fishgutmartyr

You, of all people, have the balls to post this with your Gammons/Mara comments? Jaw-dropping hypocrisy.

Kind of obvious where I fall on the Bavaro/Shockey debate--but they are both great players. Even have some love for Zeke Mowatt. Anyway, how many times is Shockey going to be reamed-out by the press before he figures out that it's best to keep quiet when he's pissed? What he said wasn't that bad, but for him, saying anything is like using a straight razer in a shark tank.

I agree--you win one Heisman, it could be a fluke season. You win two, and then blow in the NFL, that sucks. Disagree with the article about John Huarte and Pat Sullivan--If you're a Heisman winner, and you still get drafted in the second round, how disappointing can you be? To be a big disappointment, you have to have big expectations--these two are 2nd rounders. Mike Rozier--Anyone who expected him to be Hall of Fame material didn't pay attention to the fact that he was running in a wishbone with Turner Gill and had one of the best OLs in Nebraska history. Spurrier gave me a chuckle.

I hated re-signing Carter. But he played alert in the Philly game, and did get us a touchdown this week.

A little late to cut linebackers, don't you think? Or do you want a repeat of last year?

I hate to sound like a Pollyanna, but Hufnagle did the same thing last year: pass heavily early in the season, rely on a relatively fresh Barber late in the season. Over the course of the season, this makes a degree of sense--your passing ability is potentially reduced to weather conditions in the north east in November/December, and you need a strong running game then. If you rely on the running game early on, you risk wearing your backs down by season's end. Of course down 21-0 by the second quarter, rushing doesn't seem to be an option. But then, I don't think our problem is offense--we have yet to score under 25 points. We're developing "Dan Fouts Syndrome."

Wasn't he given the chance to be 3rd WR last year?

Wellington Mara hadn't autonomously hired a coach since John McVay. Since then, it has been the responsibility of the general manager, with of course the owners giving approval/disapproval. Therefore, you are incorrect in holding him completely responsible for replacing Parcells (which, as I am now saying twice in this thread, had to be done quickly, thanks to when Parcells resigned). To my knowledge, George Young was our first general manager. Mara had absolutely nothing to do with picking Johnny Lynn to replace Fox: It is the coaches' responsibility to choose his staff.

No, it wasn't destroying the league. But Roselle was savvy enough to realize it wasn't a good situation to have a large media market have a team at that level of disarray. So he mediated the situation, and recommended George Young. Once again, Mara niether hired nor fired Parcells: Young hired him, Parcells (surprise, surprise) quit. Parcells was also 3-12-1 that first year. Aren't you recommending firing Coughlin after 2 losses despite going 11-5 the previous year? According to you, wouldn't a smart owner have fired Parcells? Besides, if an owner "tries" to fire someone, chances are, he's fired. Coughlin took over a team that went 4-12, had a running back that was more known as a turnover machine than a rushing threat, had a QB that had set an NFL single-season record for fumbling 2 years earlier, and whose players essentially quit the season by the Falcons game. Or did you forget that? Nice to see someone that takes his sports team so seriously he welcomes a body count. Especially when he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Blackburn backs up Pierce. Wilkinson backs up Emmons (or at least the weak side position). Sorry, but Pierce is fine, and should stay right where he is. It's to Blackburn's benefit to stay on the bench, and let that neck continue to strengthen. And for all the complaining i did about emmons in pre-season, I would rather he be back on the strong side, Wilkinson on the weak side, and Arrington on the bench thinking of clever things to say to the media. I missed today, but has he gotten a tackle in yet?

Wow. Do you mean Weis, whom everybody in the NFL wanted so badly that he's currently coaching college ball? Gee, take the job with a HOF coach and learn under him, with the possibility of taking his place in few years; or wait for a call that didn't happen at that point? If he blew off that opportunity, I wouldn't want him planning strategy anyway. You mean the guy until last year had the head coaching job with the Raiders? The Norv Turner that had Randy Moss, Jerry Porter and Lamont Jordan as offensive weapons, and still couldn't get it done? Because Fassel had an "up" season when Fox left, Fassel then hired John Lynn thinking Lynn knew what he was doing; and was fired before Lewis came along. Crazy fucking thing: Owners don't hire defensive coordinators. Yeah, thank god Mara's dead. Do you have any clue how big an asshole you come off as when you post shit like this? Just curious. Of course, as mentioned earlier, the NFL recommended George Young as a GM to resolve a dispute between Wellington and Tim Mara (his nephew and co-owner at the time). The NFL didn't give us Parcells. Young hired Parcells, after hiring Perkins. He also hired Handly, Reeves, and I believe Fassel. This is probably the only thing I agree with you. Then again, with 4 highly regarded defensive ends, you would think we would have more than one sack from them in 3 games, bad schemes or not. We've got a mix of bad scheming and underachieving going on here. You do realize that we are coming off an 11-5 record, and are still very much in the thick of things, right? Do we need to get our shit together--you bet. But firing the coaches right now wouldn't be such a hot idea... You might also note that the penalty problem has been going on since the Fassel regime. You may then realize that most of the guys getting false starts were playing under Fassel. Coincidence? Handley was an emergency hire, because Parcells left in February, and Bellichick had already moved on to Cleveland. You're shitting me. Snyder: Norv Turner, Steve Spurrier, and Marty Schottenheimer for a single year (I can't remember if he hired Pettibone) Jones: Fires Jim Johnson to hire Barry Switzer; Chan Gailey, Dave Campo The Eagles also found Rich Kotite and Ray Rhodes. Of all the hires you mentioned, only Reid has a division championship like Coughlin, and only Reid has gotten to the NFC championship. I'm obviously referring to the recent Parcells/Gibbs teams. Jim Lee Howell (you know, the coach that built that great team), retired after Landry and Lombardi left. Would you be willing to dump a coach that built a team that was playing for championships damn near every year from 1957-1963? And yes, I know Sherman took over in '61--that's how good that core was. It would have been like Dallas firing Landry in 1978. We don't find/hire good coaches? (assistant coach means I can't be bothered looking up the official title) Parcells--hired from Perkin's staff. Romeo Crennel--former Giants assistant coach Bill Bellichick--former Giants defensive coordinator Marty Schottenheimer--former Giants linebackers coach Tom Coughlin--former Giants wide receivers coach Mike Nolan--former Giants defensive coordinator (under Reeves) John Fox--former Giants defensive coordinator Al Groh--former Giants defensive coordinator Charlie Weiss--former Giants assistant coach There's probably a couple others I'm forgetting, but the point's made.

