Rick_TL-S

He better be sending a gift basket to Stephen Jackson, then as all of the heat is on him for repeatedly defending that what DeSean said was the truth.

Yumcha

DeFootinmouf.

nist7

Yumcha

Oh goodie for DC squad. Their franchise name is offensive but so is their culture to women: https://www.tsn.ca/washington-nfl-te...ture-1.1496336

Costco

The story about the cheerleaders is especially awful.

Dan Snyder is a massive irredeemable douchebag, it shouldn't come to anyone's surprise really. I hope all the dirt comes to light.

1Louder

Fantasy Football Question -

For those of you that play, how are you approaching this season? We're trying to figure out if there are any alterations to our league that might be needed just because of the massive amount of unknowns in front of us. We're likely going to use an on-line draft as opposed to live, but we're also a keeper league and I don't know that this season is going to result in us being able to wind up in a state suitable to set up next season.

In the end it may just be as simple as, "roll with what comes and do our best". But I thought I'd ask to see if anyone had some clever ideas. I've read things like increasing your IR spots might be one. Others?

nist7

After the lawyers get done negotiating...I'm guessing it'll be an undisclosed settlement out of court and the team will make some PR move also to not look as bad (ie, make donation to some women's rights charity/organization) and "partner" with someone/some organization to help with womens issues and whatnot.

Honestly, I don't even know if I'm down for FF this upcoming year. So much unpredcitability with the NFL season....I'm guessing pre season cancelled and potentially delayed or shortened regular season?

When your RB1/QB1/etc. gets quarantined for 2 weeks you'll need to find or have a replacement ready....I think what would be feasible is to have a much bigger bench spot...and your QB2s and RB2s and the deeper WR guys will be quite a bit more valuable I'm guessing in this year's draft.

And then yeah bigger IR slots so incase someone gets really sick with covid and they are out multiple weeks....

is300eater

The Chiefs can change their name to The Chefs, and it would be easily done. I'm just sayin'
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Joneill44

We should do this for every team in every league so no one else gets offended

Yumcha

Well, the no-brainer next team should be New England. They really need to change it to the "Cheaters".

nist7

New England Enrons
New England Volkswagens
New England Bernie Madoffs
etc.

So many great choices.

CCColtsicehockey

wow

Smart minds in Washington that is for sure.

Doom878

New England Astros

1Louder

The New England Spies.

Come on, that one writes itself.

Yumcha

I think it's the other way around: Houston Patriots.













NE made cheating apparently as popular as COVID-19.

Joneill44

Costco

People have such a hate boner for the Patriots, it's silly. This is conspiracy theory-level stuff.

I was sweating bullets until my work gave us the go ahead to WFH. I dunno all the rules and communication that went on, but I am sure different organizations communicated things differently. Regardless though, it had to be in the name of safety. Period.

nist7

This is gonna be a crazy season.

You KNOW there will be players testing positive each week and teams will have to fill in with backups or even 3rd strings.

It will be especially difficult on Sunday mornings when the saturday results come back and someone is positive and they have to quickly use the backup player.

I'm guessing the coaches/teams will effectively need to prepare an entire back up offense and defense ready to go at a moment's notice.

Interestingly, this would also mean the emergency of prior, little-known players that could come out big as they fill in for the COVID IR guys

1Louder

I'm keeping a close eye on all the players starting to "opt out" of the season. If that starts to become a really popular choice, I wonder if there is a breaking point where they just start writing off the season. I know they could get replacement players, but competition is already going to be difficult. And totally agree with your point - it's going to be a revolving door.

Also I think the Miami Marlins are the canary in the coal mine - its going to happen that large chunks of players are going to test positive and take down a portion of a team.

With several examples now of "fanless" games being played, I'm surprised by how that's impacting the viewing experience. It's not the same without the crowds. Maybe it's just conditioning, but I really miss the energy - even watching on TV. Watching football with no crowd with maybe few starters....

I suppose its just going to suck and that's the best we can do. Part of me almost wishes they'd keep the players safe and cancel the season. Try again next year.

Yumcha

Goldman opts out for Bears.

nist7

That is the big question. And clearly there's no public mention of it but I'm 100% sure that Goodell and the owners have already met and have maybe at least a rough plan of what it would take to actually suspend or cancel games/season.

And a LOT of money is riding on a NFL season which is multi billion dollar revenue generator. The SAFEST thing to do is to suspend start of the season until the pandemic is under control and safe to start a NFL season (which is extremely unlikely now) so basically money is overriding the purest/safest decision...and that's not a surprise.

I mean if they really want to...you could have a "season" where you have 3rd string guys play against each other in the Super Bowl....the problem is.....how big of an asterisk and is that really a true "super bowl"?

But yes....the SAFEST thing is to cancel the season and only re-start IF things are well under control and you could do say a truncated season/shortened season if needed....but with how the USA society is handling it....we'll see how they handle the COVID IR guys week in and week out.

