24
Nov
2010
Should the Vikings cut Brett Favre?
READERS: How would you caption this photo? (Source: Daily News)
Minnesota Vikings coach Leslie Frazier has inherited a mess, but all is not lost.
Frazier has the opportunity to take decisive steps to show that he means business — and he better not waste the chance catering to Brett Favre. His best route is a decisive, fresh start at the quarterback position.
It’s a thought that’s been picking up steam all week, and NFL Network’s Mike Mayock makes a most compelling case for cutting Favre — not in the offseason, but now. With the playoffs out of the question, Mayock insists the Vikings must find out now who they have at quarterback.
You can’t do that with Favre in the locker room.
“At this point, you’ve fired your coach. It would be a crime if you don’t find out, in the remainder of the season, whether or not either one of your backup quarterbacks can play. So, if I was there, I would like to see a uniform situation within the organization where the owner, the new head coach and Rick Spielman, the head of personnel, sit down and say, ‘It’s time to release Brett Favre.’ We need to get a clean look at these two young quarterbacks and find out if either of them is our quarterback of the future. If that’s the case, then you know what you have to do in the draft. If you don’t have a quarterback, then you can go and get one. If you do have a quarterback, that’s great, but it’s time to cut the ties with Brett Favre right now.
“The bottom line is, Brett’s not going to be there next year … so you gotta find out right now who your quarterback of the future is, because … you do a disjustice to your entire organization if you don’t have a plan going into the draft.”
Favre loyalists will balk at such a plan, but it’s time for the Vikings to reboot the machine. It will be interesting to see what Frazier does with the time he has left this season. When it comes to Favre, we’re talking about a guy who’s basically never missed a day of work and never mailed it in. It would be a brutal ending, but Mayock is right — benching Favre doesn’t do you any good. It must be decisive. You cut him and move on.
22
Nov
2010
NFL Network to broadcast game with NO announcers … Hallelujah!
Just imagine ... a whole game without these two blathering on endlessly (Image via CoedMagazine)
This is a potential game-changer, folks. For those of us out there who have to turn down the sound on NFL television broadcasts so we can actually enjoy the game, there may be a brighter future ahead.
The Houston Chronicle reports that the NFL Network is going to re-broadcast the Jets/Bengals Thanksgiving Day game this Saturday without any announcers! Instead, the NFL Films crew will mic up a whole bunch of players and coaches, and let their words tell the story of the game. Think about that for a second. A FULL game of NFL Films Sound FX footage! Not highlights … a full game! No Tony Siragusa. No Cris Collinsworth. No asinine, non-stop commentary that slowly grates on your nerves like Chinese water torture. Just the natural sounds of the game.
Seriously, this might be the best idea in the history of sports broadcasting:
“We’ve got 15 players and coaches miked during the game, including both coaches and all the coordinators and quarterbacks and middle linebackers,” NFL Films president Steve Sabol said. “We’ll have 60 people shooting the game, which is more than we use for a Super Bowl, and then we’ll turn it around in 48 hours and show it to you through the eyes of the players. It’s something you won’t see anywhere else.” …
Granted, there’s probably no way to ever do this for a live broadcast – simply because of the on-field language and potential for confidential team info getting out to the rest of the league. But this type of footage will give football fans an insight into the game that we’ve never had before … even if it comes a couple of days after the fact.
And again, thank GOD for the NFL Network. Let’s just hope this will be the first of many game broadcasts like this.
12
Nov
2010
Clay Matthews III is even more badass mic’d up (VIDEO)
(Photo: Corey Wilson/Press-Gazette)
Packers LB Clay Matthews is the early favorite for defensive MVP of the league this year, and has quickly become the Cheesehead nation’s favorite son. And with Matthews’ non-stop motor, hard-hitting style and incredible football IQ (thanks largely to his NFL family heritage), it’s easy to understand why. Throw in those flowing blond locks as he flies around the field, and opposing players must absolutely hate lining up against Matthews on Sunday.
