NFL etc... US Major League Sports

[MacNimon]

With the NFL currently gearing up for its new season with its pre-season program, and MLB (Major League Baseball) in full swing heading for the most interesting part of the season, what teams (if any) do you follow and would like to see do well? I notice Tim often brings up the NFL in a thread at Super Bowl time, but I've got out of the habit in recent years of following the NFL as regularly as I'd like to so this seems like a good time to make the effort rather than wishing I'd done so at seasons end. And Jeff is a baseball fan too, so I thought a thread to discuss all aspects of big-league sports from across the Atlantic may be in order.

I have several teams I'd like to see doing well; I'd love to see the 49ers going a step further this year and winning the Super Bowl once again. Other favourite teams of mine I'll be rooting for include the Miami Dolphins, Green Bay Packers, and of course my favourites the Raiders. Not that I'm expecting much from them...

I'm warming up nicely for the new season by following the action in the CFL (Canadian Football League) in which my favourite team (and current champs) the Toronto Argonauts have got off to a flying start...here's hoping it continues because it's somewhat of an antidote to the depressing season Toronto's MLB baseball team, the Blue Jays, are having after pre-season hopes being so high but two-thirds of the way through the season they're rooted to the bottom of the table. I was sceptical about the team anyway, I believe you have to build a successful team not buy one. I still didn't expect them to be as bad as this, though...

So what about you guys? Who would you like to see do well this season?

[Jeff]

Not a lot of fans of American sports it would seem.

For Baseball it's the St. Louis Cardinals, and for NFL it's the Denver Broncos and St. Louis Rams for me. I also have been following the Washington Redskins a bit, mostly because Shanahan was the former coach of Denver in Elway's waning years when they won two superbowls. I wouldn't mind seeing the 49'ers do well, even though they are in the same division as the Rams. Back to baseball, the Cards are in a tight race for first place in their division and have a chance of making it to the postseason again. They won the World Series two years ago and did well in the postseason last year, only losing the NLCS (semi final) series against the eventual champion San Francisco Giants.

[MacNimon]

At least you've got something to get excited about in baseball. It'll be the wooden spoon for the Jays in the AL East by the looks of things

It looks like the Cards are play-off bound though, doesn't it? Even though they're neck-and-neck with Pittsburgh, the very least they have to look forward to is a wild-card slot.

A few interesting results in the NFL so far...the Seahawks really gave the 49ers a going over, didn't they? 29-3 is an impressive result and they might be the team to watch this year. It's nice to see the Dolphins beginning the season with a couple of wins too, I hope they keep it up. My team, the Raiders, are unfortunately already where they were expected to be...at the bottom of the AL West, although they won last week.

[Jon Masters]

Really pleased that C4 have started a (?new) NFL programme on Saturday mornings with Vernon Kay (not so happy to see the Vikings lose to the Lions in week 1 though). Might get me interested in watching the Sunday night games again . Wish I could have got tickets for Wembley though

[Anthony Williams]

In Atlanta, we have the Braves in MLB, the Falcons in NFL and the Hawks in NBA. There's a pattern every year, where no-one cares about these teams. Then, they start doing well, and the citizens of Atlanta start to take notice. Then just as everyone beings to get hyped up about a team, they lose in the playoffs. It's looking like the Braves might do the same again this year... they're certainly doing well right now!

[MacNimon]

I didn't notice that Saturday morning programme, Jon, I'll have to check it out myself now! I've been recording the Sunday night live games but haven't had enough spare time to actually watch them yet...despite my good intentions I've still just been following things online. It's not quite the same, though...

I've got a few days holiday coming up though so hopefully I'll manage to catch up a bit then.

And Ant...the Braves didn't always lose in the playoffs, it doesn't seem so long ago that they were one of the game's real powers. However, I do have fond memories of one particular losing run of theirs...when they lost the World Series to my faves the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 (the last year I ever actually attended a Jays game) I've still got that entire World Series on video...

