The Weird, Wacky and Awesome World of the NFL - General Banter thread V2

TOss Sweep

nerd69 wrote: »

This whole thing is just so the pats can distance themselves when it comes out Brady is a cyborg

He is going to be the supreme leader of our robot overlords and I for one bow down to him

TOss Sweep

Billy86 wrote: »

Just to point out that this is what the Packer's WR/TE/NBA corps might look like after cuts:
- Davante Adams (6'1)
- Randall Cobb (5'10)
- Jimmy Graham (6'7, TE)
- Geronimo Allison (6'3)
- J'Mon Moore (6'3)
- Marquez Valdes-Scantling (6'5)
- Equanimeous St. Brown (6'5)
- Michael Clark (6'6)
- Lance Kendricks (6'3, TE)

Now whether the young WRs can actually play or not is another matter but with all those size/speed combos, stashing any on the practice squad could prove a dangerous game. I'm half expecting one of Brown/MVS/Clark to even be moved to TE if possible, but with Rodgers back throwing the ball and a run game that should probably be taken seriously for the first time in a while, it should be a whole lot of fun either way.

Rodgers throwing to an in form Graham will be fun to watch if they get production out of him

Billy86

I think Graham should be OK - he wasn't a good fit for the Seahawks style of play (esp. with needing to help a poor line) but in GB he has one of the best pass blocking offensive lines in the league beside him in an offense that likes to spread it out more and is more based off timing and movement to catch guys in open space.

I'll be happy if we get 60+ catches from Moore/MVS/St. Brown/Clark (basically a rookie too, played just the last 2-3 games with 4 catches) this coming season, but after years and years of being physically bullied on the pitch I'm kind of giddy to see if we can put together a group that absolutely tower over the opposing DBs all over, along with our own DBs being pretty imposing themselves (King, Jackson, Haha, Josh Jones... Jaire Alexander is smaller but seems to also play with a lot of intensity).

One thing is for sure either way... The Haily Marys will be glorious! :pac:

j8wk2feszrnpao

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

Question to Brady - "do you feel appreciated by the Pats?"

Reply by Brady - "I plead the fifth"

More than 24hrs late with that!
Further evidence of why you have a ban in the Pats thread.

adrian522

NFL, this doesn't look good...

Redskins Cheerleaders Describe Topless Photo Shoots and an Uneasy Night Out

jack presley

adrian522 wrote: »

NFL, this doesn't look good...

Redskins Cheerleaders Describe Topless Photo Shoots and an Uneasy Night Out

As a Redskins fan, I’m not surprised in the slightest about this. Has Dan Snyder written all over it.

nerd69

adrian522 wrote: »

NFL, this doesn't look good...

Redskins Cheerleaders Describe Topless Photo Shoots and an Uneasy Night Out

You don't understand. The scumbag knelt for the national anthem he does not deserve a job in this league

JaMarcus

They confiscated their passports? Jesus, that's grim.

Blut2

As a non-American I've definitely enjoyed seeing the cheerleaders at every college/NFL game I've been to. It just makes the whole experience more American. I wouldn't be in favour of getting rid of them at all.

They really deserve to get paid a living wage in the NFL, though. 50k a year or something. They're kept to such strict diet and fitness plans, do such acrobatics on the field, and they've had years of training by the stage they're in the NFL. They're athletes deserving of a wage for their efforts. This business of paying them no proper money by justifying the job as a "great opportunity" is ridiculous.

It would also be a lot easier to defend their continued existence if they were on a decent wage. It'd be a lot harder for the feminist crowd to argue they're just unpaid eye candy that should be gotten rid of that way.

Billy86

50k x maybe a dozen chearleaders = €600,000. Which in NFL terms barely even constitutes a pittance.

BonnieSituation

It's America though. Wage disparity is insane.

Even in the NFL, some practice squad and special teams players get a pittance.

