NFL 2017: Offseason / Pre-Draft

Enix wrote:

Some sort of short-armed monster who can't hit an open receiver, that's who.

I wouldn't throw QB shade at him at this particular point in time, his arm at least works.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Kirk Cousins once tweeted he was listening to Creed's Greatest Hits.

a.) They have greatest hits and b.) They're old enough to have them if they have them at all?

Edit: Blech, between this and finding out Paul Ryan's taste in music yesterday, my brain's been flooded with horrible and horribly dated earworms.

Owners approve of the Raiders' move to Vegas by a vote of 31-1. The lone dissenter? Miami. I guess they didn't want to have Vegas' reputation competing with South Beach.

The LA moves clearly made the whole concept of moving more palatable. There's no way it's a 31-1 vote if they were the first movers.

I have zero memory of when the Raiders moved to LA, but the reaction to this move to Las Vegas among Oakland fans sounds worse. And again, the idea of staying in Oakland for at least the next two seasons with the move in the works sounds colossally stupid. Do they not remember what happened in Cleveland when the original Browns moved to Baltimore? No one attended the remainder of their home games until the final one, where everyone proceeded to get so drunk like they were afraid Art Modell was going to take the beer with him and then proceeded to trash the stadium in a fit of drunken rage. Maybe the A's ought to get on with their new stadium plans because I'm not sure the Coliseum's going to be intact in early 2019.

The Oilers came to a bad end in Houston, too. I had left town by the time Bud Adams announced the move to Nashville, but I was still following the team, and the 1996 season (the team's last in Houston) was a sh!tshow, attendance-wise. It wasn't drunken outrage; it was more like you're-dead-to-me apathy.

If Wikipedia is correct (maybe it is!) the Oilers got 15,000 for their last home game in the Dome.

I don't think Raider Fan is going to wear apathy well, tbh.

I know 3 Raiders fans all up here that do a yearly trip to go see a game.

I haven't asked them yet but as fans that are not in Oakland but long time fans they must be conflicted.

Wouldn't be surprised if their yearly Raider game becomes an away game.

It sucks for Oakland fans in the sense they're losing the team, but it's great for fans in Oakland because they don't have to pony up a billion dollars for a stadium. Las Vegas is getting utterly screwed in this deal.

That might end up the worst home field advantage in football. Sure they will pull some so-cal fans who will drive the 4 hours back and forth to watch the game. But I suspect it will be mostly filled with away fans making a trip to Vegas to see their team and eat some crappy Bobby Flay food.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

It sucks for Oakland fans in the sense they're losing the team, but it's great for fans in Oakland because they don't have to pony up a billion dollars for a stadium. Las Vegas is getting utterly screwed in this deal.

Are they? I thought I saw that basically every hotel room costs $1.50 more a night so in reality travelers are paying for it not Las Vegas residents.

I think its a great move for LV.. Tourism will go up as many people make it long weekends to stay and catch a football game on Sunday. I agree Oakland though ends up a winner as they don't have to foot the bill for another Stadium only to be held hostage again before that stadium is paid off.

Rat Boy wrote:

Do they not remember what happened in Cleveland when the original Browns moved to Baltimore? No one attended the remainder of their home games until the final one, where everyone proceeded to get so drunk like they were afraid Art Modell was going to take the beer with him and then proceeded to trash the stadium in a fit of drunken rage.

You have to remember that it's Cleveland. That's the only way they can feel.

I'm not particularly happy to see the Raiders leave for Las Vegas, but four NFL teams in California seems a bit much. It would've made a ton more sense for the Rams to move to Vegas but call themselves Los Angeles Rams anyway. Or, better yet, bring the Rams to LA and move the Chargers to Vegas. Instead we now have three teams in LA, essentially: Chargers, Raiders and Rams. LAX is gonna be even busier, if that were possible.

These two tweets are interesting:

cube wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Do they not remember what happened in Cleveland when the original Browns moved to Baltimore? No one attended the remainder of their home games until the final one, where everyone proceeded to get so drunk like they were afraid Art Modell was going to take the beer with him and then proceeded to trash the stadium in a fit of drunken rage.

