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Bernard Pollard? Again? Really? The Ravens safety has been a New England nemesis ever since he sacked Brady and knocked him out for the season with a knee injury in Week 1 of 2008. Pollard was in on the play that knocked receiver Wes Welker out for the playoffs in December 2009 as well, and on Sunday, he was back at it, doing more damage to the Patriots.His hit on running back Stevan Ridley caused the fourth-quarter fumble that basically ended New England's comeback dreams, and served to remind the Patriots once again that he's bad news, no matter who he plays for. Read More: http://sportsillustr.../#ixzz2IaWxrHCC

I have done online dating.....If you have done it and you are questioning Te'o you just dont get it. How to meet people from online are two ways...... (1) Online dating site (Match, Eharmony, OKCupid, just to name a few) (2) A friend either on real life or online sets you up with someone. Just for clarification---you can easily make online friends---for example through this board. You become friends with some people on here and start to talk about personal lives and other off topcs. When dealing with (1) you may be a tad naive at first....but you eventually learn to be guarded to find out if this person is real or not. Through my years of using online dating sites I have had times where I got someone who tried to get me to send them money or later claim they are in a different country basically looking to get in this country. Then other people have lied about something fundamental with them like their age, having kids, being married, or their looks. Have you ever watched CATFISH on MTV.....watch some time and you could understand how it could happen. The rules of online dating are you want to meet face to face as soon as possible. If you are in the same town then 7-10 days, an hr or 2 away then maybe 2-3 weeks, 4 hrs away 2-4 weeks, and some place farther then you look at a month or two. If someone ends up standing you up for a face to face meeting excuses can happen, late cancellations can happen..If one is a single parent it can get more complicated because of sitter/child issues.....but the rules are 2 strikes and you are done. If they stood you up twice (this included last second cancellations)--stop communicating and move on. In this case its (2)... Because it appears as if this was a set up through a friend...you let your guard down because you trust your friend. He said they talked on the phone...how...in this case Tu'u used a cousin as the voice. In other times you can get software that changes your voice from a man to a woman. He regularly talks to her but because they are on opposite sides of the country its difficult to meet because as young collee kids they dont have a ton of spending money for air travel. You are judging him because of this....but by the same logic then you should be judging the same players who got scammed by an agent or through some sort of Ponzi scheme. Even though Te'o says he didnt know.......here are the possibilities of why... (1) He is still in the closet as gay...due to peer pressure he fakes a gf to get his team mates off his back. Thus he was activly involved in this story line and it exploded (2) He is very shy and not good at reading women. The women he meets on campus he isnt sure if they are real or are gold diggers looking for fame or fortune through him....thus he is very guarded. Someone off campus who doesnt know him is judging him just for him and not his fame. (3) Te'o lost confidence with his love life and shared this with Tu'u. Tu'u felt sorry for him and wanted to help his self esteem and create this profile to help him gain confidence and not be depressed. (4) Te'o fabricated this for some unexplainable reason to try and gain more fame and exposure for the NFL draft. With him being the star of a top ranked notre dame team and with this story he was set to make a lot more money through advertizing dollars besides the NFL money he could make. He would become a top 10 ad dollar NFL player easily. Was this a hoax that he was involved with...I honestly doubt it. I think he was caught up in this. What I wonder is why. More has come out that there were other people being taken by this fake profile. One caught on when meetings were planned but she didnt show but Tu'u happened to be there.

I agree that some of the hires are questionable... I was hoping for people with more NFL experience coming throw his connections. Many of these hires call into question coaching nepotism. the DC hire was a very good pick the OC I can accept because of genetics. Some of the others...why are you hiring them?

Alex Smith is a capable QB. the issue with him...as with other QBs is the instability in OC/coaching. I would not trade a 1st-4th pick for him

I was saying this to my TV....the Falcons should have gone for two after their last TD. At that point in the game the seahawks werent going to get 4 scores. they would go for 3 TDs.

probably one they could sign as a UFA

that is actually not the reason....... If you look back..... in the 70s....the schedulin for mat was that the 1st and 4th placed played each other and the 2nd and 3rd played each other. If a team is strong in its division where they could go 6-2 in their division (sweep the bottom two, split 2nd and 3rd) ...outside their division they play 4 3rd and 4th place teams, and play 3 1st and a 2nd place team.....they go 3-0 against the 4th place teams and win1/ 2 against the rest they end up with 10/11 wins and likely WC spot. In the mid 80s-early 2000s.... they changed the schedule format where the 1st place played 2 1st, a 2nd, and a 3rd. a 4th place team played 4th and 5th place teams. Thus the 4th place and 1st place played 4 different games......thus this produced pendulum swings in standings if the 4th place team was an up and comming team. During this teams you would see a lot of worst to first flipping in standings. Since 2002....division teams only differ schedule by 2 games...not enough to cause swings in the results. Thus you dont have much of the worst to first flips than you did before. If they instead did a schedule of 1st and 2nd play the other 1st and 2nd in conference and 3rd and 4th played 3rd and 4th...thus having 4 games different......you would see more swings in standings. This could happen if they go to an 18 game schedule.

2 yrs in a row isnt a pattern. First of all...Denver is a vastly different team from last year. The other teams are strong teams. basically its that the 4 division winners advance to the conference semifinals. I have a feeling this has happened before.....basically in the wild card round the two home teams won.

i would trade back and get extra picks. The priorities are LB and QB. There isnt a high QB in this draft...you can find a QB in the second half of the 1st or early in the second. They keep Levitre and Byrd...they sign as UFAs a WR and CB. bringing in a CB and WR would have more impact then drafting one.

