OB Night Football

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Calibri]Welcome to the Boards' official thread of the Gridiron and Pigskin!

Wanna talk about the NFL? â?? Sure.
NCAA? â?? Absolutely.
European League? â?? Welcome Aboard.
Your high school team? â?? ...dunno who else might get excited with you, but yeah, go for it.

Does your sport's ball look like [url="http://www.robbinssports.com/images/brine-official-ncaa-championship-soccer-ball.jpg"]this[/url] or [url="http://www.thefootballnovice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/old-rugy-ball.jpg"]this[/url]? â?? You're probably a wonderful person. But kindly gtfo.

But yeah. We don't have one of these, and we sorely need it. And to start off, I need to gripe. But first!

DETROIT IS 3â??0 WHAT DEVILRY IS THIS

I'll try to keep this short. I'm really getting frustrated with two of the new rule changes the NFL has adopted recently: the helmet-off rule, where the play is instantly dead; and the rule that moved the kickoff up five yards. And without going into too much detail or pith on either one of them, my irritation boils down to a simple observation.

These supposedly "safety-conscious" rule changes are only serving to make the game boring. Adrian Peterson breaks a mess of tackles and runs 60 yards for a touchdown? Steve Smith makes an impossible catch in the clutch? Ladarius Webb reads Tony Romo perfectly and pulls off a pick-6? Too bad; someone's helmet came off, play stops. 95-yard kickoff returns for touchdowns are a thing of the past; either the ball sails deep into or over the endzone, or the kicker pulls it high and shallow to force the return and pin the opposing offense inside the ten.

But our players are safe. And there was [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enSYlCEz5VI#t=0m8s"]much rejoicing[/url].[/FONT]

[Nehszriah]

Congrats, Al. You got me to log into OB. :P

I remember one time waaaaay back there being a different football thread where I declared my loyalties to the Lions. Man... that feels like ages ago. Probably because it was. It feels so good to be able to say the Lions have won the last seven in a row, going into last season (eleven if you count preseason). It seems to be ticking a lot of people off. That's what I can tell, anyways. I could go on FOREVER about it, but I'm still trying to calm down from a Tigers-Lions-Red Wings trifecta of wins.

Next week's at Dallas though, so I sense that we'll be really put under the microscope now. I hope we tear up the Cowboys, no offense Texan people. Detroit's needed to be taken seriously for a while now. [s]Besides, cheerleaders are pointless and dumb at the professional level. It's not even like you can hear their chanting.[/s]

Speaking of those new rules though, they feel a lot like rules put in little league football to protect the 85 lb. kids from the 145 lb. kids who happen to be the same age: superfluous and restricting. I *also* feel like they're being used to pick on Ndamukong Suh, but whatever.

[img]http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqib4pLphF1qkz0d0.jpg[/img]

[Allamorph]

[quote='Nehszriah']Next week's at Dallas though, so I sense that we'll be really put under the microscope now. I hope we tear up the Cowboys, no offense Texan people.[/QUOTE]
[FONT=Calibri]Judging from the way the Cowboys performed last night, that might be a lot more doable than it might seem. Multiple ESPN guys have been remarking on how Romo was basically an on-field coach for most of the game, and with a center who can't figure out the snap count and a wide-receiver core who doesn't know any presets or routes, [i]and[/i] since Romo himself is playing with a broken rib and punctured lung, it's safe to say Dallas is nowhere near full strength right now.

I'm honestly a little concerned about the league overall right now. I've seen about five or six games so far this season, and maybe one of them has been clean. There are way too many penalties on either side of the ball and the field; the little mental errors that are usually excusable are stacking up far more than they should, and there are too many tempers flaring and cheap shots being taken for no defensible reason.

