That's No Moon

That it's almost the off-season so I can be optimistic again.

Rather than watching the WWE shitshow that the NFL has turned itself into I'm taking my kids to a college hockey game on Sunday at 1:00pm. A couple years ago that would have been unfathomable.

They did. What it should scream out loud to you is that the Rams are moving to LA in 2016. San Diego will get saved at the last minute and the Raiders will go to LA as well. One AFC and one NFC team. Everyone is happy, except Raider fans in Oakland and Ram fans in St. Louis but lets be honest, the league doesn't give a **** about them anyway.

Or the roughing the punter call they missed? Or the facemask they picked up? Or the face guarding on Sammy? Or the DPI on Hogan? All huge penalties in huge spots. What accountability? The league profits more from New England winning, staying undefeated and preserving the "our Super Bowl was completely untainted and legitimate" narrative.

Because people keep putting folks like Shannon Sharpe on television.

Gargamel finally got them.

Doesn't this happen on a weekly basis now? Not the refs screwing up, that happens way more frequently. I mean them actually admitting that they hosed somebody. I think that when coaches correctly challenge a call they should be given the option to either get their timeout back or to punch all the officials in the balls. Line them up and just whale each one in the crotch. ESPN could make up a stat to track coaches ball punching efficiency, call it BPR (Ball Puncher Rating). The NFL is constantly looking to keep viewer interest, there is no way I'm changing the channel or walking away from my TV set during a review if there's a decent chance of that outcome. https://youtu.be/WQBc8yxjdSs?t=10 Or this outcome...

Ryan Mathews is now injured...again. Chip Kelly is also so enamored with DeMarco Murray that he chose to pass on 2nd and goal from the 9 down 1 point with 4:30 to play. To his credit he did give Murray the ball on first down...from the 8. Murray, Mathews, and Sproles combined for 79 yards on 33 carries yesterday. 2.4 YPC. But hey, Alonso made 4 tackles so that went well. If you're keeping count at home that makes 12 for the season along with 0 sacks, 0 tackles for loss, 0 forced fumbles, 0 fumble recoveries, 1 pass defensed and 1 INT (the same pass BTW). He's played in 4 games and is 25 y/o with 2 ACL reconstructions on the same knee, a third procedure on that knee this year to "clean it out", and tendinitis in that same knee in pre-season. There are different kinds of high mileage. Kiko is definitely one of them.

That Jacksonville game is going to haunt us all year long. In the win column, in the tiebreaker race, you name it.

He ordered a pizza to practice IIRC.

But the year in the middle (his first with Chip Kelly and the last year in Philly his line was healthy) he led the league in rushing and had 5.1 yards per carry.... and the other two years he had 4.2 YPC while his replacement is getting 3.6 in the same offense this year. The Eagles used 7 different offensive line combinations with 10 different players during the year and all of their subs were terrible. The starting RT was suspended the 1st 4 weeks. He was also without Evan Mathis in weeks 2-8. In weeks 2-4 when both he AND Lane Johnson were out (amongst others in some of them) here's Shady's YPC 4.2, 1.2, 1.7. The 4 weeks after the RT came back? 3.4, 6.8, 4.2, 4.9. The starting RG (Todd Herremans) went out for the year starting in week 9, week 9's YPC? 1.6 Matt Tobin was RG that week and the next week when Shady averaged 3.8 YPC. They replaced Tobin with Andrew Gardner in week 10 because Tobin stunk. Shady's YPC the following two weeks with Gardner as the only replacement was 6.2 and 6.4. Jason Kelce the center, went out for the year in week 12, so again, with 2 starting O-lineman out YPC dropped from 6.2 and 6.4 to 2.9, 4.0, 4.0, and 5.8 to finish out the year. So, in terms of cherry picking stats to prove a point. If I chose week 4 last year vs. San Francisco when Shady carried the ball 10 times for 17 yards for a 1.7 average is that fair when, in that game, there were four backups starting on the O-Line? Only Jason Peters was where he belonged. Both guards and the center were backups and the normal RG was at RT. The games where Shady's YPC was the worst were the games where there was the most turmoil on the o-line. That's completely understandable. When things were somewhat stable he was great. I'm aware PFF graded the Eagles as the best run blocking line in the league last year. In their own write up they comment on how that was based on the strength of their starters and that ALL of their backups struggled when they had to play. They had to play a lot. It was a big issue. The line was bad to the point that the Eagles own website (usually the rah rah everything is awesome source of information) talked about how the line took a step back in 2014 and how they need to be better in 2015.

Running through Bryan Cox...good stinkin times.

Yet, when the league commented about the Patriots headset issues in advance of the Steelers game they were quick to say that they supplied all of the equipment for both teams so the Pats couldn't have been messing with it. When the Bills stuff doesn't work it's because we didn't charge the batteries. Huh?

Completed a couple VERY important balls in big spots. The throw to Sammy to get the first down and allow us to keep the ball at the end was clutch. He certainly missed a couple too but all in all I've seen MUCH worse performances by Bills QBs in night games.

I got a Troy-Bilt as a gift. For what I use it for it's fine and a truly good machine would be complete overkill. We get about 25" in an average winter. Sometimes more, sometimes none. It was nice to have the back to back years where we had about 80" but I never even ran it last season.

It's not the father.

I look at it more as controlling variables. The biggest variable in any game is the officiating. They can call holding basically any play. There is an illegal block of some sort on every kick it's just a matter of when it is called or not. Not taking the ball out eliminates penalties and turnovers entirely.

I watched on a Roku 3, the broadcast quality sucked. Screen was dim, nothing was sharply focused, occasional choppiness. Minus the chop it was like watching the game on an old TV. You sort of got used to it and convinced yourself it was decent...but then the 1:00 games came on and just blew it out of the water. The NFL also says they have the best officiating in sports...

The Jets already wear green so what are they doing? Are they turning up the volume on the green?

Last season the highest average yards gained per drive was just under 40 yards (AZ). The difference between the 15 and the 25 as a starting point is the difference between the opposing 35 (FG attempt) and the opposing 45 (punt).

and a bedazzled streaking buffalo on the side...with tassles.

When they wipe your face in their most recent marketing driven attempt to bilk you out of money while you're watching a game being played on a day in which it should not be played involving the scummiest of scumbag franchises? Yeah, it's not that big a leap.

Risk is starting inside the 10 because of a penalty or fumbling the ball away. The most KO returns for TD by one player in any season is 4. The career record for KO returns is 6. The best KO returner we've had in recent memory was Terrence McGee. He had 5 in his 7 year kick returning career. So if you have a really good return man, you might pop one per season. How many times will you screw yourself with field position? McGee also had 5 fumbles during his KO return career. Fortunately he only lost 1.

Pray for white pants.

I am really beginning to hate the NFL....