The NFL Thread

[Wolf Hunting]

I'm impressed at how much you guys in the UK know about American football. Guess it's one of the advantages of globalization. The one I like is that I can live in my chosen land and favourite city and still watch the Wolves every weekend. Simply unheard of a few years ago but what a pleasure!

Love watching it. I record it on Sky+ around 1am Monday morning, so if I'm not working on Monday, I sit down and spend around 3 hours watching it skipping most of the chat in all of the 50 or 60 breaks in play where they go back to the studio.

 

[t3ch]

I do love the draft system in American sports. It makes terrible seasons a little easier to go through knowing the future can be bright rather than the system we have here where a terrible season means you can lose the best you have and potentially go from bad to worse. Colts this season are 0-8 and seemingly challenging Miami to be the worst team in the league this year. The prize for that is possibly Andrew Luck. I don't know much about the guy other than he's a QB and very highly thought of. A player that could very well lead a team to a Superbowl in the future.

Yep. I like the excitement of relegation in the futbol world, but very much appreciate the stability of the football world.

While not NFL, the NHL also has a very similar (if not identical, doesn't seem much difference in my limited knowledge of both) draft system. A good example I can give is using my Flyers. 06/07 they had the worst season in the franchise history and finished last. Amongst the bottom 5 teams were also Chicago and Washington. 3 years and some nice draft picks later, Washington win the regular season while Flyers and Chicago make the Stanley cup Final.

I bet the NHL is interesting for you guys because it's kind of a mix between the NFL and the Premier League. Yes, there's a draft, but it's not based on a college system. Farm teams and foreign leagues reign supreme for the most part in NHL drafts, rather than "Joe Bob the forward from Michigan University".

 

[t3ch]

Thanks Toon, looking at those pics earlier, wouldn't it be fantastic if British football could take the College Football model and make it work over here?
I don't know how many are attending in those two football matches, but it looks an awful lot more than our 28,000...

Yep. Hundreds of colleges regularly fill up stadiums bigger than 95% of those in England for games. Pretty amazing, really.

What makes it so much more popular than our beloved football?
Is it the mix of fans?
Is it perceived as a day out thing with all the tailgate parties and barbq's etc
Is it how it's marketed?
Is it how it's priced?

You have to think about the size of schools and their alumni. Some schools are pushing 30k-50k students per year, plus their alumni and the community in general. It's not too hard to fill up the stadium between them and the visitors. College football is a big industry, but when you're actually attending a school, people tend to get REALLY into it.

Tailgating is popular but that isn't the primary reason. For most people it really is just a school pride, support your team type thing. Although I do love me a good tailgate, and yes it tends to be a whole-day event for some. It's a great excuse to get together and hang out or party. Prices for college game vary wildy from cheap to "uhhh what?".

So, a couple more questions... Is there any crowd disturbance/fighting? Are they seperated in any way, or is it a choice thing, buy a ticket wherever?
How much is it to get in?

No, that's exclusive to the rest of the world (or maybe just futbol). We got a lot of flack for being fat, violent, and moronic meatheads, but you guys are fucking nuts when it comes to sports violence. Having to physically separate fans in the stands? Are you kidding me? What a bunch of childish rubbish. It's a fucking game, who gives a shit. Life goes on, get over it. No one should be fighting or causing trouble.

I could've answered that more diplomatically I suppose but I'm still astounded by the rioting, racism, chanting, and fighting that goes on all around the world at football matches. I can't wrap my head around it.

The NFL is pretty expensive to attend... tickets for most places are around $60-$80 for nosebleed seats. Good seats in the middle terraces will start around $120, and lower tier seats costing $250+.

When we watch it over here, do they actually have breaks in the play for adverts (dictated by the TV company), much like Sky do over here, making a game of 4x15 minutes last around 3 hours.

Ugh yes. An NFL game is a standard 3 hours long and when you're watching at home you see the clock run down, etc. Most people don't stop to realize, "how can we have all these 5 minute commercial breaks but not miss any action?" The teams are just standing there idle on the field waiting for the go-ahead to play again. It's obnoxious paying $100/ea for tickets to go watch players standing idle for half of the time.

 

[t3ch]

Love watching it. I record it on Sky+ around 1am Monday morning, so if I'm not working on Monday, I sit down and spend around 3 hours watching it skipping most of the chat in all of the 50 or 60 breaks in play where they go back to the studio.

Smart man! That's what I do. Last year I'd record the Panthers game while watching the Wolves play. By the time the Wolves game ended, I could turn on the Panthers game and watch while fast forwarding through all the commercials, etc. and catch up to the real-time broadcast right toward the end of the game.

