Tag: news

When I heard that the NFL was announcing the 2013 schedule via a 3 hour live event on the NFL Network, with ESPN following suit in 2 hour SportsCenter Special style, I thought it was a little over the top. I mean, does any other sport require multiple prime time programs to release a schedule?

And then…I watched them both.

My name is Beka and I can’t not watch NFL programming. The prospect of the regular season is just too exciting!

Ok, so, what did we learn?

The Good:

– In today’s NFL, the Super Bowl champion always opens the season on Thursday night at home. But not this year. In what was very similar to a businessman cat fight, the Baltimore Orioles, who are also scheduled to play at home on September 5th, refused to accomodate the Ravens so that both teams could somehow play. The solution wasn’t bad, though. The Ravens will be headed back to Denver for a rematch of the game that solidified their Super Bowl run. Touchdown off a bad pass, NFL. Way to go.

– The 2013 Super Bowl Champion will be the Chargers, apparently. For the past four years, the team that played against the Eagles in their home opener went on to win the Super Bowl: Saints, Packers, Giants, Ravens. (Although it might be fair to say that it would be a stretch for history to repeat itself this year.)

– The Manning Bowl is Week 2 (Broncos at Giants), and that’s a blessing on all accounts. Less time to wait for it, less time to hype about it.

– Peyton returns to Indy for the first time since his departure in Week 7. I’m putting this in the Good column because it’s emotionally charged, but really, this is going to be a rough one to watch. You certainly can’t envy Peyton under those circumstances.

– Denver at New England in Week 12 offers two must-watch components: first, the return of Welker to New England, and second, the ever-dwindling clash of the Titans, Brady and Manning.

– Week 17. All of it. Putting divisional games in the last week of the schedule was one of the best moves the NFL has ever made, I think.

The Bad:

– The entire first half of the Monday Night Football schedule is fairly regrettable. The opener, Eagles at Redskins, has the potential to be great later in the season, but with the Eagles taking their very first Kelly-style track meet to the field and with RG3’s status yet unknown, it might not be all it could be. Then MNF goes into a 6-8 week spiral of mediocre games (with Steelers at Bengals and Vikings at Rams being on the higher end of that spectrum) until the legendary matchup between the Bears and the Packers arrives in Week 9…and then it plummets again for a few weeks until Niners at Redskins and Saints at Seahawks. You never can tell how good the games will be until we’re in the thick of the season (who would have expected the NFC West to be a must-watch division last year?), but on it’s face, Monday Night Football could use a little Botox.

– Any game in London is bad news from my perspective. I like it when the National Football League is still in our Nation. (No offense, England. We love you for entirely different reasons, Downton Abbey among them, but wouldn’t you feel weird if Manchester came over for a match across the pond? It’s just odd.)

– The NFL must be imposing unknown bounty sanctions against Miami, because holy cow their schedule is a steep climb up a tall mountain. Before the bye: Browns (the warm up), then Colts, Falcons, Saints, Ravens. Get ready to hit the ground running, free agents!

The Ugly:

– Raiders at Cowboys…on Thanksgiving. NFL, aren’t you thankful for your fans? Why are you doing this to us on a high holy day of the regular season?

And that’s that! Too see the full NFL schedule (on a really well designed interface), you can check it out here.

I’m sure I missed a few good points because I’m too inordinately excited to properly communicate, so help me fill them in: What do you guys think of the 2013 schedule? Any highlights or lowlights?

Did it snow where you were this week? It snowed here in Upstate NY, and while that’s hardly news around here even in early April, it’s still unfortunate. I love snow, but come spring, it’s worn a hole in the welcome mat.

In other news:

The preseason schedule was released. Which, while preseason games are not generally cause for celebration, is actual game-news in early April, 3 months into the football dry spell. So it’s cause for unmerited celebration.

(Little known fact: teams schedule their own opponents for the last week of preseason. The Bears and the Browns have played each other in the final game for the past 10 years.)

Think the Pro Bowl could benefit from a little excitement? The NFL does too. (I actually love the Pro Bowl…but I think I’m the only one.) They’re thinking about implementing a draft-style format to the selection of teams. I’m not sure how much I love that idea, but I am definitely curious to know more.

Jason Hanson, who has been the only consistent piece of the Lions puzzle over the past two decades, has decided to retire after 21 years with the Lions. 21 years! That’s quite a career in the NFL, even for a kicker. In the end, it was a heel injury that ended things for him, otherwise he would have come back for year 22. Unreal.

Matt Flynn, the former Packers backup QB who after one great game was given an unbelievable contract by Seattle only to be beaten out by rookie phenom Russell Wilson, is now on his way to Oakland. Poor kid can’t buy a break.

Carson Palmer, now-displaced Raiders QB, is on his way to Arizona. He’s been named the starter already…even though the Cardinals staff brought in Matt Barkley, entering the draft from USC, for a workout this week.

What about the now-displaced Cardinals QB’s? John Skelton is out of a job, and Kevin Kolb is shuffling off to Buffalo. I’m not sure who bears the bigger burden.

