Tag: nfl

NFL Week 13 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precaps

The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps.

Week 13

Sunday, November 30, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Cleveland Browns at Buffalo Bills

Good cop: The Bills return to a rapidly shoveling Buffalo as triumphant heroes, having traveled to Detroit for a “home game” last week and won! Let’s see what they do as an encore!

Bad cop: As an encore? Well, unfortunately, they can only beat the Browns or lose to the Browns. Neither is very impressive.

San Diego Chargers at Baltimore Ravens

Good cop: These teams are like transcontinental doppelgängers: reliable, veteran quarterbacks, mostly anonymous but solid skill players on offense, very good defenses!

Bad cop: … boring, no real chance to win the Super Bowl…

Carolina Panthers at Minnesota Vikings

Good cop: This game is my chance to break out my silver and purple track suit and wear it to the bar!

Bad cop: This game is your ONLY chance to do that.

Cincinnati Bengals at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Good cop: The Buccaneers are like the Black Night in the Monty Python movie! They don’t know when they’ve been beaten, and somehow, despite having lost nine of their eleven games so far this year, they’re still not eliminated from playoff contention!

Bad cop: If the Buccaneers are the Black Night, the Bengals are like their Spanish Inquisition because no matter what you expect, they do something else.

Tennessee Titans at Houston Texans

Good cop: This game just goes to show that even in the deepest doldrums of the NFL, were the games are meaningless and the teams non-descript, there are still interesting story lines! The return of Ryan Fitzpatrick, the growth of Bishop Sankey!

Bad cop: Sounds like a Jane Austin novel. Come to think of it, I’d rather read a Jane Austin than watch this game.

Washington Redskins at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: Three years ago, Indianapolis chose quarterback Andrew Luck first in the draft. Washington traded up to take Robert Griffin III second! Now Luck is a legitimate star and Griffin just got benched and may never play in Washington again!

Bad cop: While you and everyone else talk about that storyline, I’m focused on the fact that Griffin’s replacement is named Colt — the same name of the team they’re playing against. Talk about suspicious.

New York Giants at Jacksonville Jaguars

Good cop: Did you see Giants receiver, Odell Beckham’s catch last week?! If that guy’s playing, I’m watching!

Bad cop: Sorry, overruled by my rule of: if the Jaguars are playing, I’m watching something else.

New Orleans Saints at Pittsburgh Steelers

Good cop: The Saints and the Steelers are both desperate veteran teams teetering on the thin edge of playoff viability!

Bad cop: Wait, isn’t that what I’m supposed to say? Oh, I see, you think that makes this compelling, I think it just makes it a little depressing.

Oakland Raiders at St. Louis Rams

Good cop: Based on the rumors I’m hearing, both these teams might move to Los Angeles during the offseason, that means this could be the conception of a very interesting rivalry!

Bad cop: Gotcha — you want to watch a game between two team that are so bad and have been bad for so long that their owners might pick up and move to L.A.? Why?

SUNDAY, November 30, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Arizona Cardinals at Atlanta Falcons

Good cop: Like two kids in elementary school who are always forced to sit together, these ‘A’ teams have a healthy rivalry! 

Bad cop: You just made that up. The Falcons are terrible and the Cardinals are good. You’re trying to gin up interest in a legitimately boring game.

New England Patriots at Green Bay Packers

Good cop: Over the past two months, two teams have played better than any other teams! Those teams are the Patriots and the Packers and they face off this weekend! Lucky us!

Bad cop: The way the NFL works lately, peaking from October to December means you’re almost definitely not going to win the Super Bowl. It’s too hard to stay on top for so long. Remember that as you watch this game.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs

Good cop: Like the Packers vs. Patriots, there’s almost no need for me to preview this game! It’s such a good matchup, I dare you — I defy even you to think of something negative to say about it!

Bad cop: Uh… it’s a shame the Chiefs are coached by Andy Reid instead of Baby Andy Reid.

MONDAY, December 1, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Miami Dolphins at New York Jets

Good cop: The Jets are a dysfunctional mess! I know, I know, that’s normally a bad thing! But listen, for years a story about a dysfunctional mess in Northern New Jersey was the hottest thing on television! What’s changed?! Nothing!

Bad cop: Rex Ryan is no Tony Soprano.

Happy Thanksgiving from the sports media

Good morning and happy Thanksgiving! While you’re trying to find the cranberries in the back of the fridge, (where did you put those things?), here are excerpts from the best of the many Thanksgiving and football themed articles from around the web. 

Pigskin Pigsplosion NFL Week 13 Preview

by Ryan Glasspiegel for The Big Lead

A special Thanksgiving edition of The Big Lead’s weekly NFL football preview.

