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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:42 pm 
 

I was hoping for a Bears/Chargers superbowl myself. I watched the games yesterday - the Chargers were all over the Patriots, but threw the game away on three bad mistakes. That's what football comes down to though - you can play well all year, but screw up in the postseason and you're out.

Here, the finals are structured so the higher ranked teams get a second chance early in the playoffs - if they lose their first postseason game, they still progress (although losing means they will play higher seeds in subsequent rounds rather than the lower seeds).

I think I like the American version better. Do what you want through the regular season, but come playoffs time you win or you're out.

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:48 pm 
 

BTW, for those interested, Aneoth is back in the game!  I saw him this weekend, and managed to sell him some goodies.  So look out White Box sets on Ebay!!!!! :D
  Anyway welcome back!  

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 7:00 pm 
 

Kingofpain89 wrote:This is probably one of the dumbest things I have ever read come out of an athletes mouth: Adrian Peterson, Jr. running back for the Oklahoma Sooners has announced that he will forego his senior year to enter the NFL draft.  When asked why he wasnt returning for his senior year he said, "In the end, I think I just realized that this is a business decision and that it is time for me to take that next step," Peterson said in a statement released by the university Monday, the deadline for underclassmen to declare themselves eligible for the draft.  "It wasn't easy. I haven't been sleeping much. I just put it all in God's hands."

Stupid and greedy.  :?   He says that it is a business decision.  Obviously he would rather make a few million dollars than come back for his senior year, get his degree, and try to win a national championship or win the Heisman trophy (which he could easily do if he stays healthy).  Then he says "I just put it all in God's hands."  Bullshit.  What the hell does God have to do with it?  Reading drivel like that just makes me want to puke.  Oh and Ted Ginn Jr., Antonio Pittman, and Anthony Gonzalez are also foregoing their senior year at Ohio St. to enter the draft.  At least their reasons arent just monetary.  They are probably so embarassed by getting their asses handed to them by Florida that they dont want to show their faces on campus.

After reading the article I thought about some things I would do if I was the owner of a professional sports franchise:

1) Mandatory testing of all athletes for performance enhancing or other illegal drugs.  These tests would occur before a season started, every week of the season (including playoffs), and every week during the off-season if the player was still under contract.  If they fail the test...they are fired...no second chances.

2) Mandatory intelligence testing before a contract is tendered.  If you cant pass a college exit exam then you dont deserve to play the game.

3) Mandatory classes on "How to speak to the Media without looking like a total dumbass".  Put a clause in their contract that for every stupid and dumbass thing said to a reporter, the player is fined a specific amount.

4) Limit rookies to the league minimum.  No signing bonuses or incentives.  They get paid what a rookie deserves to be paid regardless of how good they are.  If they do exceptionally well...give them a raise next year.

Then I thought...if a franchise owner ever did the four things that I mentioned, they either wouldnt be able to field a team due to lack of players or they would be so freaking bad that they might as well not even field a team.  Not to mention, they would get in serious trouble with the union and the governing body of whichever league they were in.  I guess maybe I will stick with my 9 to 5 job eh?  :)


Your franchise would have a bunch of nice guys in it, and would go winless every year.  :D  Plus the fans would hate you. Face it, fans like to talk all kinds of smack about other team's players, but when it comes to their team, don't bother them about how crooked or weird or egotistical the athlete is, they just want to win.   Look at the SF Giant's fans support of a human piece of filth, Barry Bonds. Look how fans welcome with open arms guys like Allen Iverson or Terrel Owens when the year before they were jeering the player, but now he's "Their guy".  I think Kobe Bryant is a scum sucking creep, but if the Mavericks swung a deal for him without losing Dirk, I would be going bezerk....with happiness.  
  I used to feel like you, King, but then I realized if it was MY kid and he had the opportunity to either earn millions of guaranteed dollars, or take a chance on a career ending injury for nothing more than to make some multi-million dollar college program more money, I would say come out early every single time.  Hell, they can always finish college, Emmitt Smith did several years after he came to the NFL and won a handful of rings.  And of course don't forget the double standard, that of college coaches who swear fealty and loyalty to a program, AND have a contract, when all the while they are one giant offer away from stabbing all their recruits in the back and leaving for another college and more money. Yet those guys don't take a tenth of the criticism college athletes do when they switch programs or come out early.

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 7:08 pm 
 

I think that any college player that could get an offer from a pro team should take it. College degrees aren't worth a whole helluva lot. My B.S. chemistry and 18 years field experience won't get me anywhere near the starting salary of an NFL rookie making the league minimum.

How many years will I need to work with a $ 40,000 annual salary to make some 20 year olds $ 2 million signing bonus? 50; thats how many.

