Looks like Shaun Rogers’ injury is a minor ankle tweak. Whew.
I know I can’t shut up about Rogers on these boards but he is seriously the most fun football player I’ve ever watched. Maybe except for Vick. He’s superhuman half the time. Who’d have thought a nose tackle would be more fun and exciting to watch than a star receiver, quarterback, or running back? But he is. I don’t know how the Lions got rid of him - it should be looked at as one of those historically bad trades.
My favorite moment with him - I can’t remember what team it was last year, but it was somewhere around week 10-14… when the wheels had already come off and he had no real reason to care… he was ripping up the other team’s center/guard double team so bad that they actually began to triple team him with the center and both guards.
Their quarterback drops back, the offensive tackles both go outside to handle the DEs, and all you have in the middle of the line Shaun Rogers, a 260+ pound center, and two 300+ pound guards with their hands on him. He did not split the triple team, working his way through the gaps - they had their hands on him solidly. So he hulked out and simply drove the 800+ pound mass of professional athletes in front of him backwards. The entire triple team just got knocked back like a 200 pound RB trying to block a 280 pound DE. Dealing with his center and guards being pushed onto his feet, the quarterback just threw the ball away.
Edit: Oh, and I remember how he was traded to the Bengals for like a day, before everyone involved said “Oh, lol, the bengals” and cancelled the trade.
The ESPN radio affiliate in Philly is reporting that the Eagles’ starting MLB, Stewart Bradley (who was ready to become one of the better MLBs in the NFC) is likely out for the season with a torn ACL.
That’s super sweet, even though a Bengals cake should be about two steps up from a Lions cake, which should be a giant turd, covered in blue and black sprinkles.
Yeah, you were totally right. It’s utterly bizarre to me that your team would get rid of him - he must’ve been the only good thing they had going. He should’ve gotten serious consideration for DPOY last year, but those are popularity contests that require you to be on a good and/or popular team.
“When properly motivated” … I’m not sure what his motivations are, but my team sucked ass through most of last season and he was playing well throughout. If he can still put forth effort when the team hasn’t put up a touchdown in 6 games, I’m not sure what would cause him to dog it.
Your franchise must’ve been an even greater hole of suck!
Edit: Another favorite moment. During one of the games the Browns randomly ran the UFO defense for one play - the D-line and linebackers all just sort of randomly scrambled around. When the ball was snapped, Rogers was standing over the right tackle and just got a running start at him. I thought that was just mean, like it should be banned in the rules of warfare or something. They should do that more often… give Shaun Rogers a running start at a random O-lineman depending on when the ball is snapped, like musical chairs…
He was a bit of a malcontent in the locker room and we looked poised to lose him via free agency. The worst thing is that we didn’t get fair value for him, and with his lack of motivation, we couldn’t have.
Don’t forget. Barry Sanders quit the Lions via fax 10 years ago on the eve of training camp, so yeah.
Could you imagine Mr. Rogers in a top-5 defense? Baltimore? New England? Philly? Indianapolis?
Okay, maybe not. But Rogers is almost a top 20 defense by himself. If I had to pick between Denver’s starting 11 to be on the field, or Rogers… I’d go with Rogers.
With coach creampuff out of the way, we’re going to see a pretty substantial improvement in Cleveland’s defense. Top 5, no, but possibly top 15.
You know how these things go. Optimism during training camp, heartbreak during the season. Mr. Rogers was worth at least one win to us in the previous year, I think that’s certain.
Maybe you’re a perpetual 0-16 team that’s been winning 4-6 games a year due to the Herculean efforts of Rogers
Actually, I shouldn’t be so mean, Detroit fans have gotten a raw deal and are still pretty good. In fact, if you didn’t have that pussy dome on your stadium, I’d probably respect your franchise as an old school franchise with fans that stick with the team through huge adversity.
I hate Ford Field. It’s a concert venue made up to be a football stadium. There’s no home-field advantage there. I can have a conversation with the person next to me without having to scream on 3rd and 1, which I have no business doing.
Respect the team and the fans (okay, just the fans), but Ford Field is bad.
You really think so? I’ve never been to a Lions’ game there, but I’ve been to several Motor City Bowl games (BC v. Toledo, CMU v. Purdue and CMU v. Middle Tennessee State) and thought it was a great place to see a game.
In NE, there was briefly a rumor about the Pats bringing in Vick as a backup to Brady, but that seems to have been quickly squashed. Now the speculation is that they will bring in Cleo Lemon, who worked out for the team Friday. This Globe article suggests that the existing backup - Kevin O’Connell - is still the #2 to beat, even with Lemon.
In other news, everything I hear is that Brady looks like Brady (i.e. very good). Personally, I’ll believe it when I see it on the field.
I’m interested to see how the Pats backfield shapes up this season. The Pats have been favoring a committee approach recently, whether on purpose or due to injury, I don’t know. They certainly don’t seem to have a standout feature back this year either, unless Maroney finally gets over the injury bug and breaks out (possible, if unlikely). I suspect that it’s going to be a situation where they put in certain backs against certain teams based on game planning, making it impossible for fantasy owners (Not that you’d necessarily want a NE running back on your fantasy team anyway).
(Not that you’d necessarily want a NE running back on your fantasy team anyway).