If you stop to think about it, it’s pretty rude of the NFL to make all three games on Thanksgiving be compelling ones. Though a motive would be hard to discern, it seems readily apparent that the league is involved in a sinister plan to cause relationship strife around this holiday.

26 (More) Rules of Thanksgiving Touch Football

by Jason Gay for the Wall Street Journal

Rules to live by if your Thanksgiving tradition includes playing touch football.

Remember: It’s not just a game. It’s an opportunity to relieve a year’s worth of pent-up aggression upon the loved ones who don’t return your text messages and never do the dishes.

9. If anybody starts a Thanksgiving family touch-football fantasy league, you can ban them from the family for seven years.

18. This year’s halftime show is explaining to Dad who Katy Perry is.

19. Relationship breakups can be hard on the Thanksgiving touch-football game. It was very sad that your brother Todd and his girlfriend Karen split up, because Todd is family. But mainly because Karen had six touchdowns last year.

Ndamukong Suh and Warren Buffett: The Bruiser and the Billionaire

by Kevin Clark for the Wall Street Journal

Ndamukong Suh is one of the most compelling characters of the early game between the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears. He’s known as a rough and dirty player on the field but off-field he’s a burgeoning businessman. 

“Everyone says, ‘Wait til your football career is over.’ Or the biggest saying is always ‘Life after football,’ ” Suh said. “But as an athlete, someone who is bright enough and understands how to compartmentalize, and has time management from already having two jobs at once—playing football and going to class and getting good grades-—you can have 70 to 90% of the focus on your ultimate job but at the same time slowly build to what you are going to be one day.”

Suh’s best memory was an arm-wrestling match between Buffett and Suh at an event. At his Michigan home, Suh has a letter, written by Buffett: “I, Ndamukong Suh, hereby release Warren Buffett from any claims for physical injury that I may suffer in the arm wrestling contest…”

Thanksgiving Football Is Tradition for Chris Borland

by Taylor Price for 49ers.com

Chris Borland is an unlikely new defensive star for the San Francisco 49ers who will be playing on Thanksgiving night versus the Seattle Seahawks. Here’s a story from the team’s site about his background and football upbringing.

Chris, the second-youngest of six boys, played football with his brothers; he also tried to keep pace with them in other ways. Joe, 13 years older than his NFL-playing brother, remembered Chris running around their home with two-pound weights in each hand. The story gets better. Chris used to do that in the winter time… as a 4-year-old.

The next game is on a familiar day for the Borland family: Thanksgiving. Although Chris hasn’t played in a “Turkey Bowl” game since his high school days, he has a pretty good memory of that battle. Just like any other group of family and friends who gather to play recreational football games hours before a Thanksgiving meal, the Borland’s were no different. Only, their game was a little more physical than most neighborhood contests.

In the last “Borland Turkey Bowl,” Chris caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Joe, earning the right to hoist a trophy topped with a plastic turkey head. Chris earned the hardware, too. He collided with a sapling tree and bloodied his forehead as he caught the winning pass. But as Joe tells it, Chris wasn’t even the toughest player in the yard that day. Sarah Borland, the only female sibling of the bunch, suffered a dislocated shoulder in the game. What did she do after the injury? Oh, she just popped her shoulder back into place and kept playing.

Chiefs safety Eric Berry has right attitude for what could be fight of his life

by Sam Mellinger for The Kansas City Star

Not a Thanksgiving story per se, but I thought it was good to include this as a reminder to give thanks for the health of us and our loved ones and for the people who support us when we’re faced with big challenges.

The Chiefs star will see a lymphoma specialist in his hometown of Atlanta this week, trying to find a definitive answer for a mass in the right side of his chest. His season with the Chiefs is over.

Everyone’s fight is their own, of course, but if this becomes Berry’s fight, he will engage it with an incredible amount of support… In high school, Berry volunteered at a dentist’s office. In college, he would sneak into the equipment room the night before games to help the team managers polish the helmets… With the Chiefs, he is constantly thanking the men and women who cook and serve the team meals. He’s the one hugging the flight attendant on the plane and donating backpacks full of school supplies to local kids.

2014 Thanksgiving NFL preview: Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers

The last of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games this year is between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers at 8:30 p.m. on NBC. If this game were a Thanksgiving food, it would be the roast pork, baked salmon, or Turducken that someone brings to the meal. It’s not traditional but damn, is it good. Tradition aside, you’re going to grab a few extra servings of it on top of that dried out token piece of Turkey breast you eat out of obligation.

Thanksgiving is the ultimate American holiday. Its focusses are family, food, and football. To celebrate the first two, it helps to know about the third. To that end, we’re offering a free copy of our Guide to Football for the Curious in addition to publishing previews about each of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games.

