Get Your Popcorn Ready: NFL Is BACK
Published August 8, 2010 | 
The NFL pre-season kicked off tonight with the annual hall of fame game in canton, Ohio. The Bengals took on the Cowboys in a fairly typcial pre-season game.
The X-factor that made it interesting was Terrell Owens. His sudden departure from the Cowboys a little over a year ago made headlines and surprised no one but T.O. (he even said after the game he still thinks he should be a Cowboy).
T.O. is now catching Carson Palmer’s passes in Cincy alongside Chad OchentaCinco.
Say what you want about T.O. and his antics, but if you are one of those people who think he has lost two steps and doesn’t still ahve a top 15 WR game, you are wrongly mistaken. He put up pretty good numbers for a losing team with the most untalented batch of QB’s I’ve ever seen.
T.O. and OchoCinco will be impossible to cover, and will help Carson Palmer come back from a year that saw the Bengals be the 26th ranked passing team in the NFL. Strange enough, the Bengals had their worst passing year, and had one of Carson Palmer’s two best years.
It is just pre-season and no one really cares except head coaches and 4th string defensive backs. But the excitement is back and the NFL season is just on the horizon.
Check out the game’s Box Score.
The Knicks Just Get It
Published August 6, 2010 | 
You know how some people just “Get It”? Well the Knicks are one of those ‘people’. They are just so in tuned to whats going on and so well run, it’s no wonder they keep winning championships. They make strong hires from the get go. They are great at the draft. Always get their guy. Oh, and they play great defense with their coach.
Wait, that’s Spurs, or… The Lakers. Or really anyone but the Knicks.
Isiah Thomas is BACK!! great news for everyone named Isiah Thomas.
Isiah Thomas cost the Knicks over 200 million dollars whlie he was with the team via his contract, absurd luxury tax costs due to high payroll, and his 12 million dollar sexual harassment lawsuit that they settled on with an intern.
Playoffs were never even really an option, even though they had double the salary that anyone else did.
No question Thomas is one of the greatest players of all time, and no one can forget his sprained ankle quarter where he put up like 30 points in a quarter in the playoffs. But he will also go down as not only the worst coach, but also the worst GM in NBA history (Kahn is making a hard push for it though).
Thomas will be hired as a “consultant” which means to me that they’ll eventually give him GM-ship and then the coaching reigns once again.
Isiah was just coaching FIU (and will “stay there”) last year. They put up a solid fight in UNC”s opener last year (which made me realize off the bat how bad UNC was going to be). But he had to coach for free, no one would touch him. I guess he needed money, and the Knicks have plenty of that. I’m sure he’s had a positive impact at a non-existant college basketball program with recruiting. But come on, Knicks, are we really going down this road again?
This is definitely the #1 reason Lebron James made the right decision to not go to the Knicks…. They sent Isiah to represent their team during the recruiting push.
Favre Finally Retires, Exciting Vikings, Since That Means He’s Playing
Published August 4, 2010 | 
Nothing adds more ESPN content year after year over the summer than the Favre retirement sagas. Yesterday, all reports indicated that Favre was calling it quits. The report first said that Favre had texted a bunch of players “this is it” indicating that he wasn’t comign back.
ESPN obviously ran with it, making up sources and blowing the story out of proportion. The news took over ESPN radio and ESPN news all day and night.
But there just weren’t any facts associated with the data. There were reports of the text messages, but Visanthe Shiancoe didn’t get it, Childress didn’t get it, and Favre’s longest teammate Ryan Longwell didn’t get it. I was skeptical all day, and didn’t understand why ESPN had run with the story without being able to name anyone who had gotten these texts. Continue reading
A Sad Day For Everyone Not Named Manning or Tavaris
Published August 3, 2010 | 
All reports seem to indicate that Favre is retiring from football and will not be returning to the Vikings.
Now, some of you might be saying, “Finally, now we don’t have to hear about this every day for the next 12 months. Well, it probably only fuels speculation about him coming back throughout the season. But the NFL gets huge ratings boosts from Favre, and so does ESPN and EPN radio by just talking about Favre (and Lebron) 24/7. You might not like either of those players, but you are always intrigued to hear about them and watch them play. It’s just a fact.
Do we buy it? Not really. But let’s assume it’s true and see the implications for other players outside of Mississippi. Peyton Manning’s record hunt and Tarvaris Jackson stand to gain the most from Favre’s departure.
Tarvaris Jackson
Tarvaris Jackson stands to be the only person in the NFL to not lose money and fame from Favre retiring. Favre brings a lot of attention to the NFL and makes everyone richer. Except his back-up QB. Tarvaris Jackson will now start the season for the Vikings. If he has a crappy year, he’ll be in the same exact position he was 2 days ago, a back-up making back-up money. But if Tarvaris has a pretty decent season with all that talent around him, he stand to make some good money on his next contract.
Tarvaris Jackson may actually not like this announcement. He might be such a professional that he wanted the team to win, and knew Favre was about 62% better than himself, and was happy with his back-up role in exchange for a winning atmosphere. But the competitor in everyone makes this unlikely, and Tavaris probably wants to play. I don’t think he’ll be great but he’ll probably lead the team to 9 or 10 games as opposed to 12 or 13 with Favre.
Peyton Manning
Manning will finally have some numbers to shoot for, and won’t have to keeping adding years onto his own career just to outlast Favre. Let’s look at the numbers manning has to beat.
Note: Wins/Losses taken from career W/L Avg. TD, Yds, INT, Comp, Att, and Sacks will be projected from the WORST year Manning has had since 2003.
| Stat | Manning | Favre | Per Yr | Per Gm | Worst Year | GMs Needed | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wins | 131 | 181 | 10.9 | .682 | Avg | 74 | 4.6 |
| Losses | 61 | 104 | 5.08 | .318 | Avg | 136 | 8.5 |
| TD | 366 | 497 | 27 | 1.69 | 2008 | 78 | 4.9 |
| Pass Yds | 50128 | 69329 | 3747 | 234.2 | 2005 | 82 | 5.1 |
| Cons GMs | 192 | 284 | 16 | 1 | Avg | 92 | 5.5 |
| INT | 181 | 317 | 16 | 1 | 2009 | 136 | 8.5 |
| Comp | 4232 | 6083 | 305 | 25.4 | 2005 | 73 | 4.5 |
| Att | 6531 | 9811 | 453 | 37.8 | 2005 | 87 | 5.5 |
| Sacks | 215 | 503 | 21 | 1.3 | 2007 | 220 | 13.7 |
So Peyton is right on his way to take down most of Favre’s records in the next 5 years (at least the good ones). Note that these projections are projected from Mannings WORST year of the last 7 years. Comp, Att, and Yds were all taken from 2005. Int projected from 2009, sacks from 2007, and TD from 2008.
Within 4 years he could break the TD, Wins, Comp and maybe even yards if he has stellar seasons. If his career winds down like most players’ do, hell do it in 5.
If Favre comes back for another year, you can add 1 full year onto each of those projections.
There are some records Manning will never (probably) break. For sacks, the most extreme case, would take 220 games, or 13+ years to get to the Favre sack mark. Also interceptions, will take 9 years to break, and would probably be even longer. Losses are on point with interceptions, would take 8.5 years to break that one, rather than 4.6 years for wins.
So all in all, there are only 2 beneficiaries from Favre retiring. Hopefully he comes back, so we can all be enthralled watching Favre during the season. And that way he won’t have to end on a terrible interception in the playoffs last year.
Posted in NFL | 
Brett Favre, Favre Records, Manning Records, NFL Records, Peyton Manning, Retirement, Tarvaris Jackson, Vikings