It seems to stack up to discipline issues. Players aren't disciplining themselves on the basics of their position, causing piles upon piles of those mental errors; and players (and coaches) aren't disciplining their attitudes in the gameâ??as evidenced in the Pats/Bills game, when the head coach mouthed off at a ref on the sideline for apparently no reason at all and cost his team a valuable timeout, which could have potentially saved them the game. The commentators at the time were absolutely dumbfounded. They had no idea how the timeout had even been expended.

I dunno what to say. Is it the labor strike? Has it made [i]everybody[/i] dumb?

[b]Edit:[/b] Just did a little digging, and it seems there [url="http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/sports/rap_sheet/index.php/2011/09/26/what-happened-to-patriots-coach-bill-belichicks-second-time-out/#more-14267"]is an explanation[/url] for the bizarre timeout caused by Belichik. He was apparently over-worried about the time, and called a timeout to keep the clock stopped after the head umpire returned to the field.

So ... hunh.[/FONT] Edited September 28, 2011 by Allamorph

[Nehszriah]

"Clean" is a relative term when it comes to contact sports, as I've found. After years of watching NHL zebras get worse and worse about calls and sticking to new rules (both for and against whatever team I might be rooting for), it's no wonder to me that the mentality has spread to the NFL. I understand that people want the players to be safe. Having rules at all ensures longer careers, longer athlete life-spans and everything makes for a better game. What most people behind the rules, rule-changing and rule-enforcing is this: football is a dangerous game. D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S. Helmet and padding innovations were not made because the game involves watching five-year-olds push each other into pillow mountains. Discipline is a part of it, yes, but we're also becoming a society where we're not allowed to hurt anyone's feelings and heaven forbid if we actually cause physical discomfort. Society of sissies? I'd like to think that will always be an over-exaggeration.

What bothers me though is despite how the Detroit Lions were favored in pregame picks over Dallas, I barely detect any sort of enthusiasm for the Lions when it comes to how well they've been doing lately. Yeah, everyone has their favorite teams and yeah some people are probably not happy about the Lions' seemingly sudden ascent... but I'm talking about professionals that are being paid to be analytical and excited about a game no matter what. When you're paid to be impartial, you sure do sound like you're not cool with Dallas losing. It makes me facepalm.

Being 4-0 this season scares me. It's such unfamiliar territory.

[Kei]

[font="Tahoma"][color="#000080"]In college news, apparently three more players for The Ohio State University have been suspended for the Nebraska game coming up on Saturday for accepting too much pay for too little work at their summer jobs.

[url="http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/sports/college/3-buckeyes-suspended-for-nebraska-game"]Link to story[/url]

With them being 3-2 already this season, this really isn't something that the Buckeye Nation needs right now, but it brings up a talking point that people have mentioned when the OSU scandal first broke.

What is with the NCAA these days? There have been a lot of scandals breaking out over pretty glaring oversights. Is it that the regulators are being lax and only pouncing on something when there's too much evidence to ignore, or are players and coaches getting better at hiding things, or is it a mix of both or what? I don't think I'm the only one that thinks this is getting a bit ridiculous.
[/color][/font]

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Calibri]I don't think it's either one, actually. My father and I were discussing this the other night (my question basically mirrored yours), and he informed me that it's more a product of the NCAA becoming far more proactive about searching out and hunting down these instances of good-old-boy-ism. A lot of these incidents just now coming to light have been happening for years, or have taken years to set up, and it seems that the NCAA is intent on reminding college campuses that such behavior will not be tolerated.

Still, both of us are pretty dissatisfied with the penalties being handed out. We feel that the current ones are the administrative equivalent of a slap on the wrist and don't actually deter the behavior at all, and we've been sort of bouncing ideas back and forth occasionally on what we feel might be more appropriate consequencesâ??for instance, a team suspension for a total of 12 games, extending into the next season as necessary, along with automatic bowl ineligibility for the current year and an embargo on any cut of funds their conference receives from having teams in bowl games.

But this is what happens when you turn a scholastic-related venue into a multi-million dollar franchise.[/FONT]