Buffalo is not a rebuilding team......they underperformed/poor coaching The biggest factors to success/failure in this league are: 1. motivation/wanting to win/confidence 2. being healthy 3. luck of the schedule 4. overall luck Sure you ccan argue if Buffalo needs a #2 receiver....but do they have one that was not utilized?

I question the OC hire....he may be too fresh..I would have liked it beeter having his father in as OC and him as QB coach......if it wasnt for his dad being who he was I would be even more livid.

why?????

All he does at the combine is shouw up and get measurements...he doesnt participate in any drills.

Indy and Atlanta easily could have missed the playoffs...the teams won alot of close games that a play or two here or there would have meant a loss. For Indy.....2 of their 11 wins were buy more than 7 pts.....Jacksonvile and Houston to end the year. Many of their wins they were tied/triling late in the 3rd or later. For Atlanta....9 of their wins were by a score....many of them they were tied or behind late in the 3rd or later. On the flip side is Clevelend...excluding their final 3 games where they seemed to check out of playing....they were 5-8...7 of those loses were close games they were in during the 4th quarter...the 8th they had a 14-0 lead on the Giants witht he ball in the redzone before a pick was thrown. Carolina went 3-8 the first 11 games....other than games against the Broncos and Giants....they were very in those 6 loses and they easily could have been wins. 7 of their 9 loses were by 6 pts or less. Winning 3 of them they are in the playoffs.

Success in the league is all about attitude and emotion plus some luck. Indy had the emotion plus a frienfdlier schedule which allowed them to gain confidence in the season. Buffalo lost 3 games in the final minute...one when they were on offense...the other 2 when on defense. The won those games te attitude in the team is very different. This likely would have affeted how they played at Miami, Indy, and in Toronto (where they checked out). They easily coulkd have been 10-6 with wins against St Louis, New England, Tennesee and either Indy or Miami....if they did they would have been a wild card team in the playoffs.

Denver (-9) over ravens: With point I take the Ravens. This will be a close game but I see Denver winning by 3 or 4. Seaharks over Atlanta (-2.5) : don't like injury to clemons at all. Seattle ahs more than just Clemmons for rushing the passer. IMO Atlanta isnt as good as their record. This year they won alot of really close games where they easily could have been an 8-8 club. Seattle upsets Atlanta in a close 3/4 pt game where theis is decided in the final 5 minutes. 49ers over the Packers (+3) : this is a push--49ers 3 pt win. I dont read anything in the 49ers game a few weeks ago. This game is in SF...not GB. This will be a close game. Had this been in Gren Bay I would have gone with the Packers...but its not. Houston over New England (-9): Take Texans with the points. Houston rebounds and beats New England in this game...decided in the 4th quarter based on who has the ball last. Housotn knew it was likely going to play NE in the playoffs so they held back on their playboook.

Is this weird or what..... If Caldwell takes over the Jags coming from Atlanta..... And Mularkey came over to Jacksonville as OC of Atlanta and Matt Ryan..... Yet they say Caldweel will fire Mularkey.

In looking at some of these names---I thought the East-West game was for those players who didnt make a college bowl?

stupid is as stupid does..... There isnt a QB worth such a trade in this years draft class. this is the kind of trade the team takes a big step back. You can draft a QB in the 2nd or 3rd and he will have just as much luck as being anything as taking one in #1. Washington was able to make such a trade last year (which went up due to a bidding war).....because they really werent that far from a playoff team. Their issue was with QB. They had a decent defense and had tools on offense....except for the QB. The browns were actually smart in not making the trade.....as a result of the trade they wouldnt have drafted Richardson and they wouldnt have been able to draft Gordon in the supplemental draft.

the Syracuse fans would probably have been more jaded if Sysracuse was a 10-2 BCS team the past few seasons. If one of his assistants takes over in Syracuse things will be fine.

i have said before that Buffalo can easily put one of the low draw non division November/December games in Syracuse as well as a preseason game.

To go to 7 playoff teams per confe3rence makes it difficult for scheduleing. 8 teams makes it easier...... but instead of a 1 vs 8 set up....they will follow the model of what many smaller conferences in NCAA do for their tourne where the #1 and #2 seeds get double byes, #3 and 4 get single byes and then the #5-#8 plasy their way through.....so a playoff formet would be: week 1: 8 at 5, 7 at 6 week 2: 8/5 at 4 7/6 at 3 week 3: 8/5/4 at 1 7/6/3 at 2 week 4: Conference Championship Games week 5: Super Bowl For schedule they could come to an agreement to add another game plus another bye week for a 19 week schedule. The season starts the weekend before Labor Day. Tennis hasnt started yet. Week 1 it will be dual DH weekends for both networks...the other dual doubleheaders will be a weekend in November and week 19. Another option in the playoffs because of the unbalanced schedule is to just allow the top 2 teams in each division to advance to the playoffs irrelevant of record. Its hard to read good/bad teams when teams have much more difficult schedules because of the two divisions they had to play that year.

saving money......

that is the way it works....failed HC take coordinator jobs. Dont forget the friends of friends.....Sean Payton came from the Giants so there could be some people who came from those branches.

Why didnt they at least interview the Cincinnati Coordinators (Zimmer and Gruden) and Bruce Arians of the Colts before making this decision?