The Bucs are hanging in there vs. the Cam Newton-less Panthers. They need to roll over and piddle on their belly already. There’s fierce competition for last place-first draft pick, and if they aren’t careful, they’re going to blow it.
What’s the sporting news in your neck o’ the woods?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I am amazed at how many Browns fans are NOT disguised as chairs in the stadium.
Betty Cracker
What a bullshit roughing the passer call against the Bucs! Cost us an interception. Vegas game!
Corner Stone
Fitzpatrick went out with a leg injury for the Texans. Tom Savage is absolutely savaging what’s left of the Texans’ offense. Can’t get on the same page with anyone and has fumbled twice.
That motherfucker who earholed Andre Johnson last week for the Jags needs to be suspended.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Aaron Rodgers is being outplayed by Kyle Orton. And let’s be clear: Kyle Orton is having a normal Kyle Orton day.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Betty Cracker: Shouldn’t that be phrased: “A bullshit call saved the Bucs from an interception that might have blown up their draft plans”?
Omnes Omnibus
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Rodgers and Nelson are both having shitty days.
Tommy
My team can’t even keep a QB upright. Now RG3 is playing. And what happened to Ryan Fitzpatrick’s leg was kind of hard to watch. I didn’t need that many replays to know what happened.
Baud
I’m rooting for Cole’s team today.
JPL
@Baud: Why? Falcons loss will probably cost them the division.
Mustang Bobby
Tuned in to about 15 seconds of the Dolphins/Pats game on the car radio and heard “Dolphins behind 38-13 with 12 minutes left to go…” and switched over to the oldies station.
Tree With Water
The Niners have been reduced to the role of spoiler. Best case*/most entertaining scenario in the Bay Area: Santa Clara complicates Seattle’s playoff picture with a win.
*(Mathematically alive going in, the Niners don’t deserve to make the playoffs. Unless… they got red hot, and started clicking on all cylinders, because there’s a lot of talent on that team. They’ve just been asleep most of the season (their offense, anyway).
Baud
@JPL:
This is the NFC South. No amount of losing can cost a team the division.
gene108
@efgoldman:
Bullshit.
I’ll bitch about officiating even in a win, because bad officiating happens and needs to be called out.
MobiusKlein
Daughter’s soccer team scored once in three games, but tied all of them. She is goalie, can’t do it all.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: The NFC South is just horrible this year.
gene108
I don’t think it’s a big deal to not get the #1 pick this year.
There’s no Andrew Luck type “sure thing” in next year’s draft.
JPL
@Baud: Panthers have a tie so they have an opening if NO loses. The Falcons play both NO and Carolina so at this point, it’s a tossup. It is pretty funny though.
Roger Moore
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I guess we’ll get to see if Rodgers can actually engineer a serious come-from-behind victory. FiveThirtyEight has made a big point that he’s never managed to come from 9+ points down in the second half in his entire career.
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
The Pats are making fishsticks out of the Dolphins. A pleasant birthday gift for me.
Tommy
@gene108: I shutter to think about the draft, since my team traded all our high picks for years to St. Louis. With our record this year St. Louis is going to get more really good players and we don’t even have a starting QB much less a franchise one. I am getting to point of burning all my Washington gear and adopting a new team.
Tree With Water
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): You mis-typed. You wrote Kyle Orton is outplaying Aaron Rogers.
Of course, that’s what makes divisional games so entertaining. The teams know each other so well that there’s always that wild card element to each game.
Goblue72
Watching the Pats clinch with a statement. Grilled fish on the menu tonight!
Tommy
@Goblue72: Not remotely a fan of the Pats but as a football fan I have to respect how constantly good of not great they are. I wish with all my heart my Washington DC team would just open up their checkbook and hire the Pat’s entire front office so maybe we can build, for once, a top-notch quality football operation under Dan Synder. But I get nobody in the Pat’s organization would work for Synder (and they’d be right not to want to).
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Roger Moore: I guess we’re going to chalk that up as a “No.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Tree With Water: No, he was correct. Even if GB pulls out a win (which isn’t going to happen), it will be one of the, if not the single, worst performances of Rodgers’ career. Also, the Packers and Bills are not on the same conference let alone the same division.
