We've talked about this in the past, the NFL is massively hypocritical when it talks about preventing concussions. The only players the NFL cares about protecting are QBs and WRs, as far as the rules are concerned. That's four or five guys out of the 22 who are on the field on any given play. If you look at the replay, Ridley is the one who drops his head and causes the helmet-to-helmet contact. If Pollard had been knocked out, it also wouldn't be addressed. I don't know if the announcers have been directed not to talk about it or if they just feel like they don't want to bring it up because it's a "legal hit" but obviously not a clean hit and would thus be awkward to celebrate or defend.
Listening to ESPN this morning they were discussing Tim Brown's comments about Callahan, and I'm chuckling and thinking what kind of fool would hire that guy. Thirty minutes ago ESPN announces Jerry Jones has hired Callahan as the offensive coordinator. I can't even muster up the energy to throw anything at this point.First Monte Kiffin, now this.
That is insane. Never mistake stupidity for ingenious master-planning. Did Callahan tell Rich Gannon to throw 5 INTs as well? Put Crazy Juice in Barrett Robbin's margarita?
The most obvious counter-argument is "Are you really willing to embarrass yourself in the Super Bowl, for any reason?" I guess maybe if Callahan really hated Al Davis, which to be honest is totally fair. Even Jerry Jones is an amateur at fucking over coaches compared to Davis. Which makes it doubly ironic that Callahan now works for Jones, but anyway. One thing that does lend a little credence to the conspiracy theory is the quotes from Bucs players after the game that Gruden prepared them so well that they knew the plays the Raiders were running. Maybe he just knew Gannon and the playbook because it used to be his team, but maybe he actually knew the plays they were going to run.
I said that Ridley was the one lowering his head. The announcers would have mentioned it, and gone over it and talked about the why of it, if Ridley or Thomas had fumbled because they broke their leg. Both men fumbled becaue they were out on their feet, the announcers have clearly been instructed not to talk about head injuries. I agree they wouldn't talk about it if Pollard had been knocked out, but not because he is a DB, but because they cant. QBs and WRs are the only people currently being protected, SF benefited hugely from a roughing the passer penalty against ATL that amounted to a mild touch of Kapernick's face mask (he didn't even notice it enough to sell it better) for instance.
Kaepernick doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would take a dive or whine to the officials to draw a penalty. At least the guy did actually hit him in the head, I've seen flags where the replay clearly shows the guy's hand coming down on the QB's shoulder. Head injuries are a complicated issue, and I really don't know that there's a solution. Some of the research seems to suggest that the small, "routine" concussions that occur on every play are more damaging long-term than the big knock-out concussions. I don't know that you can actually play football without head injuries. Certainly though, all the talk about protecting players and the ticky-tack penalties for roughing the passer and hitting "defenseless" receivers is ridiculous when you see something like this. I imagine it must really suck to be one of the players the NFL doesn't give a shit about, listening to Goodell go on about player safety. Especially if you are currently suffering from post-concussion symptoms. And doubly so if Goodell is fining you while you are having to suffer in silence. Speaking of double-standards, Brady still hasn't been fined for trying to kick Ed Reed in the nutsack, and I'll be very surprised if he is.
Brady. Welker. Gronkowski. Now Ridley. Pollard isn't the cleanest player, no, Pollard is a nightmare vortex.
I understand that you think so. To me you are just That Guy who claims that Matt Ryan is a better QB than Tom Brady.
Jonathan Vilma knocked Kendall Hunter and Kyle Williams out for the season on the same play. Pollard is dirty but he's not an elite dirty player yet.
To be specific, Brown claims that the Raiders had settled on a mostly run oriented game plan, practiced it all week, and then on the Friday before the game Callahan announced he had decided to switch to a mainly pass oriented game plan. Brown says this put pressure on Robbins and may have contributed to his mental breakdown. I was thinking "yeah, whatever" about this, but now Jerry Rice has come out and said he agrees with Brown on the main points - i.e. he thinks Callahan intentionally blew the game because he didn't like the Raiders and liked Gruden. There have been other Raider players on the team that have come out and at least indicated that hardly any of them liked or had any confidence in Callahan. So I'm not sure what to think at this point. Jerry Rice isn't the kind of guy you'd expect to lie about something like that. Florio at PFT did have a point in an earlier comment that this very well could have been an Al Davis directive to change the game plan, so who knows at this point.
