Cheech Tremendous

I never said that I thought Harrington was Vick's equal at all. I said that the team would get similar results. They are both mediocre quarterbacks and I doubt that Atlanta would be competitive either way. EDIT: Czech beat me to it

I don't think Atlanta will be any better or any worse with Harrington at QB than they would have been with Vick. That being said, they are probably a six or seven win team. I don't see them as contenders, but anything is possible in the NFC.

The Pirates fired GM Dave Littlefield.

It's the National Enquirer. Are we really taking this story seriously?

Roger Clemens was named in the Jason Grimsley case.

Darko showing the fire and the passion.

Not trying to be reactionary after just one game, but that should be a wake up call to all those in the media that thought New Orleans was going to steamroll through the NFC right to the Super Bowl this year. Good coach. Good offense. Lousy, lousy defense. The team was okay last year in a weak conference, but they aren't a powerhouse and they probably aren't even a guaranteed playoff team (altough they should be the best team in the weak NFC South).

This is always a fun debate... I don't think there is any accepted consensus opinion on the lineage of the various world titles, but this is how I see it: The NWA title is the one currently held by Adam Pearce, and has no modern connection with any of the world titles in WWE. The board of the NWA, such as it is, sanction the NWA champion and they recognize Adam Pearce as NWA world champion. The WWF title is the WWE title, and the 'World heavyweight' title is simply the gold belt that Eric gave to Hunter and has nothing to do with the NWA title, the WCW title or the WWF title. The WWF and WCW titles were merged into the Unified title. When Brock Lesnar took it to Smackdown, it was subsequently renamed the WWE title, and so for me the WWE Title is still the merged WWF and WCW titles, simply with a new name. The 'World heavyweight' title on Raw is simply a title belt that came out of a suitcase and was given a fancy name. Because it looks like the old Big Gold Belt, some people take it to mean it's a continuance of the NWA or WCW title, but I don't see it that way. Whatever the NWA title was is strictly a part of the NWA and not WWE, and the WCW title is still part of the Unified title which is now called the WWE title. For me, the WWE title's lineage goes back to Chris Jericho, because it's still the renamed Unified title. The lineage of the 'World heavyweight' title goes back to when Eric pulled it out of the briefcase. I agree with all of this. Simply making a Raw belt and using the Big Goldy as the visual representation does not entitle the holder to the lineage of the title. The WCW title, created in 1991, was unified with WWF title by Chris Jericho and has since passed to Cena. The World title is a new belt, created in 2002 by Bischoff. There is no connection to the old NWA title.

VX, where did you find this? I must get it!

I just don't think that Oakland will be that bad. I don't see them making the playoffs, but I see a lot of 2-14 and 3-13 predictions in the media. It's hard to expect a team to be that bad. The defense was good last year and they should be even better this time around with a year to gel togehter. The coach, inexperience aside, is at least competent now and as long as the offense isn't the walking nightmare that it was, they should be able to put together 6-8 wins. The schedule is really easy.

What's your take on JD Drew's miserable season? Start of an age-related decline? Fluke underperformance that will correct itself next year? Hidden injury to protect his contract? Personal matters (his son's health)? What do you think his next four seasons will look like?

I really wish the Red Sox would have hung on to Carlos Pena. He would have solved that whole corner infielder/power bat dilemma they are facing next year.

Predictions: AFC West: Denver South: Indy East: New England North: Cincinnati Wild Card: Jacksonville Wild Card: San Diego NFC West: Seattle South: New Orleans East: Philadelphia North: Chicago Wild Card: San Francisco Wild Card: Green Bay Teams I like more than anyone else: Oakland, Houston, Buffalo, Washington, Green Bay, Atlanta Teams I don't like as much: San Diego, NY Jets, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kansas City

Tennessee sucks and they got smoked last year at Jax. I think we have a winner.

I only see one game on the schedule that I am remotely confident about and no one else here has even mentioned it. People picking road teams is baffling to me.

Football is by far the most popular sport in the US, but that's largely because it draws the casual fan better. It's more of a hunch than anything, but I think baseball fans are more die hard than football. Football has its popularity because it's an event. It's easy to get together for a Monday Night party, or go to the bar on a Sunday. Gambling is huge. Fantasy football is even bigger. But when it comes to the obsessive fan, baseball is probably still ahead. And that is likely reflected on a message board. I happen to love both sports (and basketball for that matter, too), but baseball is just far more interesting to talk about.

Czech, have you ever participated in a fantasy league? It seems that you have no interest in doing so, but I've had a lot of friends who thought the whole thing was stupid until they started playing. Fantasy sports are just a lot of fun. Then again, I'm not one of those douchebags who goes on and on about his team, or puts the success of players on his fantasy squad above the actual results of the games. I enjoy it in the sense of being my own general manager and trying to outwit my friends. It's great for bragging rights when it comes to bullshitting about sports. More than anything, my involvement with fantasy sports has reinvigorated my interest in sports. By the early 2000s I couldn't care less about football or baseball. Now I follow them year round and can name an unhealthy amount of players and their stats. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but I find it entertaining

baseball-reference.com brings me more joy than my family does.

Historically, knuckleball pitchers have much longer careers than normal pitchers. It is not that unusual to see one pitch into his late 40s (Hough, Niekro, Wilhelm, etc.). Tim Wakefield is just finishing up his age 40 season. Given his team friendly contract, good relationship with Boston and continued durability, it is not inconceivable that he might pitch another 5-8 years. If he were to manage to average 15 wins a year over this timeframe, which would be quite a feat given his history, he could conceivably end up with 300 wins. Is this even remotely possible or am I just talking myself into it? Could a 41 year old with 167 career wins be the next milestone guy? Would he/could he be a hall of famer?

Why does everyone misspell Clay Buchholz?

In as Vick's Rape Stand

It's nitpicking, but I don't think this is actually correct. WCW didn't sue because of the physical trademark, but actually over the "goodwill" of the belt. They had no issue with Flair keeping big goldy, but by showing up with the title he was assuming all history of the title with it. WCW claimed that the actual lineage and history of the title belonged with them and not to Flair. The reason I bring this up is that it's a good case study for debates over title belts and their lineages. The court ruled in favor of WCW, citing that they owned the goodwill associated with the title and that Ric Flair could not represent himself as having a title that represented that lineage. Hence the whole pixeling.

Chris Simms still has a chance to be something. The other guys just weren't that good. It had nothing to do with them starting too early. By the way, cutting Byron Leftwich is just stupid unless they know something that we don't. He's by far the best QB they have and him being healthy this year is one of the reasons I thought they might usurp Indy in that division.

I think after Chris Benoit they decided to go with real suspensions again for abusers of the policy (e.g. Jeff Hardy's recent suspension).

On a previous page in this thread, there was a description of every illegal substance each wrester was linked to. I think they all had at least one "steroid" they were caught with, but you can go back and check for yourself.