49er Fan

I was just responding to the point "[ben] has played HUGE in the big games, especially the Super Bowls."

Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson aren't better than Dan Marino and Jim Kelly....

Not against Seattle. The Steelers won in spite of Roehlisberger's play (9/21, 123 yards, 2 INTs). He did rush 7 times for 28 yards and a TD, but he was putrid in that game and they probably deserved to lose. Antwaan Randle-El threw the game-winning TD.

Arians is a top candidate, also look at Mike McCoy from Denver

No it's not! Last year was - see Griffin III, Robert; Luck, Andrew, Wilson, Russell. Tannehill and Foles are decent. Even Weeden is ok. You guys are drafting Te'o.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" Week 15: San Francisco @ New England Seattle @ Buffalo

49ers post-Mariucci: 2003 - 7-9 (Erickson) 2004 - 2-14 (Erickson) 2005 - 4-12 (Nolan) 2006 - 7-9 (Nolan) 2007 - 5-11 (Nolan) 2008 - 7-9 (Nolan, Singletary) 2009 - 8-8 (Singletary) 2010 - 6-10 (Singletary, Tomsula) 2011 - Harbaugh - 13-3 2012 - Harbaugh - 9-3 Head coach can make a big difference. Franchise QBs often become champs at some point (Brady, E. Manning, P. Manning, Rodgers, Brees). But the easiest way to win in the NFL is to build a strong defensive team. Current NY Giants. Baltimore 2000. Tampa Bay 2002. New England did it before Brady was a veteran. All you need is a handful of high-impact players. SF now has a top defense with Aldon Smith, Patrick Willis, and Navarro Bowman - where just a couple of years ago the unit was terrible. The current offense isn't great, but they usually score enough to win because the defense is so dominating. Bruce Smith and Buffalo's defensive unit was very similar for the Bills in the late 80s. Those great Buffalo teams were very good defensively, then became great teams overall with Kelly, Thomas, Reed, etc.

P. Manning is great but he will never be generally seen as great as Brady and possibly Brees, Rodgers, and even his own brother unless he wins another Super Bowl. And - no QB has ever led two different teams to Super Bowl victories.

I agree with this - seems like a very high number of kickers today can power kick-offs out of the end zone very easily. To me there's something wrong when the ball is kicked so well that it touches down past the goal-post. Just keep moving it back and back further until only 1 or 2 kickers in the entire league can actually reach the end zone. You could tweak the other rules like kicking out of bounds results in the ball at the 50, same with recovering an on-side kick.

Matt Ryan is good but he has outstanding weapons - Solid two-pronged running attack with Turner / Rodgers.....Jones and White at WR.....Tony G. can not only still play - he's lighting it up!

Against New Orleans in the playoffs last year Smith was elite. 4 touchdowns. Probably had a bounty on his head too.

It's an interesting QB situation at SF. Many are saying that Smith will not get his job back unless the 49ers lose a game that Kaepernick starts - but I think that Harbaugh could name Smith the starter Week 15 at New England.

I've lived in Manhattan, New York for the past 6 years.. Lived in DC/NoVa for 12 years before that. I should probably add New Hampshire - they still don't tax booze there right? And they have ski mountains, just not as good as VT.

Curious about the red/blue state breakdown. Red for me would be 2 red states - Texas (Austin) and South Carolina (Charleston). Blue - 14 + DC - Washington (Seattle), Oregon, California, Maryland (Montgomery County) Connecticut (southern), New York (New York), Colorado, Illinois (Chicago), DC, Vermont, Virginia (northern), Maine, Hawaii, New Jersey (northern) Red (2012): Idaho Montana Utah Arizona Wyoming North Dakota South Dakota Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma Texas Missouri Arkansas Louisiana Mississippi Alabama Tennessee West Virginia Kentucky Indiana West Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Alaska Blue (2012): Washington Oregon California Nevada Colorado New Mexico Minnesota Iowa Wisconsin Michigan Illinois Maryland Ohio Florida Virginia Washington, DC Pennsylvania Delaware New York New Jersey Rhode Island Connecticut Vermont Massachusetts New Hampshire Maine Hawaii

I commend keepthefaith for not using the follwing words in his post: "Kenyan", "Muslim", "Communist", "Socialist", "Anti-Christ". But in addition to the myriad social issues that Dems (and Obama) espouse, many of us also believe that supply-side ecomonics is inherently faulty.

Fox News is consistently the #1 cable news network in the country (owned by Rupert Murdoch). The Wall Street Journal is the #1 home-delivered newspaper in the country (also owned by Rupert Murdoch). What more do you want?

Maude Flanders? Oh, wait... Helen Lovejoy

I thought it was only 47%?

"Baby boom" birth dates are not "facts" - they are quite open to debate by generational scholars - not just using the U.S. Census Bureau dates.

Why is anyone surprised that a large percentage of Americans receive some form of government aid? The initial baby-boomers (b. 1943) are approaching 70 years old. Should the government be depriving them of Social Security and Medicare? I don't think so.

I agree with the Court's decision as it relates to the 14th Amendment & privacy rights.

