Hell yeah boys and girls, the pomp and circumstance of the pre-season is over and we’re full speed ahead!
I love this time of year. Every team has some semblence of a chance. Big upsets happened all over the place yesterday and old rivalries were rekindled.
Like Kid rock says in the Coors light spot…
Somebody’s gotta feel this!
-discuss
B.
Skins won, I’m happy. That was Thursday night though.
I was surprised by the Dolphins losing to the Texans, and I was impressed with the Vikes win over the Pack show.
Renegade, someone wouldn’t have been nearly as impressed if someone had only seen the score and not the vikes/packers game though I dare say.
It was a solid vikes romp up till mid 3rd quarter when they went into their classic “prevent the win” defense. I consider that prevent the win defense to be much like babe’s curse on boston, it transcends coaches and players and sticks with the team like glue.
Anyway, the vikes really tried to give the game away, and tried hard they did, but the packers just didnt want it that bad. That favre interception thrown into double end zone coverage in late 3rd was a prime example.
Nice to see vikes take the game though in packerland on opening day.
Cowboy fan, facing one more season of pain. At least we don’t have Kordel at QB.
Surprised at the Texans.
Curious to see how the Lions turn out.
Unfortunately in San Diego, I was stuck with some boring games on tv. I did notice that the Packers almost took the game back, and I’m all against the prevent defense. But the fact that the Vikes won, after it seems like most people were writing them off, and Culpepper having the day he did, without Bennett is really what impressed me about the game. 
Who here thinks Steve Mcnair is the man?
He’s definitely underrated and his performance alone can shift the tempo of a game.
Broncos will have their actual test next week. Cinci was just a warmup and the Snake did not bring his A game.
Harrington/Rogers… Something for Lions fans to look forward to. Seems to be a dangerous combination for sure. Look for defences to cover Rogers more next week, hopefully the Lions have some other tools in the box to use.
Farve flopped, Driver is hurt… What kind of season will they have?
Didn’t Ricky Williams look like he had an extra step when he was in the open field in comparison to last year? Did he get leaner?
Damn, I love this game…
B.
I was pretty impressed when Tennesee’s kicker went down and the punter came in and booted a 49 yard field goal. My Raiders got shafted by that pushed out of the endzone call. That wasn’t even close.
7 or 8 penalties in the first quarter, including like 4 false starts by the same guy. Do the refs just have it out for the Raiders like the rest of the NFL or are these guys that dumb? Crowd noise is no excuse for that many penalties.
I dislike the Raiders but they got the shaft more then once last night, not to mention it was a ugly game. I love defensive games, I love high scoring games. But I can not to stand two teams look inept, but still score. No sustained drives, not really many big plays, no player dominating. It was a boring game, but the Raiders did get shafted.
It was like soccer to me, only the last 2 minutes count.
NINERS!!!
And the Lions really surprised me. Oakland losing to Tennessee was another surprise; although that one Titan td looked questionable.
While Summer is leaving and Fall is now looming upon us; I’m happy that the NFL is BACK.
Oh, and since we don’t have cable, we have to watch Fox.
I also reserve any attempts for predictions until the fifth week. That’s when things usually begin to shape up.
New York Giants are my team.
I was most surprised at how well Tiki Barber ran the ball against Rams, especially considering the Giants have 3 new starters on the O-Line and during the game two of them went down with injuries. Also, seeing Kurt Warner fumble 6 times was a shock.
I was also surprised that the Dolphins lost at home to the Texans.
I wasn’t necessarily disappointed in anything in Week 1, except for the fact that the Giants’ passing game was a bit lackluster.
My favorite commentators are the Sunday Night ESPN crew of Patrick, Theismann and McGuire.
Next week, the Tuna gets his ass handed to him by his old team, “Tha G-Men!”
Scrub: Good to know there is another member of the Raider Nation here. The Raiders got royally screwed last night – they had more penalty yards than positive yards in the first quarter, and it was close for the entire half.
I don’t know if the announcers were right about the decibel level at TN interfering with the players’ ability to hear the snapcount, but I went to a few TN games back in law school, and it was damn loud. It seemed a couple of the offsides calls were pretty weak – and that endzone call was complete B.S.
TN played well, but I’d still lay money on Oakland at home v. the Titans.
Other games: Houston knocked me out of my suicide pool, but ours is modified – you can buy back in for another $20 after the first week only. I’m just dumb enough to do so, especially since at least 2/3 of the pool got knocked out on that game, and if they all buy back in the pot will be over $3K.
Detroit and AZ looked good, but remember they were playing each other…
Baltimore was bad enough to make Pittsburgh look better than they are. Weird confluence of circumstances (Milloy cut, picked up by Bills, plays Patriots first week at Buffalo) made Milloy look really good and Pats look bad. I don’t care what Belichek says – Milloy had the keys to the Pats offense like the Bucs did to the Raiders in the Super Bowl when Gruden knew the audibles…
Ah, gotta love football season. Buc and Eagles tonight, and then I have to wait a whole week for more. At least college ball fills in the Saturdays.
The orange and blue: the Broncos
The Chiefs, but specifically Priest Holmes, surprised me. I guess he’s been a solid player the last 2-years, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I finally realized it.
Jake Plummer disappointed me: 0 TDs, 3 INTs, 21.7 QB Rating. Those are scary stats for any Broncos fan.
Of the broadcastings teams I saw yesterday, I couldn’t stand any of them. I’d rather hear the cheers of the stadium, the smacks of players colliding, and the shouts of sideline taunts.
also is kurt warners career over or what? Its kinda sad. i hope he can come back but if bulger plays well next week it will be hard for him to get his job back. his deal with the devil might be over.
The Lions
Houston’s win
Miami’s loss (kicked me out of a suicide pool)
I don’t know. The guys who did the Lions -Arizona game were the worst Fox had to offer for the obvious reasons.
Warner just hasn’t been the same. After getting his concussion, where he was having problems around bright lights, his reads of defenses, and reaction time has suffered. He still does well stat wise, but I believe nearly any QB can with the talent around him there.
Don’t expect too much from the Lions. Consider who they played.
Harrington - Rogers will hopefully be a classic combination. However, both are young and at highly skilled positions, which take a few seasons to really know what you are doing. They will have their ups and downs. Probably more downs than ups, unfortunately.
Also the Lion’s secondary is terrible. Boldin had a great game, but if the Lions were playing a team with some experienced WR, we would have seen a single game recieving record set and much higher than the rookie single game receiving record.
Signed,
Cautiously Optimistic
PS: Patience is a virtue
Wow the lions fan’s here sound just like the ones i know in real life (I have lots of family from michigan). Always expecting them to bullox it up sooner or later, cant say i blame them either… don’t even mention the tigers, they are just pathetic.
As far as announcers go, most sports channels in america just seem to have shitty announcers. This was made painfully obvious during the british open this year. For a very short time we received the announcing feed from bbc, which has some bloke named peter aliss doing the color commentary. I tell you, listening to him compared to ANY OTHER golf announcer is like comparing home prices in NYC to boonies alabama.
A good announcer really can make it fun, and a poor one can make you watch just for visual.
My team-Cleveland
Biggest surprise-Houston
Biggest disappointment-David Boston