Monday, October 13

Cardinals walk off with a homer and a win — The St. Louis Cardinals won the second game of their best-four-out-of-seven series 5-4 against the San Francisco Giants on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The game was close throughout but Cardinals fans had to be fearing the worst when the Giants tied the game in the top of the ninth inning. Their fear of losing a second straight game to the Giants was ameliorated when Kolten Wong blasted the ball 370 feet and out of the ballpark.
Line: The line between being down two games to zero and being tied one to one is so thin.
What’s Next: Game three is on Fox Sports 1 at 4:00 Tuesday, October 14.
Fascinating day, boring night in the NFL — There were gobs of excellent football games yesterday. The Panthers and Bengals played to an unusual 37-37 tie. The Packers eeked by the Dolphins on a late touchdown drive. The Titans hit a last second field goal to keep the Jaguars winless for the season. The Chargers sneaked by the unexpectedly feisty Raiders. The day’s titanic game between the Cowboys and Seahawks lived up to expectations. But the prime-time game between the Giants and Eagles was b-o-r-i-n-g! Brush up on all the games with our Week Six NFL One Liners.
Line: The NFL was exciting all day but then it turned into a pumpkin at night.

News Clippings: Sunday, October 12

This article profiles former NBA player Keyon Dooling and his life long struggle to come to terms with and recover from being abused as a child. It’s a fascinating and eventually uplifting piece that reminds us that no matter how big, strong, and fearless athletes look when they’re on stage, they are real people with their own struggles.

Keyon Dooling’s Secret

By Jordan Ritter Conn for Grantland

Now, when Dooling looks back on those years, he sees how he tried to cope with the trauma of his past. He sees himself in fourth grade, sneaking to his father’s liquor cabinet, pouring himself strong drinks and sipping them until the world was gone. He sees himself in middle school, smoking weed with friends, letting the drug ease the anxiety he’d felt since that afternoon. He sees himself at that same age, flirting with girls and then taking them home. The more girls he slept with, he thought, the more he proved that he was no longer that little boy.

Basketball helped. On the court, he could assert his dominance. With the ball in his hands, he never felt like a victim. He loved the power his talent gave him, the confidence that grew from knowing that almost every kid in his school and his neighborhood could only dream of doing what he could do on a hardwood floor. The first time he dunked — as a freshman, in a game — he felt invincible. As he grew older, the memory of that afternoon faded, but the coping strategies remained.

This past week, I reblogged a piece about how baseball fans need to decide — do they want a clean game or an exciting game. This triggered a back and forth with a baseball fan and friend of Dear Sports Fan who sent me this well-written piece as a rebuttal. I have to admit, after reading this defense of the pace of baseball, I question how much of my attitudes towards the sport are the product of hearing other people’s cliched criticism.

What Pace of Game Problem?

By Russell Carleton for Fox Sports

Allowing for the fact that some of the rule changes would spawn some workarounds, you might save 20 minutes off the average game. All it would cost you is the clock-less-ness of baseball, the idea of free substitution, and a small piece of the integrity of the game. In other words, baseball would become a different game and for not much benefit.

What I find interesting is that baseball seems to have a pace of game problem because everyone says that it does… Maybe it’s just time that baseball recognized that there are people out there who enjoy a slower game and stopped trying to be all things to all people… Baseball should simply embrace the fact that it is a slower game and market itself accordingly. It’s a feature, not a bug. There’s no pace of game problem because there’s nothing morally superior about playing rushed games that take two and a half hours instead of three, no matter what United States culture tries to say.

This essay grapples with the difficulty of producing accurate statistics comparing NFL players to… well, to who, exactly? That’s part of the problem. With all of the scary statistics flying around about the health effects of playing professional football, it’s very hard to know what is real and what isn’t. I hope someone can take the work of this charmingly skeptical article and do the hard work to produce more reasonable and accurate scientific studies. There’s undeniably something scary happening to some percent of pro football players. Let’s figure it out.

NFL Players Die Young. Or Maybe They Live Long Lives.

By Daniel Engber for Slate

For every 770 men who play the sport on a professional level, we can expect one extra death from ALS. (Extra deaths from Alzheimer’s are even more unusual.)

