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- 04/18/24
| Member since: | October 16, 2002 |
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| Last visit: | February 26, 2005 |
Jaquandor has posted 44 links and 67 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 0 comments to the Locker Room.
The Hall of Fame Rejection Committee: For reasons passing understanding, Buffalo sports-talk hosts Mike Schopp and the Bulldog have been eliminating three baseball players from the Hall of Fame each day, with the intent of eventually arriving at a single Hall of Famer. It's one of those sports-talk-radio things that makes sense while you're listening to the show, but when you're linking it on SportsFilter, you're hard-pressed to come up with a post explaining why it makes sense at all. Hmmmmm....
posted by Jaquandor to baseball at 07:57 PM on February 25, 2005 - 5 comments
The NFL lowers the boom on Vegas parties.: Apparently a number of Super Bowl parties in Las Vegas have to be cancelled because, according to the NFL, charging someone to be able to see the game on a large-screen TV constitutes copyright violation, in some way. I confess I am very fuzzy on just what the NFL's complaint here is. (NYT Registration required)
posted by Jaquandor to football at 10:10 PM on January 31, 2004 - 3 comments
How many times has the team leading the Super Bowl at the half gone on to win?: Find out in this article of useless Super Bowl trivia, with items numbered 1 to 38 and based on this year's matchup. One factoid that didn't get in this article is that this will be the Patriots' first Super Bowl appearance not played in the Superdome in New Orleans. (You're wondering if I have a life? I think it's pretty obvious that I don't!)
posted by Jaquandor to football at 12:13 PM on January 26, 2004 - 2 comments
It was the Figure Skater, in the corridor, with a lead pipe!: Ten years have passed since Tonya Harding's goons set out to "handicap" the competition, Nancy Kerrigan. Ten years, wow....that's a long time....[crickets chirping]....what? Skating's a sport! It is! Honest!
posted by Jaquandor to other at 12:05 PM on January 06, 2004 - 29 comments
Are the NFL's fines for excessive end-zone celebrations racially motivated?: This op-ed piece, from The Buffalo News, says Yes.
posted by Jaquandor to football at 06:42 PM on January 04, 2004 - 52 comments
I think I can guarantee it's not meant to be taken seriously.
posted by Jaquandor at 11:57 PM on February 25, 2005
this brings to mind a question I've had for months - why can't the radio stations say Super Bowl in their commercials? They all say "win a trip to the NFL's Big Game. We can't say it, but you know what we mean" or some such shit. Would they really sue someone for using their game's name in a radio contest? Yep, they would. "Super Bowl" is actually a trademarked brand name, and to use it in marketing pitches, you have to pay the NFL. This once came up in a restaurant I worked for -- we had a promotion where we gave away free bags of Doritos, but we were forbidden to say "Super Bowl". One local company that makes dip had a radio spot last year that went something like, "We can't tell you what event you'd want our dip for, but we can tell you that it would be SUPER...like a BOWL of dip!"
posted by Jaquandor at 01:57 PM on February 01, 2004
As a Bills fan who's just endured two years of watching our coaching staff forget that there's a pretty good running back in town, watching Martz coach always gives me flashbacks. Martz: "Third-and-one? Marshall who? Throw it!" Gregg Williams and Kevin Gilbride: "Third-and-one? Travis who? Throw it!"
posted by Jaquandor at 01:18 PM on January 12, 2004
Boy, did he ever. Were we disagreeing about something? I can't even tell now! Well, I think we definitely established Bill Parcells is a good coach and Gregg Williams is not. Well, I don't know how good a coach Parcells is. I mean, how impressed should I be that he has now in his career taken over no fewer than four floundering franchises and turned them into playoff teams? (Is there an emoticon for "tongue really in cheek"?)
posted by Jaquandor at 09:55 AM on December 31, 2003
I grant you that the Cowboys were not in the middle of a purge; however, they weren't (aren't?) exactly loaded with talent... the offensive skill positions are mediocre, the line isn't what it used to be, and the defense was pretty good but not great. Parcells made all of it better-- offense, defense, and special teams. Boy, did he ever. Were we disagreeing about something? I can't even tell now! And to make matters for the Bills slightly more interesting, the Jets have just fired Ted Cottrell, who was the Bills' defensive coordinator while Wade Philips was head coach. I have a sneaking feeling Cottrell will be interviewed by the Bills. Of course, this will be the second time they've interviewed him for a head coaching vacancy. Maybe this time they'll give him the job.
