NFL/NCAAF Thread

[TheWatersGreatGuardian]

What do Manti Te'o's girlfriend and the Irish's National Championship chances have in common?


Neither of them ever existed.

[Marceman]

So bizarre. Where do you think he'll fall to in the draft? Character was one of his main selling points, and now that's shot.

[HoboJak]

Yeah I don't watch much college football but that's just messed up.

Also I lol'd, Guardian.

[Scubasteve23]

The Bears have named Marc Trestman the new head coach. Was hoping he'd be picked. He has a very good resume' both in the NFL and CFL, so hopefully he'll be able to fix the offense. The only worry is with the defense - I'm hoping he doesn't mess with it yet (unless the entire thing falls apart), just leave Rod to do his work. *shrug*
The media is gushing over this guy though, that could get old really fast...

Well we also hired Joe DeCamillis as assistant head coach/special teams coordinator and Kromer as our OC

[HoboJak]

Well we also hired Joe DeCamillis as assistant head coach/special teams coordinator and Kromer as our OC

Yeah, hopefully there won't be too much of a drop off from Toub to DeCamillis, since with Toub our ST had always been very very good. As for Kromer, he's also the OL coach now, and Trestman will be calling the plays on offense. No way he could be worse than Tice with the line... Right?
EDIT: Just heard, Marinelli is out...

[Scubasteve23]

No way he could be worse than Tice with the line... Right?

Nobody can be worse than Mike "But it worked in Madden 13" Tice

[Thomas Elliot]

I'm not trying to say the guy is stupid by any means, bc I know online girlfriends are fairly commonplace, but come on. She is in a severe car accident that leaves her on the brink of death and then she has leukemia...You don't think to ever stop by and see her at the hospital or something..

The thing that is most confusing is that IF they met in person, then wouldn't he know the pictures of her weren't who she actually was? In all these 3 years you'd never think about trying to go see her or meeting halfway somewhere...something??

[HoboJak]

I'd fall more into the side of he lied, than "oh no he was a victim of someone online, despite saying multiple times he had seen/met the person"

[Breeder Drew]

Manti Te'o almost won the Heisman out of a fake sob story. Nice one, Scumbag Te'o.

[GrizzlyB]

I've followed it more in the past few years, since I got a few new channels. I get 3 games a weekend plus MNF. I'm yet to really have a team though, but I like several Packers' players and a few other teams. I don't get any college football though sadly.

I don't know if it correlates to how I learned to play football, but I do tend to focus/find more interest in the defensive side of the game, which is why perhaps my criticism of Moore was quite full-blooded. He just seemed to be chasing glory before his team, which is the thing that would annoy me most. It looked to me as if he wanted the interception when a simple block or pat-down would have been sufficient..

That's just about the maximum you could watch anyway, so that sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I would say that you should definitely be a Broncos fan, but you're in a pretty unique position where you're not tied to any particular team because they happen to be the local flavor, so why waste it? There are a lot of great teams, and sports are always more fun if you're not losing your **** because your team is doing poorly. And you might not be missing out because the NFL is much better than college football imo. But I seem to disagree with most of the country on this, so I don't really know.

Yeah, unless you had a vested interest in the Ravens winning, that coverage should've been aggravating to anyone. I actually found this pretty cool article that details the progression of the play, as well as why and how Rahim Moore blew what normally seems like a pretty simple assignment (which is: DON'T LET ANYBODY BEHIND YOU). I don't know if he was going for the interception (or at least, if he was, he didn't consider it a risk), but you're right; even blowing Jones up before the completion and taking the most obvious pass interference call ever would've been worlds better than that. Unacceptable mistake.

I still think Tebow is a good QB, he just needs to be given a chance. If you watched him during that off season between leaving Florida and getting drafted, you saw how hard he was willing to work and how far he came.
I understand why Denver let him go, but I never thought it was a good idea. You sign a guy who is probably at best good for another 5 years and you let Tebow be his backup, learn from him and then when Manning retires you have another franchise QB to move into play and he is more NFL ready.

The way I am looking at it now is NE v SF for the Super Bowl. I see NE winning their 4th championship.