And we could continue this trend and figure out who now-displaced Bills QB Ryan Fitzpatrick will be, in turn, displacing, but we’re going to pull the plug here because if history has taught us anything this offseason, it’s that this game could go on forever. The moves and rumors of moves are never-ending.

And that’s Friday.

Bits of Draft News:

• Manti Te’o shaved a whole second off his 40 time at Notre Dame’s pro day on Tuesday, from a 4.82 to a 4.7, which should at the very least inspire confidence in the teams who are already considering drafting him.
• Pro Football Weekly’s Top 5 QB’s in the draft: Matt Barkley, Ryan Nassib, E.J. Manuel, Tyler Wilson, Zac Dysert. Geno Smith comes in at 6. I think I’d be surprised if Smith went after Wilson and Dysert, right? I haven’t seen him projected so low until this list, but PFW knows their stuff.
• Marcus Lattimore was given a well-deserved round of applause after his pro day at South Carolina on Wednesday. If you need something to uplift your Friday, this article should do the trick.

Bits of League News:

• Elvis Dumervil is now a Raven.
• Ed Reed is now a Texan.
• Osi Umenyiora is now a Falcon.
• Basically: if you’re a veteran, you’re not where you were last year.
• There are a gaggle of guys still on the market: Brent Grimes, Antoine Winfield, Ahmad Bradshaw, Dwight Freeney, and John Abraham, just to name a few.

Slow news week this week, gang. Anything to add? Go ahead and shout it out in the comments if so!

We’ve reached the portion of the off-season in which legitimate news that will actually matter come September is hard to come by but tabloid-style flashy news is everywhere.

It’s kind of fun.

Plenty of other things happened over the course of the last week, but these are the five categories of events that stood out most for me:

Weirdest: Last Friday, I was sitting on a friend’s couch, catching up on the week, when my iPhone lit up with “Elvis Dumervil takes pay cut to stay in Denver.” No big surprise there. Then, no more than a minute or two later, this: “Elvis Dumervil cut from Denver after missed contract deadline.” And that was quite the big surprise.

In what has to be one of the weirdest sports stories ever (although there have been quite a few hum dingers lately), Elvis Dumervil’s now former agent didn’t get his contract faxed over in time to meet the deadline, and the Broncos had no rational business choice but to cut him. Now, this isn’t quite as devastating as it might seem, because they can resign him if they want to (and most signs point to that happening), but still…wow. It raises a variety of thoughts. Among them: 1) Fax machines? 2) The business side of football in all it’s cut throat glory is the same for all players with few exceptions.

3) Fax machines.

Who knew?

Saddest: It takes a lot for me to say this as a Packers fan and thus a non-fan of the Bears and all their constituents…but it’s sad to me that the Bears wouldn’t resign Urlacher for a measly $3 million. I realize that I just used the phrase “measly $3 million” but when you’re talking about keeping one of your veterans for the duration of his career and the difference between giving him a one-team legacy and cutting him loose is about $1 million (they offered him 2, he said he would negotiate 3)…it just seems like class should prevail over business at that point.

And now we have Exhibit 700 as evidence to why I would be a terrible GM.

Angriest: Greg Jennings is now the millionth Packer to don the Purple. And who helped him reach that decision? The Vikings other recent big-time NFC North steal: Brett Favre.

You’re really not helping to orchestrate your hero’s welcome back to GB, 4.

Three guesses as to which team is reportedly trying to grab Urlacher now that he’s on the market?

The Purple We-Can’t-Find-Our-Own-People Eaters.

Seriously…burns my biscuits.

Best: Praise the Lord and Hallelujah, the Tuck Rule is no more. I think it’s safe to say that no one is more pleased than Charles Woods0n.

Best Intended: The new helmet rule is taking a lot of flack from fans and players alike, and it’s easy to see why. At first glance, it seems like this new rule – which is trying to increase player safety by penalizing running backs who make contact with the crown of their head in the open field – is the latest stop on the train to football’s demise, at least football as we currently know it. Trying to make an unsafe sport safe is a tall order. It’s also an impossible, highly important, order. And when changes are made to the fabric of the game, it’s an order that causes mass hysteria.

But as a few level-heads have pointed out, this rule doesn’t change anything. No running back has ever been taught to hit with the crown of his head. Besides not making safety sense, it doesn’t make football sense. So this rule really shouldn’t be that big of a deal; in fact, it should be celebrated.

However, and this is an elephant of a however, the celebration pauses when we consider how in the world this is going to be officiated. The rule makes sense on paper, and it even makes sense on tape, but at game speed? When officials are keeping track of other factors and are trying to make their best judgement in real time in the mass of humanity that is stopping the run? That’s going to be rough. There will be lots of flags, lots of disgruntled people, and lots of throwing the baby out with the bathwater to the tune of, “They’re killing football!!!”

Don’t give up on this rule – or the future of football – quite yet. These changes aren’t being made to kill a game we love; they’re being made to make sure it doesn’t die of it’s own volition: an inherently violent nature and a refusal to adapt.

What do you guys think of the new rule?