posted by Jaquandor at 04:47 PM on December 30, 2003
And Williams took over a team in 2001 that had gone 8-8 the year before and was on the verge of a salary-cap purge anyway. It's not like he came in and trashed a 12-4 system that had made the playoffs or anything. Fair enough. But I wasn't thinking of players like Smith; I was more concerned about the way the whole linebacking corps (Cowart, Sam Rogers, Keith Newman) was gutted. They're finally good again, but it seemed unneccessary-- I don't buy into coaching/personnel plans that involve blowing up the team for two years until the coach stockpiles the players he wants (look at Parcells, he's one of the best talent evaluators in the game, and yet he's still managed to double his team's wins from last season with essentially the same personnel. Wait until he builds that roster.) As far as the Bills' season went, offensively, Moulds was hurt, the offensive line sucked (death for any team, but especially when you have an immobile quarterback with a cannon arm-- you have to protect him), and Gilbride was a very bad offensive coordinator. Not to mention I agree with the sports guy, who puts Gregg Williams at the top of his "coaches I think I could outcoach for one game" list. I agree with most of your points, but Parcells was not, to my knowledge, taking over a team that was on the verge of serious salary cap issues this year. Williams was. Everybody knew, after 2000, that a purge was coming. The Bills could not have kept that linebacking corps together, and even if they had, the 2001 edition would have sucked because of all the rebuilding in all the other phases of the game. Did Parcells face similar problems in Dallas this year? Largely, the problem with the offense was Kevin Gilbride, but Williams refused to ever step in and overrule him, he never admitted there were even problems beyond "We just didn't make enough plays" (ya think?!), and toward the end he kept trying to insist he was "involved". It wasn't pretty.
posted by Jaquandor at 02:30 PM on December 30, 2003
Actually, didn't he just outright cut most of those players (from a defense ranked #3 the year before he got there), because they didn't fit in his new system? Yes, Williams did do some goofy bashing of what had been a previously pretty good defense, but the players he sent packing really weren't exactly defensive studs who went on to anchor other great defenses around the league. Bruce Smith was one of those, but all he did was hang on to his career long enough to set a record. The Bills had to let a lot of those players go for salary cap reasons; I don't think they could really afford to keep Sam Cowart or Marcellus Wiley, who were by far the best defensive players from the 2000 Bills. (Williams's first year was 2001.) And Williams took over a team in 2001 that had gone 8-8 the year before and was on the verge of a salary-cap purge anyway. It's not like he came in and trashed a 12-4 system that had made the playoffs or anything. So, yes, Williams did insist on a new system, but I really don't think the Bills would have been able to keep the talent around to keep the old system working for much longer, anyway. They were a team on the decline in 2000.
posted by Jaquandor at 10:15 AM on December 30, 2003
Gregg Williams had this coming. Outside of rebuilding a salary-cap ravaged defense, he showed no acumen for what he was doing. He never seemed to have any answers or any new ideas, good or otherwise. I don't think his coaching career is over -- he'll probably end up as a defensive coordinator somewhere -- but he was finally revealed this year as being over his head.
posted by Jaquandor at 10:08 PM on December 29, 2003
A 14-2 record is excellent, but it's not that uncommon. There have been 14-2 teams pretty often since the parity era began (I generally think it started to take root in 1995 or 1996), and in 1998 there was even a 15-1 team. I do think that the Patriots are the most befuddling 14-2 team I've seen, but they're still pretty damned good. I suspect the Titans and Colts could dethrone them in Foxboro, but not the Chiefs. And a Patriots-Rams Super Bowl could be in the cards, again. As for the Bills, well, some team will have a pretty good defensive coordinator in Gregg Williams next year. He did do a pretty good job in rebuilding the defense in Buffalo. Too bad he didn't accomplish anything else.
posted by Jaquandor at 12:43 PM on December 28, 2003
This is the worst day ever. Yeah, I'm a Bills fan, and I find that the Cowboys have finally been eclipsed as the most nauseating franchise in all sports, by the Pats. If I had to look at Tom Brady's stupid grin and Bill Belichick's stupid scowl one more time....! (Of course, those are better than Bills' coach Gregg Williams's constant deer-in-the-headlights, "I can't believe this is happening!" expression.) Bledsoe has been horrible, but then, so has the coaching and the offensive line, and even the defense -- though good -- has shown big-time holes, such as the complete inability to force turnovers. I'm still not ready to give up on Bledsoe, but the idea that the Bills will win on the strength of his arm -- an idea that Gregg Williams and Kevin Gilbride seem incapable of disbelieving -- is clearly faulty. Oh well, at least I can hope that the recent trend in the AFC in which only three top seeds since 1992 have gone to the Super Bowl still holds!
posted by Jaquandor at 06:28 PM on December 27, 2003
Remember, there's nothing funny about...vapor lock.
posted by Jaquandor at 12:55 PM on December 22, 2003
Here in Buffalo, the road has pretty much been paved for Gregg Williams and offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride to get out of town. Fans are pretty furious that all the upgrading of the defense last offseason has netted no better than 8-8 and watching the playoffs on TV. I tend to agree.
posted by Jaquandor at 07:32 PM on December 17, 2003
I didn't actually link the NFL.com TMQ article because it wasn't up at the time that I posted. The original announcement I linked was that NFL.com would announce TMQ's arrival at around noon eastern.
posted by Jaquandor at 04:08 PM on November 25, 2003
Nice find! I love it when someone uses the blog format for something other than a standard blog.
posted by Jaquandor at 01:00 PM on November 25, 2003
The Hall of Fame Rejection Committee
DrJohnEvans: On the show itself, when they get to the HoF Rejection Committee segment, they play a snippet from that Simpsons episode when Homer's the youth football coach -- Homer has a voiceover during the credits of that episode, telling everybody they're cut. "Oooooh, there's so many cuts here, I'll just put up a list and you can find your name...."