There may be some reasons to stay in school even while some pro teams are in the hunt for your athletic abilities, but getting an education isn't one of them.

  


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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:34 pm 
 

ifearyeti wrote:How many years will I need to work with a $ 40,000 annual salary to make some 20 year olds $ 2 million signing bonus? 50; thats how many.


When you factor in taxes, you probably only need to work around 35 years to come out the same.


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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:04 pm 
 

MShipley88 wrote:Seen in this light, it makes very little sense for major college athletes to forego jumping to professional sports.  In fact, it might even be misplaced loyalty to stay.

Why should college sports be any different?


I guess I got on a bit of a rant there and got a little lost.  The main point I was trying to make was simply that if the guy wants to leave college early and go to the NFL to make some cash, not my problem...just don't give the media (and us) a bunch of BS about how difficult the decision was or that God had anything to do with it.  Just because it says "In God We Trust" on our currency doesn't mean that he had any influence in the decision.

It's not his fault I guess.  Look at the role-models that teenagers interested in sports nowadays get to emulate.  Barry Bonds, Terrell Owens, Ron Artest, Mike Tyson, Todd Bertuzzi, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Miami Hurricanes.  :roll:

And not that anyone in professional sports is perfect by any means but the classy, honest guys are pretty rare these days.  There needs to be more players like Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson.  Two baseball players that cared more about the sport and their teammates than money or personal awards.  Ryne Sandberg was the first $7 million/year player back in '92 and ended up retiring in '94 because he felt that he wasn't earning his salary.  Dawson on the other hand wanted to play in Wrigley Field so bad that he gave the Cubs management a blank contract and told them to fill in the blanks.  They gave him $500,000 for a one year contract (he was making over a million per the year before) and he did nothing less than win the National League MVP with a last place team.  I am a bit of a Cubs fan....can you tell?  :P

I guess I will never understand why money is such a huge motivational factor in these kids' lives.  Hell I was poor for a good part of the time growing up and I can guarantee you that if I had the opportunity to go play football in the NFL and make some huge amount of money I wouldn't have told the organization that drafted me that I wasnt going to play for them because they werent good enough.  Yes I am talking about you Eli Manning, you no talent pussy.  :twisted:

  

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:15 pm 
 

Kingofpain89 wrote:
I guess I got on a bit of a rant there and got a little lost.  
Yes I am talking about you Eli Manning, you no talent pussy.  :twisted:

Couldn't help having a bit more of a rant!?
This is all a bit lost on us Brits - though I do follow the NFL, the minutae of it is a little irrelevant to me, lets face it there isn't the passion for your 'football' here than there obviously is there.
And speaking of proper 'football' (Kidding!) - the big news in the UK is that David Beckham is likely to be coming to LA very soon - on a reported £125 for 5 years. I'm interested to know if this is in the news on the other side of the pond and if anyone has any opinions either way. (FWIW he seems like a nice guy, a family man with a down to earth attitude - if that can be said of someone who earns millions for kicking a ball around)


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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:26 pm 
 

NetRodent wrote:
When you factor in taxes, you probably only need to work around 35 years to come out the same.


Thanks NetRodent, thats really cheered me up.

  

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:26 pm 
 

Kingofpain89 wrote:
Hell I was poor for a good part of the time growing up and I can guarantee you that if I had the opportunity to go play football in the NFL and make some huge amount of money I wouldn't have told the organization that drafted me that I wasnt going to play for them because they werent good enough.  Yes I am talking about you Eli Manning, you no talent pussy.  :twisted:


How do you think he felt watching the Chargers go 14-2 this year, and although they didn't win a game in the playoffs, they still have LT and most of the same team coming back this year. Meanwhile, the NY Giants had their best player (Tiki Barber) retire, his team just went .500, and there's more holes in the off and def there than a screen door.  Plus add insult to injury, they just resigned the Human Scowl, Tom Coughlin, to another year as coach.  I bet Eli would LOVE a do-over right about now.

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:31 pm 
 

gyg wrote:Couldn't help having a bit more of a rant!?
This is all a bit lost on us Brits - though I do follow the NFL, the minutae of it is a little irrelevant to me, lets face it there isn't the passion for your 'football' here than there obviously is there.
And speaking of proper 'football' (Kidding!) - the big news in the UK is that David Beckham is likely to be coming to LA very soon - on a reported £125 for 5 years. I'm interested to know if this is in the news on the other side of the pond and if anyone has any opinions either way. (FWIW he seems like a nice guy, a family man with a down to earth attitude - if that can be said of someone who earns millions for kicking a ball around)


We are hearing the deal is entirely to give the US league more publicity throughout the United States...to try and perhaps get the marginal fan out to see Beckham play when he comes to their town and plays their team.  Despite soccer/football's worldwide popularity, it ranks far below Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey on the charts of most sports fans in the US. For example Dallas has a team and I couldn't tell you one thing about it. I think it's an interesting move, basically they just paid 125 mill in advertising, if you look at it that way.  Realistically, it wont get people like myself and most people I know out to watch games (not a soccer/football fan), but it may bring in a few marginal fans that maybe only see a game or two a year.  I'm interested to see whether it will indeed pay off and help attendence.