When Green Bay faced off against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night, the NFL Films crew wired Matthews up for their Sound FX program … and the results were about as awesome as expected. The guy is a natural born leader in every way, and he makes the players around him better. Watch here as the Packers put a serious hurting on the ‘boys, with Matthews leading the way:
11
Nov
2010
Thursday Night Football is BACK!
(Image via NFL.com)
It’s a great time of year to be a football fan. No longer do we have to endure the endless din of the baseball season, and the NBA is just getting started, so the gridiron gets center stage for the next few months. And the midway point of the season also brings the return of Thursday Night Football on the NFL Network. Which means we get one more night of the week where we have an excuse to drink, and we don’t have to endure crap like Grey’s Anatomy on television.
Tonight we get a good one, with two 6-2 division-leading teams facing off in and inter-conference battle. With the Falcons vs Ravens, we get to see Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Roddy White, Anquan Boldin, Ray Rice, Michael Turner, Ray Lewis & Tony Gonzalez (to name a few), so there will be no shortage of star power on the field. Should be a great match-up, and White – who leads the NFC in receiving – is expected to play. But both teams come into tonight with very little rest since their last game, so we’ll see if that has any effect on their play.
For those of you without NFL Network – which seems to be a healthy percentage of homes out there, you can watch the game live online here.
5
Nov
2010
Is Jerry Rice really the NFL’s Greatest of All Time?
Last night, the NFL Network unveiled the final ten of their Top 100 NFL’s Greatest Players, which was determined by a “blue-ribbon panel” of voters (plus Rich Eisen). After all the build-up, Jerry Rice was revealed to be the #1 player of all time, and the controversy began almost immediately.
Here are the Top 10, according to the panel:
- Jerry Rice, WR
- Jim Brown, RB
- Lawrence Taylor, LB
- Joe Montana, QB
- Walter Payton, RB
- Johnny Unitas, QB
- Reggie White, DE
- Peyton Manning, QB
- Don Hutson, WR
- Dick Butkus, LB
There are plenty of great players in there, and you could make a solid argument for everyone in the top six being the “greatest” (if there can really be such a thing). But the reality is that Rice won by virtue of the voting process. On the NFL Network’s ballots, players were categorized by era, and then by position. So whoever was determined to be the best at their position, and by the largest margin, would be named greatest of all-time by default.
Rice was undoubtedly the best WR ever, but look at it this way: there were only five other receivers in the top 100, and only two of those are from the modern era. Don Hutson was dominating player in his day, but Randy Moss (#24) and Michael Irvin (#92) are the only other guys that most voters probably ever saw play live. The competition was much greater at other positions, so the votes naturally got split up among more players.
The primary argument against Rice is that he was a product of his system who played with two of the greatest QBs ever to play the game (Montana and Steve Young). The other big criticism has always been his toughness … it’s no secret that Rice wasn’t a physical player. Wouldn’t you think that the one player chosen to represent the league would at least sort of be a tough guy? And don’t even get me started on the whole Dancing With the Stars thing …
For our money, we’d put Jim Brown at #1, Joe Montana at #2 and Lawrence Taylor at #3. Rice probably falls in around 5 or 6. Discuss …
WATCH THE CASE FOR RICE AFTER THE JUMP
29
Oct
2010
VIDEO: Tony Romo mic’d up, goes down vs Giants
In case you haven’t seen it yet, Sound FX on the NFL Network is must-DVR programming for any football fanatic. You get a half-hour of pure “mic’d up” NFL Films highlight footage without having to endure Cris Collinsworth or any other nonsense. It’s fantastic.
This week, the league wired up Cowboys QB Tony Romo for sound so we can all listen in as he gets taken out – possibly for the season – by Giants LB Michael Boley. The night starts off well enough for Romo, but watch and listen as it all comes crashing down:
Romo gets a lot of points for toughness here. The first thing he asks after getting injured is, “Did he catch the pass?”, before even telling the doctors where he’s hurt. And you have to like the way Romo tries to sneak back into the game (no matter how ill-advised that would have been).