That being said the way cheerleaders are treated is reprehensible.

brinty

Crikey lads, just watched Jason Witten's retirement press conference

To say I'm devastated is an understatement. A classy individual in all he did and how he represented himself. There'll never be another like him.

Hococop

Matt Ryan got a new contract

$150 million 5 year with $100 million guaranteed

TOss Sweep

Blut2 wrote: »

As a non-American I've definitely enjoyed seeing the cheerleaders at every college/NFL game I've been to. It just makes the whole experience more American. I wouldn't be in favour of getting rid of them at all.

They really deserve to get paid a living wage in the NFL, though. 50k a year or something. They're kept to such strict diet and fitness plans, do such acrobatics on the field, and they've had years of training by the stage they're in the NFL. They're athletes deserving of a wage for their efforts. This business of paying them no proper money by justifying the job as a "great opportunity" is ridiculous.

It would also be a lot easier to defend their continued existence if they were on a decent wage. It'd be a lot harder for the feminist crowd to argue they're just unpaid eye candy that should be gotten rid of that way.

Well said I definitely agree and all of these women grow up wanting to be Cheerleaders in the pros which is no different to any guy playing on the football team. They all work their asses off to be there also.

I know an EX NFL cheerleader and the stories she can tell you from back in the 90s when she was one are just crazy. Things have not changed for them at all it seems. Disgusting carry on if that story from the Redskins is true.

jack presley

TOss Sweep wrote: »

Well said I definitely agree and all of these women grow up wanting to be Cheerleaders in the pros which is no different to any guy playing on the football team. They all work their asses off to be there also.

I know an EX NFL cheerleader and the stories she can tell you from back in the 90s when she was one are just crazy. Things have not changed for them at all it seems. Disgusting carry on if that story from the Redskins is true.

I’m not just saying this as I’m a Redskins fan but I’d say similar stuff goes on with more of the teams that have cheerleaders. I could see other stories coming out in the days ahead.

Someone mentioned their pathetic pay earlier. I’d say getting treated with respect and not like a piece of meat would be as equally important to them.

the baby bull elephant

Hococop wrote: »

Matt Ryan got a new contract

$150 million 5 year with $100 million guaranteed

I'm really glad Stafford got paid last year.

ScrubsfanChris

Slightly OT, but has anyone being able to play All or Nothing: Michigan?
All the other series are available to me, infact I just finished watching the Dallas Cowboys one, yet when I go to play the series on Michigan I get "This video isn't available due to geographical licensing restrictions"

I can see reviews on amazon.co.uk so at least some people in the UK are able to watch it?

TOss Sweep

Interesting read on Mo Hurst also Ironic his dads last game for the Patriots was him getting burned by Jim Harbaugh at the Colts.

http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2015/09/a_mothers_son_michigans_mauric.html

ANN ARBOR -- Toward the bottom of his University of Michigan football bio page, Maurice Hurst Jr. is noted to be the son of former New England Patriot Maurice Hurst. This is supposed to be part of who he is; an interesting tidbit.

What's not included in that bio is the name Nicole Page. If it were, it couldn't be as neatly packaged as Maurice Hurst Sr.'s mention -- merely an ex-NFL player.

For Page to be included, it would have to read something like this:

"Son of Nicole Page, who raised Maurice as a single mother for 20 years, sent him to a private high school despite being flat-broke and who canceled her cable subscription last year to save money for trips from Massachusetts to Ann Arbor to see her son play football for the Wolverines."

That isn't as catchy.

"But that's who raised me," Maurice Hurst Jr says.

The product of an endemic cliche, Hurst is the son of a professional athlete who decided -- for reasons unknown here -- not to be a part of his child's life. Yes, they have met. Yes, they have spoken. No, they've never had a relationship.