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 11:11 pm 
 

[quote="gyg"]
Couldn't help having a bit more of a rant!?
This is all a bit lost on us Brits - though I do follow the NFL, the minutae of it is a little irrelevant to me, lets face it there isn't the passion for your 'football' here than there obviously is there.
quote]

I am tired of all this grid iron talk  :wink: Just wait till Aussie Rules starts up again ...  

For what it is worth having come from that part of the world I love hockey and football but living in Australia limits the access to sports unless I start paying for cable ...

Or maybe for the Brits we should talk about cricket  8O

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Post Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 11:57 pm 
 

improvstone wrote:Or maybe for the Brits we should talk about cricket  8O


...Or maybe I would rather chainsaw my own testicles off! (Not that I dislike cricket - I love it - just not the last 8 weeks or so :evil: )


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Post Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:32 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:
   When Brian Bosworth went pro out of Oklahoma, there was considerable talk about his "disloyalty."  When it was known that he was going pro the school officially kicked him off their team.

   In his book (a good read, by the way) Bosworth points out that Oklahoma did not recruit him out of the goodness of their hearts.  Nor, did he owe anything to Oklahoma...after the millions the school made off marketing him.

    For one example...Bosworth cited a poster of him that the school sold for $5 (in early 1980's dollars).  The college sold 100,000 (according to Bosworth) copies of the poster.  Bosworth received $0 for this use of his image.  Given Bosworth's business accumen...and the way he tricked Denver Bronco fans (my bold) into paying him millions...I tend to believe the story.

. . . . . . . . .
Mark   8)


Mark, I must be getting old---Bosworth played for Seattle, not Denver :?:  :?: ; I don't remember Denver even signing Bosworth as what would now be a free agent, much less drafting him.

  


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Post Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:01 am 
 

gyg wrote:And speaking of proper 'football' (Kidding!) - the big news in the UK is that David Beckham is likely to be coming to LA very soon - on a reported £125 for 5 years. I'm interested to know if this is in the news on the other side of the pond and if anyone has any opinions either way. (FWIW he seems like a nice guy, a family man with a down to earth attitude - if that can be said of someone who earns millions for kicking a ball around)


Yes, it's in the news here, and really exciting IMO.  The equivalent of Brett Favre just after his peak going to the European Football League.  It's HUGE.  I really hope it has an impact on the popularity of soccer in this country.  I love watching soccer, though I've never played it, and still can't believe it's so unpopular here.  

I just wish Beckham had signed with D.C. United.   :cry:


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Post Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:50 am 
 

bombadil wrote:
Yes, it's in the news here, and really exciting IMO.  The equivalent of Brett Favre just after his peak going to the European Football League.  It's HUGE.  I really hope it has an impact on the popularity of soccer in this country.  I love watching soccer, though I've never played it, and still can't believe it's so unpopular here.  
I just wish Beckham had signed with D.C. United.   :cry:

lol......... you must not have any kids..............
My friend's kids and my grandkids all play soccer to the detriment of everything else. Soccer may not hold any sway for the good ole' boys who love American Football, but the kids are growing up and once they do, they will eventually replace us ole' fogies as sports fans. The sport they will be fans of will most likely be Soccer, not American Football.
Unless of course it is baseball once again........

BTW 125 lira (I dont know how to makee that fancy L), aint that about 250 bucks? Does not seem like much money to me....... for any pro sport....


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Post Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:18 am 
 

Au contraire, mon ami, all 3 of my kids play soccer!

My son has been on the regional travel team for the past 2 years, and I can attest to what you're saying.  Every time we travel out to Pittsburgh to get our asses kicked by the local teams, I'm amazed at the level of participation in the sport by kids in this country.  And by the level of skill.  You're absolutely right, in a few years it will be much bigger here than it is now, but among childless adult men in this country soccer is nothing more than a 4-th ranked distraction.[/b]


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Post Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:19 am 
 

Aneoth wrote:lol......... you must not have any kids..............
My friend's kids and my grandkids all play soccer to the detriment of everything else. Soccer may not hold any sway for the good ole' boys who love American Football, but the kids are growing up and once they do, they will eventually replace us ole' fogies as sports fans. The sport they will be fans of will most likely be Soccer, not American Football.
Unless of course it is baseball once again........