Plot

Unlike the two day games, this game does not have a set host city and team, so the league is free to pick what they think the most entertaining matchup will be each year. Before this season started, the matchup of the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers must have seemed like a slam dunk. The Seahawks won the Super Bowl last year and the 49ers have been to at least the conference finals (the game right before the Super Bowl) for the last three years. Both teams are in the NFC West division, and if that weren’t enough to create a rivalry, their head coaches, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh share a mutual disdain from their days coaching in college against each other. Before the season started, this game must have seemed like the perfect choice for Thanksgiving night because it was a heated rivalry of two very excellent teams. The schedule makers lucked out — it is a compelling game but for very different reasons than they thought before the season.

The first half of the NFL season for these two teams has proven that something can always go wrong. Both teams have struggled to win games, largely because their dominating defenses from the previous years have been anything but dominating this year. Nor have things been nice and easy in the dressing room. Seattle traded one of its most explosive players mid-season and as he left the city the team’s leadership spread rumors that he was unmanageable and violent towards his teammates. San Francisco has been beset by rumors that their team can’t stand their coach. It’s fairly common in sports for teams to dislike their coaches, but these rumors have suggested that the situation for the 49ers is worse than normal.

 

On Thanksgiving, both Seattle and San Francisco find themselves 7-4 (seven wins, four losses) and a full two games behind the Arizona Cardinals for the division lead. Assuming neither team can catch Arizona, these two teams will be fighting with each other and a couple of other extremely good teams for the two available wild card playoff spots. Between real animosity for the opponent and a clear need to win the game for playoff positioning, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if this were the best game of the day.

Characters

Jim Harbaugh, Coach of the San Francisco 49ers

Jim Harbaugh is a pain in the ass. That seems to be the consensus of everyone who has every played with or for him. He’s intense, emotional, almost childlike in his inability or unwillingness to control himself on the sidelines. He also wins. A lot. He’s known as a “quarterback whisperer” or someone who is able to mentor young quarterbacks to make the most of their potential. This year has been an interesting one about him, if not for him. His contract ends after this season and it’s unclear whether the 49ers will want to retain him, despite his winning record. There have been well documented reports of power struggles between him and the general manager of the team as well dissension among the players.

Colin Kaepernick, Quarterback on the San Francisco 49ers

Kaepernick is the young, talented quarterback being whispered to by Harbaugh. Kaepernick is an unusual sight on the football field. He is tall and slender but freakishly fast and strong. Once a well-regarded professional prospect as a baseball pitcher, Kaepernick retains an element of foreignness to his game. His arm strength is second to none and when he decides to run with the ball, he’s a threat to run by, around, or over defenders. For all his talent though, he can look as bad at any moment as he looked good during a previous play. He’s not particularly consistent and his decision making is questionable.

Chris Borland, Linebacker on the San Francisco 49ers

For the past three seasons, the San Francisco 49ers football team’s character was epitomized by its two amazing inside linebackers, Patrick Willis and Navorro Bowman. The 49ers were a strong, no nonsense, physical team and those two guys were their team’s leaders, role models, and muse. This year, they are both out with injuries. Who steps in? This guy, Chris Borland. Borland is a rookie who won Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year last year in his Senior season. He was drafted by the 49ers in the third round of the NFL draft. Since stepping into a starting role, he’s been a defensive leader on the team and has quickly become a rising star.

Pete Carroll, Coach of the Seattle Seahawks

Pete Carroll is a charming trickster of a coach. It’s no surprise that of all the coaches in the NFL, he’s the one who became a robber baron in this .gif. He’s a rogue. He left his last college job at USC right before the school was sanctioned seriously by the NCAA for basically flagrantly paying star running back Reggie Bush. Now that he’s in the NFL, Carroll’s team has been among the league leaders in PED or performance enhancing drug suspensions. No matter where he goes though, he wins. Last year, he took the Seahawks all the way to the Super Bowl where they routed the Broncos early and won easily. He and Harbaugh hate each other as they have since they were rivals in college at USC and Stanford.

Marshawn Lynch, Running Back on the Seattle Seahawks

Marshawn Lynch is an extreme running back. He’s known as Beast Mode for his powerful and unyielding running style. If you want to know what I’m talking about, watch this. He also famously loves Skittles. The Seattle fans love him, so now when he scores at home, Skittles rain down from the stands. He has one year left on his contract after this year but is rumored to be leaving Seattle sooner than that. He has not been happy there this year. One of his friends/allies, Percy Harvin was traded during the year, and Lynch has reportedly been misbehaving behind the scenes. Of course, it’s hard to know the truth because the team has an incentive to sell the misbehavior story if they want to get rid of Lynch without their fans going crazy. What we do know is that last week after the game, Lynch decided to stonewall reporters in a half comic, half tragic way.

