The Heckler posted:Really who is an announcer that you would tune in to hear?
Norm Macdonald.
Esox posted:the NFL hate > Packer Love, and then it'll be time for me to do the ole good bye x4 thread. That's if the Boss doesn't bail first.
Good Topic T!
{Ahem....clears throat for effect}
I'm already at the spot of --> NFL hate > Packer Love <--
Timesfour sticks around as long as we have people here & a decent amount of traffic. If people leave & we start going a month or 2 without a single post, then yeah. I'm not paying $1,800 a year for no traffic.
Christ almost all my e-mail flows through x4 - Double SPAM filtered.
Is it over for X4? Not yet.....not yet
Thanks Boris....
As seen last Monday night....this place provides a very necessary service and some extremely necessary therapy.
Plus this is the longest relationship I have ever been in.
Hungry5 posted:Lotta old guard type's in the owner list. Next TV deal/negotiations will be interesting, especially with the half trillion $$ behemoth Amazon in the discussion.
So you can order the games you want with two day delivery? I'm in.
Free bonus is them knowing which games you'll order before you order them.
“Alexa. Order a Packer victory”.
"Alexa, fire Dom Capers".
"In other news, Packers defense coordinator Dom Capers was immolated by what appears to be Skynet".
"Fârnhäan, describe Dom Capers' coaching resume"
"Dom Capers is an outstanding football coach"
"That doesn't sound right"
The game has changed to be so QB centric that I think it's hurt the game a bit. Look at our own Packers, went from being the NFC Favorite to competing with the Browns for worst team in the league with 1 injury. If you don't have one of the great QBs in the league, you almost have no shot and everyone knows it.
Don't get me wrong, you've always needed great QB play in any era, but I think it's even more enhanced in this era where all the rules have been heavily slanted towards offense and towards the passing game. One of the byproducts of all these concussion lawsuits vs. the NFL is that the rules are much heavier in favor of the offense than they have been. It magnifies QB play even more because if you don't have a good or great one that can take advantage of today's rules that make it very easy to pass the ball you are F'd!!
It's a development I didn't really see coming with all the offense/QB-friendly rules changes over the last 10+ years. But the math makes sense. Overvalue one position and if you fail at that position the whole thing kind of collapses. Unless you've built a top D and even then you're stressed when you run into a top QB in the post season.
Aaron Hernandez suffered from most severe CTE ever found in a person his age - The Washington Post
If he was stage 3 by 27 not too much of leap to think his eggs were scrambled in college if not before. Doesn't bode well for the NFL.
It sure doesn't look good for the NFL. And if you look at the picture of his brain that's part of the article, Hernandez was lucky to even know his name when he died. Unreal damage. Doesn't excuse his behavior, but ya gotta wonder. After doing such horrible things in his life, at least he contributed to science at the end.
When the current CBA expires, the league will be at a crossroads.
TV contracts are up only 2 years after, and streaming options should be coming on-line. But will the networks be willing to pay more than they do now? Does the league have an effective business plan for affordable streaming?
On the business side, life is great. Revenue keeps growing, franchise values increasing, the long-desired relocation of teams to LA, new stadiums are opening with others in the pipeline, and owners are mostly happy.
But now, ol' Jerruh has a huge boner for Goodell, and I think has a small faction backing him (*cough* Kraft* cough*). That will be settled before anything else. Then comes current player/political issues that will need at least a 'patch' until a new CBA is signed.
Speaking of, I'm sure players are looking for changes in the CBA, mostly concerning league-imposed discipline and marijuana use. It shouldn't be a hindrance to negotiate/settle, because the current system doesn't work for either side.
Just as importantly, roster rules, (length of/changes to) season schedules, possibly including pre-season, and (likely) an introduction of a new PF policy could be huge factors in the CBA and how negotiations with networks and other broadcasters could be affected.
Oh, and there's that pesky HGH testing program that still hasn't been implemented. And dealing with the consequences of CTE into the future.
Yep, the league has a full plate. I hope the league and union both have the big picture in mind at all times, and don't get sidetracked by small issues that are mostly meaningless. There's more than enough money for everybody!
On the news CB Richard has ruptured his Achilles and is out for the season...
Doug Baldwin: Thursday Night Football should be illegal
With the laundry list of players injured in Thursday night’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals, it’s no wonder some of the players involved in the game would question the wisdom of playing two games in five days.Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin thinks the most enterprise should be banned.
“This s— should be illegal,” Baldwin said, via Gregg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune. “It is not OK. It’s not OK. You can quote me on that.
“This is not OK. … Absolutely, guys do not have enough time to recover. You can’t recover in four days.”
Baldwin was one of at least 15 players hurt or injured in the game between the two teams. The Seahawks alone had 12 different players injured in some way. Cornerback Richard Sherman (Achilles), defensive tackle Jarran Reed (hamstring), tackle Duane Brown (ankle), running back C.J. Prosise (ankle), linebacker Michael Wilhoite (calf) and defensive end Frank Clark (thigh) were all knocked out of the game and did not return.
Safety Kam Chancellor (stinger), cornerback Shaquill Griffin (shoulder), quarterback Russell Wilson (jaw/concussion check), defensive tackle Nazair Jones and Baldwin (hip/groin) all had issues arise as well that they played through.