Hurst's history with his father is dotted with disappointments. There was the Pop Warner game when he was 11; when dad promised son he'd finally make it to a game, only to no-show and leave young Mo glancing to the sidelines all game, hoping he'd appear. There was the trip to New Orleans in 2009, when Mo, entering his freshman year in high school, asked his mother if he could visit his father, who had moved away. Upon arriving at dad's house, Mo found a happy family: his father living with a wife and two children, his half-brother and half-sister. There were pictures of the kids through the house. Mo couldn't find any of himself.

But this isn't about who wasn't there and what hasn't been in Maurice Hurst Jr.'s life. This is about what's been there all along.

Nicole Page will board a flight tonight to watch her son play football.

"As long as I can see him a couple of times a month, I'm good," she says. "But it's still tough. I miss him all the time."

A 44-year-old from Canton, Massachusetts, Page has worked as a nanny for the last three years. It's a job that affords flexibility -- allowing her to penny-pinch her way to Ann Arbor for football games -- and stability. She was twice laid off from private business gigs when the economy washed away jobs like beaches eroding on the eastern seaboard. Her thick Boston accent is unexpected, but breaks through when she speaks with a pop of excitement.

"It's been crazy, but I've been making it work," Page says of the last two-plus years, making it out to Michigan to visit Maurice, now a redshirt sophomore defensive tackle. "I'm always on the Internet trying to find the best hotel deals, the best flights, the best car rentals."

At this point, she knows all the tricks, adding, "I belong to absolutely every club possible, trying to get those free points."

Over and over, Page revisits those words: making it work. That's how this all came to be. That's how Hurst went to Xaverian Brothers High School, an elite, all-boys private school in neighboring Canton, Massachusetts. Growing up attending a small Catholic grade school, Maurice begged his mother to send him to Xaverian. In her eyes, he might as well have been asking for Harvard.

After Maurice passed Xaverian's entrance exam, Page had a real-world conversation with her son. She told him about the $14,000 annual tuition. She told him what financial aid means. She told him that, after crunching all the numbers, she figured he needed 80 percent off tuition to make it work. It didn't look promising.

Then came a letter from the school. Maurice was awarded exactly 80 percent of his tuition in aid.

"Once I got that, I thought, how can I tell him no?" Page remembers.

Maurice's education still cost about $6,000 per year in tuition and expenses. Books were bought online second-hand. Maurice held a work-study. Page took out some loans. She filed for a secondary mortgage.

They made it work.

"Did what I could do to keep him in there," she says. "That was the best opportunity for him."
Maurice Hurst Jr. and his mother, Nicole Page, at Maurice's 2013 graduation from Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, Massachusetts.

Growing up, Maurice was one of best young athletes in the tiny suburb of Canton. He was bigger and faster. Still, though, no one projected him as a future big-time Division I football prospect.

"He was soft-spoken as a kid, things like that, and pretty clumsy," says Israel Abraham, Maurice's older cousin by five years and currently a running backs coach at Division III Susquehanna (Pa.) University.

But there was another side. As a 10-year-old, Maurice demanded to play with Abraham and the older boys. God forbid if someone lightened up on a tackle.

"He'd get so mad if anyone took it easy on him," Abraham says. "Even at that age, he was driven. He wanted to be the best."

The poor senior linemen at Xaverian learned the hard way. Maurice hit a growth spurt when he arrived in high school and went immediately from the freshman football team to a starter on varsity, taking the job from older teammates. In his first game, he recorded what Page remembers as "a ridiculous number of tackles."

Maurice was on his way to being a top college prospect, but he was still his mother's son. A single mom, she'd shape-shift between best friend, biggest fan and strictest disciplinarian. There were battles.

"If he stepped out of line, she had to be mom and dad at the same time," Abraham says.

Page was used to wearing different hats. In 1989, she met Maurice Hurst, then a New England Patriots rookie from Southern University in Louisiana, while she studied criminal justice at Salem State University. The two dated and Page became a Patriots cheerleader in 1991. She stopped cheering two years later and, two years after that, on May 9, 1995, gave birth to Maurice Roy Hurst Jr.