Russell Wilson, Quarterback on the Seattle Seahawks

Russell Wilson was the toast of the NFL for his first couple years in the league. He came in as a somewhat unheralded rookie and immediately beat out his competition in training camp so thoroughly that he was given the starting job. He didn’t disappoint. In his first two years, the Seahawks made the playoffs twice and won the Super Bowl once. Wilson became one of the most well respected quarterbacks around, succeeding despite being short for a quarterback. This year, like most of the team, Wilson has struggled a little bit on and off the field. On the field, his quarterback rating has dropped a little compared to his first two years. Off the field, he’s been accused of being both too close to management and “not black enough.”

Richard Sherman, Cornerback on the Seattle Seahawks

Richard Sherman was launched into the broader public consciousness when he allowed (or if you’re more cynical, decided to) his in-game passion to roll over into a post-game interview after last year’s playoff game against (you guessed it), the San Francisco 49ers. Sherman was briefly labeled as some kind of stereotypical football playing mouthful half-wit before people remembered that he’s every bit as much an intellectual achiever as an athletic one. This year, Sherman hasn’t played quite as well as he has in past years but I imagine he will be on top of his game for this one. He certainly has been on the top of his press conference game, as he showed in this light-hearted yet biting satirical rebuttal to the NFL’s fine for Lynch after his “Yeah” conference.

A Thanksgiving crossword puzzle

Thanksgiving is finally upon us!

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been promoting a Guide to Football for the Curious that I put together from the best of my writing about football on this site. In the guide, I cover all the basic elements of football — how scoring works, what the positions are, what fantasy football is and how football betting works, and why people like football. In addition to that, I tried to give some thought to how a beginner or casual fan can begin to enjoy watching football. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and if you haven’t, it’s not too late! Head over to the Thanksgiving Football page and download a copy now.

To celebrate the holiday and as a fun way to quiz your knowledge of football before you see your football loving relatives tomorrow, here’s a Thanksgiving Football crossword puzzle that I created. All of the terms, names, and phrases are explained in the Guide to Football for the Curious, so seek your answers there if you’re stumped.

A couple notes about the puzzle. You know you’ve gotten an answer right when the words (confusingly) are highlighted in a light red. If your answer remains black text on a white background, it’s wrong. To get the answers, click on the little key icon on the top left.

Have fun and Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for being a part of the Dear Sports Fan community!

NFL Week 12 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precaps

The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps.

Week 12

Sunday, November 23, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Cleveland Browns at Atlanta Falcons

Good cop: The Browns are only one half game out of first place in their division and the Falcons are tied for first place in theirs! As we get closer to the end of the season, the margin for error gets smaller and smaller!

Bad cop: All that is true but what you’re glossing over is that the 6-4 Browns are tied for last place in their division while the 4-6 Falcons are tied for first in theirs. Divisions are stupid.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Chicago Bears

Good cop: These teams both had big wins last week to keep their seasons alive!

Bad cop: Alive but in a persistent vegetative state.

Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans

Good cop: These teams have shown themselves to be adaptable survivors this year! The Texans are on their second quarterback of the year and may be missing their best running back too! The Bengals were without their best offensive player for more than a month! These teams show how football is a true team game!

Bad cop: It’s a team game but that doesn’t mean you can win the Super Bowl without stars. These teams don’t have stars.

Detroit Lions at New England Patriots

Good cop: I can’t wait to see this game! The Lions have a top three defense this year but no one is smarter at figuring out how to attack defenses than Patriots coach Bill Bellichick and quarterback Tom Brady!

Bad cop: I got nothing.

Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings

Good cop: The Vikings are building a new stadium, so this year they are playing outdoors on the University of Minnesota’s field! That means these two NFC North division rivals will get to play a cold-weather home game in Minnesota! Old-school!

Bad cop: If the Vikings defense manages to even dirty Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ jersey a little bit, I’ll be surprised.

Jacksonville Jaguars at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: Young quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Blake Bortles might be rivals for the next decade or more!

Bad cop: True. And maybe one day it will be a good rivalry, but for now I’m guessing we’ll see another game like the one between them earlier in the year when the Colts beat the Jaguars 44 to 17.

Tennesse Titans at Philadelphia Eagles

Good cop: The Eagles try to get back on track after their blow-out loss to the Packers last weekend!

Bad cop: And if they can’t beat the Titans, watch out for the Philly fans to pelt the field with boos, bottles, and batteries. That’s how bad the Titans are. That’s how they do in Philly.

SUNDAY, November 23, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

St. Louis Rams at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: The Rams are giant killers! They specialize in bringing strong teams to their knees! Their last three wins have been against the excellent Broncos, 49ers, and Seahawks! Let’s see if they can keep it going against the Chargers! 