 

[Wolf Hunting]

Thanks for all your answers. Really helpful to get a better understanding, but... and a big but...

I'm kind of stunned to see you tell me that these guys just stand around whilst NBC or whoever it that sends the signal over here (Kind of a colourful fantail logo) 2 guys in the box commentating, and in a mad bit of (poor) editing, Channel 4 over here didn't cut early enough and you could hear the matchday commentators banging on about some breakfast cereal!!

Bizzarre! Can you (guys over here) imagine John Motson start extolling the virtues of some mobile phone company, well he wouldn't because he's BBC and they don't do adverts (thank God!) so someone on Sky or ITV? Mad...

So you have these expensive players getting all excited, the blood's up, there's a really potent drive going on, then some fucker blows a whistle and says "Chill out lads, we're going to a break"...?

I always wonder why the breaks are so long with tons of chat (sometimes interesting often not) then he says, "So let's go back to the stadium...."
You're telling me that all that time they just mill around... doing what?

And if you have all those real breaks in actual time, why on earth do you need a time out? Could they not use one of them?

 

[Toon Wolf]

Thanks for all your answers. Really helpful to get a better understanding, but... and a big but...

I'm kind of stunned to see you tell me that these guys just stand around whilst NBC or whoever it that sends the signal over here (Kind of a colourful fantail logo) 2 guys in the box commentating, and in a mad bit of (poor) editing, Channel 4 over here didn't cut early enough and you could hear the matchday commentators banging on about some breakfast cereal!!

Bizzarre! Can you (guys over here) imagine John Motson start extolling the virtues of some mobile phone company, well he wouldn't because he's BBC and they don't do adverts (thank God!) so someone on Sky or ITV? Mad...

So you have these expensive players getting all excited, the blood's up, there's a really potent drive going on, then some fucker blows a whistle and says "Chill out lads, we're going to a break"...?I always wonder why the breaks are so long with tons of chat (sometimes interesting often not) then he says, "So let's go back to the stadium...."
You're telling me that all that time they just mill around... doing what?

And if you have all those real breaks in actual time, why on earth do you need a time out? Could they not use one of them?

They don't stop the game for ad breaks, they take the ad breaks when the game naturally stops: time outs, change of possession, injuries, when a team scores, before and after kick-offs. That's a hell of a lot of stoppages and plenty enough time for adverts.

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

While not NFL, the NHL also has a very similar (if not identical, doesn't seem much difference in my limited knowledge of both) draft system. A good example I can give is using my Flyers. 06/07 they had the worst season in the franchise history and finished last. Amongst the bottom 5 teams were also Chicago and Washington. 3 years and some nice draft picks later, Washington win the regular season while Flyers and Chicago make the Stanley cup Final.

I've been following this thread closely, as Im a big NHL fan, and was going to comment on the draft system but t3ch has done a way better job than I ever could, so hats off to t3ch. But yes Pyscho, the NHL Draft system seems to be exactly the same. i think its a great idea and watched it live when I lived in Canada and again when I was in New York a few years back. Its a big televised event and its good to see the joy on most of the youngsters faces as they stand there with their new Managers and Owners, holding a jersey and beaming as they put pen to paper. The idea of giving the top picks to the weakest teams is excellent and gives food for thought as to how a system could be implemented in football, to help the lower league clubs get the bigger names onto their books. Subsidies from the FA? Subsidies from the Premier League or Sky?

 

[t3ch]

Thanks for all your answers. Really helpful to get a better understanding, but... and a big but...

I'm kind of stunned to see you tell me that these guys just stand around whilst NBC or whoever it that sends the signal over here (Kind of a colourful fantail logo) 2 guys in the box commentating, and in a mad bit of (poor) editing, Channel 4 over here didn't cut early enough and you could hear the matchday commentators banging on about some breakfast cereal!!

Bizzarre! Can you (guys over here) imagine John Motson start extolling the virtues of some mobile phone company, well he wouldn't because he's BBC and they don't do adverts (thank God!) so someone on Sky or ITV? Mad...

So you have these expensive players getting all excited, the blood's up, there's a really potent drive going on, then some fucker blows a whistle and says "Chill out lads, we're going to a break"...?

I always wonder why the breaks are so long with tons of chat (sometimes interesting often not) then he says, "So let's go back to the stadium...."
You're telling me that all that time they just mill around... doing what?

And if you have all those real breaks in actual time, why on earth do you need a time out? Could they not use one of them?

I'm right there with you! And yes they are literally just standing on the field, usually in their huddles, for the 3-5 minute commercial breaks. It doesn't happen mid-drive or anything though. It's not like after a big first down they cut to commercial. Usually it's after a change in possession, time out,injury break, etc. The flow of the game isn't interrupted for a break.

