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Gotta go with the Bengals because they beat the best team in the NFL. I'm so certain of this prediction I won't wager any money on it.
 
Harry Bosch said:
I missed the first game. Was skiing. Then skied into the parking lot. A guy had a big screen showing the Rams games outside his motorhome. Invited us over to watch. Was great to watch the game on a big screen at a ski resort with beer! I thought that the 49ers had a great run, played well. Rams were better. I'm picking Rams in the SB.
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Nice. When McVey burned through his timeouts I was very nervous and I thought Shanahan made a bad call on 4th and 2 (or was it 1), trying to get LA offside in midfield. Should have gone for it in my opinion. If it had worked, it would have maintained the drive and possibly scored. If it didn't, it was giving up field position roughly midfield, not horrible. But I guess Shanahan feared Stafford but if you want to win, you have to make these types of plays.
 
Another beautiful scary 😅 win for the Rams. Well there was some ugliness getting there, but in the end a beauty.

Should be a good SB, as I've wrongly said many times before.
 
blastula said:
Another beautiful scary 😅 win for the Rams. Well there was some ugliness getting there, but in the end a beauty.

Should be a good SB, as I've wrongly said many times before.
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Growing up, good Super Bowls were very rare. Often a blow out. The last 20 years though haven't had many snoozers, unless one wasn't a Patriots or Rams fan in LIII.
 
So it happened,



That's right, the real 🐐 Matthew Stafford has forced Brady to retire.

But not without drama, as you might gather if you swipe through Brady's entire statement, since he mentions and thanks everyone in his life by name, including his gardener and dentist, but never names anybody from the Patriots or says anything about them directly. He says a whole lot about the Bucs, he loves everything about Tampa Bay, but says nothing about the Pats. The only glancing referencing to New England is the cover photo which is taken from his game against NE this season. This all has some people, if you can refer to Patriots fans as people, upset. Meanwhile, non-fans of the Patriots have finally found something to celebrate about Brady, that he hates the Patriots too.

My sympathies to any Patriots fans here, however unlikely that might be.
 
I'll get over it... quickly. The six Super Bowl Titles aren't going anywhere. I'm happy he got his payday. The success in New England would have been impossible without him (among others) taking pay cuts and what not.

Super Bowl LI and the sickening feeling that engulfed the abdomens of tens of millions of Americans as the Patriots clawed back to even, will forever be my favorite sporting moment.
 
So it's officially the Washington Commanders. I liked "the Washington Football Team" better.
 
Change is tough. Commanders works though, as a tough football team name. And was much better than the second option, The Colanders.
 
Meanwhile, some disturbing information out of Cleveland and Miami about matching fixing... sorry, I mean... encouraging losing by paying coaches more money to lose. For long, there was the open secret about letting a team tank for a better draft pick (like has that ever been successful?!).

But paying coaches to lose is a bit worse, as it implies the games they played were effectively fixed. So a team like the Patriots or Bills is benefitting while the AFC North is struggling against each other. If these accusations can be backed up, I'm not certain where this leads. Do the owners just say 'That's part of the game' or do they get really angry?
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Meanwhile, some disturbing information out of Cleveland and Miami about matching fixing... sorry, I mean... encouraging losing by paying coaches more money to lose. For long, there was the open secret about letting a team tank for a better draft pick (like has that ever been successful?!).

But paying coaches to lose is a bit worse, as it implies the games they played were effectively fixed. So a team like the Patriots or Bills is benefitting while the AFC North is struggling against each other. If these accusations can be backed up, I'm not certain where this leads. Do the owners just say 'That's part of the game' or do they get really angry?
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I think that’s when the FBI gets interested.
 
Well maybe they also have texts from Belichick congratulating Flores on his $100k/loss offer.
 
I live in the Cleveland suburbs, so, long-suffering Browns fan here, and, for their part, the Browns adamantly say Hue Jackson is full of shit. Which I believe.
 
Well, imagine that. Hue Jackson's story has changed to, "uhhh, okay, so, I was never offered money by the Browns to lose games, but my situation was kinda like Brian Flores', but also, yeah, completely different." What a maroon, as Bugs Bunny would say.

Probably the Browns got in his ear and said, retract your bullshit, pronto, or we'll sue the shit of you.
Now he's backpedalling faster than a rookie corner trying to cover Jerry Rice.
 
Jackson is being a bit squirrelly, saying that the evidence "will come to light at the right time" instead of providing it now.