[Jon Masters]

VIKINGS WIN !!!

[MacNimon]

I was out so I set the recorder for it, not realising that after 8.00 the broadcast would change channels so I didn't get the end of the game...it looked like a good, exciting game though and a great advert for the game. It looked like a great atmosphere and Regent Street looked fun as well, didn't it? Lets hope the 49ers & Jacksonville give us as good a show next month too.

On one of the Sunday night shows, I heard them mention a new magazine (although it's currently digital only) I checked out the website and the free sample looks pretty good, I think I'll invest in the next few issues and see how it goes. I miss those magazines of the 80s such as Quarterback and Gridiron UK as well as the First Down newspaper, so this looks like it could be a decent replacement.

http://www.gridiron-magazine.com/.

[Jeff]

I heard today that there will be 3 NFL games played in London next year. There has also been rumors for years that the NFL wants to put a team in London permanently, and currently the Jacksonville Jaguars are supposedly the favorite to be that team.. That's fine with me as the Stl Rams were previously the rumored favorite. Unfortunately there remain rumors that the NFL wants to move the Rams back to Los Angeles.

The Cardinals made the National League Championship Series for the third year in a row. We need 8 more wins.

[MacNimon]

I believe that the Jaguars are committed to playing one game at Wembly for four consecutive seasons (I think!) at least, if I picked that comment up correctly last weekend on tv. Whether that later translates to a permanent move remains to be seen...

[MacNimon]

Hopefully the Cards will give a good account of themselves in the NLCS. The Dodgers are a good team too, it should be pretty close...over in the AL, I'm split between the Tigers and the A's, I like both teams. I'm hoping that the winner will beat Boston in the ALCS.

Your comment about the Rams possibly moving again reminds me of something I've always wondered, Jeff...what it actually feels like to support a pro sports team over in the US. There seems to be a lot less loyalty from owners to local populations, it doesn't seem to take much for some of them to move from one city to another. The Rams are the perfect example, as are the Raiders and Cardinals to name but a few. Back in the 80s when I started following American sports, in St Louis you had both the baseball and football Cardinals. What is the general feeling of fan when a teams ups sticks and moves away to another city? Of course you'll feel gutted, but I'm thinking more long-term here...you've had the Rams moving here from LA to replace the Cards so you've got a team to support again, but you say that now the Rams are considering a move away once again. It's just such a strange set-up as across here, we really only hear it as a news item without much attention being paid to how this all affects the fanbase. Do you still feel any loyalty towards your local team when you know they maybe don't even want to be there? It's just such a strange but common situation (in the US) which we don't see over here...barring a team going into liquidation or something, our local team is our local team.

[Anthony Williams]

I hear that the Atlanta Falcons will be playing a game in London next year!

[Jeff]

Though I wasn't a sports fan back in '87, I remember Stl Fans being very pissed off and bitter about Bill Bidwill moving the team to Arizona. He was viewed as being greedy at the time, though there was also anger at the City for not doing more to keep them. When we got the Rams the bitterness dissipated somewhat, especially after they won the Superbowl (the football cardinals were a perennial loser and still have never won a SB). It also eventually came to light that the politicians in Stl were responsible for Bidwill leaving. He was promised his own stadium which he needed to make any money (prior to that he had to use Busch Stadium which I imagine had to be leased from the baseball Cardinals). Ironically after screwing Bidwill over and losing the team, the politicians had to fund the Edward Jones Dome to get the Rams to come here (prior to that oddly enough, we were trying to get an expansion which I believe became the Jaguars).

I know Cleveland and Houston were both also pretty bitter when the Browns and Oilers left. They were both given expansion teams and also, when the teams left they had to change their names and colors, so the Browns became the Baltimore Ravens and the Oilers became the Tennessee Titans. Cleveland named their expansion team the Browns and got to keep the history of the team (so the retired player jerseys and records remain with the expansion team and the Ravens are treated as the new team). Houston's expansion became the Texans.