Yeah, but he died with a smile on his face.

Do you typically go to sports events to study the audience? Most go to watch the games. Guessing percentages is valueless.

On a side note, Rutgers is now 4-0, beating the mighty Howard Bison 56-7. (I have maybe 1-2 weeks to continue saying this.)

They lost Hutchinson in the off-season. That's a big hole in the line to fill. Plus they are having WR problems, with Deon Branch starting for the first time against us, which hopefully means he will be a little out of synch. We're catching them at a good time. Hopefully, the defense decides to show up.

I have to admit, Emmons has played well. And I was bashing him all preseason. Then again, my bitch with him wasn't what he was doing on the field, it was him staying on the field. If he can do that, then I will be delighted to be wrong. Again.

I do. And if I wanted to talk about this, I'd be over at P&R. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!?! And I wish you would talk about football IN THIS SECTION as well. You have some good stuff to say about the topic.

Anyone else flashing back to Cartman's revenge after reading that?

I was going to bold the funny part, but then I realized I'd be highlighting the whole quote. They're going to have to drag David Carr out of bed Sunday morning, and feed him anti-depressants like they were M&Ms.

Carolina at Tampa Bay 1:00 p.m. -- Carolina (dammit! 3rd time better be the charm!) Chicago at Minnesota 1:00 p.m. -- Chicago (so this is what Rex Grossman is like when he's healthy...) Cincinnati at Pittsburgh 1:00 p.m. -- Cincinnati Green Bay at Detroit 1:00 p.m. -- Detroit (Green Bay is not good enough to win on the road--even within the division) Jacksonville at Indianapolis 1:00 p.m. -- Indianapolis (though I wouldn't be surprised to get this one wrong) N.Y. Jets at Buffalo 1:00 p.m. -- Buffalo (nobody beats JP Losman at home! Nobody! ) Tennessee at Miami 1:00 p.m. -- Miami (they can't suck that bad, can they?) Washington at Houston 1:00 p.m. -- Washington (they can't suck that bad, can they?) Baltimore at Cleveland 4:05 p.m. -- Baltimore (Cleveland is going to score how? Matt Stover is going to make me some points) N.Y. Giants at Seattle 4:15 p.m. -- Giants (any more of a Homer, and I'd be writing the Illiad) Philadelphia at San Francisco 4:15 p.m. -- Philly (yeah, the loss was demoralizing; but to be demoralizing enough for Philly to lose here, Coughlin would have had to go to every Eagle player's house and strangle their puppy) St. Louis at Arizona 4:15 p.m. -- Arizona (if the Rams can lose to SF, they can lose here) Denver at New England 8:15 p.m. -- New England (originally went with Denver, but I'm not taking Plummer with Brady on the other side of the field) Monday, Sep. 25 Atlanta at New Orleans 8:30 p.m. -- New Orleans (if they can't win that night...)

The '99 Rams had a "good enough" defense. But I wouldn't call that defense a particularly good one. But with that offense, it didn't matter as much.

You want Blackburn over Pierce? I can see Torbor over Arrington, who hasn't done much yet, and even Wilkinson over Emmons, who did have a good game; but sorry, not Pierce. I'll give you that the defense line is having a real slow start, but they've also gone against two great OLs and QBs with great pocket-awareness. We're not going to run into a QB and line with that much ability again until November. Vick might run on us, but he isn't picking apart our secondary.

With Pierce's big mouth (which he didn't do much to back up) I was just happy he didn't limp off the field.

Tim Lewis' strategy is brilliant. Let the opponents offense run all the way down the field on every drive, giving up as many points as necessary. This way, by the 4th quarter, the offense is EXHAUSTED. Well, it worked last week...

There are a ton of comments in the GD section that haven't been moved here.