OvrOfficiousJerk

He can, since they are in the same market. That was the issue with Jacobs, and why Kroenke had to sell off the Nuggets/Avs before he bought the Rams. Edit: Real life example - Wayne Huizenga (sp?) owned both the Dolphins and the Marlins in the 90s.

I can see where you are coming from: the NFL official clock gives everyone involved, spectator and team alike, some degree of transparency. My issue of having a game clock that operates with :00 = GAME OVER is like having the chain system for first downs. The chains have the trappings of EXACTLY TEN YARDS to make everyone feel better. However, given the variability of how the ball is placed on any given spot, demanding such precise measurements seems pretty arbitrary. Your overarching point though is still valid -- too much power is placed in the hands of officials to decide a game. It was a minor miracle that we have goal-line technology at this World Cup, and I'm waiting for offsides to be decided similarly. If baseball can adapt with the times, soccer will too in its own time.

PTR, I made this point before, and no one really addressed it. Basically, except for hockey, all timing rules in sports are pretty bunk, and to call out soccer for having bad timing rules isn't really fair. You can run out of bounds in football in the first quarter and the clock keeps running; the time keeps running after a shot in basketball. BUT both these rules magically change for some arbitrary time in the fourth quarter? I'll admit the red card rule and penalty kicks are both rather quite draconian, but honestly every sport has issues with time keeping. I'd much rather let a ref let a couple seconds go to let an attack finish at the end of the game (because maybe someone took an extra second or two with a free kick or throw-in).

Which is why I'm not a huge fan of international games. If that were an EPL game, the Brazilian would've gotten a yellow for simulation without prejudice. Granted this is the biggest competition in the world, but I still maintain the EPL is better for those getting into soccer.

To be blunt our football is only watchable on DVR delay. Play --> review during commercial --> score --> review during commercial --> PAT then kickoff --> commercial --> next play. And this isn't boring how? For one, the Ravens game this year was absolutely painful. Institute instantaneous review from a war room in NY and cut the TV timeouts in half. Recoup the ad revenue with jersey and on the field advertisements. And to be honest the NFL should probably have jersey advertisements soon anyway; not sure if anyone saw the Sideshow Bob looking guy for Brazil today, but a team in Paris just bought him for roughly half the average NFL payroll (>$60mil). Lot of cash being tossed around over in Europe. The whole flopping canard is getting quite old. They've started to clamp down on diving in a lot of leagues, especially the EPL (which is top to bottom arguably the best in soccer, and is the only league worth watching regularly at this point). In regard to the timing thing, many of the sports we watch (hockey excepted) have convoluted timing rules that change depending on how much time is left on the clock. If a team is on the attack in soccer, the ref generally lets the play finish before blowing the whistle, which is fair when you think how arbitrary timing tends to be. That's my favorite argument in favor of the running clock. Don't get me wrong, bad soccer is pretty bad, but the best games are just as entertaining as football.

Ehhh.... Cleveland never really gets THAT cold. Been here since 2008 and this is the first time I've experienced temps consistently below 20 degrees (Jan/Feb 2009 possibly excepted), which what you'd need to crack the top 10 coldest games. Sure enough, profootball reference has Bills-Browns '07 game time temp at 31 degrees. But other than temperature jeez that game was brutal with snow. 2 FG and then Moorman having to bat the ball out of bounds for a safety. Funny thing is that ESPN the Magazine had a Bing advertisement with a panoramic of Brownies stadium flush with snow. You can barely make out the Bills away jerseys, but it's from that game. Saved the ad; probably the only time I use Bing.

I do like the prospect of a guaranteed late-season sellout in case of a terrible season. But Atlanta loses if that game's in Orchard Park, Bills stay in playoff contention and so that Miami game sells out. You always like to throw out the lack of December sellouts during the successful 90s when the capacity was clear over 80,000. But since the renovation made the capacity more reasonable you can't make that correlation. You can only really point to maybe Titans 2006/2011 and Jax 2012 as meaningful late-season games that weren't sold out. And if you consider sellouts like Brownies/Steelers 2004, Fins 2007, SF 2008 and ironically Rams 2012 (among a couple others), it really is a wash. Not gonna say December sellouts are guaranteed if the Bills are alive but you can't claim they aren't a decent possibility.

And sue people who question him. And sue grannies who get behind on their PSL payment. You can be passionate and involved without creating a circus and cult of personality around yourself.

Agreed. Along the same lines, in the college game, Tommy Rees and Joe Licata would clap their hands to snap the ball. And they didn't seem to even switch it up with a dummy slap now and then. Great idea fellas.

