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the official 08-09 NFL thread

I am probably the only die hard Steelers fan who is giving the Cards credito mucho. they have a QB who performs the best under the blitz (Pitt's specialty of course), the best trio of wide receivers in the NFL, and all of a sudden decent run games and defenses.

they could for sure steal it from the Steelers.
 

I am probably the only die hard Steelers fan who is giving the Cards credito mucho. they have a QB who performs the best under the blitz (Pitt's specialty of course), the best trio of wide receivers in the NFL, and all of a sudden decent run games and defenses.

they could for sure steal it from the Steelers.

Nice anti-jinx, axl. ;)

This should make for an enjoyable game, if only because it shall be our final chance to watch a meaningful game in one of North America's two most exciting sports (IN MY OPINION) for the next several months.

Since my inexplicably stupid degenerate gambling for decades has made it so that while I still LOVE watching and following professional sports, it is almost impossible to give a shit which group of 20-something year old men I've never met who don't care about me either is going to beat the other group of 20-something (or in Warner's case, 50-something ;)) year old men after hundreds upon hundreds of random Wednesday evenings religiously watching the ticker to see whether or not I've won $2,000.00 or lost $2,200.00 on a regular-season baseball over-under.

HINT: If you have a propensity to addiction to ANYTHING, DON'T GAMBLE!

With that out of the way, I shall be rooting for the Cardinals, not because they are the better team (they aren't), not because I like rooting for the underdog (I don't), not because of Kurt Warner (he seems like a very nice guy, but I DETEST it when players who are placed in systems that are PERFECT for them happen to thrive under those near-perfect systems, and are then exalted as Hall Of Fame deserving Superstars (My sister could have quarterbacked those pinball-machine-scoring Holt-Bruce-Faulk Rams teams to a Super Bowl win, and to a Super Bowl loss as a 14-point favorite).

So despite those aforementioned reasons as to why I shouldn't be rooting for the Cardinals tomorrow, I still will be, for one simple reason:

GOOD HABITS DIE HARD.

And I spent every single Sunday during every single football season as a child rooting FOR my (then) beloved Cowboys and against my (then) detested Steelers.

That said, good luck, axl - I know how much you adore your team, and if they happen to win tomorrow, it shall be a consolation prize for me that you will derive some happiness out of the result.

Peace,

LL
 
hah, thanks man. I appreciate the good vibes. while I try my best to stay objective here on my sports forums, it is really difficult for how much I have been conditioned to like the Steelers. hell, I still remember their only SB defeat by the hands of the Dallas Cowboys (and probably much more credit goes to Neil O'Donnel hah).

I used to bet a lot, and made a killing on the last time the Steelers won the SB, but my abilities have declined very much so since then and I try to just follow lines without participating. football, besides pro basketball, is truly my most electrifying sport to watch and it MADE to gamble on. I have an addictive personality and I stray from gambling nowadays. I am getting more smart in my old age.

I will be happy if they win tomorrow, of course. however, I have thankfully experienced this bliss of them winning that one year, unprecedentedly, when they were the 6th seed. you see my father was a working class blue collar type guy from Pittsburgh and he died suddenly the year before. it was truly the best moment of my life in a year where I was trying to find myself without his love and support.

now, I just want the best team to win. I want it to be a great game. I want Big Ben to validate his chops as a QB for the dismal performance he turned in his last SB (he has the lowest QB passing rating of any SB winning QB). I want Willie Parker and James Harrison, who were almost considering leaving the NFL at one point, to have a breakout game. more than anything else I want Coach Mike Tomlin to win because I truly believe in his message a strong African-American leader (tutored by Dungy, of course) in today's minority sparce cadre of NFL head coaches. if he were to win, he would be the youngest SB winning coach of all-time. I follow his message and want him to reach many accolades in his time.

the Cardinals are good and Fitzgerald is nearly unstoppable. I will be watching with the fervor that only a person who truly bleeds black and gold can tomorrow at 7 PM.

may the best team win! the NFL personifies all that is great about America.
 
Great game. i was on my toes the whole time.
Holmes scored an awesome winning touchdown. Fitzgerald played a great game, and warner fucked up a lot

i cant believe all the penalties the cardinals received. that ref was a dick.

#92 Harrison, scored a 100 yard TD and it basically killed him...he is on built for those runs lol

over all last years super bowl was better but it was a great game
 
What was with the atrocious officiating? It was absoultely horrendous. How do they not review the last play!?? His arm was going forward!
 
like I sai din the other thread, the officiating was mostly a result to the mis-match between James Harrison and the left tackle. the Cards were holding ALL game. if those holding calls didn't get called - there would have been at least four sacks on Kurt Warner.

anyways, is NFL officiating horribly so new to you all? have you not been watching all year? do you guys even know the name Ed Hochiuli and the signifigance he played in almost ruining a team?

good players and good teams get over bad calls.
 
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I think you are referring to Ed Hochuli.

