You’re right about the Jags/Titans. My bad. It doesn’t really change anything other than swapping them, though it makes the “Titans over Patriots” pick look extremely unlikely.
I don’t understand the middle part from the quote. Did you mix up the teams in one of the sentences?
As for the warm weather in San Diego – which may be blacked out in the home market since the mouthy whiners don’t have any actual fans – it’s supposed to rain. Greeny was goofing on the report this morning that they issued a “winter storm warning” which went on to describe the warned-about conditions as “chilly.” 50 degrees and rain; yeah, nice winter storm ya got there. It was FIVE FRIGGIN DEGREES this morning in Connecticut.
One encouraging sign for the Giants chances against the Bucs is the weather. The San Diego, Pittsburgh and Seattle forecasts all show rain during the games, but in Tampa it’s supposed to be a beautiful, dry, and sunny day in the 70s. (1:00pm kickoff)
The Giants have really had to contend with some shit weather for a while now, though the Patriots game was pretty nice. Before that, the two games against the Redskins and Bills were horrendous with the wind and just general shitty weather. How bad were those two games? Here’s the combined numbers for just the winning QBs in those two games:
15 of 40 (38%) for 277 yards, 0 TDs 2 Ints, Rating: 41.35
When those are the winning numbers, you know the conditions are fucked. When they finally got some decent weather in that Patriots game, we saw the result. I’m hoping that having a sunny, warm and non-windy game on Sunday will produce a similar offensive performance as we saw last week.
I’m rooting for the Giants and Seahawks, I like Dallas’s chances of beating them without Shockey more than the likelyhood of their beating Tampa or Washington.
I’d have thought the Giants would have the edge over the Bucs in crappy weather, since they’d be more used to playing in it. You may occasionally get a monsoon in Tampa, but it doesn’t get very cold for very long.
Ah yes, of course I meant that SD has been improving but Tennessee has been declining.
If it’s true about the SD game being a blackout - a 50 degree rainy day (OH MY GOD!!!) keeping SD fans away from the game would indicate to me that they don’t deserve a football team, let alone a very successful one.
I should probably just get over this, but from rotoworld
The original version had “an agreement” in place of “a communication”, which sounds more damning.
Just so it doesn’t get missed by anyone who may be interested, the deadline for entries to the Early Super Bowl Predictions Thread is tomorrow before kickoff off the first game.
The Redskins lost, fair and square. But what was the deal with that kickoff right after they went up 14-13?
I’d always thought a kickoff was a free ball. This kickoff bounced behind the returner, and a Redskin cover man plucked it out of the air and ran it in, seemingly for a TD, but they brought it back to the place where he grabbed the ball.
I believe it’s called a muff. And you can’t advance one of those. Why? I have no idea. I hope somebody knows the rational behind the rule because it’s always seemed strange to me also.
In this case, the receiving team did not touch the ball, so it’s not a muff. It’s just recovery of possession by the kicking team with the ball spotted at the point of possession. If it was a muff, then the kicking team could advance the ball just the same as if the receiving team caught the ball then fumbled it away.
The first play from scrimmage, TEN had its offensive line shift all the way to one sideline, leaving their QB and Center naked in the middle of the field. In response, SD shifted pretty much its entire defense over to line up against the TEN offensive line. You had about 20/22 players way off to one side, well away form the snap.
TEN snapped the ball and appeared to be executing some kind of screen pass behind the O-line. The play failed, incomplete.
What’s up with that?
Should the SD defense have shifted to match up against the TEN O-Line or should they have stayed put to swarm the now-unprotected QB, leaving the TEN O-line way out to one side of the field?
Well, the big problem of not shifting is that if the QB is in shotgun, that screen can kill you.
If he gets the pass off (maybe even making sure it’s a lateral so it can bounce), the reciever has a bunch of big guys blocking smaller ones down field.
I think if the Chargers don’t shift, and the pass goes off… it’s pretty much a touchdown.
I was thinking it would have been a good idea to shift halfway out to the Titan shift. When the ball is snapped, we could move unabated in front of the Titan shift and pickoff or block the pass.
Whatever… they only did it once and it didn’t work.
I’m happy that my Chargers won, but I think it’s a bit funny how people are saying this validates Norv, now that he’s won a playoff game where Marty couldn’t. That’s just because they had a bye last year. Norv has them in a position where they have to win in Indy and in New England to reach the Super Bowl; I hope they can do it. Marty had them in a position where they had to win home games against the same teams, and they couldn’t do that.
I’ll be cheering for them, but this just strikes me as odd.
The thing is that Marty was fired for his complete inability to win a playoff game. Since 94’s Super Bowl… we’ve had a handful of playoff games and never won one. Two games under Marty, but home games with us as favorites… both times our sphincters tightened up and we lost.
Norv has been brutalized all season long… but the playoff win vindicates him in that he has done what he was brought in to do. Win a playoff game. He was calm in the face of adversity, stuck with his plan and got us the win.
A muff does not change the status of the ball- it’s still a kick, and the kicking team cannot advance a kick. They may recover a kick, and recovery (touching) of any muffed kick is legal.
A.R. 6.8 A receiving team player first touches a free kick after a Try on the kicking team’s 39. The kicking team recovers on its own 38.
Ruling: Kicking team’s ball on its own 38. No foul as the ball was touched first by a
receiving team player. The ball is dead where it is recovered by the kicking team if it is muffed (no possession) by the receiving team.
I’m glad I’m not the only one; the logic escapes me completely.
On an only mildly related note, I’ve wondered for some time if it was possible for the kicker, on a kickoff, to get enough loft under the ball so (a) it would only go 30-40 yards forward in the air, but (b) have enough hang time to give the kicking team a chance to get to the ball before it landed?
My WAG is that if it were possible, it would quickly turn into a routine play on kickoffs, so the answer is probably no.
I’ve seen this tactic used as a surprise on-side kick. I think a similar idea was used in a recent college bowl game to keep the ball away from a dangerous return man, but it also was nearly taken by the kicking team.
I also want to note here that the recieving team can fair catch a kickoff, which I’ve seen done by astute up-men when faced with this type up short high kickoff.