The time-outs are usually used in the last few minutes of the game (commercials only shown as allowed), challenges, or to re-think a strategy. It's normally something you just suddenly need to use, it's not as if coaches can strategically use time in a way to not need timeouts.

edit -- It appears I was slow to answer.

 

[Toon Wolf]

Oh, and this Sunday on Sky? New Jersey (sorry, New York) Jets at Buffalo Bills. Bills 2nd Sky game of the year, whooppee!

Let's Go Buffalo!

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

I'm impressed at how much you guys in the UK know about American football. Guess it's one of the advantages of globalization. The one I like is that I can live in my chosen land and favourite city and still watch the Wolves every weekend. Simply unheard of a few years ago but what a pleasure!

I attended a BC Lions game when I lived in Vancouver (vs Saskatchewan RoughRiders) and the stadium BC Place was fookin MASSIVE. I think the rules in CFL are slightly different to the NFL rules and thats why they have never integrated, is that true? One thing I know is that the CFL pitches are wider and longer than NFL pitches.

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

Yep. I like the excitement of relegation in the futbol world, but very much appreciate the stability of the football world.



I bet the NHL is interesting for you guys because it's kind of a mix between the NFL and the Premier League. Yes, there's a draft, but it's not based on a college system. Farm teams and foreign leagues reign supreme for the most part in NHL drafts, rather than "Joe Bob the forward from Michigan University".

Just seen this. Almost all NHL teams have a 'feeder' club yes? I know Vancouver have the Manitoba Moose and they have supplied many stars to various NHL teams

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

The idea of giving the top picks to the weakest teams is excellent and gives food for thought as to how a system could be implemented in football, to help the lower league clubs get the bigger names onto their books. Subsidies from the FA? Subsidies from the Premier League or Sky?

It wouldn't work because the two sports and the way they operate have virtually nothing in common.

You can't have a draft system working alongside an open transfer system.
Football doesn't have a standard number of players coming through a standardised network onto the open market every single year.
Football isn't a closed shop like the NFL, being the worst means you get relegated, not helped out because you're rubbish.
Football operates worldwide, not just in one country like gridiron.

The idea of the draft as a concept is a good one - it's the system on which I loosely based PTG which seems to be rather popular. It's not for real-life football though and never will be.

 

[t3ch]

Just seen this. Almost all NHL teams have a 'feeder' club yes? I know Vancouver have the Manitoba Moose and they have supplied many stars to various NHL teams

Absolutely. The feeder for the caps are the Hershey Bears.

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

They don't stop the game for ad breaks, they take the ad breaks when the game naturally stops: time outs, change of possession, injuries, when a team scores, before and after kick-offs. That's a hell of a lot of stoppages and plenty enough time for adverts.

Same as Ice Hockey. A lot of people dont realise that an Ice Hockey team is made up of 20+ players, with lines of 5 men taking the ice for 2-4 mins each shift. When they tire out, or the puck goes out of play, or there is an injury, thats when sharp eyed editors go to ad-breaks. Interesting if you are at the game, as usually they play heavy metal rink-side and the crowd gets going, or they show a montage of bodychecks on the screens to pump up the crowd as the new line of 5 skaters takes the ice, but if you are watching at home, it can be pretty dull as you can suffer 3 ad breaks in the space of 10 mins. Frustrating.

 

[Toon Wolf]

Apparently the Bills are wearing their white kits at home for the first time in 15 years when they play the Jets at the Ralph tomorrow (Sky Sports 6pm); the players have been putting calls out through the media all week for the fans to all wear white and have a 'white-out'! The stadium will hopefully look something like this:

If it works it could be the first time at an NFL stadium I believe and could look amazing!

 

[VanWolfie]

Absolutely. The feeder for the caps are the Hershey Bears.

That's in association football. The Manitoba Moose are the feeder club to the Vancouver Canucks in hockey.

 

[Toon Wolf]

So, the last 2 weeks the Buffalo Bills we know and love have finally shown up. Playoffs? Playoffs?!! Not a chance.

 

[t3ch]

So, the last 2 weeks the Buffalo Bills we know and love have finally shown up. Playoffs? Playoffs?!! Not a chance.

:icon_lol:

Too early to count them out.

 

[Toon Wolf]

:icon_lol:

Too early to count them out.

Been hit really hard by season ending injuries and long-term injuries to our o-line. We've lost our center, starting LT and back up LT so our Pro-Bowl bound LG has been playing at LT and is now likely to be moved to C. The depth on the roster isn't there so I foresee maybe only 2 more wins. Real shame, but injuries are part of the game.

 

[Toon Wolf]

After starting out 5-2, the Bills have lost 5 in a row... Arse.