I can admit that my pro-choice views on abortion are extreme - probably because I don't presume to know what direction every woman who has an unwanted pregnancy should take. NY Times Editorial, Oct. 15, 2012: If Roe v. Wade Goes It is no secret that Mitt Romney and his running-mate, Representative Paul Ryan, are opponents of abortion rights. When Mr. Ryan was asked at last week’s debate whether voters who support abortion rights should be worried if the Romney-Ryan ticket were elected, he essentially said yes. They would depart slightly from the extremist Republican Party platform by allowing narrow exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the woman. Beyond that, they would move to take away a fundamental right that American women have had for nearly 40 years. Mr. Romney has called for overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to make her own childbearing decisions and to legalized abortion nationwide. He has said that the issue should be thrown back to state legislatures. The actual impact of that radical rights rollback is worth considering. It would not take much to overturn the Roe decision. With four of the nine members of the Supreme Court over 70 years old, the next occupant of the White House could have the opportunity to appoint one or more new justices. If say, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the oldest member, retired and Mr. Romney named a replacement hostile to abortion rights, the basic right to abortion might well not survive. The result would turn back the clock to the days before Roe v. Wade when abortion was legal only in some states, but not in others. There is every indication that about half the states would make abortion illegal within a year of Roe being struck down, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenges abortion restrictions around the country, puts the number at 30 states. For one thing, abortion bans already on the books in some states would suddenly kick in. And some Republican-controlled state legislatures would outlaw abortion immediately. Even with Roe and subsequent decisions upholding abortion rights, more than half the states have enacted barriers like mandatory waiting periods, “counseling” sessions lacking a real medical justification; parental consent or notification laws; and onerous clinic “safety” rules intended to drive clinics out of business. Mr. Romney is a vocal supporter of this continuing drive in the states and in Congress to limit the constitutional right, even without overturning Roe. To a large degree, the anti-abortion forces have succeeded. In 1982, there were about 2,900 providers nationwide; as of 2008, there were less than 1,800. In 97 percent of the counties that are outside of metropolitan areas, there are no abortion providers at all. We do not need to guess about the brutal consequences of overturning Roe. We know from our own country’s pre-Roe history and from the experience around the world. Women desperate to end a pregnancy would find a way to do so. Well-to-do women living in places where abortion is illegal would travel to other states where it is legal to obtain the procedure. Women lacking the resources would either be forced by the government and politicians to go through with an unwanted or risky pregnancy, attempt to self-abort or turn to an illegal — and potentially unsafe — provider for help. Women’s health, privacy and equality would suffer. Some women would die. Mr. Romney knows this, or at least he used to. Running for the United States Senate in Massachusetts in 1994 against Edward Kennedy, Mr. Romney spoke of a young woman, a close relative, who died years before as result of complications from an illegal abortion to underscore his now-extinct support for Roe v. Wade. In a report in Salon last year, Justin Elliott, a reporter for ProPublica, found that when the young woman passed away, her parents requested that donations be made in her honor to Planned Parenthood. That’s the same invaluable family-planning group that Mr. Romney has pledged to defund once in the White House.

Overturning Roe vs. Wade? That's absolutely - * F*CKING * - extremist as far as I am concerned. There are FOUR Supreme Court Justices in their 70s. The fact that Romney is pro-life at any level or even believes a whiff of this stuff makes him utterly un-electable to me. And to most women. And to most Dems. Had Romney won and plausibly won re-election in 2016 he could have swung the Court from 4-4-1 (split plus swing-voter Kennedy) to 7-2 (Rep. majority) within 8 years or less. You had better believe that Dems. are aware of this. Show me a pro-choice Rep. candidate and I'll show you someone that might actually swing Dem. votes. With current Rep. stances on everything - gay marriage, religion in government, prayer in schools, gun control, capital punishment, climate change, creationism vs. evolution, immigration, legalization of marijuana, genetic engineering, censorship - these stances are all extremist in their own right(s) as Dems. see them. And it had better change - or the Rep. party is dead.

He's not? Straight from Romney's website (http://www.mittromne...m/issues/values) Mitt Romney is pro-life. He believes it speaks well of the country that almost all Americans recognize that abortion is a problem. And in the quiet of conscience, people of both political parties know that more than a million abortions a year cannot be squared with the good heart of America. Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade – a case of blatant judicial activism that took a decision that should be left to the people and placed it in the hands of unelected judges. With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate. Mitt supports the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. As president, he will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood. He will protect the right of health care workers to follow their conscience in their work. And he will nominate judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the law. Because the good heart of America knows no boundaries, a commitment to protecting life should not stop at the water’s edge. Taking innocent life is always wrong and always tragic, wherever it happens. The compassionate instincts of this country should not be silent in the face of injustices like China’s One-Child policy. No one will ever hear a President Romney or his vice president tell the Chinese government that "I fully understand" and won’t “second guess” compulsory sterilization and forced abortion. Americans have a moral duty to uphold the sanctity of life and protect the weakest, most vulnerable and most innocent among us. As president, Mitt will ensure that American laws reflect America’s values of preserving life at home and abroad.

Fact: Republicans have not won a Presidential election since 1928 without either "Nixon" or "Bush" on the ticket.