The sports thread

Anyone here into sports? Those College Football playoff games sure were fun!!! Looking forward to the championship. And the NFL playoffs are starting soon! Question for the people from the UK, do you guys watch American Football and is it aired often? I know BPL is huge but was wondering if the NFL or college football has caught on there.

I play soccer, does that count?

Yeah, NFL is pretty big over here. Sky Sports (our equivalent of ESPN) show games every Sunday night, and there's an interactive option to see big plays from all of the games which are on - so people have easy access to seeing their chosen team in action.

The viewing figures are high for TV, and the games at Wembley (which has a 90,000 capacity) are usually a sell-out and the atmosphere is very lively. I went to see my team, Minnesota Vikings manage a (very rare!) win against the Steelers there in 2013.

Indyboy4 said:

Anyone here into sports? Those College Football playoff games sure were fun!!! Looking forward to the championship. And the NFL playoffs are starting soon! Question for the people from the UK, do you guys watch American Football and is it aired often? I know BPL is huge but was wondering if the NFL or college football has caught on there.

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I'm actually watching Man City rout West Brom in a snowstorm right now on NBC Sports Network.

As a Cowboys fan, sure I'm excited that they're back in the postseason. But it's hard to get to stoked about the NFL playoffs when you have a Carolina club that went 1-8-1 over a ten game stretch in the field.

Indyboy,I make several trips across the Wabash to see Sprint car races in your state. But I've never seen any "ball" sports over there. Although I have seen the Indiana High School basketball Museum in New Castle. That place is awesome!

Illinoise said:

I'm actually watching Man City rout West Brom in a snowstorm right now on NBC Sports Network.

As a Cowboys fan, sure I'm excited that they're back in the postseason. But it's hard to get to stoked about the NFL playoffs when you have a Carolina club that went 1-8-1 over a ten game stretch in the field.

Indyboy,I make several trips across the Wabash to see Sprint car races in your state. But I've never seen any "ball" sports over there. Although I have seen the Indiana High School basketball Museum in New Castle. That place is awesome!

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Really? That's awesome. I'm really not into racing. I mainly love basketball and football. But hey, the panthers won tonight!

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SirNapsALot said:

Yeah, NFL is pretty big over here. Sky Sports (our equivalent of ESPN) show games every Sunday night, and there's an interactive option to see big plays from all of the games which are on - so people have easy access to seeing their chosen team in action.

The viewing figures are high for TV, and the games at Wembley (which has a 90,000 capacity) are usually a sell-out and the atmosphere is very lively. I went to see my team, Minnesota Vikings manage a (very rare!) win against the Steelers there in 2013.

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That's so cool! I've always wanted to visit the UK and see a major soccer (football) game there.

Lets go Ducks. One more to put away.

U of O against OSU should be as exciting as the civil war game was in November. Especially if super Mario has the defense support life the rose bowl.

I could only hope that OSU does the infamous "butt fumble" FSU did.

GO DUCKS!!!!!!

dah dee dah dee dah da da da. dah dee dee dah dee dah. dah dee dad dee dah dee dah da da..........

Indyboy4 said:

That's so cool! I've always wanted to visit the UK and see a major soccer (football) game there.

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It's well worth doing. I've had a Season Ticket at Man United since I was young, and seeing football live is such a different atmosphere and experience to seeing it on TV; especially where rivalries are concerned. I know that's true of most sports, but some of the rivalries here are so intense that they have to be experienced first-hand.

Aside from the major teams, it's worth going to watch some of the teams in the lower leagues play. There's a lot of passion and history in some of the small town football clubs, and some of the stadiums date back to the Victorian era!

New England Patriots gonna win the Super Bowl with the Patriot Missile arm of Tom Brady.
Boston Red Sox May win the World Series if they can get a viable team back they are imploding from within in my opinion.
University Of Michigan Football team will be the team to watch next season with Harbaugh at the helm.
Other than that may the best team win I have my favorites just hope for a actual game for a change and good sportsmanship from all teams and good behavior from all fans and tailgaters at the venues.

I believe the college playoff system is a great idea. You might think it leaves less argument about what teams make it in. That did NOT happen. Look at the teams on the outside. This playoff system is for the teams in somewhat weaker conferences.

The top 2 teams were both outed in the first round. Florida State was destroyed by Oregon. Alabama was beaten by Ohio State. If Alabama and Florida State played each other in the older system, Oregon and Ohio State would be playing for 3rd place.

This will only call for a bigger bracket. It's already been talked about and you can believe that this will only transform in to an empire of money and make March Madness in January for football. It won't feature nearly as many teams, but coaches and board members are talking about expanding to 8 and even a 16 team pool.

Only then it will shut up everyone about the BCS formula. In the long run it would eventually hurt small colleges. Unless they reserve some spots for those teams with the best records.