Yep, I've heard of Aereo. My interested blunted when I realized it was only available in select cities, but I have to imagine it's only going to grow. And another reason why the NFL's broadcast partners might have an itchy trigger finger to go cable is because Fox Sports 1 and CBS Sports Network are hanging on by a thread. As opposed to the other newcomer -- NBC Sports Network with NHL and EPL, among many others -- Fox and CBS only have token properties to populate those networks. I'll pass on the normal fare on CBS Sports Network -- Eastern Wyoming St. vs. Air Force -- but Patriots-Broncos? Yes please! On the other hand, the NFL is going to lose a LOT of leverage when it comes to blackouts and public funding of stadiums. If I'm dropping ~$130 per month to Time Warner Cable, I should be able to watch the Bills game regardless if it sells out. And if NFL games are no longer free for the public to watch in a team's market, why should the public pay for stadia? Aside from SF, NYC and Dallas, public funding is not going away anytime soon (see Vikings, Minnesota and Falcons, Atlanta). Ultimately, though, what might happen is a compromise where all home games may be over the air still subject to blackout while away games will be cable TV. But the best way for cable TV survive to the 21st Century is a weekly NFL explosion. All markets get all games. Instead of CSI: Cheektowaga reruns on TBS, how about NFL coverage? CBS already does that for March Madness (I don't think I've ever watched TruTV outside of NCAA tourney regionals), so there's already precedent for sports to take over these stations. Show the game of the week on CBS Sports Network and then in decreasing importance: TNT, TBS with the Bills-Jags clunker/Spero Dedes special on TruTV. I'd pay TWC double if that ever happened. Thanks for playing Direct TV, but Sunday Ticket's a dinosaur and the cable companies need some leverage to stay relevant. The NFL can provide just that.

And to that list I would add Cleveland; not that they don't care, but that threats don't happen. The NFL probably would bend the rules in their case because of the Modell robbery but each time I've been to Brownies stadium, I've been underwhelmed by the attendance. The crowd I saw in 2008 was pretty good (the year after they almost made the playoffs) but I've been to a game per year since then and there were blocks of empty seats every time. Once they got my phone number (after the US men's soccer game there, no less), they've been hounding me to buy tix. Yet, there hasn't been a threat of a blackout since 2009. I wouldn't be surprised if most NFL markets fudge their numbers, and I really don't hold it against Buffalo that the Bills have been close to blacking out.

Ehhh soccer does have a concussion problem, but it's not as major as football by any stretch. Women's soccer, maybe, but there are significant differences (both physiology and psychology) between male and female concussions. Here's some numbers to back it up: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22287642 Not sure how generalizable the data are, and if the journal is reputable, but saying that football is responsible for the majority of concussions in HS sports is a good reason why it should be singled out. Fan base is growing bit by bit. NBC paid Corleone money to get the English Premier League on its networks and it seems to be paying off decently enough. And in certain markets the MLS teams are doing quite well. Heck in Seattle the Sounders arguably outdraw the Mariners.

Thanks for the info. I always thought it was self-serving when ESPN would reference it in their reports and such, but I do agree its a better measure than the old passer rating. My only problem with it from a conceptual standpoint is that it marks a 50% dropoff from EJ to Thad, which I think is excessive, but maybe will dissipate as we see more from T-Lew. But I also agree by any quantitative - and qualitative - measure EJ is superior to Thad. For me, the question is how many games does Thad need to lose until you rush EJ back. Last year the Fighting Irish QB Everett Golson had a concussion during the Stanford game, and his backup Tommy Rees finished that game admirably. Next week ND were able to give Golson a week off without rushing him back and without a significant dropoff in QB quality, and I see some parallels with EJs situation as well

Does anyone outside of ESPN actually use QBR? Not a sarcastic question, just wondering if its gained traction among sports writers and other media outlets . Maybe Tim Graham has alluded to it, not sure. And also let's not forget the sample size on Thad is still n=2 for both the QBR and traditional passer rating (which has EJ at 79 and Thaddeus at 84). The 42-22 difference don't impress me much. Back to the original question at hand, I say Thad would really have to pull an upset in NOLA for me to even think twice about him starting for longer than he has to. And then I'm okay w EJ taking his time coming back.

And if we're discussing hockey realignment, I'd be pretty upset if the Sabres got realigned out of the Adams division. Mayday over the Bruins and nowadays the 2010 playoffs plus Chara; 06 and 07 playoffs w the Sens plus Chris Neil; Tie Domi/Darcy Tucker and the 99 cup run agst the Leafs; getting rolled by the Habs for the longest time until beating them in 98. I legitimately hate all of the Sabres division rivals. Those are rivals. The Jets? We happen to play them twice a year.