Kathleen
Well, the Bengals showed up today after their abysmal performance against the Steelers last week. Will be interesting to see how they do in Steeltown next week. I rather like the Steelers, which enrages my Bengal loving family.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: What about Prince? [Ducks]
Geeno
Holy Sh*t – Bills win.
As a Bills fan, I don’t count them until the clock is 0:00. I’ve seen way too many games go sour in the last two minutes; often on the last play of the game.
On a safety, too. I lurve defensive play – safeties are my favorite scoring plays.
Now, just as Joe Montana was 0-4 in Buffalo, Green Bay is now 0-5. Life is strange.
Betty Cracker
The Bucs having been predictably dispatched, it’s on to the Seachickens vs. the Niners. As a fan of poultry, I’m pulling for the pullets.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson: Nicely played. Nevertheless, I remain displeased about the game.
Roger Moore
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Seems like a pretty big hole in Rodgers’s game if he wants to be considered as a truly great QB.
Goblue72
@Tommy: DC area deserves a better (and less oblivious) owner.
It’s the original chocolate city and the nation’s Capitol. Rename the damn team and start over fresh.
Geeno
On a separate topic – Seattle’s defense came to play today, didn’t they?
Felonius Monk
Jets fans have formalized it into a “Suck for the Duck” campaign. I think it will take a lot more than Marcus Mariota to revitalize the Jets.
Mike J
@Geeno: Those two running plays belie that.
ETA: But they got it done.
Betty Cracker
@Goblue72: They should change it to the Pigskins. Invokes football, and it would provide a swine tie-in for those chaps who dress in women’s clothing and pig snouts.
Tommy
@Goblue72: Yes, yes they do. You might be able to argue, now Donald Sterling is gone he might be the worse owner in American professional sports. Before somebody says I am wrong, well let me list a few things. The name. He moved the team out of DC to the burbs. He charges fan to go to preseason practices.
And this stat is 2-3 years old, but Synder has paid a ton of money on free agents. 27 were coming off a Pro Bowl year when the trade was made. Not a single one made the Pro Bowl playing for him. Oh and of course traded away 3 first round picks. A couple second and third round picks for a QB we drove into the ground for the first year and in the third year benched him. Ugh!!!!!
BruceFromOhio
@Kathleen: Bengals were all that showed up.
KG
@gene108: there’s a difference between criticizing bad officiating and bitch about calls, in the sense that “the refs cost us the game.” From the moment I started playing sports where winning mattered, the rule was always “don’t make it close enough for the refs to decide.”
Goblue72
@Tommy: you are not wrong
Tree With Water
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, I was kidding around. Even when the Niners were riding high way back when, the other teams in the west would play them tougher than most. I remember Archie Manning with deep respect. I’ll even say had Bill Walsh got his hands on Manning, his career might well have approached Joe Montana territory. The guy was that good, but he played for New Orleans, and they were that bad.
KG
@Roger Moore: I’d rather have a QB that consistently has my team up by 10, then one that often needs to come back from 10 down consistently. I’ve always hated the “he’s great in the fourth quarter/when it counts, look at all the comebacks” line of thinking, it all counts the same when the game starts, so win going away.
And yeah, having a guy who can make a comeback is great, but if you’re going to score 30 a game, I’d rather you score 20 in the first three quarters than 10
KG
@Tommy: Simmons just wrote a column about that. People in the know said a majority (possibly super majority) of DC fans would be ok with the Skins moving to LA and being without a team for 3-4 years, so long as the new team got the DC history a la the Browns/Ravens fiasco
Tommy
@Goblue72: What I never get about the name is this, and been saying this since he bought the team. Synder made the money to buy they team with a branding ad agency he sold to a French firm.
He understandings branding.
I own more gear for that team then I care to admit.
If he would have changed the name he would have gotten a ton of good press and folks like me would run out and buy all the gear with the new name ad logo. He would have made MORE money.
I really think the guy is such a dick he just won’t change it because it would appear it wasn’t his idea and he broke down from public opinion. In fact I am sure that is the case since I know people that have worked with him.
