocking the Dome as the kickoff for the Monday Night Football telecast. For me, though, the musicians who made that night special were Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas. Continue reading
AMERICAN FOOTBALL IS BACK, DICKWAGONS. That means hard hitting, butt slapping, 3-4 defense, butt slapping, zone blocking, butt slapping, dreadlocks and butt slapping! After a bitter lockout and frenzied free agent season, the NFL kicks off (Wordplay, yo) the 2011 season with the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers defending their cheese-encrusted tundra against the New Orleans Saints.
The NFL is the epitome of American culture. There is nothing subtle or muted about the sport. Every play is celebrated with a dance no matter the context, the pregame shows are packed with fake, unfunny jocks in their 40s. The owners and networks rake in billions of dollars in profits, yet the only people to catch shit are the athletes who are the ones actually getting concussed for entertainment. Continue reading
“A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!”
– Grantland Rice
People don’t write about football players like this any more. Luckily, there’s America’s only all old-timey sports writer NFL preview!
(Note: I didn’t actually research if this was the case, just go with it.)
Randy Moss was loved and hated, awe-inspiring and lazy, respected and disrespectful, a great teammate and a locker room enemy. Sometimes he was all of these things at once, even within the same game.
He poured out his heart (and his wallet) for disadvantaged kids in Minnesota and back home in West Virginia, but once berated a Vikings caterer claiming he wouldn’t feed the, uh, stuff, to his dog.
He preached to his fellow teammates about the importance of film study, but would routinely take whole plays off during games sometimes barely moving out of his stance. Randy knew how to work the referees and get calls no other receiver could get, but he would blow up at them at a moment’s notice when a call didn’t go his way. Continue reading
This NFL off-season is only five days old and it’s already been crazier than an Al Davis press conference/embalming. There have been about a billion trades and free agent signings.
One player that won’t be re-signed is Randy Moss. Moss retired today as one of the greatest wide receivers to ever play the game. He’s also known for pretending to moon the Green Bay fans during a game, spraying a referee in the face with a water bottle, referring to himself in the third-person singular and selectively deciding to take plays (and entire games) off.
But despite the mercurial behavior, Moss was one of the most talented athletes in NFL history and whether you were rooting for him or against him, he made Sundays a lot more fun.
Now that the lockout is finally over and players are reporting to training camps across the land, fans can start to think about what really matters this coming season – their team’s chances to win it all. It’s not uncommon to see football fans immersed in NFL Network programming while also researching players, schedules, and bye weeks on their laptop. But look carefully and you’ll notice how seemingly uninterested they may be in their favorite actual team. A diehard Giants fan looking up the Cowboys’ bye week? A Patriots fan combing over the Jets’ wide receiver depth chart? A Raiders fan reading, intently, a report of how Denver quarterback Tim Tebow has prepared this off season? These things 20 years ago would’ve been blasphemy, enough to warrant a CAT scan and possibly a permanent relocation out of the rabid fan section. These days, they’re musts for any fantasy football manager with a shot to bring home the title.
In preparation for fantasy football drafts, we’re going to do a quick course in all things fantasy. We’ll start off slowly, with the basics, before getting a bit more into team setup & draft strategy, and weekly transactions. Continue reading
Our (not so) long national nightmare is over. The world will continue to spin on fall Sundays – bars and stadiums will still be full, yards will still be left undone, and non-football fans will still need to find something to do with other non-football fans. Owners and the union formerly known as the NFL Players Association have tentatively reached an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement, ending the four and a half month lockout.
Continue reading
Since labor troubles in 1987 cancelled one game and saw replacement players in NFL uniforms, labor issues have been minor compared to the other major American sports leagues. The NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball have all seen seasons cut short (or cancelled altogether) as a result of labor strife. Now the NFL is facing a real possibility of losing games in 2011.
The main issue in labor talks is how to split up the reported $9 billion in revenue the league and its teams take in each year. Under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), the first $1 billion off the top belongs to the team owners. Of the remaining revenue, 60% goes toward player salaries while the balance goes to the owners and team expenses. The owners claim that rising costs are directing most of the profits toward the players, and that they should receive a bigger portion of the $9 billion. Some of their proposals involve increasing their primary allocation from $1 billion to $2 billion and reducing the 60% of the excess revenue that goes to the players. Their position is that they no longer want to pay the players as much as they are.
There is a key bargaining difference between “not wanting to pay” and being “unable to pay”, and that’s a main sticking point for the NFL Players Association. If the owners came to the bargaining table and claimed they could not afford to pay the players, the NFLPA would have a legal to right to examine owners’ financials. NFL owners, however, have claimed that general economic difficulties are resulting in an overall strain on profits. Essentially, they’re saying “We can pay you that much, we just don’t want to.” Under established labor law, the NFLPA has no rights to see team financial statements if this is the case. Players do have audit rights, but owners are only obligated to show them team revenues and not expenses.
So what happens now?
Many expect that an agreement will not be reached before the current CBA expires on March 3rd, and the owners will lock out the players shortly thereafter. This will affect the off-season in a number of ways until a deal is reached:
The implications become much greater if a deal still hasn’t been reached in August, when teams are ramping up for the regular season. A shortened pre-season or regular season would be the most innocuous result. Replacement players have and can be used if the owners want to stage the games.
The worst possible scenario is one where a deal still hasn’t been reached well into the fall which results in a cancelled season and no Super Bowl.
In any labor negotiation, both sides want to feel like they stood up for their constituents and fought as hard as they could. This is the main reason why a deal most likely won’t be done before August. Any conclusion before then will make it look like one side gave in and let the other side win. I wouldn’t expect a deal before August or September with the most likely effect being a shortened season. In the end, I think the billionaires will win out over the millionaires, owners will get their concessions, and the game will go on.
In the meantime, most fans (yours truly included) will continue to freak out about the possiblity of no NFL in 2011. I don’t even want to think about all the time I spend watching NFL network in the summer hearing about how my favorite players have been arrested or showed up to camp overweight. The thought of having to work after 2pm on Fridays and Tuesdays, key times for fantasy football owners, frightens me more than birds do. (And I REALLY hate birds.) But most devastatingly, the thought of spending Sundays at home instead of at a bar watching the Vikings sends chills down my spine. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but COME ON.
Let’s all just hope that this gets worked out and such fears aren’t realized. If August is on our calendars and labor issues remain, we’ll circle back and figure out what the hell to do with our lives.