You have to remember that it's Cleveland. That's the only way they can feel.

Even when its the Raiders who suck the Browns still get dog-piled.

IMAGE(http://nextimpulsesports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/1295539310-sad-cleveland-browns.jpg)

garion333 wrote:

Friendly reminder that the Raiders increased ticket prices in Oakland 40% for next year, on their way out the door

Farewell tours are always an expensive ticket.

Las Vegas is probably the one city in the US where they could pay for a bazillion dollar stadium with a hotel/motel tax.

The Vegas stadium deal isn't such a horribad deal as you'd think because tourists, not locals, are paying for it. Plus the construction industry is going to see a lot of jobs here.

But as opponents point out, they could have used the money for schools or other public services, and Clark County Schools are horribly overcrowded.

But, hey, it's football. Gotta open your checkbook for that, right?

(To be clear, I think it's a lousy choice of how to spend tax dollars. Vegas residents won't pay higher taxes for this thing unless the tourist business bottoms out or revenue projections turn out to be bogus. In that case, Vegas Resident is screwed. It's also terrible public policy to give expensive sh!t to rich people.)

Enix wrote:

The Vegas stadium deal isn't such a horribad deal as you'd think because tourists, not locals, are paying for it. Plus the construction industry is going to see a lot of jobs here.

And the public is only paying for slightly less than half of the stadium. The Raiders and their private financing are in for the first billion. As critical as people are about public financing for stadiums, and rightly so, percentage-wise it is trending way downward. When you look at a lot of these '80s, '90s, early '00s stadiums, public financing is often extremely high.

Miami's owner voted against the Raiders moving to Vegas while sitting in a stadium that used 90% public money. Baltimore's stadium opened in 1998 using 90% public money, Tampa's the same year with 100%, Cincinnati's in 2000 using 94.4%, the new Mile High in 2001 with 68.4%, friggin' Paul Allen's Seahawks in 2002 with 69.8%.

Lately, you have San Francisco with only 12%, Minnesota looks like it was about 45% or so, Atlanta's probably around 20%, and the Los Angeles stadium will be almost entirely private. The trends are very much in the direction of smaller percentages of public outlay, even if those numbers in absolute terms are still large.

Rule changes for 2017:

Approved 2017 Playing Rules Proposals

​​2a. By Philadelphia; Prohibits the “leaper” block attempt on field goal and extra point plays.

The fact that landing on an offensive player was already a penalty meant this play was almost never viable.

8. By Competition Committee; Makes permanent the rule that disqualifies a player who is penalized twice in one game for certain types of unsportsmanlike conduct fouls.

This was coming after there were no real issues with it in the test run. Officials have discretion on what they flag as unsportsmanlike conduct versus some other personal foul flavor, so there's not much risk of having this go awry.

9. By Competition Committee; Changes the spot of the next snap after a touchback resulting from a free kick to the 25-yard line for one year only.

All touchbacks should be 25-yard line if any of them are. This is a baby step towards undoing the silly inconsistency they've introduced.

11. By Competition Committee; Gives a receiver running a pass route defenseless player protection.

This is to protect against high shots on catches on short pass routes, where the receiver is still within the 5 yard chuck range.

12. By Competition Committee; Makes crackback blocks prohibited by a backfield player who is in motion, even if he is not more than two yards outside the tackle when the ball is snapped.

Removes an exception on crackback blocks.

13. By Competition Committee; Replaces the sideline replay monitor with a hand-held device and authorizes designated members of the Officiating department to make the final decision on replay reviews.

NHL-style centralized replay. Frankly, if the whole thing isn't going away (which is what I would vote for), centralizing it and hopefully making it more efficient should at least reduce some of the pain. At the same time, I bet coaches aren't going to love calls being decided by someone out of yelling distance.

14. By Competition Committee; Makes it Unsportsmanlike Conduct to commit multiple fouls during the same down designed to manipulate the game clock.

A rule against this:

The new rule would put the time back on the clock.

15. By Competition Committee; Makes actions to conserve time illegal after the two-minute warning of either half.

Extends the 10-second runoff window from last minute of halves to last 2 minutes.