LSU would've been in it if they had a QB. We lost our entire offense to the draft the prior year. If we only had a QB that could compete at least half of their passes.

MeTaLMaNN1983 said:

I believe the college playoff system is a great idea. You might think it leaves less argument about what teams make it in. That did NOT happen. Look at the teams on the outside. This playoff system is for the teams in somewhat weaker conferences.

The top 2 teams were both outed in the first round. Florida State was destroyed by Oregon. Alabama was beaten by Ohio State. If Alabama and Florida State played each other in the older system, Oregon and Ohio State would be playing for 3rd place.

This will only call for a bigger bracket. It's already been talked about and you can believe that this will only transform in to an empire of money and make March Madness in January for football. It won't feature nearly as many teams, but coaches and board members are talking about expanding to 8 and even a 16 team pool.

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I love the four team field. It eliminates the problem of having more than two teams with a claim to be competing for the Championship.

But add any more spots, and you completely eliminate one of the best parts of college football: Games early in the season actually matter. Not like in the NFL, where a club like Carolina can go 1-8-1 over a ten game stretch, and still make the playoffs. Unless it's my beloved Cowboys, I don't even like watching the NFL all that much the first half of the season.

Just remember as we watch Oregon play Ohio State, my Virginia Tech handily beat Ohio St. and then went on their traditional downhill slide. I actually didn't go to Virginia Tech. Two of my kids did, and about $90,000. later, Beamer lets me call a few plays.

Both our boys played football and I enjoy watching the games. I've played baseball and I used to race a couple cars I built for the 1/4 mile track.

Did anyone see Chris Christy hugging Jerry Jones after the Dallas win? John Stewart had a few things to say about that tonight. It didn't take him long to abandon the Giants or the Eagles.

I was raised a Saints fan through and through, my family being from the Gulf Coast, and I follow them pretty regularly. I'm also getting into the Pelicans too and am steady trying to figure out Basketball as well as I have NFL strategy down, due to Madden, lol.

Go Oregon!!!

As an Arizonan I'm sad about the Cardinals being out of the playoffs, despite not being my actual super duper favorite team. As a general reply to a previous post, I'm pretty sure the Cardinals are pretty firmly rooted in Arizona now. Not sure that it's going to happen again, really. They are pretty much our main.. thing here now. Diamondbacks and Suns are still things of course, but Cardinals football is kinda the big one these days.

Most sports I would much rather play then watch, but NFL football has always been a bit special to me. I had times where I was deeply involved in Professional Basketball and Baseball, but eventually grew bored.

Maxx said:

Rush Limbaugh also had some comments, noting that Christy is a lifelong Cowboys fan, so not all that odd. No worse than the clowns in the Chicago area flaunting Packer colors.

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Imagine me living in Virginia and having to support the Washington Redskins. To add insult to injury, my dad was half Lenni Lenape Indian. Fortunately I'm from Chris Christy land, so I tend to root for the Giants or Eagles. My entire family are Steeler fans however, and so am I. Yes, I know. Not a good year for us either.

Maurepas said:

I was raised a Saints fan through and through, my family being from the Gulf Coast, and I follow them pretty regularly. I'm also getting into the Pelicans too and am steady trying to figure out Basketball as well as I have NFL strategy down, due to Madden, lol.

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Who Dat!

I feel we will go through a worse year next year. All of the contracts that we have are ballooning out of control. We don't have an offensive line and as long as Drew Brees is still around, the team will only get worse. His contract is way too high and probably takes more than a quarter of the salary cap. Jimmy Graham's contract won't help, neither will Byrd's. It also seems they are playing passionlessly. They need to stop drafting so much from small schools. They also need to grab some LSU players. The talent in last year's draft was incredible. The rookie of they year is going to either O'Dell or Jeremy Hill.

As far as the Pelicans go, they need to break out of 500. They are missing one piece of the puzzle to be contenders. It would be great to get into the playoffs. Hopefully we won't lose another superstar. It seems every time we get a gem, they run to a higher market.

One thing that irks the crap out of me is the team name. It's terrible. We probably have the lamest team name in professional sports. Pelicans stand for something but it's not a selling point.

They missed on a great name that could've been a great selling point, endless jersey ideas, court ideas. How does "New Orleans Voodoo" sound compared to the Pelicans?

As a PAC-12 fan I am looking forward to the game tonight between the Ducks and Buckeyes. I recently looked up Buckeye and discovered that it is a type of tree. I then noticed that the little round patches on their helmets have a leaf on them. This must be the only school with a tree as a mascot. Historically the Big 10 and PAC 12 champions met in the Rose Bowl. Think of tonight as the new Rose Bowl. Living in Seattle we haven't had a lot of success in major league sports lately so the prospects of the Seahawks winning back to back super bowls is pretty exciting.