Is it NFL season yet?

[R_of_G]

With some of the moves the Jets made (before last night) in this off-season I was already looking forward to this season. After last night, I could not be more ready for the season to get under way. I'm not about to make any predictions in August about a season that hasn't started yet, but I can say one thing for sure... the Jets chances are significantly better with Brett Favre than with Chad Pennington which makes the acquisition worthwhile to me.

[just strum]

With some of the moves the Jets made (before last night) in this off-season I was already looking forward to this season. After last night, I could not be more ready for the season to get under way. I'm not about to make any predictions in August about a season that hasn't started yet, but I can say one thing for sure... the Jets chances are significantly better with Brett Favre than with Chad Pennington which makes the acquisition worthwhile to me.

Browns vs Jets tonight - preseason doesn't mean crap, but it's that time again.

Big hopes for the Browns and that usually spells JINX here in Cleveland. We'll see.

[R_of_G]

I definitely think the Browns should be able to compete for a playoff spot this year. I was really impressed with Anderson as a QB last season. Hopefully for you guys he can build on that success. I'd be glad to see anyone other than Pittsburgh come out of that division. I hate the Steelers.

[Bloozcat]

GO BROWNS

[luvmyshiner]

The Cowboys are crankin' it up Saturday at 9:00.

[piebaldpython***]

Hey Shiner, is the Cowboy's JINX mascot, Jessica Simpson, going to be "practicing" her JINX pout in the stands???????

Hey R of G; nice catch getting Favre last nite. The Packers had to unload him. He made that a MESS all by himself.

[just strum]

The Cowboys are crankin'

Isn't that a drug term? We should bet on which team has the most arrested players beginning Sept 1 - until the Super Bowl.

[R_of_G]

Hey R of G; nice catch getting Favre last nite. The Packers had to unload him. He made that a MESS all by himself.

I blame the Packers, not Favre. He had the right to come back if he felt he was physically able. From what I've read, it was the team that forced him to decide on his retirement before he was ready to make a definitive decision. If he changed his mind, the fault lies with the team for rushing him. Once he did decide to play, it's the team decided to immediately name him a backup to an unproven Aaron Rodgers. Given all that Brett did for that team, the least they could have done was allow him to compete for the starting job. Once they told him that wouldn't happen the guy had every right to demand a trade. I'm just happy he wound up with the Jets.

[TS808]

I definitely think the Browns should be able to compete for a playoff spot this year. I was really impressed with Anderson as a QB last season. Hopefully for you guys he can build on that success. I'd be glad to see anyone other than Pittsburgh come out of that division. I hate the Steelers.

Hey, I'm a lifelong Steelers fan!! Unfortunately, I think my Steelers are going to have less than a stellar season.

With the loss of Alan Faneca to the Jets, a sub-par center, and iffy offensive tackles, Big Ben and Willie Parker are going to take a beating in the backfield. The defense should be decent, but Casey Hampton reported to training camp SO overweight, he's been put on the "physically unable to perform" list, and Aaron Smith is coming off an injury that put him out for the entire season last year.

Plus, Pittsburgh has the toughest schedule in the league this year, so I'm predicting an 8-8 season. If they are lucky, 9-7. They'll beat the Browns twice , but other than that, it's a toss up season.

[just strum]

Plus, Pittsburgh has the toughest schedule in the league this year,

From Browns Town

[marnold***]

Hey! The Lions won a Totally Meaningless Game (tm).

[Bloozcat]

Well, I think there is enough blame to go around, although it did start with Favre himself.

If you just step back away from the emotion and look at what the Packers just gave up, their actions are astounding.

< Favre just came off one of his best seasons of his 16 year career.
< Favre was #2 in the MVP balloting.
< Favre led the Packers to the NFC championship game last season. While he didn't play particularly well in that game, he still got them close enough that a few plays could have changed the outcome of the game.
< Favre, despite being 38 years old, is still considered to be one of the premier quarterbacks in the league, and maybe the best in the NFC.
< Unlike a lot of aging Pro Bowl quarterbacks of the past, Favre's abilities erroded little, if at all, in his last year of play with the Packers.

Nothing had changed at all in Packer land since last year except in the minds of the Packer front office. From the end of the season last January until the beginning of this saga, there hadn't been:

< One scrimage played...
< One game played...
< One snap taken by any quarterback other than Favre...
< One loss or win by any quarterback other than Favre...

So, before this whole theater of the bizzare ended, the only thing that had changed was the attitudes of the players in this drama. Favre couldn't make up his mind, which annoyed the Packers management. He "committed" to retirement, then wanted to come back and play for the Packers. The management of the Packers was "committed" to moving in a new direction (even though there was not one actual manifestation of that committment yet exercised). In effect, the stalemate came down to what appears to the emotionally unattached outsider, as a fourth grade playground spat between two immature kids. As adults, both sides should have buried their egos, and made the decision that would give the Packers the absolute best chance of a winning season. It's not hard to figure out what that course of action should have been. A 16 year veteran of the NFL who's still at the top of his game, or an unknown quantity who's yet to start an NFL game. A proven commodity, or an unproven commodity with potential. The choice seemed pretty simple to a lot of folks, inside the NFL world and out.