Seven months later, Maurice Hurst Sr. lined up at cornerback for a game in Indianapolis. It had been a rough season. One of the franchise's top defensive players over the six previous seasons, Hurst's body was breaking down and opponents were attacking his side of the field. Then, on Nov. 19, 1995, Colts quarterback Jim Harbaugh torched Hurst with two 40-yard passes to wideout Sean Dawkins. Both led to touchdowns.

After the game, Hurst Sr. told The Associated Press, "This has been pretty much a nightmare season. It seems things have gone totally wrong. I keep myself going by telling myself it's not life and death."

Hurst was released the following day, sparing the Patriots the final season of his three-year contract and the remaining $437,500 of $1.4 million owed for the 1995 season. Later that week, Hurst signed with the St. Louis Rams, but failed a physical due to a herniated disc in his neck. A grievance was filed against the Patriots claiming the team violated the NFL's collective bargaining agreement by releasing Hurst while he was injured.

At 28 years old, Hurst would undergo neck surgery, but his NFL career was over. He finished with 103 starts in 106 games and 27 interceptions. Years later, he was named to the Patriots' All-Decade team.

By that time, he was already well out of Nicole and young Maurice's life.

"I honestly have no idea why," Nicole Page says. "The only thing I can say is that we were both young. You make mistakes and you learn from them."
Maurice Hurst Sr. played for the New England Patriots from 1989 to 1995.

According to Douglas Sunseri, Maurice Hurst Sr.'s former agent and lawyer, Hurst retired due to a lack of interest from NFL teams. "Damaged goods," he remembers now, 20 years later. As for that grievance filed against the Patriots, Sunseri says it was "resolved very favorably for Mr. Hurst."

In recent years, according to Sunseri, Hurst Sr. has worked as a self-employed construction contractor and is currently married and living in the New Orleans area.

Nonetheless, Nicole Page says Hurst "provided child support sporadically way below his income" over the years. Having moved on from criminal justice, Page paid the bills as a letter carrier for the post office when Maurice Jr. was little, logging 70-hour work weeks. That wasn't feasible when he began playing sports because of her refusal to miss games. So Page took a $15,000 pay cut to go work as an administrative assistant for a private company. That lasted eight years before she was laid off. There were also brief stints as a hairdresser and a dental assistant.

"The mortgage was more important than a career," she says.

For young Maurice, his famous name was hard to hide in the Boston area. He was asked, "Hey, are you Maurice Hurst's son?" He'd say yes and change the subject.

"People would hear about my dad and make all kinds of assumptions," Maurice says now, "like that we were rich or had this great life or something. In reality, I didn't know him."

Other than a brief time in high school, Maurice Hurst Jr. has always worn No. 73. His father wore No. 37.

"The opposite," young Maurice says. "It's just one of those things where, you are yourself, but you're connected to that person. That's something that I carry with me."

Maurice Hurst Sr. didn't reply to two online messages and an email seeking comment for this story. The last time Maurice Jr. contacted him, it was via email a few months ago. New Michigan secondary coach Greg Jackson asked him to pass along a hello; the two trained together back in the late 80s when Jackson attended LSU. Maurice Hurst Sr. replied to the email by saying, yes, he remembered coach Jackson.

"That was pretty much the whole email," Maurice says.

In his father's absence, Maurice Jr. was raised by a family flock of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

And mom.

"I could love as much I could love him and I could teach him as much as I could teach him, but there were a lot of things I couldn't do," Page says. "Whenever he wanted to talk, I'd ask if he was OK. He seemed OK, but I knew there was frustration with that."

Age brought understanding. Twenty-year-old Maurice speaks openly about his paradox -- his name says he's his father's own; his reality says he's his mother's son.

"That's who I am," he says.

With a dose of contemplation, he adds, "If (Maurice Sr.) ever wanted to reach out to me, he could. If he tried to make an effort to talk to me, I would definitely talk to him."