That list doesn’t include the three Cardinals likely done for the season in tackle D.J. Humphries (knee), safety Tyvon Branch (knee) and tight end Ifeanyi Momah (ankle).
“It’s Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D, Exhibit Z. Thursday night football should be illegal,” Baldwin said, via Brady Henderson of ESPN.com.
He can expect his letter from the league office.
Henry posted:Aaron Hernandez suffered from most severe CTE ever found in a person his age - The Washington Post
How do they know his brain wasn't scrambled by his own drug use? Or drug use by his mother when she was pregnant? Was he ever bashed in the head a time or two or ten over a drug deal? A lot more needs to be investigated before blaming all his CTE on just football. JMHO.
I think CTE is just a cover for a guy that went down the wrong path in life after his father passed away when he was a teen. I bet a guy like Chuck Bednarik had a brain full of mush after all the hits he put on guys when he was a middle linebacker. He was a tough dude and no saint, but even he didn't become a psychopathic killer and lived a long life.
I guess what you could say is this was a guy who was a ticking time bomb under any circumstances, and the CTE maybe was the thing that made the bomb go off. Tough to prove that though. There's a number of people that become killers and are psychopaths without CTE, maybe he would have been one of them, but you really can't know for sure.
Not to make light of CTE, but how many people AH's age have had their brains analyzed for CTE?
FinnLander posted:Not to make light of CTE, but how many people AH's age have had their brains analyzed for CTE?
Almost no one without a history of concussions or being in a sport with potential head trauma develops CTE. It's also highly correlated with exposure. This is the abstract of the paper (attached below) that has the potential to change high school's decisions about whether to offer football or not. If you only played high school football, the chances of getting it are 21%. Once you play in college or the NFL your chances are over 90%. Granted, there is some ascertainment bias here (people with symptoms are more likely to arrange to donate their brains (or their family's are), but even if this overestimates the prevalence 2-3 fold, it's still really, really bad.
The Bednarik example is a good one, but it may be that CTE (like dementia or Alzheimer's sometimes do) just removes the cognitive ability to judge consequences. Hernandez may have been predisposed to act violently for other reasons (terrible childhood, etc.), but the CTE enhances whatever predispositions there might be. The fact that football players already self-select to play a violent sport may mean that CTE may enhance their tendencies to act violently once they get the neural damage.
JAMA. 2017 Jul 25;318(4):360-370. doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.8334.
Clinicopathological Evaluation of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Players of American Football.
Mez J1, Daneshvar DH2, Kiernan PT1, Abdolmohammadi B1, Alvarez VE3, Huber BR4, Alosco ML1, Solomon TM5, Nowinski CJ6, McHale L7, Cormier KA1, Kubilus CA1, Martin BM8, Murphy L1, Baugh CM9, Montenigro PH1, Chaisson CE8, Tripodis Y10, Kowall NW11, Weuve J12, McClean MD13, Cantu RC14, Goldstein LE15, Katz DI16, Stern RA17, Stein TD18, McKee AC19.
Abstract
Importance:
Players of American football may be at increased risk of long-term neurological conditions, particularly chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Objective:
To determine the neuropathological and clinical features of deceased football players with CTE.
Design, Setting, and Participants:
Case series of 202 football players whose brains were donated for research. Neuropathological evaluations and retrospective telephone clinical assessments (including head trauma history) with informants were performed blinded. Online questionnaires ascertained athletic and military history.
Exposures:
Participation in American football at any level of play.
Main Outcomes and Measures:
Neuropathological diagnoses of neurodegenerative diseases, including CTE, based on defined diagnostic criteria; CTE neuropathological severity (stages I to IV or dichotomized into mild [stages I and II] and severe [stages III and IV]); informant-reported athletic history and, for players who died in 2014 or later, clinical presentation, including behavior, mood, and cognitive symptoms and dementia.
Results:
Among 202 deceased former football players (median age at death, 66 years [interquartile range, 47-76 years]), CTE was neuropathologically diagnosed in 177 players (87%; median age at death, 67 years [interquartile range, 52-77 years]; mean years of football participation, 15.1 [SD, 5.2]), including 0 of 2 pre-high school, 3 of 14 high school (21%), 48 of 53 college (91%), 9 of 14 semiprofessional (64%), 7 of 8 Canadian Football League (88%), and 110 of 111 National Football League (99%) players. Neuropathological severity of CTE was distributed across the highest level of play, with all 3 former high school players having mild pathology and the majority of former college (27 [56%]), semiprofessional (5 [56%]), and professional (101 [86%]) players having severe pathology. Among 27 participants with mild CTE pathology, 26 (96%) had behavioral or mood symptoms or both, 23 (85%) had cognitive symptoms, and 9 (33%) had signs of dementia. Among 84 participants with severe CTE pathology, 75 (89%) had behavioral or mood symptoms or both, 80 (95%) had cognitive symptoms, and 71 (85%) had signs of dementia.
Conclusions and Relevance:
In a convenience sample of deceased football players who donated their brains for research, a high proportion had neuropathological evidence of CTE, suggesting that CTE may be related to prior participation in football.
Chris Boreland was pretty smart