Any extra death is cause for grave concern, but if you look at other, much more common deadly conditions, the change in risk goes the other way. The same dataset suggests that for every 770 football retirees, we should expect 13 fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease and 14 fewer from cancer. So while it’s true that Alzheimer’s and ALS rates among NFL athletes could reasonably be described as “through the roof,” the number of players’ lives saved from heart disease and cancer exceeds the number of lives lost to those diseases by 2,150 percent.

But the methods used to find these stats raise a familiar and important question: Should football players really be compared to average men their age, of any race or body size or income level? How much does the choice of analysis affect its outcome?

So is it better to control for income or race, or should studies strive for both? And what about body size?

These may sound like simple questions, but they’re exceedingly difficult to answer. To some extent, the best approach depends on how you think about the NFL, and what point you’d like to make.

This charming story about the financial plight of the Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago women’s national soccer teams reminds us that not all athletes have financial support on NFL levels. Sometimes it takes a desperate tweet and a kind opponent to get things started so that the Clinton foundation can finish things up!

Haiti pledges money to Trinidad and Tobago soccer

By Kurt Voigt and Anne M. Peterson for the Associated Press

Upon getting word that the Trinidad and Tobago women’s national soccer team might not even have enough money for lunch, Haiti’s team took a look at its fundraising for World Cup qualifying — an account totaling a little over $1,300 — and decided to turn it over to the competition.

NFL Week 6 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 6 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 5

Sunday, October 12, at 1:00 p.m. ET

New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills

Good cop: The Bills always play the Patriots tough! It’s their downtrodden but tough Upstate New York personality!

Bad cop: You’re saying one team always loses and you want me to watch?

Baltimore Ravens at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Good cop: I admire the Bucs spirit! After a thwacking on national TV, they’ve come back to play two great games in a row! I expect three!

Bad cop: Games down in Florida depress me once it’s October. Football is a fall sport. It should be chilly.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns

Good cop: The Browns have been good this year but beating the Steelers would make them great!

Bad cop: Cleveland Browns = Charlie Brown. Pittsburgh Steelers = Lucy pulling the ball away.

Carolina Panthers at Cincinnati Bengals

Good cop: Two cats enter, only one will leave!

Bad cop: Two exposed, under-achieving teams enter. Both will leave.

Denver Broncos at New York Jets

Good cop: It’s the offensive brilliance of Peyton Manning against the defensive scheming of Rex Ryan! A chess game extraordinaire!

Bad cop: The only scheming Rex Ryan is doing is how he can keep his job for one more week.

Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings

Good cop: The NFC North division is wide open! This game between the Lions and the Vikings might be the difference between playoffs and bust!

Bad cop: Hmm. The Vikings without Adrian Peterson versus the Lions without Calvin Johnson. I think I’m going to do some vacuuming instead.

Green Bay Packers at Miami Dolphins

Good cop: Packers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been on fire the last couple weeks! Can the aquatic Dolphins quench his flame?

Bad cop: Fire? Flame? Has my wit scorched you?

Jacksonville Jaguars at Tennessee Titans

Good cop: This might be the Jaguars best chance to win a game this season!

Bad cop: This might be the Jaguars best chance to win a game this season.

SUNDAY, October 12, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

San Diego Chargers at Oakland Raiders

Good cop: I’m always interested when two teams from the same state play each other!

Bad cop: San Diego is over 500 miles from Oakland. The Chargers are about 500 times better than the Raiders.

Chicago Bears at Atlanta Falcons

Good cop: These teams are like mirror images of each other! Good quarterbacks, great wide receivers, mediocre defenses!

Bad cop: Always the best men, never the grooms.

Dallas Cowboys at Seattle Seahawks

Good cop: This is a colossal matchup of titans! Two of the best teams in the league this year! This could be an NFC Championship game preview!

Bad cop: Did you say Titans? Have I already said how bad the Titans are? I have nothing bad to say about these two teams. Let’s move on.

Washington Redskins at Arizona Cardinals

Good cop: After burying their season and waving it goodbye, Washington has a sliver of life left if they can beat the Cardinals.

Bad cop: Washington, led by their second string quarterback, visits Arizona, led by their third stringer. The only interest I have in this game is what would happen if these quarterbacks got injured.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles

Good cop: An NFC East battle! A tri-state area struggle! Both teams with winning records! Who could ask for anything more?

Bad cop: All I have to say is that this game doesn’t lend itself to themed cuisine very well.

MONDAY, October 13, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

San Francisco 49ers at St. Louis Rams

Good cop: The Rams may not be great but their defense always puts up a good fight against San Francisco!