KG
Heh, Joe Buck just read Manziel’s stat line for the day and Aikman says “hey compared to my first start, that was a heck of a day”
Tommy
@KG: Well I had not heard that, but don’t doubt that is how the majority of the fans in DC feel. But as a guy that lives outside of St. Louis now the Rams are gone. Period. They have a very strange contract with the city and more importantly the Edwards Jones Dome that they can just walk. They will walk.
But I have also heard/read that LA could go from no teams to two teams in a few years. Not so sure how that would happen, but I guess LA has the population to support two teams.
Tree With Water
@Tommy: If anyone had told me 20 years ago that a more obnoxious owner than Jerry Jones was in the cards, I’d have bet $100 it wasn’t possible. But doggone, then Dan Snyder came along.
KG
@Tommy: he wouldn’t make that much more money. All teams but the Cowboys share money from merchandise, Dallas opted out so they get all the money from their stuff but nothing from anybody else
KG
@Tommy: we had the Rams and Raiders when I was growing up. Rams by that point were in Anaheim and the Raiders at the Colesium. We’ve got two baseball, two basketball, and two hockey teams, plus two teams in the Pac12, two in MLS. We could definitely support two football teams, though given how many people root for other teams now, it’ll be interesting.
It’ll likely be the Rams and Chargers, I think. One will play at Farmers Field which will be where the convention center currently is in downtown. I could see the other one being in Orange County, especially if the Angels end up building a new stadium somewhere in Orange County
ETA: the Raiders are also a possibility, and there are a few potential stadium locations
Tommy
@KG: I didn’t realize that to be honest. When Fortune (or is it Forbes) breaks down the most valuable sports teams that team from DC is always close to the top. Not at the level of the Yankees or Cowboys. And none of those teams are close to Manchester United, but still close. Merchandise and ticket prices, and well brand equity are cited as reasons.
Tommy
@KG: Those are the teams I’ve heard. Rams almost 100%. Then the Chargers, since they can’t get a new stadium. But I’ve heard the Raiders mentioned as well.
In fact the owner of the Rams, Stan Kroenke, already owns enough land in LA to build a stadium (not sure if that is a location you mentioned).
St. Louis is just a baseball town. Also not even a top 50 sized city in the US. And of course we already lost the Cardinals to AZ. Not sure we’ll ever have another team.
I also don’t think the population cares. Not had a winning season in like a decade. MO residents paid a small fortune to build them a domed station, yet Stan Kroenke is worth like $8 billion. Not even 15 years old, but they want something like $530M in upgrades to “stay.”
And again this is a “new” team. Not been here for decades and decades. Outside of the most hardcore football fans everybody I talk to say something like “good riddens, don’t let the door hit you.”
KG
@Tommy: heres a good summary Of how it works. basically, the system is designed to protect bad owners financially
Tree With Water
@KG: Farmers Field.. first I’ve heard about it. A quick google informs me it’s going to happen. One question- are any tax dollars slated to be spent building it? It seems to me there’s enough money down there (I’m in Sonoma) to afford private financing, but I also know other NFL teams hate to see that precedent (in particular) establish itself.
KG
@Tommy: the land Kroenke bought is one of the spots. Really, the Rams never should have left Southern California. Fontierre was a successful version of the owner from the movie Major League, purposefully ruined the team to get out of town
KG
@Tree With Water: there might be some tax money but it won’t be much. It’s AIG that wants to build, they built Staples Center and most of LA Live, they don’t need help and Southern California is notorious for not spending tax money on stadiums. Hell, USC had to basically take over running the Colesium and that’s a registered national historic landmark
ETA: AIG maintains it’ll be privately financed, and will be able to be used as a convention center too
Rex Tremendae
Aaron Rogers threw two interceptions to a man named Bakari Rambo, who as a child was known as Goo Fudge.
Mike J
@KG:
When has that ever been an issue? I hope they start of trend of billionaires paying their own way, but I’m not holding my breath.
Tree With Water
@KG: “Southern California is notorious for not spending tax money on stadiums”.
And is to be commended for it, too. Then again, LA did steal Chavez Ravine, so there’s that (that’s the northerner in me talking).
BillinGlendaleCA
@KG:
That’s only because we haven’t built a stadium in the last 50 years.