Just let Aaron Rogers flounder a bit, throw an interception, make a bad call, or worse yet - lose a game - and the cries from the Packer fans for the heads of Mark Murphy and Mike McCarthy will be deafening. The only party in this drama that I feel sorry for is Aaron Rogers. He's handled this like a real pro, and he certainly shouldn't be blamed for not being Brett Favre...Mark Murphy and Mike McCarthy should be because they could have still had Brett Favre.

[marnold***]

As a Lions fan living in the heart of Packerland, I have to say that both sides deserve criticism. Favre has been around the league long enough to know that you can't wait until the middle of July to decide if you want to play or not. The Packers handled this ham-handedly too. However, I believe things would have been worse for the Packers had he returned. At best they'd get a year or two more out of him (with all the drama of the past several offseasons). Plus Rogers' contract would run out so suddenly you have no plan once he finally does retire at all. If they get the 95 QB rating Favre from last year, it's worth a shot. If they get the 70 QB rating version from the previous two years, it's not. People are awfully quick to let him off the hook for the playoff-crushing INTs against the Eagles and last year against the Giants, where he pretty much singlehandedly kept the Pack out of the Super Bowl.

I must admit that I felt slightly sad seeing him hold up a Jets jersey. It wasn't supposed to end like that. At least its better than how Sanders left the Lions.

[piebaldpython***]

Yep, blame goes to both sides. With Favre "retiring", the Packers went into the draft with a different side of ideas than if he said he was most likley coming back. So, it screwed up the Packers and I guess they got their backs up because they felt the draft was a WASTE, because Favre came back.

[R_of_G]

At least its better than how Sanders left the Lions.

I'm quite sure it's much different from your perspective as a Lions' fan, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for Barry and his decision to leave when he did. Like Jim Brown before him, Barry went out at the top of his game. I don't remember the specifics of exactly how he went about it so there may very well be some issue that I don't know about, but I've always wished more players would do what he did and walk away before we had to see the downside of their careers.

As for which Favre the Jets will get, even the 70-rated QB is a VAST improvement over Chad Pennington. One thing Brett will do for them is force defenses to play pass protection further than 15 yards which will open up the running game. Thomas Jones got a lot of criticism last year for not being the stud running back he was with the Bears, but defenses knew they didn't have to worry about the medium to long range passes so they could stack the box and bring a couple of DB's up to stop the run. With Brett that won't be an option.

[Bloozcat]

I think the Jets will get an adequate to good quarterback performance from Favre. A big factor in any quarterback's success - especially one who's played for the same team for 13 straight years - is his familarity or "comfort zone" with the team he's playing with. Things that Favre could do almost instinctively with the Packers, won't neccessarily be there with the Jets. It's hard to replace that kind of familiarity in one season, and Favre doesn't have much time to get into that kind of groove. One bad season, especially if he get's beat up, will likely be it for Favre. It's hard to have fun playing pro football when your losing and your 38 year old body is taking a pounding.

The Jets will gain efficiency at QB only because they were so bad at that position before. The Packers on the other hand, are likely to lose efficiency at QB with the loss of Favre. After all, there is a whole team there in Green Bay that is going to be out of the Bret Favre comfort zone as well.

Time will tell...

[just strum]

What a crappy ending - good thing it's pre-season.

[marnold***]

My gripe wasn't with Sanders per se, except for his timing (he abruptly quit right before training camp). It was just that the Lions management was so brutally incompetent that Barry would much rather walk away than get the rushing records that were well within his grasp. It was a real gut punch because we were reminded of how hopeless things were in a brutal way and now we wouldn't even have Barry to watch.

Of course Millen is so awful that he makes the Schmidt (and Thomas) regimes in Detroit seem like the glory days.

[Bloozcat]

My gripe wasn't with Sanders per se, except for his timing (he abruptly quit right before training camp). It was just that the Lions management was so brutally incompetent that Barry would much rather walk away than get the rushing records that were well within his grasp. It was a real gut punch because we were reminded of how hopeless things were in a brutal way and now we wouldn't even have Barry to watch.

How many examples of myopic management have we seen in the NFL?

Look at all those years the Miami Dolphins wasted when they had Dan Marino. In all the time he played, the Robbies couldn't come off the money and get him a decent running back or two to relieve some of the pressure on him? And what about a defense? No, they put all of the burden on Marino's arm. It just proves the point that football is a team game, and no matter how good and how dominant a skill player is, he can't win it all himself.

If Parcells had been the GM back then, and had the carte blanche he has now, the Dolphins would have been multiple Super Bowl champs.