Bad cop: Do not watch this game.

What does the green dot on a football helmet mean?

The green dot on a football helmet signifies the player whose coach can talk to him through a radio. It has a long and curious history to explore…

Dear Sports Fan,

I notice that some football helmets have little green dots on the back of them. What does the green dot on a football helmet mean?

Thanks,
Gordon

Dear Gordon,

The green dot on the back of a football helmet means that there is a small radio receiver and set of speakers inside that helmet so that the player wearing it can hear their coach talk to them at specific times during the game. This seems like a really weird thing to have in the middle of sporting event but it’s not as rare as you might think. Race car drivers and cyclists have two-way radio capabilities during races and, although without radio technology, most team-sport athletes can hear their coaches during games. National Football League stadiums are just so loud during games that without radio, coaches would not be able to talk to their players. Let’s find out a little more about the history and use of radio in the NFL.

The first coach to put a radio receiver into a helmet was legendary Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown (not related) way back in 1956. Mark Bechtel wrote a great article about this for The MMQB. A few themes that will follow us throughout the history of the helmet radio were present at its inception: radio interference and attempts to cheat and counter-cheat with the radio. At this point, there were no rules legislating the use of helmet radios, so just having them was seen as cheating. It didn’t work that well for the Browns though because their opponents quickly, “became suspicious when they realized that Brown was no longer using offensive linemen to shuttle in plays.” Soon, another opponent got wise to what was happening and, “simply listened in and asked a former Browns player to decipher what was being said, then prepared accordingly.” Not that listening to the radio was all that helpful to anyone. Radio technology being what it is, there was a little bit of cross-pollination. According to Bechtel, the Browns stopped using the helmet radio when their quarterback, “called timeout, took off the helmet and reported to Brown: “Coach, some guy just got stabbed over on Fifth Avenue.” Not so long after, the radio was officially outlawed by the commissioner of the NFL.

The radio made a comeback in 1994 when its use was legalized as part of a sweeping set of changes intended to make life easier for the offense. Kevin Craft chronicles the history of these changes in a Slate article on the topic. The rule allowed for quarterbacks and only quarterbacks to have radio receivers in their helmets so that their coaches could talk to them. The only real caveat to their use was that the receivers would shut off for the last 15 seconds of the 40 seconds each team has to run a play. As soon as the rule went into effect, the race to cheat started. ESPN’s Mike Sando wrote an article in 2007 about all the various ways a team could try to beat the system and communicate all the way through the play clock. Jamming your opponents’ ability to communicate is another good cheat that teams have been trying (or accusing other teams of trying) since the radios were legal. And although the radios are now digital, jamming complaints continue despite highly encrypted and monitored systems. Meanwhile, the interference that led the Browns to give up the system in disgust back in 1956 have been a comedic trope all the way through. The articles I read for this post were full of funny interference stories. My favorite is from Sando’s article:

“I remember one time I was playing, I forget where it was, but I could hear the concession communication,” said Tennessee’s Kerry Collins, a veteran of 148 regular-season starts. “They were asking for popcorn on the second level or something like that.

In 2008, the NFL modified the helmet radio rule to allow for one defensive player to wear a radio in their helmet as well. In Jim Corbett’s article about the rule change for USA Today, he surmised that it was part of a league effort to “counter-balance the New England Patriots’ illegally video taping of the New York Jets’ defensive hand signals in last year’s season opener.” The same fifteen second cutoff applies to the defensive radio helmet which is most often worn by a middle or inside linebacker. Basically team’s want their best, smartest defensive player who almost never leaves the field and is centrally located enough to pass messages on to the rest of his unit to wear the helmet.

Back to the green dot. The dot is actually a sticker with a small NFL logo on it that the guys over at Uni Watch absolutely hate. The NFL rules about radios make it very clear that only one player from each team is allowed on the field at a time with a radio in their helmet. On offense, this is simple — it’s the quarterback — but on defense, there may be some packages that even the best middle linebacker isn’t in. In that case, an alternate player, who registered with the refs before the game as being a radio alternate, can come in off the sidelines with a second radio helmet, designated with a green dot. Before the play starts, he has to tell an official that the primary radio player has left the field and that he’s now the radio guy. The green dot helps officials make sure that there’s only one player from each team with a radio helmet on during each play.