Every time I watch one of these I end up liking the player more … and I am NOT a fan of Tony Romo. The NFL would be wise to integrate more Sound FX-style programming into their game broadcasts. Getting this type of insight into how the game is played is tremendous for the fans.
2
Mar
2010
Oh yeah, the combine is happening
These stopwatches mean millions of dollars to players at the NFL Combine (Photo: Ben Liebenberg/NFL.com)
You’ll have to forgive us for our recent lapse in NFL coverage … we were swept up in Winter Olympic fever for the past few weeks, and kind of forgot that the NFL Scouting Combine started last week. And yeah, we actually had something better to do than watch a bunch of grown men run around in their skivvies. So sue us.
Otherwise known as the “underwear Olympics”, the Combine is the annual meat market where NFL teams poke and prod at the latest round of prospects like so much cattle, sizing up their chances of success at the next level. It’s where Wonderlics, route trees and body lean become the talk of the day. A place where a mediocre player can rise from obscurity with a 4.3 40-yard dash time, and where an all-American LB can tumble down the draft charts because he’s a few inches too short.
As you might be able to surmise from our tone, we don’t put as much stock in the combine as some others. I mean, it’s a useful tool to get an up-close look at these athletes, who teams are about to invest millions of dollars in … but it should really only be one piece of the larger puzzle. How someone performs on an indoor track in a sterilized environment should not be viewed as a direct reflection of how they will perform on Sunday. Sure, there are some physical tools that you simply can’t teach, and certain teams (ie., the Raiders) are always going to take a chance on gifted athletes, whether they can actually play football or not. But if a kid is ranked in your top 10 at the end of the college season, after being a playmaker his entire career, there’s simply no way a slow 3-cone drill time should drop him off of your board.
DTs Gerald McCoy of Oklahoma (left) and Ndomukong Suh of Nebraska are 2 of the top prospects in this year's draft (Photo: Ben Liebenberg/NFL.com)
I’ve watched a few hours of the combine over the past 2 days, and I guess I’ll have to leave it to the Kipers and Mayocks of the world, who make their living off of this event. And don’t get me wrong, you can definitely gain some affirmation on your feelings about a player one way or another from these workouts – and especially the interviews. I just feel that often, too much value is placed on these measurements over actual gameday performance.
And with that, I leave you with a few Combine-related links:
- Tim Tebow’s 2010 Combine performance set to Iron Maiden [Deadspin]
- NFL Network’s Rich Eisen prepares to run the 40-yard dash [NFL.com]
- *UPDATE* Clemson RB CJ Spiller’s blazing 40-yard dash of 4.27 seconds … actually clocked in at 4.37 seconds. Whoops.
AFTER THE JUMP, WATCH RICH EISEN RUN THE 40-YARD DASH … IN A SUIT
21
Oct
2009
SHOCKER: Mike Pereira defends Referees on Browns/Steelers call (video)
Every Wednesday on NFL Total Access, Mike Pereira – the NFL’s VP of Officiating – joins Rich Eisen for a segment called “Official Review” where they discuss the most controversial calls from the previous weekend.
Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? The problem is that Pereira is clearly a robot programmed to back up his part-time employees’ calls. No matter how egregious they are, no matter how much blatant visual evidence there is to the contrary, Pereira always seems to find a way to justify or rationalize the calls on the field.
The most recent example came this evening, when Pereira reviewed this astonishingly bad call from Sunday’s Steelers/Browns match-up:
Fair enough, Mike. The camera shot was definitely from an angle, which could account for a skewed perspective of the ball position on TV. So the other people on the field must have seen the same thing Anderson saw, right? Surely the Steelers felt they had gotten the first down, right? Not exactly:
Even Steelers center Justin Hartwig said the ball was “definitely short” of the first-down marker.