Farmers field is a really dumb idea that will come to pass. And they may build the building with private money, but the infrastructure need to support it will be on the public dime(think parking, freeway improvements, street improvements, etc).
KG
@BillinGlendaleCA: stadium, no. But we’ve built a few arenas -Staples and the Pond, and whatever the soccer stadium in Carson is called this week, Nokia Theater.
I’m not sure if a lot of improvements are going to be needed for Farmer Field. LA Live has really already seen to that with Staples Center, Nokia Theater, and the rest.
ETA: and only the Pond was publicly financed
Roger Moore
@KG:
In Manziel’s defense, he’s not just a rookie starting his first game but an under-age rookie.
BillinGlendaleCA
@KG: The Mausoleum and Rose Bowl were both build with public funds in the 20’s.
The infrastructure needed for a basketball arena and that needed for a football stadium are a difference in magnitude. You’ve got a lot more people to get on and off freeways. Downtown traffic is already a cluster fuck, this will only make it much, much worse. It’s DUMB, DUMB, DUMB.
burnspbesq
@Tommy:
RFK is a dump (I’ve been there for World Cup qualifiers), and there was no possibility of assembling enough land in the District for a NFL stadium. Snyder is guilty of many things, but he gets a pass on the stadium issue.
Tree With Water
@burnspbesq: Same story in San Francisco. That’s why the team is now the Santa Clara 49ers.
burnspbesq
@Tommy:
We already have a championship-caliber football team in LA: the Galaxy. Why do we need another?
Tommy
@Roger Moore: I can’t stand the guy, but watched the entire game. A couple observations. He sucked. Aikman sucked in his rookie year. Akiman said in interviews with him yesterday Johnny said that this exact day four years ago he was playing his last high school game. I think we forget that he turned 22 just a few days ago. Oh and maybe most important, his team did NOTHING to help him.
I still don’t think he can play in this league at a high level with his style. But not going to dog pile on his after one game.
Tommy
@burnspbesq: That is actually fair. I was a season ticket holder there, first row of the second tier. 40 yard line. Late in a game I kid you not, and you were there, I’d stand in what seemed like almost urine an inch high on the floors in the men’s bathrooms from the plumbing backing up. Worse stadium I’ve ever been in. Not even a close second.
For the women here they had these circle metal vats, like you’d feed a bunch of cows, where men just pissed into them in a large circle. It was not, I repeat not pleasent.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Omnes Omnibus: I think Tree was criticizing my use of the passive voice.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Infrastructure improvements should be paid for with public money. That’s one of the 3-4 primary responsibilities of municipal governments. The problem isn’t that the government pays for infrastructure; it’s that government doesn’t pay for enough infrastructure in general.
burnspbesq
@Tommy:
Riding the Orange Line back to Vienna after the USA chumped Guatemala in front of a crowd that was roughly 80 percent rooting for Guatemala was quite an experience.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): My point is that the infrastructure improvements are needed just to accommodate a private interest that isn’t paying for it, and probably gets a tax break. Of course infrastructure in general is a public good.
Tommy
@burnspbesq: Well I hear that. The lower level of the stadium moves when the crowd cheers I might add.
I went to what I guess is a friendly when DC United played a club/national team in the mid-90s when DC was a pretty good team.
Wonderful experience. Like I was in a different country when as you said 80% of the people were pulling for the foreign team. The flags, chants, singing, nobody speaking the language I was, just a really fun sporting experience.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@BillinGlendaleCA: My house is a private interest that requires infrastructure that the people who built it didn’t pay for. That’s how infrastructure gets built and how it should get built.
Tommy
I do not, I repeat do not want to be a running back for San Fran today.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Was a freeway off ramp built specifically for your house and your house alone? Did you get a tax break for building and moving into your house? My point is that this infrastructure would not be built or needed in absence of building this project.
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
At least in principle, they could have torn down Candlestick and built a new stadium in the existing location. The 49ers would have needed to find a temporary venue while waiting for the construction, but it could have been done. That’s what the Seahawks did when replacing the Kingdome. The problem for San Francisco has always been the money side. Note that this is not an option in LA, since both the Colosseum and the Rose Bowl are historic landmarks that would be very difficult to tear down.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Man, the Jets/Titans game is a death struggle to lose.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@BillinGlendaleCA: Sewer was built into my house. Gas lines were built to my house. There is a street in front of my house that I park on. None of that would be needed if no one had built the houses.
