Now that Indy and the Redskins have thier one estra preseason game done with, we can move on to the next phase of looking forward to real football, the preseason. Each team will now play four games against other squads made up of mostly members who are looking for work with the NFL team whose jersey they are wearing. Sightings of actual NFL starters will be rare and followed by loud cheers from the crowds and, perhaps, the occasional XL-size pair of panties being thrown onto the field.
Of course the fan who threw said panties will be ejected from the stadium and banned from attending any more NFL games, according the new NFL code of conduct for fans. The overwhelming success of the NFL’s code of conduct for players must have been the impetus for putting this together. Of course, teams will also be able to add to this code, and I believe Miami is looking at allowing beer bottles to be thrown at fans wearing jerseys of teams within the AFC North, as long as those bottles are plastic. After all, it is probably cheaper for them that way to find a person who can actually hit another person from any distance and give them a tryout for quarterback.
I digress, let’s get to FanYard and the Yardsticks for these games. There is one that really stands out to me, and that is the one that has New England favored by ten points over the Baltimore Ravens. Bill Belichick cares not about the preseason, while the Ravens have a new coach who needs to show he belongs, not unlike the situation we just saw in the Hall of Fame game where Tony Dungy had nothing to prove and the Redskins had a new coach looking to prove his mettle. Don’t be surprised to see the ravens walk away with their heads up in this game.
Oh yeah, and Brett Favre is now a New York Jet, in case you’ve been in a coma and just woke up to find yourself here.
Only four weeks left until football!!!
Last Sunday, July 27th, the Arena Bowl was played between the San Jose SaberCats and the Philadelphia Soul. At FanYard, the Yardstick called for a 6-point Soul victory and we were rewarded with another win when the Philly team took the Championship with a four-point win.
With his pick of Philly to win by six, The Viking cemented his place at the top of the 2008 AFL Leaderboard for the season, with a total of 2950 points, 120 more than his closest rival this season, Ralph Grunz. Although he actually picked fewer games, The Viking’s overall wins were closer to the actual outcomes and gave him more overall points for his 63% winning picks rate.
A huge congratulations to The Viking for his prowess at picking games even in the adversity that is Canadian television and the lack of choices or possibilities to be had in the Great White (but turning green quickly thanks to global warming) North when it comes to viewing any AFL games.
FanYard looks forward to this battle again next season. Join FanYard and, as The Viking says, “Now for the NFL!”
NFLPA head honcho Gene Upshaw has fired back at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, calling his statements about the idiocy of over-the-top rookie contracts…you guessed it, “ridiculous.” Personally, I think both men should have a better look at the meaning of words they choose to use in a fashion that both must know will get printed in readable items all over America and beyond.
Ridiculous, according the some famous dictionary, means arousing or deserving of laughter. I’m pretty sure not very many people actually find the whole thing very funny. If anything, it pisses them off. Then again, many of these same people don’t seem to mind at all that movie stars get millions of dollars for each film they do, and many stars make a bunch of films each year. Who knows? Maybe the current thought is that it is much easier to be an athlete than to be an actor. At least athletes are taking some sort of personal gamble each time they suit up.
Whatever the case, the fact is that as sports continue to grow as a money-making enterprise, there is more money that will go to the owners if it does not reach the players. Right now, NFL players make 60% of the revenue brought in by the game they are playing. Owners think that is too much. Players, of course, do not.
All I hope is that they work out a deal before this soon-to-get-very-dirty fight leads to a lockout that cancels a season. It happened in hockey a few years ago and I have not bothered to go back and watch that sport. I am Canadian, and to think I would not watch the game I grew up loving anymore was unthinkable. It was a ridiculous notion; one I would have laughed at. Scoffed even…until the lockout and season cancellation occurred. That was two seasons ago and know what? I do not miss it one little bit.
Listen, if a lost season happens in football, I’ll leave it, too. And that does not strike me as very effing funny at all.
In the meanwhile, you still have FanYard!
What a way to start this blog up again in anticipation of the 2008 NFL regular season kickoff! As always, I checked in at our friends over at Football Jabber. This time, they have on their home page a video of the final minute or less of January’s Super Bowl upset, when Eli Manning and his New York Giants drove downfield to stun the until-then perfect New England Patriots.
Still shaking my head in disbelief, I resign myself once again to the very exciting fact that no one ever knows how any NFL game is going to turn out, and also to the fact that football and hubris never mix very well for the team that has that label hung around their necks.
The Pats were too confident and cocksure going into the final game of what could have been the most magical season any NFL team has ever had, and the rest of the NFL had best hope they did not learn their lesson. We’ll see.
Now, with the NFL draft done and offseason camps in full swing, we here at FanYard will be gearing up to give our users as many tools as possible to make us the very best site in the world to make and keep track of picks all season long.
Soon, we’ll be showing you the results of how the Yardstick compared with the picks of the experts at ESPN, Yahoo and CBSSportsline. Only one of these experts beat the aggregate picks of our users and that was Mark Schlereth, who was a guard on three Super Bowl winning teams and made the Pro Bowl twice during a great 12-year career with the redskins and the Broncos.
We hope this offseason is turning into a pleasant and profitable one for all.
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