And some league bylaws and resolutions:

Approved 2017 Bylaw Proposals

4. By Competition Committee; Liberalizes rules for timing, testing, and administering physical examinations to draft-eligible players at a club’s facility for one year only.

5. By Competition Committee; Changes the procedures for returning a player on Reserve/Physically Unable to Perform or Reserve/Non-Football Injury or Illness to the Active List to be similar to those for returning a player that was Designated for Return.

6. By Competition Committee; The League office will transmit a Personnel Notice to clubs on Sundays during training camp and preseason.

Approved 2017 Resolution Proposal

G-4. By Competition Committee: Permits a contract or non-contract non-football employee to interview with and be hired by another club during the playing season, provided the employer club has consented.

You are against replay?

karmajay wrote:

You are against replay?

I don't consider human error from officials an evil that has to be stomped out.

Let the official make the best call he or she can and move on with the game.

Sport isn't "real". It's not like a missile strike where information had better be right. Blown calls are fine. Female Doggoing about them is part of sports. Dragging games to a halt to stare at tiny screens is worse.

I'm so tired of every big play in an NFL game having this delayed impact, where everyone stops and wonders if it's going to count or not. Then you watch NFL Films of some old game and something crazy happens and the official just makes the call and that's that.

Nothing better than a playoff game where a team wins but we have to sit around waiting for the officials to review it. The best!

I'm of a mind that the only place I care about accuracy is the end zone. Let's make it so we can tell if the ball breaks the plane or not with lasers, NFC or some other magic.

Other than that, I'm okay with human error. We wouldn't ever have a perfect game in baseball without human error from the umpires.

*Legion* wrote:
karmajay wrote:

You are against replay?

I don't consider human error from officials an evil that has to be stomped out.

Let the official make the best call he or she can and move on with the game.

Sport isn't "real". It's not like a missile strike where information had better be right. Blown calls are fine. Female Doggoing about them is part of sports. Dragging games to a halt to stare at tiny screens is worse.

I'm so tired of every big play in an NFL game having this delayed impact, where everyone stops and wonders if it's going to count or not. Then you watch NFL Films of some old game and something crazy happens and the official just makes the call and that's that.

Is there an infinity like button?

garion333 wrote:

I'm of a mind that the only place I care about accuracy is the end zone. Let's make it so we can tell if the ball breaks the plane or not with lasers, NFC or some other magic.

In the absence of replay elimination, I am in favor of technology that eliminates the agonizing delays.

I'm uncertain of how ball-breaks-the-plane technology will help though. Because the ball almost always crosses the goal line, the question instead being where the runner's knees are when it happened.

Replay is a good thing, because having critical games decided by blown plays sucks.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Replay is a good thing, because having critical games decided by blown plays sucks.

Meh. The Holy Roller should have been a penalty. The Immaculate Reception quite possibly should have been one too.

Replay didn't stop the Fail Mary from happening. There's no incarnation of replay that is going to make people stop feeling like they're "having critical games decided by blown plays".

The only thing it is 100% effective at is grinding games to a halt.

TheGameguru wrote:

Is there an infinity like button?

The funny part is that you didn't even give the post one Like.

I know you and I are on the same page on this one, you've said much the same thing on the subject before.

Meh I'm on the side of get the call right on easy things like out of bounds, fumbles and scores. Obviously, the real subjective stuff like interference has to be seen in real time because everything looks like interference in slo-mo.

I think rose colored glasses are used to much when talking about some "great" moments from old school.

TheGameGuru: If you are so ok with subjective calls I guess we won't ever see another post on Brady's tuck then, eh?

garion333 wrote:

Nothing better than a playoff game where a team wins but we have to sit around waiting for the officials to review it. The best!

I'm of a mind that the only place I care about accuracy is the end zone. Let's make it so we can tell if the ball breaks the plane or not with lasers, NFC or some other magic.

Other than that, I'm okay with human error. We wouldn't ever have a perfect game in baseball without human error from the umpires.

So you mean what didn't happen when the Pats won this year? ;D

Atlanta's new stadium is facing construction delays. As a wise man once said, "The more you overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

Even though it has been established that there is not any value in a 1st round RB any more, no way Cook is around at 19 for the Bucs, right?