Your statement does not make sense. A good player or team cannot get over a bad call if it is on the final play of a game (like the Hochuli call from earlier in the season).
 
actually, Ed Hochuli was the reason that throw was ruled a fumble and not an incomplete pass.

you can challenge a fumble, either by way of coach's or by way of the system (if under two minutes like it was). you can not challenge an incompletion. pretty much nowadays you are going to see the zebras call a fumble when in doubt. which isn't ideal... but at least it can be fixed.

it went under review and the play still stood. it was a very close call and it seems like it could have gone either way. however, I doubt that it would have meant much. the Cards looked rather deflated from all the pressure and penalties.
 
What went under review? I was talking about the last play of the super bowl. It wasn't reviewed.

I understand what you are saying. Mistakes happen and the referees aren't perfect. That doesn't mean we shouldn't take them to task for the most egregious errors.
 
I believe it was reviewed. most every game-changing play within the two minute warning is reviewed by the refs - because it cannot be challenged.

mistakes happen often and the NFL falls victim the most to human error. does anybody ever think about the simple act of spotting the football when a player is down? that is human error after every play. does the ref really know at what exact point a player went down, despite being maybe ten yards away.
 
ok i know this doesnt really go here but i just found out that Jennifer Hudson, lip synced at the Super Bowl, i really thought she did sing for real, she has a beautiful voice either way, but you know what I dont think its that big of a deal, these people causing controversy now, should go out there and try to sing a song perfect in from of thousands

Jennifef Hudson 'lip syncs' the national anthem
 
I believe it was reviewed. most every game-changing play within the two minute warning is reviewed by the refs - because it cannot be challenged.

mistakes happen often and the NFL falls victim the most to human error. does anybody ever think about the simple act of spotting the football when a player is down? that is human error after every play. does the ref really know at what exact point a player went down, despite being maybe ten yards away.

You would think so. Unless I and the ten friends who I have spoke to all missed it, as well as Bill Simmons on ESPN.com, they did not review it.

I wouldl like to see the football tagged with a chip of some sort that shows on a comptuer exactly how far it was advanced by ther ball carrier. Let's put technology to use!
 
Man that was a fucking tight game. I thought I was going to look like Nostradamus for telling everyone the Cards were going to when, then Big Ben & Company pulled off another huge game-winning drive. Hat's off to them...btw how many times did you hear the ''hat's off'' phrase during analysis or interviews? I mean Tomlin said "hat's off" or whatever, and he was wearing a hat and didn't even take it off! Nevertheless, the Steelers found a jewel in their head coach.

I'm still wondering why Arizona didn't call a Fitzgerald fade route or a play-action with flats right before the half, and how Kurt Warner threw that amazingly stupid pass.
 
he explained it in a post game interview. He said the defender was screened from his view by a lineman at the moment he threw the pass.
 
Obviously he didn't see Harrison, but it was a highly unexpected mistake from Warner IMO. With all the preperation he did and experience he already had, he should have seen that Harrison was in position to drop-back (or in this case to the side) into coverage. It was almost worse seeing Edge have a perfect shot to tackle him before he got the TD, and just diving head-first at his legs. Not that I'm a big Cards fan or anything, gotta love that classic Steelers style of football.
 
It was inexcusable that he scored a touchdown. I imagine many of the cardinals just didn't bother to chase him because they figured there was zero chance he would score, and they knew the return wasn't really relevant unless he did score, since the half was going to end.

Where were the receivers? They couldn't get there in time? I think that some of the cardinals took a bad route by going to where Harrison WAS instead of where he WOULD BE if he approached the goal line. The proper thing to do there is run from where you are straight to the corner of the end zone.
 
Yes that reminded me of when McNabb threw an interception as the second half clock ran out, and just stood there and said "Get him!" while the dude almost ran it back for 6.
 
Where were the receivers? They couldn't get there in time? I think that some of the cardinals took a bad route by going to where Harrison WAS instead of where he WOULD BE if he approached the goal line. The proper thing to do there is run from where you are straight to the corner of the end zone.

yeah, you would think probably the fastest man on the field, Larry Fitzgerald, would have caught Harrison. however, if you look closely you will see Fitzgerald run into his OWN player on the sideline (as the Cardinals player is obviously ignoring the not-really-called-rule of being too close to the field of play).

Fitz is so fast, however, that he almost catches Harrison again right before he scores a touchdown. he almost catches him by bringing him down with a rather brutal face mask, which cost the Cards even more because there were about 2 seconds left on the clock, but in the face mask confusion the refs must have forgot about this.

looking at Warner's arm - the call was absolutely right. I don't understand how the call could go the other way.

if you all want to bitch about a call then you should bitch about Santonio Holmes doing his best LeBron James post-TD celebration and not getting called for using the ball as a prop.

I just think it's funny that everyone claims the refs love the Steelers. during the regular season, you would think the completely opposite as I think Pittsburgh was one of the most penalized teams in the NFL.
 
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