Let's be honest: Tebow is not a good QB, and Denver did give him a chance, during which he impressed nobody who matters. He'll be lucky to find a place in the NFL this season, and the only place I could maybe envision him at this point is Philadelphia. There are very few draft prospects who won't work hard to improve in the offseason (very few players in general who don't do that, really), so I'm not sure why you count that as a plus, either.

If you understand why Denver got rid of him, it's a brilliant idea. He's disgustingly disruptive. Can you imagine how distracting it would've been for the Broncos when they were sitting at 2-3, with his rabid fans undoubtedly clamoring to put him in? Or every time Manning didn't make a play, probably. Lord knows how they've come out of the woodworks to gloat about Manning's turnovers in the loss.

Moreover, I'm pretty well convinced that Tebow is incapable of learning from Peyton. Their abilities and playstyles are about as far removed from one-another as you could imagine two players at the same position being. On the other hand, Brock Osweiler: actually fits into their current offense should he need to step in; probably can learn from Peyton; costs less than Tebow (and with a lot less extra baggage, as I mentioned); and could actually be good in the long term.

And ew, I don't want the Patriots to win. But that's pretty likely.

Anybody else think the fix is in? Baltimore was absolute **** the second half of the season (didn't they finish, like, 1-4?), but suddenly they're taking out the Colts and Broncos? The Ravens aren't that good as a team, and Ray Lewis, who has been pedestrian for the last few seasons, is not a big improvement over what they already had. I think it's a bit crazy that Ray Lewis announced his pre-retirement like Jerome Bettis did in 2005-2006, and now the Ravens are magically beating teams they have no business beating just like the Steelers did that year.

I think the NFL REALLY wants a HarBowl and they couldn't get it last year because Lee Evans and Billy Cundiff both choked and Kyle Williams single-handedly threw away the 49ers chance.

Saying it's fixed is probably too paranoid. And them beating the Colts was expected, imo. You might have something of a point, though: I don't specifically remember it, but I have always heard that the officiating in Super Bowl XL was terrible, and though the NFL defended it at the time, the head official came out fairly recently and admitted to several game-changing botched calls. And I don't know how anyone can defend the officiating in the Ravens/Broncos game (seriously, I can think of 5 botched calls offhand that directly resulted in scores being made/prevented or extending scoring drives - all in the Ravens favor). Even if you don't buy the conspiracy angle (which I don't) the officiating was terrible as a whole and that is just unacceptable in a playoff game, especially one so ridiculously close. I suppose we'll see more on Sunday, though~.

Also, re: Manti Te'O. I don't know if I should hope that this hurts his draft stock enough to drop him all the way to the Broncos. On one hand, MLB is one of the few positions they need some serious security in, but on the other, I'm not sure if I should be sold on Te'O as the best out of the draft even, and after this he's clearly a POS, so there's that.

[deathseer]

I just think the sheer absurdity of Te'o's story is what inclines me to think he is lying. In a severe car accident while battling leukemia? There's misfortune, and then there is get the **** out of here. If you're going to lie, at least come up with something believable and not something so outlandishly depressing.

All I can say is: "And the Oscar goes to . . . someone else!"

[HoboJak]

I just think the sheer absurdity of Te'o's story is what inclines me to think he is lying. In a severe car accident while battling leukemia? There's misfortune, and then there is get the **** out of here. If you're going to lie, at least come up with something believable and not something so outlandishly depressing.

All I can say is: "And the Oscar goes to . . . someone else!"

And you'd think at some point he'd try to check on her in the hospital.... "Oh, my girlfriend got hit by a car? Meh. What? She's battling leukemia? Lol cool story bro."

[Breeder Drew]

Why was Te'o not nominated for an Emmy for his superb acting performance?

Anyway, I don't really like how most everyone is counting Atlanta out for the 49ers game. Atlanta, as Rob Riggle said, is like gas station hot dogs. They're awesome, but nobody wants to admit it.

[deathseer]

The 49ers have shut down offenses like the Patriots, Packers, and Saints all season. And the general consensus is that those offenses are much better (Although White and Jones always have to be accounted for) so it shouldn't be a stretch to say they can do the same to Atlanta. Because as we learned last year, when their offense plays a bad game, they they are REALLY bad. So its easy to give the Niners the edge, as much as I hate to admit it. Its sort of the lesser of two evils for me.

