NFL 2012

Once again, the Onion pulls no punches. Colin Kaepernick Admits He Learned Nothing From Watching Alex Smith Play Quarterback

Smith is saying in interviews that he feels like the concussion cost him his starting job and implying that he has some regret about reporting his symptoms. Which is potentially a problem for the league, since it doesn't want players hiding stuff because they fear it will cost them their jobs.

The interview I read, the reporter asked some pretty leading questions. It basically started with Smith saying "I was playing well, all I did was get a concussion." Which is basically true, if he hadn't got the concussion Kaepernick would never have had the opportunity to out perform him. But I think he was just bemoaning the fact he wasn't playing that poorly, not saying "I shoulda never told 'em I was hurt!" At least not till the reporter asked that.

Of course, it's a bit of tunnel vision on his part. Yeah, he didn't play poorly in the previous game against Arizona. But the game before that against Seattle, he was pretty mediocre and easily could've been benched. And he started off the Rams game with back to back 3 and outs and was behind 14-7 when he got hurt. So, he only didn't play poorly enough to lose his job in the sense that there hasn't been a good QB in San Francisco since Jeff Garcia almost a decade ago, and he has never had a real challenger for the starting job before.

Sometimes the time differntial between here and the US is a bother. I'll have to watch the Saints against the Falcons on Rewind. Night.

The Saints seem like they're on a mission tonight to rack up 800 yards of offense without breaking 17 points.

Thank you for those 5 INTs, Drew. Signed, my fantasy football team where you're my starting QB....

Me too. And I even had him on the bench for a while this week, but decided to put him in 'cause I thought he'd be pissed off about the Niner game. Nope!

I'm sure he was pissed off. Didn't help him any though. The Saints need to take good strong look at what kind of plays their offense is running - there's too much missing from what a year ago was one of the better attacks in the league - ever.

Seems like only yesterday people were talking retirement for Ray Lewis. Now it sounds like he could be back in a couple weeks. Huh.

There was no way he would retire on an injury unless it put his life in jeopardy. But him coming back so quickly would be amazing.

Somehow he must have located Adrian Peterson's stem cell stash.

Maybe. Wish Ed Reed could stumble onto that. They're both getting to the point where they need to retire, but I imagine they'll do it the same year so they can possibly go to the HOF together.

I think that missing part would be Sean Payton. The dropoff between Payton and Carmichael has been huge.

Yes. I think what Payton always did was to constantly add small wrinkles and gotchas into the stuff they'd run before, it hasn't felt as dynamic this year. I mean, there were times over the last three year where that offense felt pretty much unstoppable.

A Chiefs player, Jovan Belcher, killed his girlfriend this morning, then travelled to the team training facility at Arrowhead and committed suicide in the parking lot. Apparently some Chiefs players and officials witnessed the suicide. It's not clear if tomorrows game will be played on schedule or not.

It's a terrible situation. I feel that the game should be cancelled. No playoff implications, possibly some draft ones, but that can be dealt with later. Fantasy football players will just have to deal with it.

No way that'll happen.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap10...van-belcher-fatally-shoots-himself-police-say

Edit: game definitely on -- from that same story:

I don't think the game will be cancelled, though I could see them delaying it a day. Not sure that really matters, though, really. Will another 24 hours really make a difference for the people involved? There really isn't a good solution.

You'd be surprised about the difference an addition 24 hours of processing the situation can help in the grieving process. I can't imagine that anyone on that team will be emotionally available for that game tomorrow - especially Crennel.

Well reports now are that the Chiefs have told the NFL they want to go ahead and play the game tomorrow. Not that the Chiefs have a recent history of making the right decisions, but still . .

Looks like a long day for the Fins, but man, Hernandez, stop dropping things!

Commentators need to apologize for their mikes picking up foul language from a player? "Watta fuck are you doin!" were the actual words in case. And Sanchez ... five completions, three interceptions.

Sanchez benched, Greg McElroy comes in and scores a TD, and is now the most popular man in New York.

Just another boring week in the NFL!

- trailing 3-0 all day, the Jets finally pull Sanchez and are led to a 7-6 victory by their backup QB ... Greg McIlroy.

- The 49ers and Rams, in overtime again!

- The Seahawks score the go-ahead TD against the Bears with 24 seconds left. Except they forget to cover Brandon Marshall on the following series, allowing him to get wide open and into FG range in the span of 15 seconds, leading to the spectacular commentary: "I think Seattle made a tactical mistake there."

Wow, what the hell happened to Rice there? He looks like he might be out cold.

That looks like it's going to be a Seahawks win, but ouch, his head got bent back really awkwardly on that hit. That's painful to watch.

Luck and Wayne are going to work now...

And Akers misses ANOTHER overtime FG!

Luck is just a joy to watch right now. It's amazing how poised and in control he looks in his first season.

Also, goddamn I love Sunday Ticket.

Prediction: Luck scrambles in for the winning TD on 4th down.

Tocuhdown Colts!

And Indy knocks off Detroit with a last-second TD flip to Donnie Avery!

And 30 seconds from another tie, Greg The Leg wins it!

My god, that was a 54 yard kick and it looked like it almost went OVER the upright. Holy crap.

I'm looking forward to their next observations about the wonderfulness of Kaepernick.

Silly stat: Wilson is the first QB to put up 30 completions against the Bears without a pick this season.

I was really wrong about him!

Fucking Lions. Not much more to say about that.

When the season is over, I would like to see Seabass and Greg the Leg have a FG distance contest for charity.

Well once again Adrian Peterson shows that he isn't human in how he has played this year and the QB lets them down, again. 210 yards today and still a loss.

Christian Ponder: Not an NFL quarterback :(

That Seahawk win offsets the loss to Miami last week and means they got the road win they needed for 10 wins to be realistic. Now they have St. Louis, Arizona, and San Francisco at home and one more road game at Toronto against the Bills. If they can win 3 of those that will put them at 10-6. That also have the second wild card spot to themselves right now as both Tampa and Minnesota lost.

The downside is that the 49er loss today makes it more likely now that the final game of the season, where the 49ers come to Seattle, will mean somethiing to both teams.

I wish the NFL would allow the networks to air more games. It sucked to know the 49'ers and Rams were in overtime but there was no way to watch it on tv (aside from subscribing to sunday ticket)