My question has always been — what are the coaches really saying to their players? Oh, I’m sure they say the name of a play, but that only takes a second or two. Coaches are crazed, egotistical people. Are they really able to resist the temptation of being able to talk to a player who can’t talk back? Corbett provided us just a glimpse of this one-way communicative world:

Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder would appreciate calmer and clearer communication from excitable defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni.

“It scares the hell out of you sometimes because Pasqualoni is not the calmest guy in the world,” Crowder says. “He gets to yelling in there every play. He’ll say, ‘Watch the run! Watch the pass! Watch it!’

“What else can I do? It’s run or pass.”

I guess in the end, the green dot on football helmets lets us know which player is most thoroughly being harassed by his coach.

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

Thursday, October 9

Finally a good Thursday Night NFL Football Game — Thursday Night National Football League games have been taking heat in the media lately. It’s one thing that we all sort of know they’re cruel and unusual for players who get only three days to heal their bodies between a Sunday game and having to play again Thursday. It’s another thing that they’re not fun to watch. Every Thursday game this year had been a blow-out. That’s when the complaints really heated up. The game last night between the Indianapolis Colts and the Houston Texans looked like it was going to follow suit after the Colts went up 24-0 in the first half. “Here we go again, another blow out” people were saying all over the world. The Texans came back to make it interesting though and had the ball, down only five points, with two minutes to go. After their quarterback fumbled, the game was over and the comeback attempt had come up short.
Line: At least it wasn’t another boring Thursday Night game like it looked like it was going to be.
Hockey’s back again — Last night was the second night in the National Hockey League season but the first for many teams. There were twelve games played last night and if you were a fan of one of the teams playing their first game, you were excited about the start of the season.
Line: I know it sounds wimpy but I just want my team to get through the first week with no major injuries. Seems like players are falling like leaves this year.
International soccer? — It’s not the world cup but the countries of Europe are playing each other in games to qualify for the next European Championships. Some games, like England’s 5-0 win over San Marino are mismatches in size and power, but others like Russia and Sweden playing to a 1-1 draw are exciting and even rivalries. The most interesting game was Slovakia’s 2-1 win over Spain, whose World Cup swoon now looks more like the end of an era than a glitch in the matrix.
Line: Every “golden generation” of soccer players comes to an end. Looks like Spain’s generation is at its end now.

Do Not Watch This Game 10.10.14 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!”

Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET, NFL Football, St. Louis Rams vs. San Francisco 49ers. It’s on ESPN but do not watch this game!

This looks like it should be a good game. Both teams are in the NFC West, which was, by consensus, thought of as the best division in the NFL after last season. Last year, the four teams in the division combined for a 42-22 record last year and if you exclude the games they played against one another, that record improves to 30-10. The 49ers made it to the semifinals last year where they lost to division rival and eventual champion, Seattle. The fourth member of the division, the Arizona Cardinals, just barely missed out on the playoffs but had a 10-6 record. The Rams were the only team in the division last year not to make the playoffs and to have a losing record at 7-9 but we’re widely said to have been “stronger” than their record.

So, why wouldn’t this game be appointment television? Well, for one, things change fast in the NFL. The teams aren’t as strong as they were last year. The Rams lost their starting quarterback to a season ending injury in the pre-season. They’re playing pretty well on offense behind first-time starter Austin Davis but their defense has basically collapsed. They are allowing an average of almost 30 points per game which is third worst in the league. This won’t help make the game more exciting because even last year, games between these two teams weren’t that close. The 49ers beat the Rams by 10 and 24 points last year.

Last, and this is oddly important to me and other sports fans, this game just doesn’t have many potentially fun story-lines regardless of its outcome. A 49ers victory would engender basically no story at all. They are expected to win. A Rams win would only fuel the prevailing “What’s wrong with the 49ers?” story which, so far, has been answered with a chorus of “they hate their coach.” Teams hate their coaches all the time, it’s not that interesting.

Alternate: If you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of one of these two teams, then this isn’t a good game to skip. Instead, skip the CBS early game at 1:00 on Sunday afternoon between the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets unless you enjoy watching a finely tuned piece of machinery cut through a confused mess.

