First pre-season game tonight, with the middle linebacker hall of fame show down. I love middle linebackers, possibly my favourite position to watch and hear mic’d up - Urlacher was a big reason why I now follow the bears, and I could watch Kuechly all day.
HoF game itself is always a bit rubbish though tbf (remember when the paint wasn’t dry :') ) - someone put it well when they said that they get really excited about the first pre-season game all the way up to kick off, when it usually dawns on you how dull it’s going to be (probably due to seeing the starting line up which is a) very likely the best players on that of the ball that you’ll see all game and b) barely recognisable). That said I am looking forward to seeing some of the WR corps the bears have put together, even if it’s just Chase Daniel lobbing it up to them, and some of the concepts that are being tried out. Hopefully not too many runs against 9 man boxes.
Bears camp has been fairly uneventful so far, thank goodness as that mainly means no positional controversy and no major injuries as yet. Just the Roquan Smith issue, which is very irritating as I’d really like to see an elite M/ILB lining up asap. Latest development (no doubt leaked by bears) is that the issue isn’t game based suspensions (they’ll be paid in full) but non-game based ones, and that apparently the agents are trying to use Smith (who both has an impeccable record and a history of standing up for what’s best for himself) to get the thin end of wedge in for other top talented players who might be in need of the guaranteed money even for non-football based suspensions (eg Reuben Foster). Idk. Just hope it gets sorted in the next week or so.
Pre-season games are dreadful, of course, but there’s always a few exceptions. I remember an unknown Antonio Brown tearing it for the Steelers in pre-season ,forcing his way into the starting lineup, and, well. Now he’s Antonio Brown.
Very much looking forward to seeing Lamar Jackson in tonight’s game. The league will be about 9% better all round if he elbows Flacco out of a staring job.
The fan entries are my favourite bit, behind all the pageantry it’s nice to see that American sports fans recognise that following a team is supposed to be a bitter and depressing endeavour. The one last year with the Chiefs fan who got so drunk when they lost that his wife divorced him was quite something.
Someone was talking about the nonsense of drawing conclusions from preseason practice, in that in entails your own team on both sides of the ball. One year the Chicago D was holding its own (if not looking marginally better than) the O in the pre-season, when in the previous season the offence had been top 10 and the defence was 30 or something. Super Bowl here we come!!!
Turns out the offense had gone off like bad milk, both sides of the ball sucked, and it was a terrible year
It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? For every person who does something great at practice, someone on the other side of the ball must’ve failed… The dichotomy is infuriating.
That’s what everyone said about Minnesota after they signed Cousins, but they keep locking up their stars. It’s terrifying. All I can assume is that if 2-3 go down injured they’ll be in trouble… but then that’s kinda true anyway, and it’s definitely clutching at straws from a rival NFC North team.
As a Bengals follower (still can’t really root for the team as long as Joe Mixon is there but at the same time can’t completely disengage from them) what can we expect from Cordy Glenn? Consensus is that he’s an upgrade on Cedric “revolving door” Ogbuehi but I probably would be too.
Yep, just into college really - I am an Oregon Duck (really not up to speed for this season yet though). This alignment may explain my dislike of Sark, what with him having been washington HC.
I am going to one of the NFL Wembley games this year though - Titans against someone, purely because I want to see Marcus Mariota (he will of course end up getting injured the week before now).
I like the Ducks! I started watching college stuff when Mariota was in his final year and that offence was just ridiculous. I’ve been rooting for him ever since. Wembley is great, you’ll have an awesome time - the Titans are playing the Chargers, so I can see it being a fun game.
I’m MSU thanks to the fact my father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, uncle-in-law and grandmother-in-law are all Spartans, so I couldn’t really do anything else. Been a bit disillusioned what with all the awful stuff MSU athletics has had going on (the Larry Nassar stuff and so on) but will still try and watch them this year. Hard to get the time to watch games on Saturdays AND Sundays though…
(really not up to speed for this season yet though). This alignment may explain my dislike of Sark, what with him having been washington HC.
(he will of course end up getting injured the week before now).