1029 réponses à ce sujet

[Katiefrost]

Speaking as a foreigner to American football, I don't understand the whole issue around the deflated footballs. Is a national sport being handled in a sloppy manner?

Read some of the links posted earlier on the subject, they'll bring you up to date. Mercifully, most mainstream publications seem to be turning their attention toward the upcoming Super Bowl. At least there's one benefit from all the uproar, I'm sure both teams will be careful to abide by the rules this Super Bowl. You can bet both teams will be regarded with a higher than normal level of scrutiny.

[SlottsMachine]

Eh. I like Richard Sherman, his rant about Crabtree is the gift that keeps on giving. There has been more than a few times my brother and I have had a good laugh about it. He'll never live it down tho. 

[Aimi]

Speaking as a foreigner to American football, I don't understand the whole issue around the deflated footballs. Is a national sport being handled in a sloppy manner?

It's bizarre, I agree.

From what I can get - and I'm not from America, but I live here now, so - the NFL really is that sloppy. On the other hand, it's not clear that this episode even meant much if it was cheating, and it might not even have been cheating in the first place. I think that it's been exploded into a major controversy (not a serious one) mostly because of the stakes, coming in such close proximity to the biggest sporting event of the year, and because of the opportunity to make bad jokes.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Come on, Eirene

Oh I swear what he means.

At this moment,

You mean er'rrrrythiiiiing!

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 TBH, I've never paid attention to the SuperBowl's "media day"-nonsense. Not even when the Packers were most recently in.

[Katiefrost]

Posted one day ago: Marshawn Lynch, Rob Gronkowski and Conan Obrien playing Mortal Kombat X.

[Jstatham1227]

to be honest, I'm not a fan of the patriots because they strike me as an arrogant team and because of the possible allegations. While on the seahawks end, they would be winning a second year in a row. I don't really have one team or the other that I like for that matter. 

[Katiefrost]

This is cute, even if not Super Bowl Relevant. Olivia Munn, Aaron Rodgers's girl friend opens up on Conan Obrien about the first time she met Aaron Rodgers. Posted a week ago:

[Katiefrost]

Eh. I like Richard Sherman, his rant about Crabtree is the gift that keeps on giving. There has been more than a few times my brother and I have had a good laugh about it. He'll never live it down tho.

LOL, yes I understand:

He really lost it there, but it was provoked. LOL

As for judging behavior, Crabtree shouldn't have shoved him in the face, either.

[Katiefrost]

I thought I'd share this article:
http://www.nfl.com/n...or-the-patriots
Imagine having Bill Belichick for a father AND working for him as an assistant coach. It probably has both very good and very bad moments...

[Katiefrost]

Did he grab his crotch when he scored Katie ? I think he did and that score shouldn`t have counted and now my Packers play the SB

Far more than anyone's crotch grabbing, I think Rodgers's injured leg was his biggest problem during the last part of the season. I will always wonder how things would have worked out for the Packers if Ndamukong Suh hadn't step on Aaron Rodgers's calf with spiked shoes during the Packers/Lions game, while he was laying on the field already injured. I'm still shocked that Suh got off with only a $70,000.00 fine. And, he may be sought after as a free agent:
http://www.nfl.com/n...seems-raiderish
Something's wrong here...

[Katiefrost]

LOL Katy Perry assures everyone that nothing will be "deflated" during her half time performance:
http://www.nfl.com/n...rience-thursday

Cute dress...

Also here's a preview from 6 days ago.

[Jorji Costava]

From what I can get - and I'm not from America, but I live here now, so - the NFL really is that sloppy. On the other hand, it's not clear that this episode even meant much if it was cheating, and it might not even have been cheating in the first place. I think that it's been exploded into a major controversy (not a serious one) mostly because of the stakes, coming in such close proximity to the biggest sporting event of the year, and because of the opportunity to make bad jokes.

 

I think it mostly has to do with the fact that it's the Patriots, who have been the most consistently successful franchise since 2001 (winning 12 games a year on average). They definitively earned their 'villain' status in 2007, which was the year of Spygate. It was also the year in which they went 16-0 in the regular season, running up the score a couple times during that season. It probably doesn't help that Bill Belichick, while undoubtedly a coaching genius, is possibly the most anti-charismatic human being ever to exist.

 

None of these things really bother me that much, but I think the general perception is that if the NFL is high school, the Patriots are the guy who beats you up and stuffs you in the locker every day. Thus, fans will latch onto anything that appears to validate their pre-existing dislike of the team, and the ball deflation controversy fit the bill.

