Tag: NFL

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Sports

Crazy New Yorker!

Today was the coldest day of the winter so far here in Western New York. How did we spend it? Well, in the morning, we toyed with the idea of playing outside under the beautiful, clear, sunny skies… but eventually thought better of it. But later in the day, following the pregnant urges of my wife, I put on the parka and fired up the grill on our deck for the first time in a couple months! I was grilling hamburgers at temps in the low double digits!

Only in upstate New York, folks.

Speaking of NY… it is a complete shock to me that the Giants are in the Super Bowl. Complete. I mean, with each game I thought, “You know… they have a chance to win!” but really, in the end, no one thought they would be in the Super Bowl this year! And, even though I really don’t like the Giants, I will be rooting for them to finish what they started in week 17 and put the perfect exclamation point on the year for the Patriots and for them. They will be 12-1 on the road this year (winning 11 straight) and the Pats will go 18-0 … only to LOSE THE SUPER BOWL.

Man that would be awesome. And I don’t even like the Giants! 🙂

So, from the Frozen North.. here’s hopin’ the Giants can pull off one more major upset in the Super Bowl.

(Did I just say that????!!)

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Sports

NFL Playoffs Start With A Bang!

I have really just one favorite team in the NFL. It’s the Bills. Really I’m not even much of an NFL fan besides any game that directly impacts the Bills. However. I do have two other teams that I would say I almost always root for.

And one was playing tonight.

First are the Bills. Maybe #1-1000 are the Bills. But 1001 is the Bengals (with my roots being in Southern Ohio) and #1002 is the Jacksonville Jaguars… probably only due to some cool people we met down there who befriended our family on one of our tours who are HUGE Jags fans, and… well… I just like them.

Jacksonville has a great, balanced team. Probably the most complete team in the playoffs. No real superstars, but enough greatness to beat anyone. They were 11-5, but should have been 12-4. (Took the last game off.) And they can do it all. Stifling defense, solid, productive offense… even great special teams. And two fantastic running backs, along with the league’s 3rd rated QB this season.

And, it showed. Tonight they took a commanding 28-10 lead into the 4th quarter until on 4th down and 12 on the first play of the 4th quarter, the comeback began. Yes folks… an 18 point deficit was completely erased and the Jags were down 29-28 VERY late in the 4th.

But on 4th down and 2, with just about 2 minutes left in the game, Jags QB David Garrard calls his own number, and not only gets the first down… he gets THIRTY-TWO yards for a HUGE first down, and gets them WELL into FG range. Huge. HUGE.

This forced Pittsburgh to take their remaining time outs, and after getting the ball to the two yard line, Jacksonville set up for the go-ahead FG.

They made it!! Whoohooo!! Game ended with the defense forcing a Roethlisberger fumble, and the Jags move on… likely to face New England in round #2. Should be a much better game than you might imagine. Except that Belichek does just great with two weeks to prepare.

Anyway… fun start to the playoffs. I probably won’t see much if any of the other two games though. 🙂 Going to hang out with some friends tomorrow. Will probably have kid duty and just be catching up with them.

So… on to round two! Go Jags! 🙂

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Entertainment Sports

State Of The Union?

Patriots vs Giants

In a somewhat surprising move, the NFL decided to allow CBS and NBC to simulcast the Patriots vs Giants game that was scheduled to be broadcast on the NFL Network this Saturday night. The NFL is not known for its generosity, but the NFL Network is in such a small percentage of homes, and this game is of pretty significant (sports-world) historical significance, so it will be shown on all three networks.

New England coach Bill Belichick said, “It’ll be like the State of the Union, on every channel.”

If you’d like to read more, check out this article.

The Giants don’t stand a chance, but I would laugh for DAYS if they managed to defeat the undefeated Pats. They are the least likeable “great” team I have ever seen in my couple decades of sports fandom. They are arrogant, obnoxious, self-absorbed, and really just a bunch of jerks. Very hard to root for them. It’s hard enough to just stomach them at all.

That said, the Giants don’t stand a chance.

But, not many more people can watch the annihilation of yet another 2007 NFL team. And the unsportsmanlike taunting and gloating of another.

Great TV, eh?

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Personal Sports

Some Teams…

There are just some teams that I never like to see win. I know, I should root for a team instead of against the other one, but … that’s just the way it is.

Tonight I am rooting for probably my second favorite team, the Cincinnati Bengals, but it’s not looking good for them. The Steelers (one of those teams I never want to see win…) are getting lots of “homer” calls, and it’s pretty annoying. Probably wouldn’t be as annoying if I didn’t like the Bengals and so strongly dislike the Steelers…

Just so it’s in writing, here are the teams I always root against (and if they are both playing, I usually just don’t even watch the game!) 🙂 Steelers, Cowboys, Patriots, Giants, Eagles, and Ravens. So yeah, remember those two Super Bowls that featured Giants vs Ravens and Eagles vs Patriots? Didn’t see ’em. 🙂

There are some other teams in other sports, but since it’s primarily football season, I’ll leave it at that.

On a more positive note… my Bills did pull out a last-second, one-point victory today! Nice job, Bills!

