American Sports Thread

[magpie seanie]

Just saw Micah Hyde's interception from the Packers/Vikings game - what a play!

[Minder]

Tomsula fired by niners don't know what they expected of him with depleted roster from previous years , hope he gets contract paid in full and it exposes jeb as a complete gobshite again .

Tomsula was completely out of his depth from the very beginning.

Since Navarro Bowman got his knee blown up in the NFC championship game 2 years ago it seems like everything that could have gone wrong for the niners has gone wrong. Notwithstanding all the misfortune they have suffered, one thing is clear - the ownership are idiots. To run a coach out of town that went 44-19 in 4 years and to replace him with someone as painfully overmatched as Tomsula, is the height of arrogance.

Yeah Tomsula was well out of his depth, not often a position coach gets promoted to Head Coach.

[gallsman]

Listening to Bill Simmons today - apparently Sean Lee was due a 2m bonus if he suited up against Washington and volunteered to the trainers that his hamstring wasn't right SBD he shouldn't play. Some level of honesty if true!

[Clov]

Tomsula fired by niners don't know what they expected of him with depleted roster from previous years , hope he gets contract paid in full and it exposes jeb as a complete gobshite again .

Tomsula was completely out of his depth from the very beginning.

Since Navarro Bowman got his knee blown up in the NFC championship game 2 years ago it seems like everything that could have gone wrong for the niners has gone wrong. Notwithstanding all the misfortune they have suffered, one thing is clear - the ownership are idiots. To run a coach out of town that went 44-19 in 4 years and to replace him with someone as painfully overmatched as Tomsula, is the height of arrogance.

Yeah Tomsula was well out of his depth, not often a position coach gets promoted to Head Coach.

The 49ers have form in that regard. Singletary went from LB Coach (with only a year or twos experience) to Head Coach, with similarly disastrous consequences. 

[Minder]

Listening to Bill Simmons today - apparently Sean Lee was due a 2m bonus if he suited up against Washington and volunteered to the trainers that his hamstring wasn't right SBD he shouldn't play. Some level of honesty if true!

Yeah I saw that last week, he needed to play in 85% of snaps to trigger a $2m bonus. There is talk they may restructure his contract and give him it as a bonus but they can't just hand it to him.

[stew]

I'm pretty sure that if the Vikings lose they'll play GB again and Seattle will play Washington.

Thats correct

Packers must have wanted to lose judging by some of their play last night.

There are a lot of angry people in Green Bay after that performance, Rodgers cannot find an open man and is having to take Favre esque risks to keep them afloat, hard to believe Nelson is that important to GB.

GB are fecked, bounced in the first round unless someone in the WR core can get open and his OL shows up, they need to throw screen passes and slant passes as well as have an effective running game, shor passes for three or four yards and hope that someone can make a play.

OL and WR have to be the focus in the draft in March.

[Clov]

Manning to start for Den in the playoffs.

Inevitable i suppose given they yanked Osweiller last week. May be the lay off will have done him good but he was awful at the start of the season. A prime example of why win/loss record is no way to judge a QB.

[AZOffaly]

Not surprised in one way. Once they went back to him after giving Osweiler a short lease, he was unlikely to go back on the bench. However, I think his previous failings in playoff games might come back to haunt them. He just doesn't have the arm, and if the weather gets going there he might be in trouble. I suppose the Patriots making an unusual slip up, thereby giving Denver potential home advantage might help. I certainly couldn't see him beating Brady in Foxboro.

[Declan]

America at Large: Peyton Manning drug story being ignored

Denver Broncos quarterback accused of using Human Growth Hormone
Dave Hannigan

During the endless hours of NFL pre-game shows across various American channels last Sunday morning, not a single word was uttered by any pundit about Peyton Manning being implicated in a Human Growth Hormone (HGH) scandal. One of the most iconic figures of the past 15 years is linked with a performance-enhancing substance in a documentary, yet none of the television programmes dedicated to forensically covering the league saw fit to even mention it.

On New York radio the same day, CBS commentator Jim Nantz, arguably the voice of the sport these days, was asked if he'd be addressing the issue while working Manning's game for the Denver Broncos later that afternoon. As if.

"No, why would we?" asked Nantz. "If we talk about it, we would only continue to breathe life into a story that on all levels is a non-story. Why add another layer to it?"