 

Also, since we're discussing Richard Sherman, I thought I'd post my favorite Sherman moment here; this one is from the leadup to the 2012 49ers-Ravens Super Bowl, before RIchard Sherman really became the Sherman we all know and love.

 

[L. Han]

It's bizarre, I agree.

From what I can get - and I'm not from America, but I live here now, so - the NFL really is that sloppy. On the other hand, it's not clear that this episode even meant much if it was cheating, and it might not even have been cheating in the first place. I think that it's been exploded into a major controversy (not a serious one) mostly because of the stakes, coming in such close proximity to the biggest sporting event of the year, and because of the opportunity to make bad jokes.

 

I also heard that American Football players get a lot of concussions and other serious injuries. How are they getting injured so much compared to rugby? Does A.football not have any rules when it comes to tackling?

[Dermain]

I also heard that American Football players get a lot of concussions and other serious injuries. How are they getting injured so much compared to rugby? Does A.football not have any rules when it comes to tackling?

 

They do, but they're hated by the fans and players. Most American Football players also act as if they're not injured because they're not "weak sissy men", don't care about their future health,  and they want to play. Then they end up with early onset Alzheimer or Parkinson's disease and sue the NFL for not protecting them.

 

Aggravating that stupidity are the team "doctors" who constantly hand out narcotic pain killers in pill form, or inject them into players. Which of course has it's own issues related to internal organ failure and addiction which is further compounded by the "I'm not a weak sissy man! I can still play the game! I don't care what happens in the future" attitude.

[Aimi]

I also heard that American Football players get a lot of concussions and other serious injuries. How are they getting injured so much compared to rugby? Does A.football not have any rules when it comes to tackling?

Oh, they have rules. They have some incredibly strange rules, and Americans like to argue about them a lot ("he was down!" "no he wasn't!" "that was helmet to helmet!" "no dude it was the shoulder!").

By comparison to rugby (and I know very very little about rugby so don't put too much stock in this) it seems like they get more of a different kind of injury. An NFL player is not going to get blinded or have his lip ripped apart or see his knee completely cave in, like the worst kind of rugby injuries. They're very well padded and protected. But those pads also allow players to hit harder than they would in rugby.

NFL players are both 1. ridiculously fast over short distances and 2. gigantic, in a way that's completely different from rugby; when a player rams into another guy's helmet to make a tackle, a truly insane amount of force is being applied to the other man's head. A lot of commentators seem to think that concussions and serious mental health issues later in life are intrinsic to the sport: you can't really get rid of them without completely changing the way the game is played. Minor rules adjustments aren't going to be enough.

Which is one of the reasons NFL football makes me feel really uncomfortable! A lot of NFL fans think that the big hits and crushing tackles are really awesome and impressive, and it's like...this is a blood sport. Not as much as, say, prizefighting, but still there are quite a lot of people who are ready to cheer when a player on the other team gets laid out, who think that concussions don't really matter all that much because the guy looks totally fine and besides football players are mostly meatheads anyway. The league isn't stupid: it knows that a big part of the reason for its popularity is the big hits, so they only ever change the rules in small ways.

It's actually pretty sick. And a lot of Americans don't like it! But not enough of them to matter, and even many of the people doing the hand-wringing still tune into the games.

[Vegeta 77]

Hope the patriots win there are a lot of annoying seahawk bandwagon fans these days

[Dermain]

Oh, they have rules. They have some incredibly strange rules, and Americans like to argue about them a lot ("he was down!" "no he wasn't!" "that was helmet to helmet!" "no dude it was the shoulder!").

By comparison to rugby (and I know very very little about rugby so don't put too much stock in this) it seems like they get more of a different kind of injury. An NFL player is not going to get blinded or have his lip ripped apart or see his knee completely cave in, like the worst kind of rugby injuries. They're very well padded and protected. But those pads also allow players to hit harder than they would in rugby.

NFL players are both 1. ridiculously fast over short distances and 2. gigantic, in a way that's completely different from rugby; when a player rams into another guy's helmet to make a tackle, a truly insane amount of force is being applied to the other man's head. A lot of commentators seem to think that concussions and serious mental health issues later in life are intrinsic to the sport: you can't really get rid of them without completely changing the way the game is played. Minor rules adjustments aren't going to be enough.

Which is one of the reasons NFL football makes me feel really uncomfortable! A lot of NFL fans think that the big hits and crushing tackles are really awesome and impressive, and it's like...this is a blood sport. Not as much as, say, prizefighting, but still there are quite a lot of people who are ready to cheer when a player on the other team gets laid out, who think that concussions don't really matter all that much because the guy looks totally fine and besides football players are mostly meatheads anyway. The league isn't stupid: it knows that a big part of the reason for its popularity is the big hits, so they only ever change the rules in small ways.