Cue Cards 10-6-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Sunday, October 5

Two baseball sweeps — The Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles both won games yesterday to complete three straight out of five game sweeps of their American League division series. In case you need to check quickly, this is how the Major League baseball playoffs work. The Royals beat the Los Angeles Angels 8-3 and the Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers 2-1.
Line: I guess in this case, having the early series be a best three out of five instead of four out of seven was the right choice. Both teams won convincingly in sweeps.
What’s Next: The Royals and the Orioles get a little rest before their series starts on Friday. That’s because the four teams in the National League, the Cardinals, Dodgers, Nationals, and Giants are still playing their divisional series. The National League divisional series continue today.
An exciting day in the NFL — The NFL had its customary slate of games yesterday but they were more closely contested than most weekends. There were two overtime games and another won in the last second. All the recaps you want or need can be found in our NFL One Liners column.
Line: Football overtime isn’t as good as hockey or baseball overtime but it’s still unusual and exciting.
What’s Next: Monday night football is lined up to be a clunker. It’s a good chance to do something else!

Week Five 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 5

Sunday, October 5, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Buffalo Bills 17, at Detroit Lions 14

The first of a series of extremely close games this week. The Bills beat the Lions on a last minute 58 yard field goal. That’s an incredibly difficult feat. Kickers are not totally accepted in the football fraternity but when you need them, it’s good to have a good one.
Line: I guess benching quarterback EJ Manuel was a good idea for the Bills.

Baltimore Ravens 13, at Indianapolis Colts 20

Two good teams played a pretty good game. One won but they’ll both be fine in the long term.
Line: When in doubt, go with the better quarterback. Andrew Luck on the Colts is better than most.

Chicago Bears 24, at Carolina Panthers 31

The Bears continue to torture their fan base by looking like a supremely talented team… and then losing. Meanwhile, in an attempt to prove how crazy football players really are, Panthers quarterback Cam Newton had four wisdom teeth taken out in the last week and played professional football on Sunday.
Line: Can you imagine having four wisdom teeth taken out and then playing football a few days later?

Houston Texans 17, at Dallas Cowboys 20

The battle of Texas was won by big-brother Dallas but little-brother Houston really made them work for it. The whole “battle of Texas” thing is probably more of a media creation than a real rivalry because the two teams play in different divisions and conferences but it sure made for a good game anyway.
Line: Love them or hate them, the Cowboys do seem to play in an inordinate number of exciting games.

Pittsburgh Steelers 17, at Jacksonville Jaguars 9

The Jaguars fall to 0-5 making them one of only two unvictorious teams left. They’re really just not as good at football as the rest of the teams.
Line: The Jaguars will probably win a game at some point but it’s hard to imagine when.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31, at New Orleans Saints 37

The second overtime game of the day, two weeks ago the Buccaneers had just been humiliated on national television and were winless. Now they’ve won one game and taken another good team to overtime. Although, really, how sure are we that the Saints are good? Not very.
Line: This game says more about the Saints (in a bad way) than it does about the Buccaneers (in a good way.)

Atlanta Falcons 20, at New York Giants 30

This game was a microcosm of the Giants’ season so far. They fell behind 20-10 just like they started the year 0-2. Then they seemed to get their act together and came back to score the next twenty points just like they’ve won the last three games to get to 3-2.
Line: When Eli Manning retires from football he should go right to his next career as the villain in a zombie movie. Every time you think he’s down, he rises back up.

St. Louis Rams 28, at Philadelphia Eagles 34

The fate of the Rams seems to be to scare teams but not to beat them this year. The Eagles, on the other hand, are specialists this year in finding ways to win without looking all that dominant.
Line: The Eagles look like the weakest 4-1 team I can remember seeing.

SUNDAY, October 5, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Arizona Cardinals 20, at Denver Broncos 41

This game exemplifies the current era of the NFL. A good offense beats a good defense every time. The Broncos have a great offense and the Cardinals have a very good defense. It wasn’t close.
Line: A good offense beats a good defense every time.

Kansas City Chiefs 17, at San Francisco 49ers 22

A couple years ago, the 49ers decided to move on from Quarterback Alex Smith and go with Colin Kaepernick. Smith went to play in Kansas City and Kaepernick took over the starting job in San Francisco. Since then, both quarterbacks have played extremely well. Today, Smith’s old team beat his new team but there’s no shame in that.
Line: Football is a team game. It’s too simple to make it into Smith vs. Kaepernick or any one player against another.