That is a really good point. I've heard multiple players say that Al Davis used to phone down to the sidelines and tell the coach to throw deep on the next play. It could also be a combination, Davis tells Callahan to alter his gameplan so Callahan says "fuck it" and just goes pass-pass-pass all game to stick it to the Lich King.
I wouldn't doubt there's some Al Davis insanity involved in this. However, what's bizarre is that this occurred ten years ago; why is this story surfacing now? I'm sure Ed Reed will be fined 20k for roughing because he was touching Tom Brady's foot with his inner thigh.
Yeah, no idea. Maybe somebody was interviewing Brown for something, asked about the Super Bowl and he went off. Maybe he's been having trouble dealing with life out of the limelight and asked Favre for advice. Maybe he's just off his meds. It makes for a nice break from the Harbaugh Harbaugh Harbaugh coverage, anyway.
PFT pointed out there are bunch of now high-profile coaches who were part of Callahan's staff that year - Callahan himself (who has so far had no comment), new Bears head coach Marc Trestman (also no comment), and new Bears OC Aaaron Kromer. Oh, and Jim Harbaugh. So instead of spending two weeks talking about the Harbaugh family angle, Ray Lewis, or even Kaepernick, it could be all about the 2002 Superbowl.
I recall the major point of contention at the time of that Superbowl was that Callahan never bothered to change the offense's plays or audibles therefore the Bucs defense were able to guess all the plays.
It does sound like a lot of revisionism to blame the coach. By the way, Callahan has now issued a firm denial. So far Gannon, Lincoln Kennedy, and Romanowski have all come out to say Brown is full of it. And while I still wonder about Rice, apparently he has a motive in that it was apparently Callahan who had the unenviable task of being responsible for telling Brown and Rice that they were at the end of their careers. Rice wasn't traded until the following regime, but the reality is that by the time he got to Seattle in 2004 he was just a shadow of what he had been. He had like one good game as a Seahawk. And even Shanahan in Denver had to tell him that the next year when he tried to catch on with the Broncos. So maybe Rice's views have been tainted by the later difficulty he had in recognizing he was done.
The NFL comes through! Tom Brady was fined a whopping $10,000 for his attempted cup-check on Ed Reed. To put it in perspective, they also fined Frank Gore $10,500 for literally not pulling his socks up. Priorities.
The NFL fines are hilarious. Remember Polamalu got fined 10k for calling his wife during a game to let her know he was okay? And then the uniform fines are even more ridiculous. The Gore one takes the cake, but I remember how RG3 got docked 10k for wearing adidas at a postgame press conference. So in essence, the NFL is saying that wearing your socks not pulled up, and wearing adidas gear, is as problematic as punching someone, or an illegal chop block. Lol.
I guess Roger Goodell is the sergeant major of the NFL. I don't care if your Marine has a sucking chest wound, he will not traipse around the deck with his shirttails hanging out!
So Sean Payton got reinstated the other day, and if you missed it, his contract extension was worked out a few weeks back so he's good to go. Today he fired Steve Spagnola, who got all of one year. Payton says he's decided to switch the team to a 3-4 defense instead and wants a new coach. It's pretty cold all around, not the least of which Spagnola is now looking for a job when most teams that had openings have already filled theirs.
Well, the timing is hardly Payton's fault, is it? A switch to a 3-4 might be a better fit for their personnel, especially considering some of the oldtimers has to go or re-negotiate. It's a very odd situation because on the one hand Saint D gave up more yards than any other team in the history of the game, on the other showed marked improvement during the course of the season, excluding that Carolina game. Edited to add that yes, the NFL is very cold business and I imagine Payton is one of the colder ones around. And firing the Secondary coach is music to my ears - we repeatedly got burned because our corners lack the fundamentals. You could more or less throw a Pass Interference or Holding flag at Robinson every time a QB dropped back. It didn't help that the only really good player (Malcolm Jenkins) got injured.
Uh, hey, I just realized. For this season, Visa launched two NFL commercials. One with Ray Lewis. One with the 49ers. This means something.