It's actually pretty sick. And a lot of Americans don't like it! But not enough of them to matter, and even many of the people doing the hand-wringing still tune into the games.

 

Not all (American) football players are meatheads, but as the case of the football player Jonathan Martin shows they're not treated great by their teammates. The culture that permeates this "sport" can be quite sickening, but it's fans (of any sport really) are also a good case study in group dynamics. 

 

The most I ever watch of American football are the highlights. I can't stand it.

 

Edit:

 

If you think American football is bad, hockey is far far worse. It just doesn't have the same following as American football.

 

Hope the patriots win there are a lot of annoying seahawk bandwagon fans these days

 

There are always those fans regardless of the sport, as I said they're great for case studies on group dynamics. It's always interesting to observe how depressed they get after their team loses, especially if it was a "big game". 

[Aimi]

Not all (American) football players are meatheads, but as the case of the football player Jonathan Martin shows they're not treated great by their teammates. The culture that permeates this "sport" can be quite sickening, but it's fans (of any sport really) are also a good case study in group dynamics. 
 
The most I ever watch of American football are the highlights. I can't stand it.
 
Edit:
 
If you think American football is bad, hockey is far far worse. It just doesn't have the same following as American football.

Oh, I know that there are a number of fairly smart football players. I'm just stating the perception of why many fans don't really care about concussions or don't think that they're real injuries. Wasn't there a quarterback earlier on in the playoffs this year who got concussed and didn't actually get tested before the team threw him back into the game, and everybody was making jokes about how the test would be pointless because the guy barely knew where he was even without a concussion?

Hockey's rough, but it doesn't really have a following in Germany, and where I live in the US now there aren't many fans of it either. So I don't know too much about it.

Basketball is the only sport I watch religiously. (DIRK NOWITZKI HOMETOWN HERO REPRESENT!!!)

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 NFL's rules on contact are very simple. Blows to the head, horse-collar tackles (around the neck), and below the knees are off-limits.

 

All else (literally everything in between that) is fair game.

 

But there are several reasons why this gets messy, and they do not all have to do with aggression issues of the players or pressure from fans. One, the game plays so fast and you've got a lot of "bang-bang plays." Stuff like that will happen from time to time. Also, lots of young players out of college get away with being the biggest, fastest, strongest guys on the field and are simply not in the habit of wrapping-up properly. Those guys need to learn how to do it at the pro level and it takes some time to adjust one's game. And, lastly, some players are just morons, like Brandon Meriwether. These players are not in the league for their brains.

 

In the end, there's a lot more to the game than the contact aspect of it. No sense in getting hung up on something that largely boils down to human-error.

[Katiefrost]

I also heard that American Football players get a lot of concussions and other serious injuries. How are they getting injured so much compared to rugby? Does A.football not have any rules when it comes to tackling?

This video is narrated by Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and specifically addresses tackling:
http://www.seahawks....80-ad558292b1a6

I am horrified sometimes at the injuries some players will continue playing with. I think many of them must feel like the windows of opportunity are open for athletic success only briefly and if not now, maybe never. Also, if the team's success hangs on a player's participation, there could be a lot of lingering guilt if a player takes themselves out of the game for anything but the most serious reasons. Add to that, the millions of dollars at stake. It's a personal choice.

This really isn't an issue of intelligence. Football is a passion for many of it's participants, and, passion and common sense don't always walk hand in hand.

[L. Han]

^I suppose wearing all that armor also gives the confidence to turn yourself into a battering ram. I played a bit of rugby before and there was a lot of techniques you need to learn just to annoy another player. What I was taught was mostly revolving around putting your head on the other player's bum to cushion the blows.

 

Still, it is nice to see an American football team is taking a more smarter approach to playing the game. I hate to hear another big story about a big time athlete loosing his/her career because the sport did not put the players in the equation.

[Katiefrost]

This may explain part of why Richard Sherman is a little out of sorts:

As if there wasn't enough going on already...    So when is the baby going get here? Congratulations to the happy couple.

http://bleacherrepor...an-baby-dilemma

http://www.today.com...897972#56897972

http://www.cbssports...mans-sons-birth

[themikefest]

Roger Goodell about the investigation of defated footballs

http://espn.go.com/n...-was-deliberate

 

Peyton Manning still deciding about playing next season

http://espn.go.com/n...decision-future

[Degenerate Rakia Time]

Peyton should stay, without him the Broncos might actually be good and no one wants that