The other thing is if someone gets seriously ill or....even worst....dies from it. Obviuosly the players are likely to be lesser risk due to their age and health...but what if a coach or staff or an executive gets it and gets very ill and god forbid dies? That will be a huge nightmare PR and I imagine that would immediately cause cancellation of the season.....

1Louder

I agree - if any player actually died, or was even hospitalized from complications, I think that would start the revolt. The players are well off enough they could probably go the year without pay, so I think it would be mostly an easy decision to just opt out. But these other sports who are playing - baseball, soccer, basketball - they will provide the leading indicator.

nist7

Doom878

Mahomes is killing it. Partial owner of the Royals too.

nist7

No kidding.

Mahomes is quickly cementing his legacy as not just a superstar athlete but a great KC ambassador/KC-citizen.

Damn feels good.

nist7

NFL Top 100: (top 5)

1. Lamar Jackson
2. Russell Wilson
3. Aaron Donald
4. Patrick Mahomes
5. Michael Thomas

Okay, NFL.

Yumcha

...and without cheating!

Costco

I think Mahomes' injury and relative mid-season slump played a part.

Is this top 100 taking playoff performances into account as well? I would think not. That would make it more fair, anyway.

Lamar is also the MVP, makes sense that he's #1 and Russ drags his teams kicking and screaming to the playoffs, this year was insane for him too.

Costco

What I don't understand is Gurley and Clowney's rankings.

Clowney is a monster when he's available. But he wasn't as scary as I feared he would be. Also, a free agent on the top 100

Yumcha

Dumbtonio Brown suspended 8 games.

https://www.nfl.com/news/antonio-bro...fl-2020-season

1Louder

This is a bad year to be suspended. He's going to be out through early 2021 season.

Yumcha

@ Dumbtonio...

Joneill44

Beginning of the end

nist7

Conspiracy theory time: What if there are players in the NFL that intentionally gets it to "get it over with" so that at least for the first few weeks of the season they likely won't test positive (assuming they get sustained immunity which is an unknown right now...) and so they don't lose out at least couple weeks of game time?......

I bet people have talked about this behind closed doors but we'll definitely never hear it in the open....

1Louder

There seems to be a growing list of very bad things that can happen to you even if you recover. I'm not sure anyone would want to invite getting this, with no real guarantee you'd be immune.

I look at the extreme basketball had to go through in order to play, and the issues baseball is having right now - I don't see how there is going to be a football season. I really don't. The very nature of the sport requires close contact - one infected player and you'd likely pass it on to everyone on the field over the course of the game. Now we have over a hundred PAC-12 players threatening to opt out, and similar noises in the SEC.

I don't see how they make this work.

nist7

OH I don't disagree. There are potentially unknown long-term repercussions to getting covid even if you're pretty much asymptomatic right after getting it. But as we know 20-something year olds are not the best judgement of long-term consequences (see all of NFL....)

But yes this is going to be very interesting. There will be 100% chance that games will have to be delayed....there is likely ~50% chance that the entire season gets scrapped due to raging infections all over the teams.

Not to mention you can get false negatives as well which have been reported in the literature and some places (including my work) are requiring 2 consecutive negatives to be a true confirmed negative.

If one player tests falsely negative, they could go on and infect many and then in a few days there could be tons of players testing positive and then it spreads from there......

Yeah unless there is a true "bubble" we will see positives....the question is can it be contained so that the season can still go on?

Also imagine the PR nightmare if a player gets real sick....OR if an older coach/staff gets real sick and god forbid even dies....then that PR nightmare may neccessitate the cancellation of the season.

1Louder

I agree. I think they either scrap it, or any attempt is going to fail in the first 2-3 weeks.

Look at baseball - they are barely scraping by and their sport doesn't require contact. I mean you could play an entire game and maintain social distance for nearly everyone. You can't play football without contact. I think basketball only solved that by using a bubble, and the teams are small enough to make that practical.

And it really pains me to admit all that because I absolutely love football - pro and college. It's the one sport I actually enjoy watching and follow with a lot of interest. It's going to be really sad not to have it.

By October all we're going to have is COVID and politics.

nist7

Dang good point....it's actually interesting to see how the two major leagues are handling it and it's an experiment in the nature of the sport vs the mitigation measures:

NBA

• Very close physical contact between players during game
• All teams bubbled

MLB

• Not as much prolonged physical contact between players during the game
• No bubble

NFL

• Very close contact between players during game
• No bubble

Looks like creating a forced bubble may be more effective...and with the nature of football AND no bubble....it definitely can be bad. I wonder how many weeks we go before it becomes unplayable.

Yumcha

^ You forgot the NHL.

Similar model to the NBA.

jupitersolo

If those MLB bitches wouldn’t be running out at strip clubs and bars afterwards. Wouldn’t be an issue