On defense they are fast, physical and can get the QB on the ground. And on offense they don't turn the ball over and can run really well. That's championship football if I ever saw it.

[Comebhax]

I thought the Ravens would win at the beginning of the year (seriously) and i still think so since it's Ray Lewis's last ride and they have a better foundation for winning than any other team. It's sad to see him go.

Anybody know where Tebow will go if Jacksonville doesn't want him?

[Lucario95]

Well, I don't know which team is interested in Tebow, but I think he will be a Free Agent.

[Breeder Drew]

The 49ers have shut down offenses like the Patriots, Packers, and Saints all season. And the general consensus is that those offenses are much better (Although White and Jones always have to be accounted for) so it shouldn't be a stretch to say they can do the same to Atlanta. Because as we learned last year, when their offense plays a bad game, they they are REALLY bad. So its easy to give the Niners the edge, as much as I hate to admit it. Its sort of the lesser of two evils for me.

On defense they are fast, physical and can get the QB on the ground. And on offense they don't turn the ball over and can run really well. That's championship football if I ever saw it.

In my opinion, Russell Wilson is a bit better than Kaepernick, and everyone and their damn mother was saying he was going to be the next superstar quarterback, but Atlanta shut him down, at least in the first half. If Atlanta plays the full sixty minutes, I see no reason why they can't do the same to Kaepernick. Once again, it's all going to come down to Matt Ryan and Michael Turner. If Atlanta establishes a good running game and can take the lead and burn time off the clock, it will certainly help. If Ryan makes bad decisions, Atlanta is going to lose. It's that simple. And, if you remember correctly, the main reason why Kaepernick was able to run all over Green Bay was because they used man to man coverage, which is really quite stupid when you're playing against a running quarterback. He also only completed about half of his passes (17/31, I believe), and that isn't going to work against a defense that knows how to defend running quarterbacks and has players like Asante Samuel, Sean Weatherspoon, and John Abraham.

[Golden_Latias]

lol Now Lions "fans" want to tank 2013 for contract reasons.

Come on, NOBODY does that! My goodness... no real fan of a team would want that to happen.

Also, Lions new ST coach is underwhelming, but whatever.

Anybody know where Tebow will go if Jacksonville doesn't want him?

CFL?

[deathseer]

In my opinion, Russell Wilson is a bit better than Kaepernick, and everyone and their damn mother was saying he was going to be the next superstar quarterback, but Atlanta shut him down, at least in the first half. If Atlanta plays the full sixty minutes, I see no reason why they can't do the same to Kaepernick. Once again, it's all going to come down to Matt Ryan and Michael Turner. If Atlanta establishes a good running game and can take the lead and burn time off the clock, it will certainly help. If Ryan makes bad decisions, Atlanta is going to lose. It's that simple. And, if you remember correctly, the main reason why Kaepernick was able to run all over Green Bay was because they used man to man coverage, which is really quite stupid when you're playing against a running quarterback. He also only completed about half of his passes (17/31, I believe), and that isn't going to work against a defense that knows how to defend running quarterbacks and has players like Asante Samuel, Sean Weatherspoon, and John Abraham.

It's not so much how Kapernick plays against Atlanta's D, it's more how well Atlanta's offense plays against the 49ers D. If the Niners punch Atlanta in the mouth on defense, then that just makes Kapernick's job all the more easier. From what I've seen this year, other than the Bears game, the Niners winning usually hasn't been contingent on how well Kapernick plays. Yes, even his last game he wasn't too spectacular. But that defense knows how to put a hat on offenses.

It's not like the Patriots, Saints, and Packers where if Tom Brady, Drew Brees, or Aaron Rodgers has a bad game, then they lose. How the Niners win is how well they play on defense, and they proved they can do that. If Kapernick doesn't play lights out, then so what. He has the luxury of falling back on a D that can put the QB on the ground and score points. You make a mistake against them, and you pay for it.

[Sid87]

This is going to be the worst Championship weekend ever. SF is going to obliterate the inferior Falcons, and the NFL has pre-determined Ray Lewis is going to the Superbowl. There's absolutely no drama or intrigue at all.