Nicole Page, meanwhile, will work from 7:30-5:30 p.m. today. Then she'll walk Timber, the German shepherd-mix rescue dog she adopted to keep her company after Maurice went off to college, and take him to the sitters. She'll board a flight about 9:45 p.m. and fly into Detroit about 11:45 p.m. After driving a rental car to Ann Arbor well after midnight, Page will sleep at Maurice's college house, then wake up and watch her son play Brigham Young University at Michigan Stadium on Saturday. She'll cheer, then board a flight home at 6 a.m. the following day.

Well worth it.

"Now it's my job to support him and that's an amazing feeling," Nicole Page says. "Like, wow, we did it, we made it, we accomplished this."

As for Maurice Hurst Jr., he'll write his own bio.

"I'm my own man," he says. "That's how my mother raised me."

JaMarcus

ScrubsfanChris wrote: »

Slightly OT, but has anyone being able to play All or Nothing: Michigan?
All the other series are available to me, infact I just finished watching the Dallas Cowboys one, yet when I go to play the series on Michigan I get "This video isn't available due to geographical licensing restrictions"

I can see reviews on amazon.co.uk so at least some people in the UK are able to watch it?

Sent you a PM with working links.

ScrubsfanChris

ScrubsfanChris wrote: »

Slightly OT, but has anyone being able to play All or Nothing: Michigan?
All the other series are available to me, infact I just finished watching the Dallas Cowboys one, yet when I go to play the series on Michigan I get "This video isn't available due to geographical licensing restrictions"

I can see reviews on amazon.co.uk so at least some people in the UK are able to watch it?

Seems to be working now.

jack presley

A nice story for a Sunday morning

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2018/05/11/joe-hawley-van-nfl-retirement-falcons-bucs/572097002/

TOss Sweep

The real reason Tom Brady is coming back in 2018. 32 more yards:

j8wk2feszrnpao

Sports gambling opened up?
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000932647/article/supreme-court-strikes-down-law-against-sports-gambling
Got to love the NFL's fascination with the word "integrity" (6 times in one brief article). If only they were as keen to apply it to themselves.

MileHighGuy

interesting read (NYT) about early days of the Patriots and a famous play..."The Man in the trenchcoat"....


Clinging to a 28-21 lead over the Dallas Texans, the Patriots were trying to make a last-second goal-line stand. Dallas quarterback Cotton Davidson threw into the end zone from the 1-yard line for wide receiver Chris Burford. Fans standing on the field had crowded five deep around the perimeter of the end zone, and one — reputedly wearing a trench coat — suddenly leapt forward and swatted at the ball.

“Then all the fans rushed the field and it was like everyone wasn’t sure what they saw,” Eisenhauer said this week. “But we watched the film on Monday and we saw this guy jump from the crowd and knock it down.”

For years thereafter, Patriots owner Billy Sullivan, who was commonly seen in a London Fog-style trench coat, was rumored to be the Patriots’ 12th man on the play. Famously, Sullivan never denied it.

MileHighGuy

munstermagic11 wrote: »

Sports gambling opened up?
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000932647/article/supreme-court-strikes-down-law-against-sports-gambling
Got to love the NFL's fascination with the word "integrity" (6 times in one brief article). If only they were as keen to apply it to themselves.

It seems so strange that the US had these gambling laws in the first place, with all the emphasis on vegas spreads etc.

The major leagues were involved and against the measure.....however...

Sports leagues—the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and NCAA were involved in the lawsuit—say that gambling will increase the risk of corruption, which the leagues will need to prevent. The NBA and MLB have floated a so-called “integrity fee” of about 1 percent of all money gambled to cover their increased anticorruption costs. Casino operators have balked at an integrity fee, both for the size (1 percent of all wagering activity is roughly a quarter of a sportsbook’s revenue) and the audacity—legalized gambling should increase the total interest in sports, driving up ratings and making the leagues money.

jack presley

The injury report exists primarily for gambling too I’d imagine?

