The 2009 NFL Offseason

[JaMarcus Russell's #1 Caucasian Fan 0]

Believe it or not, the Raiders have a national following. Two storied franchises going at in on Thanksgiving, what else could you ask for. I don't think it's that bad.

 

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

One of those franchises to have fielded a competitive team in the last 5 years?

[jimmy no nose 0]

NFL Rule changes for the year:

 

No blind hits or blocks to the head

No contact to the head of a "defenseless receiver"

No more than five players bunched together on an onside kick

No more "wedges" on kickoffs.

 

First one's reasonable enough. The second one I thought was already a rule, but I guess just leads to a ton more flags any time a guy's head even gets touched. I'm not quite sure what the third one means, and the fourth seems completely insane. Doesn't that completely change the way every single kick return ever has been blocked?

[JaMarcus Russell's #1 Caucasian Fan 0]

Point taken, but I'm tickled to see my favorite team on Thanksgiving, regard less of record.

 

Anyways, since when is it a rule that the Thanksgiving game has to be good? More often then not its boring anyway. I just use the game for background noise.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

I was just fucking around. My team sucks and I have to watch them get massacred in the first Monday Night Football game of the year against a team they can't beat...ever.

 

Hooray!

[Just John 0]

What the hell is the point of banning wedges on kickoffs?

[Mike wanna be 0]

What the hell is the point of banning wedges on kickoffs?

To ban the kamikazes that sprint down the field as wedgebreakers, apparently.

[Czech please! 0]

Apparently the wedge causes a lot of concussions. So does the rest of the game of football. Maybe we should just let the teams negotiate where drives start. 24 sound reasonable to you? Well why don't we just let you start at our own 1, for the love of God. Fine, 20? Sounds good to me. Think I can get you up to 21? Don't hold your breath. 20 it is? 20 it is. Break!

[jimmy no nose 0]

I can't wait until kick returners just start getting injured like crazy. The whole play is two teams running full speed towards each other, I don't know how you make it safe.

[Smues 0]

On PTI they said the owners want to expand to an 18 game season, which would also push the Superbowl to President's Day weekend. Thoughts?

 

My opinion is fuck a bunch of that 16 is a fine number, the league is profitable, they don't need 2 more games of money. And a 16 game season takes enough out of the players as it is.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

If it means wiping out two ridiculously useless preseason games I'm all for it.

 

[Hitler Cubano 0]

I'm in favor of anything that gives us more football, certainly. Preseason is necessary, but I think teams should still get into training camp when they do. My only concern is definitely just where these extra games are going to come from without expansion. Extra inter-conference games would be kind of annoying. Football has the shortest season out of all the major sports- we only get to enjoy it from about 4 months, including playoffs (Sept.-Jan.), and they're off hopefully training or in preseason the other 8. Compare that to baseball which starts at the beginning of spring, goes all through summer, and ends in the middle of autumn, just taking the winter off, or basketball which only gets the summer and beginning of autumn off. Then again, adding more games just takes a bit more meaning out of each individual one, and not every team would profit (in fact, franchises like the Bengals or Lions would probably lose more money in operating costs) so I hope they think over the implications of that.

[2GOLD 0]

 

Preseason is needed. Preseason ticket prices are NOT needed. A preseason game where you might see a starter take a SNAP, should not be anywhere near the same price as a regular season game. It's screwed in the head. I understand you know there are a lot of guys fighting for a job in the preseason, guys from the late rounds who aren't getting on the team from doing workout drills. But to ask me, the consumer and fan, to pay 100 dollars to see them fight for it? Against a bunch of other guys who the Arena league wouldn't answer the phone for? No thank you.

 

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

They don't need 4 preseason games. Two of them are treated as jokes anyway. Especially the last one. If you need 3 quarters of garbage time against other garbage players to choose between the last 3 guys on the roster who won't even make the active gameday roster, and the 3 that wont...you aren't a very good coach.

[Smues 0]

What's so great (see: not great) about those pre-season games that cost so much is that as far as I understand most teams require season ticket holders to buy pre-season tickets too. I could be wrong on that, but I think it's true.

