oochymp

again, I'll be surprised if there isn't at least a shortened season, which would include a Super Bowl That said, the worst-case is always worth looking at, and IIRC, the folks who didn't get a seat in Dallas were given a ticket to any Super Bowl of their choice, so if there is no 2011 Super Bowl, then that's simply not a choice for them, but I'll look that up and see if I can confirm that EDIT: ok, I couldn't find the final offer, but I'm pretty sure it was for any future Super Bowl so that fans who went to see the Packers or Steelers could get that experience

my guess is that if the Super Bowl is not played then Indy will get the 2015 Super Bowl (the next one that isn't already awarded) although that will only come up if the entire season is lost, and I can't see that happening, I think they get their shit together and at least pull together an abbreviated season

ESPN's bloggers continue their skill position rankings with a top ten pass rushers, an interesting response to the question of how to deal with 4-3 vs 3-4 defenses Here's the top ten: 1. DeMarcus Ware, Dallas Cowboys 2. Clay Matthews, Green Bay Packers 3. Dwight Freeney, Indianapolis Colts 4. Jared Allen, Minnesota Vikings 5. Tamba Hali, Kansas City Chiefs 6. James Harrison, Pittsburgh Steelers 7. John Abraham, Atlanta Falcons 8. Julius Peppers, Chicago Bears 9. LaMarr Woodley, Pittsburgh Steelers 10. Cameron Wake, Miami Dolphins And here's the explanation and breakdown of voting: Link I think Paul Kuharsky may have let a bit of an AFC South bias slip in voting Dwight Freeney #1 (the only blogger to put anyone but Demarcus Ware there) and voting Mario Williams #4 and Robert Mathis #6 (as the only blogger to include either in his list) but overall I think it's a pretty good list, probably the best one I've seen from them so far

Mike Sando had him 10th, but nobody else ranked him, his omission is pretty bad, but that's really the only thing I see majorly wrong here

it looks like it hit his pad/stick, something in there, but then it definitely changed direction again, it must have just had a really weird spin on it and as Mav said, took a bounce off the ice that sent it in a weird direction

this version is far more amusing, though I still couldn't get through the whole thing

I don't think they'll be out of a job, just maybe not compensated as much as their value goes down, and nobody's gonna have a kickoff specialist, though there weren't many teams that did that anyway, I think teams still carry two kickers with a similar division of labor

the interesting thing to watch IMO is how many returners are suddenly out of a job, I don't think as many teams will keep a return specialist unless they have some value on offense or defense

I think losing to the Seahawks in the playoffs was Brees' Madden Curse

I don't really think there was a lot of thought put into the seeding, since all of the first round matchups are between division rivals, though I do think they could have put someone better than Sanchez

the 12th man would actually work pretty well for Madden 12, just sayin personally, I'm hoping Jake Long takes it, I'd love to see an olineman make it

the letter is worth the read, especially for everyone who was bashing the players last week

this change will also put teams in better position after onside kicks, which could be a huge game changer

my bracket actually didn't look that bad until today, why does the Big East always suck so hard in the tournament?

I've never been a big fan of Jason Aldean, not sure why, just something about his voice kinda grates on me, he does have some good songs, and that one is pretty good, but I can only take him in limited doses Darryl Worley--Sounds Like Life to Me; I prefer Craig Morgan's version, but this one's pretty good too and Worley actually made a video for it, plus, there's a Titan cameo (can you spot it?)

second single? I really hope it doesn't come to that

that's the thing, Chara isn't a goon, he was clearly over the line on this hit and should have been punished in a 'nobody's above the law' move, but he's got no history of dirty play, he may even be one of the most stand-up guys in the league the thing that gets me is the extension of the arm, he does shove Pacioretti into the board and you can't tell me he doesn't know where he is, everybody who's played there knows that partition is there That said, what's done is done, we just need to hope someone doesn't have to get killed on the ice before the NHL starts to take shit like this seriously I'll see your Dwayne Roloson, and raise you a Braden Holtby: Three goalies with shutouts, fuckin awesome

who's got two thumbs and a fucked up bracket?

there's some interesting stuff in that article, tells you a little bit about what the players wanted that the owners' offer didn't give

yeah, that was the one thing that really pissed me off about the '02 realignment, the Titans should not have been pulled from the old AFC Central, those were some great rivalries

it makes about as much sense as a team from Dallas being in the NFC East

they have said that a kickoff out of bounds will still go to the 40, and I don't think the new touchback rule will apply to punts, unless the NFL actually has gone bat-shit crazy, which I'm not entirely willing to rule out at this time EDIT: I just re-read the ESPN article about the proposed changes (here) and found this nugget: There would be no changes for touchbacks on any other plays, with the ball coming out to the 20.

ok, I know the competition committee puts a lot of thought into this process, but I really don't think they've thought this through. The idea is that kicking off from the 35 will increase touchbacks, but if I'm a special teams coach, I'm going to get my kicker to work on dropping kickoffs inside the ten with the thinking that if our coverage team is starting from the 30 (there is a max of 5 feet from the line of scrimmage for coverage players) we can get to the returner before the 25, so I really don't know that touchbacks are going to be more common. I saw in an article on ESPN that the average starting position after a kickoff last year was around the 27, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that number drop, the same article said that about 20% of kickoffs were touchbacks, in spite of the shorter field for the kicking team, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that drop due to the devaluing of the touchback. EDIT: Also, I really hope the touchback rule only applies to kickoffs, because a touchback on a punt coming out to the 25 would be absolute crap