Jolt Country

Football is on, and all is right with the world. Even if it's two teams I don't care about (Giants-Redskins) -- football is one of two sports, along with hockey, where I can tune into any game, featuring any two teams, and be immediately engrossed within minutes.

The season opens with Robb's team (the Saints) and mine (the Bucs) playing each other. We really should be talking shit, but we're both pretty nice, polite, well-bred guys.

Nonetheless, I'll try: Rickey Jackson sucks.

CALLING IT: They just went to commercial, but Fred Smoot, torn ACL, lost for season is my prediction.

I will counter with a MADE UP statistic: Lee Roy Selmon's Afro was on the winning team the least number of times of any person currently in the Hall of Fame. OVER-RATED!

I'd mock the Saints' Hall of Famers, but I'm fresh out of Jim Finks material.

Today, some crazy bastard that I assume was drunk actually tried to argue going for the touchdown first when down by 11 or less with like a minute left to play. Haha, insane shit, huh?

Ah, yes, Saints! "Where I is now also kidney!" But this is the opposite!! ^__^

Even now season update are already empty, miserable. But more than anything else we were whisked off with the little information in relation to site.

gsdgsd wrote:I'd mock the Saints' Hall of Famers, but I'm fresh out of Jim Finks material.

I already wrote this in chat, but I love how the NFL Hall of Fame site handles the bolding of the HoFers.

For everyone else: guys play on various teams in their career, and the HoF site will place a guy in BOLD formatting if his primary contributions came from a particular team. So Steve Young would be in bold for the 49ers, but a regular, unbolded font for the Bucs.

Jim Finks was the general manager who put together, among other things, the Bears team that won the Super Bowl in 1985. So he is rightfully bolded for that. His contributions with the Saints include putting together a team that went to the playoffs four times. They did not win a playoff game in that time.

With that in mind, the HoF site STILL PUTS JIM FINKS IN BOLD for his contributions to the Saints. Yes, simply getting this train wreck of a franchise to the playoffs is equivalent to winning a Super Bowl elsewhere. I love it.

You can console yourself knowing that in a decade or so, Morten Andersen will probably be in...

I had a Bucs joke about Gramatica jumping up and down like he just made it over the border fence to celebrate, but he is with the Saints now. Which is INFURIATING. Well, except that he hasn't missed any kicks yet. That part is not infuriating.

What a performance by the Redskins. Sums up what has made a lot of football games unwatchable over the years.

I dont understand how someone like Jim Zorn who has been involved in football for 40+ years is terrified to open up the playbook down two scores with 5 minutes left. The Redskins ran the ball, took their time, and threw at least 12 5 yard passes in one of the lamest attempts at being involved in a tight football game i have ever seen. What are these coaches so scared about?

No idea. That right there sort of says it all for Zorn and Campbell. Do you remember watching those AFC East games growing up? Marino and Kelly would fucking SPAZ OUT at the end of games.

Campbell threw a shitty pass to Thrash on the sideline and hit him in the sternum (in the end zone) on another. Of course, they should have kicked the field goal and tried to recover an onside kick, rendering both of those terrible plays moot. Moss is a star, and I understand the Giants probably threw four guys on him, but Jesus Christ - though I guess Snyder going after weapons like Randal El and that terrible ex-49 WR whose name I can't remember (I think he got cut) explains why the game was in the ... er, near the hands of James Freaking Thrash.

Here is a list of issues with this year's version of Madden Football.

http://www.easports.com/madden09/fullsite/blog.jsp

I won't bash the guy as it is AMAZING to me that they owned up to them, took responsibility for them, and plan on fixing them. I really don't recall EA being so cool about it before now. That being said, I expect Madden 2010 to fix all the issues that plagued this year's version.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I had a Bucs joke about Gramatica jumping up and down like he just made it over the border fence to celebrate, but he is with the Saints now. Which is INFURIATING. Well, except that he hasn't missed any kicks yet. That part is not infuriating.

Ah, Marty. I can never cheer against him -- I hope he has plenty of success with the Saints. And for obvious reasons, I hope Reggie Bush scores two touchdowns a game. I guess I'm just hoping for them to lose 31-20 to the Bucs, except I don't think TB has scored 31 points in a game since the Super Bowl.

re: the Redskins, I don't think I've ever seen a team have less idea of what they need to accomplish in a certain amount of time to win a game. They spent the last several minutes of that game looking befuddled -- maybe they just aren't so good at math. "We're down by nine -- a touchdown will get us even, right?"

Anyway. (real) opening day is upon us. I got drunk and dropped $50 on the Bucs to cover the other night, so this game has a bit more meaning than normal. Also, my work schedule has conveniently changed so that I have to be in at 2:30 pm every Sunday. Wheeeeeeeeeee.

What is the line on the game? Bucs by 3.5?

New Orleans by 3 was the line I got.

Well hey, looks like the bookmakers know what they're doing!

The Saints lose that game 90% of the time. Hell, they lost it last year as the final TB-Saints game. So there will be nothing but a grim sense of - oh, you are killing me in fantasy football, so one is the battle and the other the war. Or something.

I will write a front page post about Reggie Bush tonight, not because I think one game is CAREER CHANGING in the scheme of things, but the average dilweed (me) watching a single team's games (the Saints) is in fact more qualified to talk about a player than the average sportswriter. I think we are years away from having really good stats in the NFL that lets you know things even if you are not watching all the games, like with baseball.

But yeah, the Saints and Bucs are gonna be fine. With what Atlanta did, we have a division this year!

I dunno. Garcia looked really bad. Horrible timing all day. I did not come out of this confident about the Bucs. But then, I've never been confident about the Bucs, except maybe in the last two minutes of the 2003 Super Bowl.

It's bittersweet, of course, that Reggie Bush scores the touchdown, giving me a nice lead over you -- and defeating my favorite team in the process, and costing me $50.

And you still have Addai and Harrison to play - this deficit is not insurmountable, especially since the Cowboys seem committed to scoring on the ground.

Oh shit, I forgot you had money on the game! Goddamn. Betting on the NFL is always such a goddamn crapshoot as you can make an argument for like every team. Even Atlanta beating the Lions, right?

1) Atlanta can do a worst-to-first
2) LOOKOUTS ITS BE LIOSN