Around about the same time Nantz delivered that stunning abdication of journalistic responsibility, Deborah Davies, a reporter involved in Al-Jazeera's controversial production The Dark Side, was on CNN. There, she claimed to have a second source backing up the initial allegation that several shipments of HGH were sent to Manning's wife Ashley by Indianapolis's Guyer Institute in 2011.

Nobody knows if Manning is guilty of anything other than being extremely unlucky. Imagine how unfortunate and coincidental that his wife was receiving this particular drug in the mail, the kind of substance that might help a quarterback recovering from career-threatening neck surgery, desperate to get back on the field. Just at a time when he fit that exact profile.

And from the very same doctor he was visiting himself for nutrient, oxygen and something called enhanced external counterpulsation (which helps push blood through the body) therapies. Not to mention that American sport has recent, bitter experience with spouses who've enabled and/or been patsies for accused husbands – the New York Daily News dubbing them "the steroid wives club".

If the vehemence of Manning's denial – "Damn straight, I'd never do anything outside the rules" – matched some of Lance Armstrong's tours de force, his subsequent decision to hire the unctuous Ari Fleischer, George W Bush's former flack, as his spokesman didn't do much to convince doubters. Not that there were too many of them.

A lot of the media here have dismissed the story altogether because, just like with Armstrong back in the day, the alternative is perhaps too gruesome to even contemplate. America's clean-cut, aw-shucks quarterback, the one who's so funny on TV ads and yuks it up on Saturday Night Live, taking something he shoudn't? Never.

There are reports of outlets digging deeper. Indeed, we've already learned that Dr Leonard Guyer, Manning's holistic therapist, was involved in buying HGH that had been illegally imported in China in 2007, and that his clinic also specialises in a bizarre weight- loss routine known as "fat-freezing". Ultimately, it may take Manning making good on his threat to sue before the whole truth outs. And if he doesn't, well, that wouldn't be the most positive sign, would it?

In the meantime, for all the criticisms of its reportage and methodology, Al-Jazeera (all but dismissed as a dodgy Arab station by former Chicago Bears' coach Mike Ditka) may have done the sport a genuine service, forcing a long-overdue conversation about HGH's place in the NFL.

Recently retired players reckon at least 30 to 40 per cent of every team are using it. Others simply describe locker-room abuse of the drug as rampant and necessary, being the only possible way injured stars can continue to suit up through the bruising 17-game regular season.

It's impossible to hazard a guess at how prevalent HGH really is. After the players' union and the NFL agreed in principle to testing for it in 2011, they then took three years to implement a system so risible that it is a complete joke. Of the almost 800 players selected for scrutiny last season, not a single one tested positive for HGH. The procedure they employ is so basic it will only catch somebody who has used in the hours prior to giving a blood sample. An ailing linebacker who has injected the day before will not be caught.

Independent observers believe that deploying this rudimentary isoform testing was designed to allow the NFL to claim to be cracking down, keeping politicians off its back, while really enabling individuals to continue using with impunity. Which is problematic. Aside from the damage long-term use may be doing to their own bodies, there is, just like in contact sports closer to home, the issue of players getting bigger, faster and stronger, and inflicting more serious damage on each other during games.

Amid talk of prospects using HGH to tack on 15lbs of muscle between finishing college and starting in the NFL, the league has promised to introduce a more comprehensive test next season and to investigate the claims made by Al-Jazeera. Meanwhile, at least one in three of those taking the field for the playoffs this weekend will have got there with the assistance of the substance preferred by the Denver Broncos' quarterback's wife.

[AZOffaly]

Saw this alright. I'm sure if it was some outspoken guy, maybe Richard Sherman or the like, or a controversial character like Manziel, it would be all over the news. the NFL sicken my shite they way they deal with disciplinary issues. If he wears eye black with a message about his dead father, he'd be fined. Use HGH? Ah sure, nothing to see here.

the NFL needs to get serious about drugs and PEDs. We can ooh and ahh at the technical skills, but at the end of the day, it's a lot about establishing physical dominance, and PEDs and HGH obviously help there. Rugby needs to be careful too. There's a similarity about the body types that is hard to ignore.