It’s not just houses. The strip mall a quarter mile from my house has street access. It has sewer service. It is hooked up to power.
The only difference is scale. Government provides infrastructure, whether it is residential or commercial.
Tree With Water
@Geeno: Joe Montana may have been 0-4 in Buffalo, but Steve Young’s career was extended there. I remember a Niner-Bills game in which Young dropped back to pass, and Bruce Smith came barreling in untouched with a full head of steam. Young had his back turned, looking downfield, his fate in Smith’s hands. Had Smith so chosen, he could have nailed Young at full speed at the base of his spine, and it would have been a legal hit. But being the gentleman he is (not to mention it was late in the season and the Bill’s were out of contention), Smith instead and almost gently wrapped his arms around Young and softly spun him to the ground. No kidding, as I watched the play it unfold, I recall thinking, “oh my God, no! not Young!”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): So Walmart should bear no cost in infrastructure improvements when they build a store? Are you saying that the public should bear any negative externalities due to private decisions? Is your driveway a public good?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@BillinGlendaleCA: My driveway wasn’t paid for and neither are the parking lots at a football stadium considered to be infrastructure. Yes, cost should be considered when issuing permits, but the idea that the government shouldn’t pay for basic infrastructure costs is terrible,whether it’s for a housing development or a football stadium. That’s it’s job.
Roger Moore
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
But were they paid for by the public? Where I live, new housing developments are expected to pay for a lot of that stuff themselves. Really big ones are often even pressured into providing some public infrastructure like parks and schools that are necessitated by the development. They certainly don’t go to the local government and demand that the government build the streets and sewers for their new development.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): A football stadium in downtown LA will require a(or several) dedicated off ramp(s), how is that different than your driveway? And Roger is correct, when we had sewer put in to the house that I grew up in, we had to pay connection fees(it wasn’t optional).
Tree With Water
@BillinGlendaleCA: A movie question. Everything below Monterey is more or less foreign territory to me. There’s a line in L.A. Confidential at the freeway opening ceremony, something like “Imagine, 20 minutes from downtown to the beach”. I’m I right in thinking it takes longer than that nowadays? And if so, about how long does it usually take?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tree With Water: That would be the 10, it’d depend on when you tried to make the trip. At midnight it might take 20 minutes; at 6pm on a weekday, maybe a hour and change.
Bill Murray
@KG: Aikman was 17-35 for 180 yards with 2 interceptions for a 40.2 rating in a 28-0 loss to the Saints in his first game so better than Manziel. Aikman’s bad games were his 3rd and 7th — a combined 13-42 for 147 yards with 5 interceptions and about a 3.5 rating
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/A/AikmTr00/gamelog//
Tree With Water
@BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks. Same story with Bay Area freeways, and probably everywhere else. I thought maybe the reference was more of an inside joke to Angelenos.
Tree With Water
@Bill Murray: I only saw one play with Manziel today– with a Bengal breathing down his neck he flung the ball on the run, and way, way off balance. Of course, it was just one play, but he looked way overmatched to me. Let me put it this way- in no way whatsoever did he remind me of a young Troy Aikman. [way too many “ways” in that comment, isn’t there?].
Bonnie
@gene108: Marcus Mariota may not play his senior year.
getsmartin
Skimming through this thread really reinforces why I ignore sports. Who gives a shit and why?
mainmati
So my hometown team, Pittsburgh won today so that’s good and the team where I now live (Silver Spring, MD (hence ‘Skins) lost yet again. No surprise. And my kids are split between them and the Ravens mainly because the ‘Skins chronically suck. My just turned 23 year old son was born the last time the ‘Skins won the Super Bowl. Snider is widely derided here and he knows it but because he is a privileged a-hole he continues his stupid ways. In the last 45 years, the Steelers have had exactly 3 head coaches. They were carefully chosen and they created great teams because of a policy of long term investment. During the same timeframe, the ‘Skins have had 14 head coaches, most of them in the last 20 years. Not the way to build confidence in a franchise.