NFL 2011 Week 12

Fedaykin98 wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Hmm..clearly we have either football newbs here or just really young people that only recently have started watching the NFL.

Ladies and gentlemen, the diplomatic and friend-winning personality, Gamemuru! :lol:

Hmm my point is simple. For some of us the NFL has become "sissified"

Did you not see the play, or are you just being silly? It's okay to be silly! But it's hard to imagine you think that should be legal in football. Or any sport, really - again, would not have been legal in UFC.

On another subject, amazing TD catch by that Dolphins' receiver despite the Cowgirls' defender going full-bore with the pass interference. Can't believe he caught that!

Meh. I've seen a lot worse back in the day and you didn't get a flag let alone an ejection. The kick was pretty weak as well. He didn't stomp anyone. I was fine with the flag but the ejection was over the top. Felt like it was based on the player in question more than the actual action. But Im fully aware that I'm old school and was raised on a different brand of football.

Huh. Still another good hold by the 49ers D. Still no rushing TDs allowed.

But time is running out. Going to need an onside and 2 scores in the final 2 min, when we've got 2 scores all night. Not likely.

Stele wrote:

Huh. Still another good hold by the 49ers D. Still no rushing TDs allowed.

But time is running out. Going to need an onside and 2 scores in the final 2 min, when we've got 2 scores all night. Not likely. :(

Or the ability to catch a ball. That was a nice wiff by Ginn there.

Awful. If this is what we look like vs a playoff team on the road, that doesn't bode well.

Maybe it's the short week and travel. Yeah...

jowner wrote:

call me crazy but I believe Suh when he says he didnt mean to stomp on the player.

Not complaining though on how it helped the Packers :D

You're crazy...

Wow. That was some seriously atrocious O-line play. 9 sacks. Wow. I swear that every play looked like some version of center screen. Alex Smith has every reason to be pissed at his linemen.

Coolbeans wrote:
jowner wrote:

call me crazy but I believe Suh when he says he didnt mean to stomp on the player.

Not complaining though on how it helped the Packers :D

You're crazy...

Seconded

I agree with Guru's assessment...again.

boogle wrote:

I agree with Guru's assessment...again.

Me three!

But then, I grew up thinking Conrad Dobler was hilarious.

IMAGE(http://cowboytough.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/dobler.jpg)

Since I didn't get to watch the game last night, I watched it this morning. Now that was some badass defense. Outside of some shoddy officiating in the first half that was an absolute blast to watch. Of course I was rooting for the Ravens, so ...

The 49ers need to and probably will go back to the tape and assess exactly what they were not doing on the O-line. I guarantee you that's precisely what the Steelers are doing right now.

Jeez. Derek Cox out for the year. Jaguars IR up to 17 now. That doesn't even count guys like Knighton who are still on multi-week injuries but not put on IR (yet).

The defense is almost entirely down to second string.

I am in great anticipation of this week's Texans game, and hoping to catch the Tebow/Von Miller show right afterwards. I wanted to start watching the Broncos when they drafted Miller, but family life has kept it from being a priority. Now that Tebow fever is at an all-time high, it seems like I really need to make time somehow. Beg, bargain, and plead, that sort of thing.

*Legion* wrote:

Jeez. Derek Cox out for the year. Jaguars IR up to 17 now. That doesn't even count guys like Knighton who are still on multi-week injuries but not put on IR (yet).

The defense is almost entirely down to second string.

that line was -3.5 at the start of the week and is now -6.5....

was -4 today alone and jumped to -6.5 in the last 6 hours.

TheGameguru wrote:

Hmm my point is simple. For some of us the NFL has become "sissified"
...
Meh. I've seen a lot worse back in the day and you didn't get a flag let alone an ejection. The kick was pretty weak as well. He didn't stomp anyone. I was fine with the flag but the ejection was over the top. Felt like it was based on the player in question more than the actual action. But Im fully aware that I'm old school and was raised on a different brand of football.

While I agree that the kick wasn't anything career ending, that is very much not the point. Suh should have drawn an "Unsportsman Like Conduct" penalty for rubbing the guys face in the ground, and if all he did was that kick, then an "Unneccessary Roughness" penalty for that. The fact that he did both on the same play, coupled with the fact that the refs had already thrown a guy out of the game meant that they really had to eject Suh. The point wasn't the damage the kick did, or could have done, it is the fact that there is no need for kicking down players in football. That has nothing to do with "sissifying" the game, and everything to do with not having the game be played by a bunch of thugs. If you want to say the refs in this game were going way overboard on the penalties, then you only have to look at the total BS "Roughing the Passer" call on the Lions, Rodgers got the ball out with less than one step before getting hit. The standard, as I understand it, is that defenders should avoid hitting someone after their second step.

I think there's a healthy medium where you think the game is now too protective of QBs and receivers during the play, but still think that blows to a down player after the play is over have no place in what is supposed to be a game. I would even guess that might be the national consensus.

I just don't see Suh's kick being anything extraordinary. I don't think he would have been ejected if the officials hadn't already tossed someone earlier.
Football is a rough game. Get over it

You know, I just don't get this. The head-pushing on the ground, well, I can argue that away as just an after-play scrum; it shouldn't happen but, if it's been a clean game, you separate, give a warning, and move on. Because the game had already been chippy, yeah, you hand out a 15-yarder for that not just because of the act, but because, as referees, you have to control the game, and that's a way to give a message that things can't go further.