         When I was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s, my youngest brother and all his friends played soccer.  All my friends younger brothers played soccer.  When my friends had kids, and with my own stepkids, they all played soccer growing up.  The prediction was, when that generation came of age soccer would be "huge" in the US. Doesn't matter.  When they get of a certain age, they switch sports to Baseball or Football, or if they are tall enough, Basketball.  Soccer is now and will always be #5 or lower when it comes to professional sports in America.  For the last 25 years I keep hearing how soccer interest is growing, yet all the stats say it's been stagnant in the US.
         Everytime a World Cup or Olympics rolls around, the american soccer association thinks this is the time it will catch the imagination of the American public.  And everytime, there is a really tiny bump in interest, that quickly fades. There are just far too many obstacles to soccer's growth in the US, not the most which is the US play is just not up to world standards; witness the US team getting it's ass handed to them every World Cup trial or Olympics.  Hell, the US Women's won the Olympics a few years ago and that did absolutely nothing for interest in the long run.  One of my best friends played soccer in high school, now coaches soccer in Tennessee.  He's been coaching for 15 years. His girls won seven straight state championships, his boys won several but not in a row, and he still says his best players are transplants that some in from Mexico, Dominican Republic, Europe and elsewhere.
         The other problem is that few people want to sit for several hours to watch a 0-0 tie, or a hardfought 1-0 win.  In the US we are spoiled by the high scoring of sports like basketball and football, and that colors our enjoyment of low scoring sports (look how many people hate a 1-0 baseball game, that could be a thing of of beauty if a pitcher has thrown an incredible game).  Hockey almost lost everything  a few years back, and they've had to change rules that were the core of the sport for decades to eliminate the tie. Plus scoring is also up in hockey, and they did all this to try and get the fan's interest back.  Americans HATE ties; you either are a winner or loser in our eyes!!! I truly think that was one of the number one reasons for Hockey's rules changes. Also Americans aver very, very egotistical; we are not the best in the world in soccer like we are in football, basketball and baseball, so we get pissed when a bunch of foreigners kick the crap out of us!  
    (BTW, despite Olympics loses, the Americans are far superior in Basketball....the artificial formats where superstars are plucked from various teams and basically have a month to practice together is not equal to a Brazilian, European or Chinese team that play together every night for years.  Plus our greatest stars like Kobe, Lebron, etc no longer take the time out to play in the Olympics. Take, say, the Kobe-led LA Lakers or Lebron-led Cleveland Cavaliers and put them on the court against a foreign team, they would probably win every game by 20+ pts)
  So I predict a slight bump when Beckham comes to LA; after everyone's curiousity is satisfied, things go back to normal.  

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Post Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:35 am 
 

bombadil wrote:Au contraire, mon ami, all 3 of my kids play soccer!

My son has been on the regional travel team for the past 2 years, and I can attest to what you're saying.  Every time we travel out to Pittsburgh to get our asses kicked by the local teams, I'm amazed at the level of participation in the sport by kids in this country.  And by the level of skill.  You're absolutely right, in a few years it will be much bigger here than it is now, but among childless adult men in this country soccer is nothing more than a 4-th ranked distraction.[/b]


Actually this is another factor in soccer's inability to catch on; when you get to the high school level, coaching expertise in the public school drops dramatically.  Unless you play select or club soccer, you are really not playing with the best. Most kids who can't afford it (My nephew just got into select soccer; I was laughting my ass off at my brother when I saw the bills he's paying, his daughter is also in select volleyball!!!!) will stick with the "free" public sports at their jr. high and high school. So most kids in public high school instead switch to another sport.   The friend I mentioned above who coaches in Memphis is exceptional; before he came to the school, they would win maybe one game a year. Most of the athletic kids therefore played football or baseball. He had to literally roam the halls and get kids to come try out for the soccer team when he became coach. Under his tutelege they were winning state championships within a season...with the same kids!!!!  The level of coaching was so poor he would outcoach teams for wins, because their soccer coaches were failed football or wrestling coaches...!  Sadly (for the kids) he was finally lured by money and teaches at a private school where they churn out soccer stars for college.  
 By contrast, the best football coaches in football stay in the High schools; the same with basketball.  I am not 100% sure that's true in baseball because I've seen some really good select baseball leagues, but I know that's the truth of football and basketball.  It certainly isn't true of soccer where the coach may be a former football coach at best.  Unless more really good coaches like my friend decide to forgo big paydays and move to high school, soccer will never catch on outside of specialty circles...it will never be the mainstream sport many envision.  

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