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Sports

On Sean Taylor

The Bills play the Redskins this weekend, and the importance of the game has been seriously diminished by the killing of safety Sean Taylor. Taylor is one of the Redskins best players, leaders, and loved by all of his coaches and teammates.

A lot of people think that will motivate the Skins this weekend, but from what I have read, and especially heard and seen in press conferences and interviews, they are not thinking about football. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling the Bills will end up winning – maybe easily – and they won’t get the credit for it. The Redskins are definitely mentally and emotionally somewhere else.

There is a bit of “good news” regarding the murder. I found this article today which says that the police have charged three suspects and detained a fourth. The “good” is that they have the people who are responsible (and confessions from them) but it’s really sad that these guys are just teenagers. And, according to the story, were not intending to kill Taylor, just got “unlucky”.

Not sure I’m buying that.

So, it’s a really sad series of events, and certainly overshadows any of the fun of this game. It was going to be kind of fun, two 5-6 teams, Trent Edwards starting, London Fletcher playing against his old team, Derrick Dockery for the Bills doing the same… but sometimes there are things more important than football.

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Family Sports

Picks

NFL FootballThis season I have been asked to join a panel of “experts” in predicting the outcome of each week’s NFL games. So far I am in second place, behind my Buffalo Bills Review partner, Dave Drake, and another guy who are tied for first.

This week, after hearing the boys subtly add their voice to the discussion of my picks each week, I decided to let them in on it! So I made up little sheets for them to each make their picks and we’ll see who ends up with the best record by the end of the season. 🙂 (Actually, you might be surprised… there’s a good chance they will!)

It’s fun to see how excited they are about it 🙂

Even funnier was seeing how Alex changed a couple of his picks after announcing the games he was not going to get right – only to find out he could still change his picks up to kickoff time. 🙂 He’s pretty cute. He now assures us that he will go 16-0 this week.

The big game of course is tonight, where our Bills face the New England Patriots. Ian and I have our Bills winning in the end (good boy, Ian!) and Alex changed that one… which will of course help him go 16-0.

We’ll see!

Go Bills!

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Sports

Countdown To Opening Day!

Buffalo BillsI am writing a series of short articles for the Buffalo Bills Review highlighting what I think are probably the top four questions (at least, they are for me) heading into the 2007 season. Stop by our articles page to read them all. I posted the third of four articles today. I’ll link them individually below.

4: Can We Stop The Ru(i)n?
3: RB By Committee… Will It Work?
2: Moss & Chambers & Coles… Oh My!
1: Are We Too Young?

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Sports

BUFFALO BILLS FOOTBALL IS HERE!!!

Buffalo Bills Helmets
Yes that’s right… it’s officially here. The Buffalo Bills 2007 season begins tonight. The first official game, although technically “pre” season. They will play the New Orleans Saints on their home turf… on national TV! That means YOU can see it. It will be on CBS at 8pm EDT. I hope you’ll stop by and watch a bit. There are some exciting new players on this team.

We’ll be watching Marshawn Lynch, who will get a good number of carries/touches. We’ll be watching Paul Posluszny, our 2nd round pick, rookie LB. We’ll be watching DT John McCargo, coming off a bad foot injury. We’ll be watching new O-linemen Langston Walker and Derrick Dockery. We’ll be watching Trent Edwards… rookie QB battling for the back-up job. Should get a good bit of playing time.

But mostly we’re just happy to be watching!

The BILLS ARE BACK!

Go Bills!!!

Categories
Sports

Thurman Thomas in the Hall of Fame

Thurman Thomas and Marv Levy at 2007 Hall of Fame Enshrinement
If you missed it, Thurman Thomas was enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame this weekend! That’s fun stuff for Bills fans! Thurman was definitely one of the key elements of our FOUR CONSECUTIVE Super Bowls. He and Jim Kelly definitely deserve to be the first two from that team (besides Coach Marv Levy) to be added to the Hall of Fame.

There’s a bunch of great stuff about Thurman online… check out the article I posted tonight at BuffaloBillsReview.com. There are several links there including a couple to videos of his speech given yesterday at the NFLHOF in Canton, OH.

He was an incredible player, and it was fun to re-live the memories as I read the articles and watched the videos this week. Congrats, Thurman!

Categories
Sports

Two Days

Bills Fans
Are you ready for some football??? Man, we are!!! I can’t believe it, but by the time you are reading this, there are only TWO DAYS until the Bills start training camp! TWO DAYS!!! We’ll be heading out to see them practice on Friday with the Drake family (Dave of Buffalo Bills Review fame) and perhaps another friend or two.

There is always reason for optimism this early in the season, but have a look at some stuff on my Buffalo Bills site at some of the actual reasons for optimism. I might write one more article this week as the beginning of the season approaches, but for now there’s plenty of good stuff up there.

We’ll be starting up our show again if not this weekend, next weekend. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I encourage you too. We’re have some new segments planned, a new host or two, and we’ll hopefully be working in many interviews throughout the season.

Fun stuff! Football is almost here!!! WHOOHOO!!!!!