Bad cop: I’m not sure that I’d label the Chargers as an excellent team. In fact, I’m sure I wouldn’t. The Chargers’ last four games have been a close win over the Raiders, close losses to the Chiefs and Broncos, and a terrible loss to the Dolphins. The Chargers are just bad enough to easily beat the Rams.

Arizona Cardinals at Seattle Seahawks

Good cop: If the Seahawks lose this game, they’re morally eliminated (as opposed to mathematically) from catching the Cardinals for the division title! They’re gonna play hard!

Bad cop: Of course they will. Professional football players are paid to play hard. That said, you’re right, I think this will be a good game too. Which, means it will probably be terrible. Might as well just skip it.

Miami Dolphins at Denver Broncos

Good cop: The Dolphins are one of the hottest teams in the league over the last two months! Their only two losses in that time were three or four point losses to quality teams! Meanwhile, the Broncos just lost a stunner to the Rams! I think the Dolphins have a shot here!

Bad cop: Facing a pissed off Peyton Manning at home in Denver? I don’t think so.

Washington Redskins at San Francisco 49ers

Good cop: The two biggest soap-operas of the 2014 season face each other in a football game! How could you miss this?!

Bad cop: Daytime television at its worst.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants

Good cop: The Giants are the most dangerous kind of rival — the rival with nothing to play for except your demise! Watch out Cowboys!

Bad cop: The Cowboys are the most dangerous kind of rival — the rival that’s better than you. Watch something else.

MONDAY, November 24, AT 7:00 and 8:30 P.M. ET

New York Jets vs. Buffalo Bills in Detroit

Good cop: Fresh off their good deeds, the Buffalo Bills travel to Detroit to cheer up their fans with a victory!

Bad cop: I have to say, after 9+ feet of snow in a week, I do hope the people of Buffalo get their power back in time to see their team beat the Jets.

Baltimore Ravens at New Orleans Saints

Good cop: Despite their up and down seasons, these two teams are still in the drivers seat to make the playoffs… if they can win this game!

Bad cop: I like the driving metaphor. The Ravens are stuck in a traffic jam in the AFC North division. The Saints are close to the head of the pack in the tricycle race that is the NFC South.

Do Not Watch This Game 11.22.14 Weekend Edition

For sports fans, the weekend is a cornucopia of wonderful games to watch. This is particularly true in the fall with its traditional pattern of College Football on Saturday and NFL Football on Sunday and Monday. As the parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend of a sports fan, this can be a challenge. It must be true that some games are more important to watch than others but it’s hard to know which is which. As a sports fan, the power of habit and hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars get in the way of remembering to take a break from sports and do something with your parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend. To aid all of us in this, and just because it’s fun, I’m going to write a weekly post highlighting a single game that is ideal for skipping. Use this to help tell yourself or someone else: “Do not watch this game!”

Thursday, 8:25 p.m. ET, NFL Football, Kansas City Chiefs at Oakland Raiders. It’s on the NFL Network, but do not watch this game!

Some weeks, it’s difficult to write this post. After all, I am a big sports fan. I play fantasy football. I often say that I’m happy watching any kind of sporting event at all, and it’s true. I’ve got a long record of stopping on the sidewalk in New York to watch kids play basketball or handball. One of the elements of a trip in Europe I took last year which I loved was watching all the weird sports they televise out there in hotel rooms. Plus, I’m an optimistic guy — I always think the underdog has a chance to win. So, it’s sometimes tricky for me to pick a game to suggest skipping. The way I usually write the post is this. I head over to 506 Sports NFL maps to see which games are being televised when and to who. There’s no point in recommending that you skip one a game that only a small portion of the country could see anyway. For that reason, I look at the nationally televised NFL games first — Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights, and then if all of them are too good to miss, I look on Sunday afternoon to see if there is a relatively big game that’s worth looking twice at. I look at point spreads to find games that are unlikely to be close and read other people’s previews of the NFL to hear what they think of the weekend’s slate of games.

I didn’t have to do any of that this week. This week, the answer is so clear, it basically leaps up out of my laptop screen and slaps me in the face as if I’m in Monty Python and it’s a fish. The Thursday Night football game this week is absolutely not worth watching! I’m not even going to provide an alternative this week. If you’re a Raiders fan, then… I’m sorry but save yourself the heartache and do something else. If you’re a Chiefs fan, have some mercy. You don’t need to see your team blow the poor Raiders out of the water.