[sfaJack 0]

Yeah, I can tell you that teams DEFINITELY require season ticket holders to buy the preseason tickets.

[Just John 0]

What the hell is the point of banning wedges on kickoffs?

To ban the kamikazes that sprint down the field as wedgebreakers, apparently.

But won't the kamikazes just hit the kick returner now?

[Kageho 0]

I don't remember seeing this, but if I'm not mistaken, wasn't there a new rule change that a downed defender can't just go grabbing a player while downed? Like with what happened to Tom Brady? Damn, I'm terrible with names and I can't remember who it was that hit him.

 

Anyways, did that get passed or no? Because I think that could make a huge difference to defenders getting sacks and penalties for roughing the passer.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

I don't remember seeing this, but if I'm not mistaken, wasn't there a new rule change that a downed defender can't just go grabbing a player while downed? Like with what happened to Tom Brady? Damn, I'm terrible with names and I can't remember who it was that hit him.

 

Anyways, did that get passed or no? Because I think that could make a huge difference to defenders getting sacks and penalties for roughing the passer.

 

Correct, Flik. The "Tom Brady" rule now has it that the downed defender has to essentially stand up and try to tackle the guy in the thighs/mid-section I guess.

[Smues 0]

I also heard that there's another Tom Brady rule in that you can hit the QB in the legs or something. Damnit, my dream of seeing Brady go out two seasons in a row isn't looking likely.

[Precious Roy 0]

So if a rusher gets knocked down he can't make a grab at the QB's legs? That's a terrible rule.

[jimmy no nose 0]

You can still take him down by the legs, but you're not allowed to make a "lunging motion". Shouldn't there be a corresponding rule that an offensive lineman can't try to keep a player from getting up?

 

The more I think about that expanded "defenseless receiver" rule about defenseless receivers the more I think it's bad news for football. If a receiver goes over the middle and lowers his head it's a penalty every time. Obviously it's too dangerous for guys to just be leaving themselves open for helmet to helmet contact, but guys will figure out how to draw flags pretty easily.

[Mike wanna be 0]

16 vs 18: 16 games is fine. If you want to get rid of 2 preseason games, then do it...just make the regular season start in mid-August and give every team an extra 2 weeks of byes during the season.

 

Same season length extension for added TV income, less wear & tear on the players.

[jimmy no nose 0]

I saw someone suggest they do 18 and make it no interconference play like baseball used to be. 6 games against your division opponents and 1 each on alternating home fields against every other team in the conference, then the Super Bowl is the only meeting of the conferences. I'm sure that's not what they'll do though, so I see no reason to change anything.

[Hitler Cubano 0]

I hate that idea. I mean, I know I was just speaking against interconference match-ups, but those have provided us with some great games that we might not otherwise see. That's one of the things I hate most about baseball, honestly. There's a lot of teams I'd love to see play each other that might run into a horrible match-up in the playoffs and then we miss out on some particularly good action. If it's going to be 18 games, the season probably needs to be stretched out to 20 weeks instead, and give the players two bye weeks because 16 games is already proving to be enough of a toll on them.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

And it lives on...

 

"We may have [our Wildcat quarterback] in Stanback, but I want to be careful about taking away time from Stanback on his potential development as a receiver," Jerry Jones said.

[Kinetic 0]

I really don't see why it would be necessary to add two regular season games, as I really think that everything about the schedule is perfect as is. But if they were going to do it, I would also advocate stretching the season out to 20 weeks and giving each team an additional bye week.

[sfaJack 0]

And it lives on...

 

"We may have [our Wildcat quarterback] in Stanback, but I want to be careful about taking away time from Stanback on his potential development as a receiver," Jerry Jones said.

Because Stanback has shown a lot of ability to play receiver? Or stay healthy? Or do anything at all?

 

 

 

 

[Zetterberg is God 0]

There is a possibility the Chiefs might have to play all of their games on the road this year.

[Kageho 0]

Well, I was wondering if we could see a possible 0-16 team again cause Detroit's not done a thing to fix it. But this might make it a toss up now. Damn you Chiefs and making this require some thought.

 

...on a serious note, that sucks.