New York Jets 0, at San Diego Chargers 31

Whoa. Uh oh. The New York media was out for struggling Jets quarterback Geno Smith after last week’s poor performance and slight misbehavior (he cursed at some fans.) I can’t imagine how hard their going to slam him this week.
Line: Smith’s time as a starter in NY might be done.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Cincinnati Bengals 17, at New England Patriots 43

The NFL stands for the National Football League but people often say it stands for the No Fun League or the Not For Long league. This game was an exhibition of why people call it the Not For Long league. The Bengals were undefeated coming into the game an the Patriots had just spent a week in an existential crisis over old-age and poor performance. Not for long!
Line: I guess Tom Brady and Bill Bellichick still remember how to win.

News Clippings: The Business of Sports

One of my favorite parts of writing Dear Sports Fan is reading other great writers cover sports in a way that’s accessible and compelling for the whole spectrum from super-fans to lay people. Here are selections from some of the articles this week that inspired me. Sports can be followed on many levels. For some fans, only the action that takes place during the games matters. For most fans, following sports means watching games, learning the personalities of players and coaches, and following the business of sports attentively. For most of this fall, the leading story in the business of sports has been the mishandling of domestic violence by the NFL. Bryan Curtis of Grantland argues that, although the focus of the storm, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, is still standing, the public uproar has had some positive impact. Despite the storm, the NFL is still eyeing potential expansion to London. Jenny Vrentas writes about how the NFL might work in London in The MMQB. Meanwhile, established international sport organizations are receiving their fair share of criticism as well. Dan Wetzel and Tom Ley wrote wonderfully about the International Olympic Committee, rivaled in its corruption and general crumminess by the international soccer organization FIFA.

The Goodell Blackout

By Bryan Curtis for Grantland

By blasting Goodell in print, sportswriters acted as pulling guards for the government officials in Washington, who are now torturing the league by threatening to revoke many of its long-standing perks.

Since 1975, a Federal Communications Commission rule has given the league an imprimatur to remove games that don’t sell out from local TV and cable. If it’s 15 below zero when the Packers take the field, the FCC’s chairman recently noted, then Packers fans have to buy all the tickets or find a TV in Chicago. That sounds like extortion.

For years, the NFL has also protected its federal tax-exempt status. The exemption dates back to 1966, and although it has been a perennial talking point for politicians of all stripes, it has also been considered inviolable. “Revoking the tax exemption isn’t in the cards,” the Washington Post argued on September 15. “The NFL doesn’t lose games on Capitol Hill.” Well, that was before Goodell’s lousy press conference and two more weeks of heavy shelling from the press.

Finally, pressure from sportswriters forced action inside the NFL, too. When Goodell was still staggered from the release of the second tape, the NFL suddenly got serious about revising its drug policy.

Why London and Can it Work?

By Jenny Vrentas in The MMQB

The International Series has been a testing ground for the logistics of basing a team abroad.

Teams scheduled to play in London begin planning for their trips in February. They take two reconnaissance visits overseas in the spring. In August they send a shipment of bulk supplies by boat to save money and space on the team plane. Included in the Raiders’ shipment: 10 cases of 8.5 x 11-inch computer paper for play sheets (standard paper is a different size in the U.K.), a couple hundred cases of Gatorade (teams are superstitious about flavors) and 600 outlet plug converters.

“As long as they get their paychecks,” Bills Hall-of-Famer Andre Reed assured the forum of local fans, “players would play in Alaska.”

Steve Smallwood, 49, of Eastbourne, on the Channel coast, sees the growth of American football in the U.K. as a good thing, the same way he views the growth of MLS in the U.S. “And,” he offers, “I’d rather watch American football than rugby.”

Why no one wants to host the 2022 Olympics

By Dan Wetzel for Yahoo Sports

Essentially the only places interested in hosting the 2022 games are countries where actual citizens aren’t allowed a real say in things – communist China and Kazakhstan, a presidential republic that coincidentally has only had one president since it split from the old USSR in 1989.

“The vote is not a signal against the sport, but against the non-transparency and the greed for profit of the IOC,” Ludwig Hartmann, a German politician said when his country said no.

The IOC has billions of dollars laying around and billions more coming because to most people the Olympics is just a television show and the ratings are so high that the broadcast rights will never go down. The IOC doesn’t pay the athletes. It doesn’t share revenue with host countries. It doesn’t pay for countries to send their athletes. It doesn’t lay out any construction or capital costs. It doesn’t pay taxes.