The Raiders are winless so far this season and they look suspiciously like they might end the year that way too. It’s not all bad for them, they’ve been starting a rookie quarterback, Derek Carr, who looks like he might be quite good at some point. After all, even great quarterbacks like Peyton Manning (who went 3-13 his rookie year) need some time to mature. The Raiders have also managed to keep a bunch of their games relatively close. They came within a touchdown of beating the Chargers last week. They stuck nicely with the Seahawks a few weeks ago as well as the Patriots in Week 3. The problem is, the Chiefs are not to be trifled with right now. After starting the season slowly, they’ve won five games in a row and seven of the last eight. They’re fourth in the league at running the ball, averaging over 140 yards per game at an average of almost five yards per rush. The Raiders are the sixth worst in the league at rush defense. Not a combination that’s going to make for a good game.

Look, I can’t lie to you. There’s a part of me that does want to watch this game. There’s a 99% chance that it’s going to be horribly lopsided, which means there’s a 1% chance that it’s going to be hysterical and exciting to watch the Raiders win. In some ways, that’s more fun than a game that’s 50/50. Still, if you want to skip a night of sports, this is a good one to skip. We’re about to enter a period of eight days with an extra full day of football (three games on Thanksgiving) so it’s probably a good idea to store up some non-football watching goodwill.

What does it mean to throw the ball away in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

What does it mean to throw the ball away in football? I’ve been watching some football and I’m not totally ignorant about the game, but this phrase has always confused me. I know there’s a foul for intentional grounding. How can throwing the ball away be a good thing if there’s a foul for it?

Thanks,
Diane

 

Dear Diane,

Throwing the ball away in football is what a smart quarterback does when he scans the field and realizes that none of his wide receivers or tight ends are far enough from a defender to safely throw the ball to. The cost of an unsafe throw can be very big. If a defender catches the ball (called an interception,) the quarterback’s team loses possession of the ball. On the other hand, throwing the ball where no one can get it simply results in an incompletion. It wastes one of the offensive team’s downs (or chances they have to advance the ball) but that’s usually not a big loss. The trick is, as you mentioned, that sometimes simply throwing the ball to no one is illegal and the cost for being caught intentionally grounding the ball is severe. Let’s go over the rule and then look at ways that football team’s skirt the rule so that they can throw the ball away without being penalized.

The intentional grounding rule reads as follows:

Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage due to pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion.
Intentional grounding will not be called when a passer, while out of the pocket and facing an imminent loss of yardage, throws a pass that lands at or beyond the line of scrimmage, even if no offensive player(s) have a realistic chance to catch the ball (including if the ball lands out of bounds over the sideline or end line).

So, what does all that mean? First of all, it establishes the rule as subjective. It’s up to the referees to decide whether or not a pass has a “realistic chance of completion.” This is a funny thing when you think about it, because football players make catches routinely that have fans leaping out of their chairs and screaming in disbelief. One of the reasons to watch football is to see great athletes doing things that seem unrealistic. The subjectivity is necessary because the intent of the rule is to penalize quarterbacks for intentionally throwing the ball where no one can get it. So, we assume that football refs are used to what players can and can’t do, and we move on. The second thing this rule does is that it carves out a scenario where it’s legal for a quarterback to throw the ball fifty yards up into the stands if they feel like it. If the quarterback is “out of the pocket” he’s allowed to do this. The pocket is defined as an area starting where the offensive line lines up for a play and extending back from the left tackle’s left butt cheek and the right tackle’s right butt cheek into infinity. All a quarterback needs to do to be within his legal rights to throw the ball away is to run outside of that area and make sure he throws it past where the ball was when the play started. This keeps him from throwing it straight into the ground but it’s not much of a safeguard because quarterbacks can almost always reach the sidelines with a throw, even if they are actively being mugged.

Nonetheless, you’ll hear commentators complementing quarterbacks who throw the ball away from the pocket or chiding those who don’t all the time. This is because it’s totally common and accepted for a quarterback to throw the ball far enough from a receiver that it’s going to be safely incomplete 99.5% of the time but near enough to a receiver to establish the plausible deniability needed to avoid a penalty. As you watch football, you’ll learn to identify these times. A common scenario is a screen pass where the offensive team pretends to block as if they were protecting the quarterback but do it poorly enough to invite the defenders to overextend towards him. Then the quarterback is supposed to flip the ball over to a running back lurking several yards to the side, hopefully unnoticed by the defense. If any defenders catch on to this or “sniff it out” in football talk, the quarterback is in a tough spot because he’s about to get smashed by defenders who have been intentionally allowed a clear path to him but he has nowhere to safely throw the ball. Quarterbacks in this situation routinely throw the ball hard into the ground near the running back’s feet. Everyone knows he meant to do this but everyone also accepts that he won’t be penalized for it because the running back, acting as a potential pass receiver, was in the area where the ball hit the ground.

There’s a sports cliche that suggests that “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” Throwing the ball away lives in that murky grey area between legal and illegal. It’s an area that leaves fans of a quarterback who throws the ball away feeling proud of him without qualms, even while fans of their opponents are righteously indignant. Or at least they would be if they even thought about it anymore. Most fans have long ago stopped worrying about this inherently unfair aspect of football.