“I have no idea how they gave us a first down, but we’ll take it,” Hartwig said. “I’d say (it was short) by two chain links. It was obvious to everybody playing on the field. I don’t know how they called it the way they did, but … we’re not going to complain about it.”
“It was a close play – and we got lucky,” Roethlisberger told the Associated Press after the game.
Huh. That’s weird. I guess ole’ Walt must have had a better view than the center and QB on the play. Which was a QB sneak, mind you.
Uhhhh … Mike?
20
Sep
2009
NFL Network’s Red Zone Channel answers Comcast subscribers’ prayers
(Photo: NFL Network)
For years, in order to watch live action from more than a game or two at a time, NFL fans have been forced to either go to a sports bar, or subscribe to the prohibitively expensive DirectTV Sunday Ticket package. Well, this season is different, thanks to the NFL Network’s Red Zone Channel, now available to Comcast subscribers.
As part of their existing sports package ($4.50/month on top of the digital starter package, which gets you NFL Network and a bunch of other sports channels), Comcast offers this channel on Sundays only, as an all-day NFL game buffet. For those of us who are unwilling to throw down $300 for the Sunday Ticket, the Red Zone Channel is a revelation. This is the first week I’ve had a chance to sit down and experience the channel all its glory, and so far.
It’s basically like going to a sports bar with one TV, and an ADD bar manager changing the channel every few minutes, to whichever game has the most interesting action at that moment. In theory, that’s whichever team is in the Red Zone and threatening to score, but if nobody is inside the 20, you get a taste of a bunch of different games and near-instant highlights of any big plays. The coverage switches from game to game so quickly that it’s admittedly disjointed, and impossible to get into the flow of any one game. So if you’re looking to sit down and watch your favorite team and enjoy the nuances of the game football, you’ll still need to go with other options. But if the local CBS/FOX affiliates aren’t showing anything of interest, the Red Zone channel is a fantastic alternative.
DirecTV has featured a Red Zone Channel as part of the Sunday Ticket package for a few years now, and I initially assumed this would be the same broadcast. It’s not, and Kissing Suzy Kolber does a nice job of describing the differences. But it’s pretty damned cool. Scott Hanson acts as host, directing traffic from game to game, and I can’t decide whether or not he annoys me yet. He probably will. My biggest complaint is that, at least for now, the Red Zone Channel is NOT available in HD (update: it is available in HD, and it’s spectacular). So basically, I’m getting the experience of being at a sports bar, while sitting at home with my own food, drink, and comfort (read: i may still be in my underwear right now). I’ve seen every highlight & lowlight, and haven’t had to turn my head once. For Fantasy freaks, this is pure heaven. Oh, and did I mention that there are NO commercials?!? I just realized that I don’t have some annoying jingle stuck in my head for the first Sunday in a long time, and it feels wonderful.
UPDATE: Watching the end of the games on Red Zone is incredible. Lots of close games today, and I haven’t had to miss a thing.
And if nothing else, The Red Zone Channel one step toward chipping away at the DirecTV monopoly. Which is nice.
19
May
2009
Tuesday Taster: Buffalo loves them some T.O., NFL Network Triumphs, Get Well Jim Johnson
The video above is from Shutdown Corner’s wonderfully titled, Buffalo gives Terrell Owens a greeting fit for someone else. (HA!!!) At least there are enough jaded/realistic Bills fans who aren’t buying into the hype just yet.
Here are your Tuesday Evening Links:
- Comcast to carry NFL Network on its Digital Classic package [NFL.com] This makes us very happy.
- Eagles Defensive Coordinator Jim Johnson takes leave to fight cancer. [Yahoo!Sports] One of the greatest defensive minds in the game. We wish him well.
- Pat Kirwan’s early power rankings [NFL.com]
After the jump, awful video of T.O. calling his own highlights on local Buffalo news.