Been reading Flores's lawsuit, and it has a long section on the NFL's history with race going back to its beginning, and it's very damning, with allegations like this,

55. It is widely known by even casual NFL fans that it took until at least the 1980s— approximately 40 years after integration—for teams to genuinely accept Black players at the quarterback position (i.e. Warren Moon and Randall Cunningham).7

56. It took 43 years for the first Black Head Coach to be hired (Art Shell).

57. It took 54 years for an NFL team to hire a Black General Manager (Ozzie Newsome). 58. Now, 76 years following integration, there has never been a Black Commissioner and there has never been a Black majority owner of an NFL team.
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112. Moreover, since 1978, only 16 winning teams have fired their head coach (3%). Even though Black men only held a small fraction of the Head Coach positions during that time, an astounding 25% (four of the 16) of the Head Coaches fired after a winning season were Black. This statistic is even more remarkable given that there have only ever been 17 Black Head Coaches who have coached a full season, and four of them (23.5%) were fired after a winning season. In contrast, only 6.9% of white coaches were fired after a winning season (12 out of 174). Thus, Black Head Coaches are 3.5 times more likely to be fired even when successful.
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116. At the time the Rooney Rule was instituted, almost twenty years ago, there were three Black Head Coaches. There is now only one. That marks a complete lack of improvement, and in fact, a move backwards in the wrong direction.
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Also, tidbits like this,

51... In fact, though the NFL had integrated 23 years earlier, when Washington’s owner, Mr. Marshall, died in 1969, he abhorrently stipulated that his estate be used to establish the Redskins Foundation, on the condition that it was barred from spending money for “any purpose which supports or employs the principle of racial integration in any form.”
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Very telling to me is the disparity between the number of blacks in OC and DC positions.

119. Racial disparities also exist in the hiring and retention at Coordinator positions as well. Offensive and Defensive Coordinators are significantly over-represented by white candidates and under-represented by Black candidates. These positions are very often filled by a pool of former players, approximately 70% of whom are Black.

120. Currently, there are only four Black Offensive Coordinators in the 32-team League (12.5 percent), and 11 Black Defensive Coordinators (34 percent).
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On the $100K/loss claim, Flores doesn't have text messages, but he does name a potential witness,

133.... Then, when the Dolphins started winning games, due in no small part to Mr. Flores’ coaching, Mr. Flores was told by the team’s General Manager, Chris Grier, that “Steve” was “mad” that Mr. Flores’ success in winning games that year was “compromising [the team’s] draft position.”
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It also gives examples of several black coaches who have been curiously fired or passed over for jobs.

Hope something good comes of this and he's not just blackballed and forgotten.
 
Who will win the Superbowl?
I'm betting on Uncle Vlad.
But only if he does the smart thing, and snarfs up Ukraine while the 'Murkins are preoccupied.

Failing that, I'll root for the Bungles because ... AFC. And Rams don't belong in LA, regardless. They're a Cleveland team, and therefore deserve to lose.
 
I'm just happy Matt Stafford gets to a Super Bowl. He's deserved it for a long time but he was weighed down by playing for the Lions.
 
I hear that's a popular sentiment in Michigan, Zip, if not not much anywhere else. Denver fans are not rooting for Rams because of Miller, the way Lions fans be for Stafford.

www.espn.com

Suffering and support: Lions fans supporting Rams QB with 'Detroit Rams' gear

The Lions are working on three decades without a playoff win. They're watching their former franchise QB playing for a Super Bowl. While still supporting Matthew Stafford, they've got new shirts.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

FYI, I am rooting for the Rams very hard with my LA Rams gear on, and not the St. Louis Rams, which doesn't count. The LA Rams do actually belong in this club:



I won't make a prediction because this season defies it. No great teams, a lot of parity in the league, close games all year and even more so in the playoffs. Could have gone either way in many games like by a coin flip, and in fact it did.

But I've enjoyed the season. When Stafford is on point, it's fun to watch. Love the addition of Miller. And OBJ really does have great hands, he's made a difference after losing Woods.

I don't think the Rams D line will rattle Burrow, sacks don't bother him, and he is a very smart scrambler, picks his spots well. One thing that weirdly worries me is Rams playing with the lead. McVay has a reputation as a dynamic offensive coach, but when they are in front, he gets way too conservative, going to all runs, when their running game isn't good enough to ice a game like that. They lost to SF that way in the last week of season and nearly lost to TB that way too. So, I kind of hope it's a close game. At least, please score more than a field goal this time. 🙏

Go Rams! :cheer: 🐐
 
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