If you enjoyed this post, you might find value in my Guide to Football for the Curious. Get a copy here!

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

 

Thanksgiving is coming. Can't you smell the… football?

The turkey’s in the oven. Your family has descended on the house like a horde of benevolent Vikings. The table is set, even the kids on down at the end of the room. Everything is under control. It’s time to take a deep breath, pour yourself a drink, and go visit with your loved ones. Thanksgiving is underway.

Wait, what is this? Everyone is gathered around the television. They’re watching football! Chomping away on pretzels, yammering about third downs, fantasy points, and encroachment. Gah! Every year this happens. It’s not that you hate football, it’s just that you’ve never understand what’s so special about it. Why do people like it so much? How does it work anyway?

Most years, you’d simply slip out and go smoke a cigar on the roof with Aunt Erma or talk gardening with Cousin Salvador. This year is different. This year, you have a secret weapon, an ace up your sleeve. This year, you read the special Thanksgiving 2014 edition of Dear Sports Fan’s Guide to Football for the Curious. You start out slow, with a few nods and grunts of agreement. Then you break out some technical talk about going for it on fourth down or whether you like the over or under in the game. Pretty soon you’re identifying defensive formations and making accurate predictions about whether you’re seeing a run play or a pass play developing. Your family is impressed.

Stay and watch or leave to enjoy some down time with a book and that pecan pie. You don’t need to watch football on Thanksgiving but it’s a big part of the holiday for some of the people you love and now you know all about it. Of course if you’re the sports fan in your family, you may not need this guide. Now that you understand a little bit of how it might feel to be a non-sports fan at your family gathering, it’s your responsibility to (kindly and thoughtfully) help include them.

For a free copy of the Guide to Football for the Curious with bonus Thanksgiving 2014 content, subscribe to the email newsletter here.

Week 11 NFL One Liners

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by Google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

Week 11

Sunday, November 16, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Houston Texans 23, at Cleveland Browns 7

The Texans spent their bye week preparing a new quarterback to start this game against the Browns. Meanwhile, their starting running back missed the game with a groin injury. No worries, they won easily.
Line: The Browns look good on paper but they’ve played a very easy schedule so far. Get ready for heart break in Cleveland.

Atlanta Falcons 19, at Carolina Panthers 17

The Falcons are now tied for first place in the NFC South division with four wins and six losses. The Panthers have lost five games in a row and are only one game back with three wins, seven losses, and a tie.
Line: This division is awful!

Minnesota Vikings 13, at Chicago Bears 21

After being humiliated last weekend on national television, the Chicago Bears came out and… well… still looked kinda shaky but they won at least.
Line: Beating the Vikings is better than losing to the Vikings, but it’s not anything to write home about.

Cincinnati Bengals 27, at New Orleans Saints 10

Welp, If it weren’t for the aforementioned terribleness of the NFC South division that the Saints are in with the Panthers, Falcons, and Buccaneers, it would be time to write off this Saints team. As is, it’s enough to say they aren’t playing up to the standard they set in the last few years.
Line: The Saints are so bad, even the Bengals can beat them.

Denver Broncos 7, at St. Louis Rams 22

When this game was almost over, I, like every other person who writes about football in the world, was anxiously checking to see what I had written and how sheepish I was going to have to be today.
Line: It’s actually not so bad, here was the Good Cop, Bad Cop preview for this game.

Good cop: The Rams are one of those teams that plays to the level of their competition! That means they will play extremely well in this game because that’s how good the Broncos are!

Bad cop: At 3-6, I think even you have to admit that the Rams play at least a little bit below the level of their competition.

Seattle Seahawks 20, at Kansas City Chiefs 24

The conclusion from this game has to be that the Chiefs are for real and the Seahawks aren’t. We’ll see how foolish that seems three weeks from now, but for now, that’s what to say.
Line: The Chiefs are for real and the Seahawks aren’t.

San Francisco 49ers 16, at New York Giants 10

Man, the 49ers were lucky to win this game. They kept trying (not really, but it seemed that way) to give the Giants the win, but the Giants quarterback, Eli Manning, just kept throwing interceptions — five in all.
Line: Eli Manning throws five interceptions and the 49ers only win by six points? Not impressive.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27, at Washington Redskins 7

Both these teams are terrible. The difference might be, that even coming into yesterday with only one win, the Buccaneers could still be harboring playoff hopes in their division where the best team only has four wins!
Line: I can’t wait to hear what the sports radio people in D.C. are going to say about their team today.