When the Rams came to St. Louis they signed a lease saying that they had to stay in Stl for a certain amount of years as long as the Stadium remained in the top 10% of Stadiums. However a lot of expensive stadiums have been built in that time and there is way Stl can afford to renovate the stadium enough to get it there. However, the Rams don't have to opt out of the lease, and so they are negotiating plans to renovate the Dome. The city made a cheap proposal which was immediately rejected and the Rams made a counter proposal which the city probably can't afford. The Rams owner btw is Stan Kroenke, who is the largest shareholder of the Arsenal Football Club (which is part of what led to the speculation of them moving to London) as well as several other American sports franchises. Stan is actually from St. Louis though, which gives us our best hope that he want's to keep the Rams here.

[Jeff]

Also, the NFL is kind of a strange beast, where there it is so popular and there is so much national coverage that there it is no unusual to see fans of other cities teams all over the place. Especially in Stl where people picked new teams after the Cards left (I follow the Denver Broncos mainly as well as the Rams, but have been a Broncos fan since '89 and a Rams fan since '95 when the moved here).

There are still people I have seen on Rams forums that are old fans from the LA area that still follow the team (they are always proud to distinguish themselves from Stl area fans ) and you do still see Cardinals merch around, though you probably see more Green Bay Packers stuff than anything next to the Rams.

The Packers btw, I believe are the American sports franchise least likely to ever move as they are locally, publicly owned company with no corporate entity.

[MacNimon]

Jeff will be quite happy the Cards have reached the World Series. Here's hoping that the Tigers come from behind to beat the Sox and join them!

[MacNimon]

Next year's International Series games have been announced:

Cowboys @ Jaguars
Dolphins @ Raiders
Lions @ Falcons

Schedule and ticket information to be released at a later date.

The Raiders playing the Dolphins in the UK?! That'll do me...I'll have to make an effort to get tickets for this one. I've never been to Wembley, there's not usually much worth seeing there (from a Scots point of view!) so it'll be nice to have something special to go for!

[Anthony Williams]

We've never seen the Falcons in Atlanta... but we might try and make it over to the UK to see them in London. We have weird logic in the Williams household

[MacNimon]

I meant to include a link last night...

NFL UK

I see the Falcons are playing the Lions, Ant, The Lions and the Seahawks are the only NFL teams I've seen in the flesh when I went to a pre-season game at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit way back in 1986. I must be getting old and senile, as I can't even remember who won now...!

[MacNimon]

So it's Denver and Seattle in this years Superbowl, then, with the 49ers and Patriots falling at the final hurdle. No surprise at all for me with the Broncos, and the Seahawks were one of my early season favourites to get there but I'm still a bit disappointed that the 49ers aren't getting a chance to make up for last years Superbowl defeat...

[Jon Masters]

An excellent Superbowl last night - just goes to show having an all-star quarterback isn't the be all and end all.

[MacNimon]

I had a feeling that the Seahawks would do it. Many people seemed to be writing them off because they're a young team and inexperienced at that level, going against a good offensive team with an award-winning QB. Ever since that early season win over the 49ers though, I've had a sneaky feeling that this would be their year.

And they certainly gave the Broncos a thrashing they didn't expect! It's always good to see an anderdog coming out on top, and Seattle has been long overdue a championship.

[Perry Vale]

This made me chuckle....

[Jon Masters]

great to see the first games of the season (go Vikings!) but why has C4 dumped the highlights show from Sat morning to 11pm Monday night ?

[MacNimon]

But is it repeated on Saturday morning by any chance? Anyway, the ideal slot for a highlights show has to be 6.00 on a Sunday evening...

[Jeff]

great to see the first games of the season (go Vikings!) but why has C4 dumped the highlights show from Sat morning to 11pm Monday night ?

Bah! I was at the Rams/Vikings game. My first NFL game every actually. I went with a friend who is a big Vikings fan though, so at least he had a good time. He got the tickets so we actually sat on the visitors side surrounded by Vikings fans.