Top Female Soccer Players Sue FIFA Over Bullshit Artificial Turf

By Tom Leyfor Screamer

After weeks of pleading with FIFA to change its mind about playing the 2015 women’s World Cup on field turf instead of grass and being met with nothing but stubbornness, a handful of women’s soccer’s biggest stars have filed a lawsuit against FIFA to try and force the organization to put the upcoming games back on grass.

Turf sucks, everyone knows it, and there’s no way FIFA will force it upon the men’s game if it continues to cut up and piss off players around the world. But that won’t stop the organization from crapping all over the biggest tournament in the women’s game by forcing women to play on it. The only thing that sucks worse than turf is FIFA.

NFL Week 5 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 5 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 5

Sunday, October 5, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Buffalo Bills at Detroit Lions

Good cop: The legendary Kyle Orton comes off the bench to lead the Bills against the Lions!

Bad cop: He’s legendary for his neck beard, not his football prowess.

Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: Baltimore takes on the team that Indianapolis stole from their city! It’s the ultimate revenge game!

Bad cop: The Colts left Baltimore 30 years ago — do you really think people are still angry?

Chicago Bears at Carolina Panthers

Good cop: Two good teams with high hopes for the year face off after crushing defeats last weekend! I want to see which team can bounce back!

Bad cop: More than just crushing, those defeats last week were revealing of flaws that neither of these teams are going to be able to overcome this year. Let’s move on.

Houston Texans at Dallas Cowboys

Good cop: It’s the battle of Texas! The lone-star state! Everything is bigger and better in Texas, especially their two 3-1 football teams!

Bad cop: You got me. I’m going to watch this game until Texans defensive lineman J. J. Watt eats and digests Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. Which will happen within five minutes.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Jacksonville Jaguars

Good cop: Last week the Steelers lost to a winless Tampa Bay team! Will Jacksonville get their first win this weekend?

Bad cop: No.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints

Good cop: Avast there Matey! This game pits the two scurviest crews of scalawags in a contest of blood and guts! Yaaaarrr!

Bad cop: You do know that Saints are not a type of pirate, right?

Atlanta Falcons at New York Giants

Good cop: The Giants are on a roll! The Falcons are on a roll! After this week, only one will remain on a roll!

Bad cop: First it’s pirates, now it’s sandwiches? You’re confusing. And making me hungry.

St. Louis Rams at Philadelphia Eagles

Good cop: I’m fascinated by the Eagles! They’ve overcome injuries to almost all of their offensive linemen to make it to a 3-1 record over the first four weeks. How long can they keep this up?

Bad cop: I’m having trouble expressing why, but I just don’t want to watch this game. And I don’t think anyone else who isn’t a green-fonted lunatic would want to either.

SUNDAY, October 5, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Arizona Cardinals at Denver Broncos

Good cop: The 3-0 Cardinals and the defending ACF champion Broncos must have used their bye (or off) weeks to plan how to beat each other! This game is going to be a festival of tactics!

Bad cop: Tactics you say? I’m going to go all the way out on the limb and say that the team with Peyton Manning is going to beat the team without Peyton Manning

Kansas City Chiefs at San Francisco 49ers

Good cop: Two teams on opposite trajectories! The Chiefs are springing back to the top of the heap after a bad first two weeks! The 49ers’ curve is like a U so far! Win, loss, loss, win!

Bad cop: Both teams are stumbling their way to winning half their games and losing half their games. That’s literally average. Could. Not. Be. Less. Interesting.

New York Jets at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: Is this the last chance for Jets quarterback Geno Smith? He’s exciting to watch but he makes lots of mistakes including cursing at the New York fans in New Jersey last weekend!

Bad cop: Every disappointing, angry New Yorker should get a chance to go to San Diego. They just shouldn’t start at quarterback.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Cincinnati Bengals at New England Patriots

Good cop: The day of reckoning is here for the Patriots! Tom Brady has had nothing but bad things to say all week! Bill Bellichick hasn’t really said anything but you can tell he’s not happy! They need to beat the Bengals to right the ship but the Bengals are undefeated!

Bad cop: Day of reckoning? I reckon the Patriots will find a way to win nine games this year. Which is probably all they’ll need to make the playoffs because their division is so weak.

MONDAY, October 6, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Seattle Seahawks at Washington Redskins

Good cop: It’s… uh… umm… football! Hooray!

Bad cop: Do not watch this game.