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

TOss Sweep wrote: »

The real reason Tom Brady is coming back in 2018. 32 more yards:

And this fantastic bit of fan-fiction posted on reddit replying to the above post:

Its 4 minutes into the Pats week one game. Deshaun Watson and the Texans put together an impressive opening drive but had to settle for a field goal to put them up 3-0. After Randy kicks it off, Tom Brady and the Patriots offense take the field. The Texans defense looks uncharacteristicly nervous. Watt looks anxiously to the sideline at Romeo, who slowly mods and gives him the thumbs up. Watt turns his eyes back to the oline and shakes his head, and half heartily yells something incomprehensible to his team mates. Some of them visibly roll their eyes or sigh, but they all drop back down the field. Chris Collinsworth looks confused. "It looks like the entire Texans defense is lined up in a 0-0-11. I don't really know what's going on here. Let me tell you something about Romeo Crennel. Here's a guy who-" the audience at home instinctively stops listening. Brady doesn't look shaken at all. Without a word or audible, he takes the snap and drops back. No one can get open. Tyrann Mathieu, Wittney Mercilus, and Jonathan Joseph even physically form a human wall encircling Julian Edelman, who throws up his hands in defeat. Brady looks down every option, he has all the time in the world with absolutly no pressure. He's a QB, he told himself, and he was gonna throw the damn football. Finally, Marcus Cannon looked up from his game of poker with David Andrews and tells at Tom to just ****ing run. Tom knows he has no choice. He starts sprinting down the field, though it was more of a brisk walk. Jadeveon Clowny half jogs toward him and melodramatically dives just to his left. Tom sighs and keeps up his run. The first quarter clock has now run out, but it's been roughly half an hour since the snap. Finally, JJ yells "this is ****ing ridiculous" and runs full speed ahead toward Brady. He had only made it 30 yards. Mercilus couldn't let this happen. He runs toward JJ and chop blocks him. JJ breaks his ****ing back and will be out for the season. He writes in pain on the ground, but no one can help him until after the play ends. Finally, Brady makes it. He steps across his one thousandth yard. Instantly, he evaporates and ascends to heaven. Play is dead. While the whole ****ing stadium helps JJ get off the field, Romeo looks across the field and gives his old head coach a smug victory smirk. But Belichick does something odd. He cracks a smile. He holds a hand out to Johnny Manziel warming up on the sideline. Johnny realizes what's going on and yells "not again" and instantly retires. At the very spot Brady just stood, the ground cracks open and a figure is seen climbing straight out of hell. Hoyer the Destroyer has been activated. The Texans, our tragic heros, just doomed the league.

JaMarcus

A story I just heard for the first time over on Reddit:

Is it ok if I steal this to post my favorite Vince Young story? Figured they were both big recruits out of college who flopped so it might be appropriate to post it here?

Anyways, Donald Jones was a WR for the Bills back in the days when Young came to Buffalo (2012 was a long time ago, I know). At one point, they were running OTAs with Vince as the QB. In this particular drill, instead of using a headset, the QB (Vince, in this case) would get the play from the coach, walk to the huddle and call the play to see the skills in commanding the huddle and making adjustments before the snap.

Vince gets the play from Chan Gailey, walks to the huddle, and begins to call a play the same way you would in the backyard: "Donald, you run a post. Stevie, run a 12-yard out. Fred, run a wheel route after chipping any blitzers." etc. etc.

Well, Donald goes: "Vince, what are you doing? What was the play call?"

Vince: "Man, you know I don't remember that shít."

Makes me laugh every damn time.

JaMarcus

Which was a response to this fantastic JaMarcus Russell story...

https://streamable.com/oxnh8

Paully D

https://twitter.com/mcclain_on_nfl/status/997678836862062592?s=21