SUNDAY, November 16, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Oakland Raiders 6, at San Diego Chargers 13

A win is a win, but after starting the year so impressively, Chargers fans have got to be anxiously shaking their heads following this ugly game.
Line: The Raiders are still winless, but if they could play the Chargers over and over again, you’d think they’d win a game pretty quickly. The Chargers don’t look good anymore.

Detroit Lions 6, at Arizona Cardinals 14

Hey, cool! In a matchup of two very good, very defensive teams, their game actually turned out to be good and low-scoring. The Cardinals did all their scoring in the first quarter and then hung on to win.
Line: The Super Bowl is in Arizona this year and the Cardinals are serious about becoming the first “real home team” in NFL history.

Philadelphia Eagles 20,  at Green Bay Packers 53

This game was more about the Packers than the Eagles. Right now, it doesn’t look like there’s a team in the world that can slow down the Packers’ offense.
Line: Nice game by the Packers but what was with those throwback uniforms? SO UGLY!

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

New England Patriots 42, at Indianapolis Colts 20

Hmm. Things change fast in the NFL, but if you had to guess right now, a Green Bay Packers vs. New England Patriots Super Bowl would seem like a good bet. The Patriots don’t look beatable either.
Line: This game used to be the marquee matchup when it was Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning. New Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is great but even he couldn’t live up to the spotlight.

NFL Week 11 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precaps

The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the Week 10 matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps. If you’re worried about watching too much football or if you’re negotiating for a little break during the weekend, read our weekly feature, Do Not Watch This Game.

Week 11

Sunday, November 16, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Houston Texans at Cleveland Browns

Good cop: The first place Cleveland Browns take on the second place Houston Texans!

Bad cop: The Texans are only second in their division because the Titans and Jaguars are a combined 3-16. The Texans are so bad, they just benched their starting quarterback in favor of Ryan Mallett, a guy whose only experience so far has been carrying Tom Brady’s pads.

Atlanta Falcons at Carolina Panthers

Good cop: This game is these two teams’ best chance to get themselves back in the thick of the playoff hunt!

Bad cop: I’m glad you don’t say they’re good teams, because they’re not. It’s just that they’re in a division with no winning teams at all in it.

Minnesota Vikings at Chicago Bears

Good cop: After being humiliated last weekend on national television, how will the Bears respond against the Vikings?!! I want to know!

Bad cop: I would have responded by firing the coach.

Cincinnati Bengals at New Orleans Saints

Good cop: The Bengals are falling apart, the Saints are stumbling along, and somehow, I just think this game will be high scoring and exciting!

Bad cop: Falling apart. Stumbling along. Status quo on Bourbon Street.

Denver Broncos at St. Louis Rams

Good cop: The Rams are one of those teams that plays to the level of their competition! That means they will play extremely well in this game because that’s how good the Broncos are!

Bad cop: At 3-6, I think even you have to admit that the Rams play at least a little bit below the level of their competition.

Seattle Seahawks at Kansas City Chiefs

Good cop: This could easily be the best game of the day! Two 6-3 teams, fighting it out with two of the best running backs in the league, Marshawn Lynch and Jamaal Charles!

Bad cop: Okay, this game might be tolerable to watch.

San Francisco 49ers at New York Giants

Good cop: The 49ers this year are down but not out! They keep clawing and scratching and fighting! They’re keeping themselves in the playoff hunt through sheer moxie!

Bad cop: Moxie in New Jersey. Sounds like a terrible children’s book.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Washington Redskins

Good cop: I fully expect this game to be a close, high scoring shoot-out!

Bad cop: Right. Because the ineptitude of these two teams’ offenses is only surpassed by the total incompetence of their defenses.

SUNDAY, November 16, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Oakland Raiders at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: Could this be the week the Raiders get their first victory of the year?!

Bad cop: No.

Detroit Lions at Arizona Cardinals

Good cop: Come on Bad Cop, even you can’t find something bad to say about a game between a 7-2 team and an 8-1 team!

Bad cop: The 8-1 team’s quarterback tore his ACL last week and now they’re starting Drew Stanton whose career quarterback rating is under 70.

Philadelphia Eagles at Green Bay Packers

Good cop: It’s cheesesteaks against cheese-heads! The Packers are coming off a 55-14 win over the Bears and the Eagles off a 45-21 win over the Panthers! These teams are red hot!

Bad cop: I’d rather just eat cheese, but if I had to watch football too, this game wouldn’t be all bad.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

New England Patriots at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: It’s Tom Brady against Andrew Luck!

Bad cop: For the last time — there are literally 104 other players in this game. Maybe the quarterbacks are three or four times more important than anyone else, that still means they only control 6-8% of the game.

MONDAY, November 17, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Pittsburgh Steelers at Tennessee Titans

Good cop: 

Bad cop: Hahahahahaha. Do not watch this game.