Stomping on a guy? Get the hell out. There was no "balancing" or anything, that was an overt attempt to stomp on an opponent and potentially hurt them. I'm totally in line with the ejection and probably suspension, because Suh's behavior appears to actually be escalating here; if the league doesn't crack down, when does he pull a Haynesworth and stomp on somebody's face?

Phishposer wrote:

I just don't see Suh's kick being anything extraordinary. I don't think he would have been ejected if the officials hadn't already tossed someone earlier.
Football is a rough game. Get over it :D

A rough game? Should they just go ahead and bring bats and guns next week?

Coolbeans wrote:
Phishposer wrote:

I just don't see Suh's kick being anything extraordinary. I don't think he would have been ejected if the officials hadn't already tossed someone earlier.
Football is a rough game. Get over it :D

A rough game? Should they just go ahead and bring bats and guns next week?

No, this isn't rugby.

Here are my thoughts on Suh and the old days of violent football:

Guru is right about Suh's actions being rather tame compared to some of the violence that went on on the field in the 1970s (particularly when the Raiders were involved). However, I don't think a direct comparison is the beginning and end of it.

Suh's actions wouldn't have even drawn a flag "back in the day". But an important thing to recognize is that, back in the day, both sides were playing the same game. Those were the rules of the day, and everyone was free to participate in the rough play. One guy playing outside the rules and roughing up players who are restraining themselves to not draw flags from retaliation is a different thing than two guys "back in the day" going to war against each other after the whistle.

Also, the NFL was more like a side job for most players in that era. Today, it is a 12-months-a-year job and it is a player's sole means of earning money for themselves and their family. As a result, extracurricular rough play will rightfully be looked on more sharply than back when guys played football a few months a year and then worked their normal blue collar jobs the rest of the time.

Along those same lines, everyone back then pretty much worked for peanuts. This situation was a multi-million dollar player, who takes the fine without so much as a blink, roughing up a player who is making less than the veteran minimum. The NFL's fine system is ridiculous, in that it doesn't scale for salary at all, so it is a deterrent for marginal players while completely ignorable for highly-paid stars.

Finally, we are now seeing what blows to the head are doing to those old players later in their lives. Everyone is understandably more sensitive to those issues now, and a monstrously sized guy trying to slam another player's head into the turf is going to offend those sensibilities.

I wouldn't even go that far back. Back in the Buddy Ryan days I saw some things that these days would draw lifetime suspensions lol. Even Reggie White would sometimes just beat someone because hey he could and intimidating the other guy was a big part of his game. Ironic since off the field he was the nicest guy...but when he played football he became almost a different person.

Football is a violent game where ego and intimidation still mean a great deal...all for Suh getting a penalty but I felt kicking him out was extreme. But I felt the first ejection was uncalled for also

TheGameguru wrote:

Football is a violent game where ego and intimidation still mean a great deal...all for Suh getting a penalty but I felt kicking him out was extreme. But I felt the first ejection was uncalled for also

I'll agree with that. There were plenty of unnecessary penalties in that game, but, according to whoever was commentating, that crew pretty much throws flags all the time. Any other crew and Suh probably wouldn't have been ejected, however it was probably the earlier ejection that affected that decision. Perhaps.

Regardless, I still think the sissy commissioner will suspend him. Or, at the very least, fine the crap out of him.

Doesn't he already lose a game check for being ejected? At his salary that is probably at least a few hundred grand in a 'fine' already.

I believe Goodell's intention is to turn football into more of a "finesse" game in his belief that this will further expand the NFL's popularity here and overseas. I can't say he is wrong as he may very well be correct in the end.

I do believe that as a side note player (and QB) safety comes along for the ride.

TheGameguru wrote:

I wouldn't even go that far back. Back in the Buddy Ryan days I saw some things that these days would draw lifetime suspensions lol.

Well, Ryan was one of the last vestiges of that sort of rough play by the late '80s, and by the time he was coaching the Arizona Cardinals, it was mostly gone from even him.

Things began changing in the late '70s. The NFL consciously moved away from the grind-it-out brutal game to being pass happy and a lot, well, softer.

Rule changes:
1976: Facemask grabbing outlawed, spearing outlawed
1977: Head slap outlawed, hands to the face outlawed
1978: The birth of the modern passing game: 5-yard chuck rule, extended arms now allowed in blocking

It is no coincidence that Bill Walsh began a dynasty only a couple of years later. That is the point where the game went from teams like the Steelers and Raiders beating the sh*t out of everyone, to the game where pass-first teams like Bill Walsh's began throwing the ball with relative impunity. The culture of the NFL was flipped on its head. After that, guys like Ryan were old school holdouts rather than the norm.

RozelleBall was the precursor to PolianBall.

Lions
49ers
Bears
Saints

Wildcard: Steelers over the Chiefs

Bruschi is such a tool and a phony.. he rails against Ocho Cinco twittering during the beginning of the year.. and yet he sucks up and generally fawns over Gronkowski.

TheGameguru wrote:

Bruschi is such a tool and a phony.. he rails against Ocho Cinco twittering during the beginning of the year.. and yet he sucks up and generally fawns over Gronkowski.

Maybe he's just racist.

Okay, who had Arian Foster making a turnover before Matt Leinart?