[magpie seanie]

Saw this alright. I'm sure if it was some outspoken guy, maybe Richard Sherman or the like, or a controversial character like Manziel, it would be all over the news. the NFL sicken my shite they way they deal with disciplinary issues. If he wears eye black with a message about his dead father, he'd be fined. Use HGH? Ah sure, nothing to see here.

the NFL needs to get serious about drugs and PEDs. We can ooh and ahh at the technical skills, but at the end of the day, it's a lot about establishing physical dominance, and PEDs and HGH obviously help there. Rugby needs to be careful too. There's a similarity about the body types that is hard to ignore.

If he was black he'd be suspended by now.

[magpie seanie]

Not surprised in one way. Once they went back to him after giving Osweiler a short lease, he was unlikely to go back on the bench. However, I think his previous failings in playoff games might come back to haunt them. He just doesn't have the arm, and if the weather gets going there he might be in trouble. I suppose the Patriots making an unusual slip up, thereby giving Denver potential home advantage might help. I certainly couldn't see him beating Brady in Foxboro.

Denver's hopes lie with their defence. Manning doesn't have to be brilliant if the defence plays well. He just has to make some plays and not make errors. He couldn't do that early season, lets see if he can do it now. Quarterback play is massively overstated in NFL and American Football as a whole.

[AZOffaly]

Not surprised in one way. Once they went back to him after giving Osweiler a short lease, he was unlikely to go back on the bench. However, I think his previous failings in playoff games might come back to haunt them. He just doesn't have the arm, and if the weather gets going there he might be in trouble. I suppose the Patriots making an unusual slip up, thereby giving Denver potential home advantage might help. I certainly couldn't see him beating Brady in Foxboro.

Denver's hopes lie with their defence. Manning doesn't have to be brilliant if the defence plays well. He just has to make some plays and not make errors. He couldn't do that early season, lets see if he can do it now. Quarterback play is massively overstated in NFL and American Football as a whole.

IM not sure about it being overrated Seanie. Perhaps the cult of the individual QB is, but unless you have an 85 Bears type defence, you need a good QB. Look at last years Cardinals. Would the Patriots be consistently excellent without Brady? I know Cassells stood in well in the injury year, but if Brady left the Pats they'd be in trouble.

Overstated, possibly, but vitally important nonetheless, in my opinion. A great QB can make a lot of problems go away. But he needs the other parts as well.

[Minder]

Not surprised in one way. Once they went back to him after giving Osweiler a short lease, he was unlikely to go back on the bench. However, I think his previous failings in playoff games might come back to haunt them. He just doesn't have the arm, and if the weather gets going there he might be in trouble. I suppose the Patriots making an unusual slip up, thereby giving Denver potential home advantage might help. I certainly couldn't see him beating Brady in Foxboro.

Denver's hopes lie with their defence. Manning doesn't have to be brilliant if the defence plays well. He just has to make some plays and not make errors. He couldn't do that early season, lets see if he can do it now. Quarterback play is massively overstated in NFL and American Football as a whole.

IM not sure about it being overrated Seanie. Perhaps the cult of the individual QB is, but unless you have an 85 Bears type defence, you need a good QB. Look at last years Cardinals. Would the Patriots be consistently excellent without Brady? I know Cassells stood in well in the injury year, but if Brady left the Pats they'd be in trouble.

Overstated, possibly, but vitally important nonetheless, in my opinion. A great QB can make a lot of problems go away. But he needs the other parts as well.

Yeah you can't really succeed in the NFL without a good QB, look at the Cowboys this year as well. When you don't have a good one your running back with be dealing with running into 8/9 players in the box. Makes it a lot easier for a defense when they know they aren't gonna get beaten through the air.

[foxcommander]

Saw this alright. I'm sure if it was some outspoken guy, maybe Richard Sherman or the like, or a controversial character like Manziel, it would be all over the news. the NFL sicken my shite they way they deal with disciplinary issues. If he wears eye black with a message about his dead father, he'd be fined. Use HGH? Ah sure, nothing to see here.

the NFL needs to get serious about drugs and PEDs. We can ooh and ahh at the technical skills, but at the end of the day, it's a lot about establishing physical dominance, and PEDs and HGH obviously help there. Rugby needs to be careful too. There's a similarity about the body types that is hard to ignore.

If he was black he'd be suspended by now.

Yeah, just like Ray Rice or Adrian Peterson or Greg Hardy or Ray Lewis.