It is a pretty interesting coincidence, though it is also funny because the notable presence of Alex Smith in the 49ers one. As an aside, there are reports now that Smith is going to ask the 49ers to release him prior to the opening of free agency.
His contract makes trading him kind of a gamble. I believe that they can't trade him before a $1 million roster bonus comes due, and then from that point they only have half a month before next year's salary becomes guaranteed. And I'm not sure whether they can really suss out the market before then without risking tampering charges. So they may just decide to forgo whatever low-round pick they could get for him and save the $1 million instead.
I would have thought Smith would have been a nice asset for the 49'ers to trade. He looked really good prior to getting hurt (he also got his team to the Conference Final last year). Why do you think he is only worth a low round draft pick? I'm also looking at the Seahawks and thinking they have an asset in Matt Flynn, one they could turn into a decent WR or passrusher. Flynn and Smith are better than a lot of QB's that started on other teams this year.
ie the last place they want him to end up. I could see Smith getting traded for a 3rd or 4th round pick, Rarely to guys get traded for much higher, as least it is unlikely Smith would.
Yeah, bad teams want QBs with more upside. I think Arizona is the only team with a Superbowl-caliber defense that's a mediocre quarterback away from being good enough to get there. Maybe Cleveland, but I'm not sure they'd take their chances on Smith being a significant upgrade over Weeden. Edit: Actually, Cleveland's defense doesn't look nearly as good as I thought it was for some reason.
Arizona needs a line. I don't know if Kolb is the answer there or if Smith would do better, but I do know that we won't find out unless they get some decent O-linemen in there.
There are definately a few teams other then the Cardinals where Alex Smith might have a big impact. The Vikings, where Ponder hasn't exactly proven himself, and the Bills are two teams that come to mind as potentially being just a QB away. Matt Flynn, on the other hand, I don't know that he'll actually be traded. Now sure, some teams would be interested if Seattle were to simply cut him. But Seattle has no real reason to do that - he's a overpaid for a backup but Seattle isn't paying Wilson much and is well under the cap anyway. Saving a few million by cutting Flynn only makes sense if Seattle has another QB they are confident can take over if Wilson goes down. Nor do they need the draft picks as they already have 10 picks for the upcoming draft. And then there is the fact that Flynn only had two teams interested in him last year to begin with. So that really points to Flynn having limited trade value, if any, given a two year contract the receiving team would be taking on. So I'm not going to be surprised if Matt Flynn is still a Seahawk going into camp next year. At that point if some team has an injury or gets desperate, then maybe Seattle would trade him if they have another QB on the roster they are willing to live with.
Two things. First, the only thing he's really proven this season is that last season wasn't a fluke, but it also was pretty much his ceiling. Last offseason after taking his team to the Conference Final he was a free agent. Only the Dolphins brought him in for a visit and they didn't offer him a contract. Why would a team want him bad enough to give up a draft pick this year when they didn't want him last year even without giving up a pick? Second, he isn't a franchise QB and that's what every team in the NFL (including the 49ers) is looking for. Sure, Alex Smith is better than a lot of guys starting in the league, but that isn't good enough. Every team wants a guy who either is a franchise QB or has the potential to become one. Alex fits neither category. The guys teams trade for like McNabb, Schaub and Kolb may pan out or they may not, but teams are trading for the franchise potential. Alex is only ever going to be a short-term stopgap while the team continues to search for its future franchise QB (just like he was for Harbaugh in San Francisco). I don't see a team investing a lot in a guy they plan to replace. I think it's a lot more likely they would wait for him to be cut and make an offer, and invest heavily in the guy who is going to replace him. Final, bonus point: Alex has shown that when all the pieces are in place, he can play well enough not to lose games. However, very few teams that need a QB have the kind of defense, running game, offensive line and receiving targets necessary to win with Alex Smith. If he went to Arizona, I don't see how he would do any better than Kolb and Skelton. He is not Jeff Garcia who could scramble away from unblocked pass rushers and make plays in spite of everything. Alex played behind the kind of offensive line the Cardinals have earlier in his career. He injured and then reinjured his shoulder and missed a year. Plus, further to point two, are the Cardinals really going make a trade that gives them three guys who are never going to be "the guy"? This is one of the few teams that might actually be a good fit for him, but I don't know that they can afford to pay Sanchez and another QB starter money.
