The NFL Thread - Root for your favorite team (or laugh at the Browns, whichever's easier)

Who are you rooting for in Super Bowl 60?

  • New England Patriots

    Votes: 11 22.0%

  • Seattle Seahawks

    Votes: 25 50.0%

  • Team State Farm

    Votes: 1 2.0%

  • The Meteor

    Votes: 13 26.0%
  • Total voters
    50
  • Poll closed .
GemstoneEddie88 said:
It’s quite a funny run of events for the Browns with Watson. He hasn’t played a good stretch of football with the Browns since signing there, and I remember playing Elden Ring when it came out and listening to Urinating Tree break the news. That feels like an eternity ago now. Like the Browns, he feels cursed.
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His game relied on the backyard football shit that was incredibly popular in the latter half of the 2010s when everyone was copying the Legion of Boom's cover 3 with worse personnel. He held out for a full year right as the shift to posting two high safeties and forcing the QB to dink and dunk came into effect, then didn't play for almost half of the next season.
Like, he could not have planned a worse time to take an extended break from football. When he came back on the Browns he was almost playing a new position, the game had changed so much while he was out.
 
Kermit the Frog said:
Deshaun Watson somehow only being 30 years old is a surprise to me. It feels like that guy has been around an eternity with how much he's talked about.
And he fucking sucked with the Browns even when he was healthy, there's no point in playing him. Start Sanders, and if he sucks (likely) go with Gabriel. Nobody wants to watch Watson.
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I think they should just roll with Sanders and see what happens. He's probably not actually a good QB, but he's gotta be better than Watson, he was unwatchable last year and everyone fucking hates him. And I definitely trust Shedeur over Dillon "14/25 152ypg" Gabriel, there is nothing I hate more than boring game manager QBs leading their teams to 200 yards max on boring playcalls.

But this is the browns, who are run about as well as a crackhouse, so who the fuck knows what they'll do really.
 
I could see a potential use for Watson: Use him as QB1 as a warm body, Shedeur and Dillon aren't good but it might be a way to get off your back the former's dad and his ball washers and well Dillon ain't good but he's still on a contract and might maybe (big maybe) do ever so slightly better than Deshaun and I think his contract is going for longer (maybe?)
 
jray4559 said:
I think they should just roll with Sanders and see what happens. He's probably not actually a good QB, but he's gotta be better than Watson, he was unwatchable last year and everyone fucking hates him. And I definitely trust Shedeur over Dillon "14/25 152ypg" Gabriel, there is nothing I hate more than boring game manager QBs leading their teams to 200 yards max on boring playcalls.
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Yeah, I think Shedeur has the highest upside here. Dillon's a little hobbit and Watson's favorite receiver is the dirt.

But you're not envisioning the true nightmare scenario where Watson starts and drops 350ypg for a month before blowing his shoulder out again. Boys, we gotta extend him
 
Froggy Fresh Sextape said:
But you're not envisioning the true nightmare scenario where Watson starts and drops 350ypg for a month before blowing his shoulder out again. Boys, we gotta extend him
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See, I'm not envisioning that mostly because I'm holding out for maximum retard world where Shedeur looks like he has a high upside and Haslam is snookered into buying out Daddy's CU contract.
Both so I can hear family complain differently about CU football, and because that would be incredibly funny.
 
Zaryiu2 said:
So i have ask, who do you think is also in a conflict of interest of some sort? I refuse to believe this is the only case right now
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I mean, much like the everlasting GamerGate Tree referenced in the video, pretending there isn't massive overlap in social connections between these journos and figures in the industry they cover is naive at best and blatant coping at worst. Schefter, for one, has literally had emails leak where he addressed either an agent or a team's GM (I believe the latter, but there are so many tweets he posts that are clearly him copying what the player's agent sent him that it could easily be the former) as "Mr. Editor" and had them proofread an article he was submitting.

Sports media just had the sense to know that they did not want to call the wider public's attention to the amount of compromising connective tissue between themselves and their subjects and forced everyone to shut up and let Russini take the fall, instead of circling the wagons and calling everyone sexist for even noticing.
 
Dildo_SHwaggins said:
Strong disagree. The Cardinals are the oldest team in the league and are the most pathetic. They have lifetimes of incompetence that no other team can compete with.
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Visibility plays a strong part in being the most pathetic franchise tho IMO. It's better to suck forever and be forgotten like the Cards than to suck while being the crowning posterchildren for football incompetency, which is an image the Browns will never get off them
 
Absolutego said:
I mean, much like the everlasting GamerGate Tree referenced in the video, pretending there isn't massive overlap in social connections between these journos and figures in the industry they cover is naive at best and blatant coping at worst. Schefter, for one, has literally had emails leak where he addressed either an agent or a team's GM (I believe the latter, but there are so many tweets he posts that are clearly him copying what the player's agent sent him that it could easily be the former) as "Mr. Editor" and had them proofread an article he was submitting.

Sports media just had the sense to know that they did not want to call the wider public's attention to the amount of compromising connective tissue between themselves and their subjects and forced everyone to shut up and let Russini take the fall, instead of circling the wagons and calling everyone sexist for even noticing.
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The thing is that it isn't necessarily wrong for a journalist to have social connections with people in the industry they cover. If anything, it is part of their job. I used to work for a municipality. The local newspaper who used to cover our government events and meetings had phone numbers and emails of councilmen and other government officials. If they needed info or needed a quick interview people involved were happy to do. They didn't do it expecting 100% positive coverage all the time, but they did it in hoping they would provide a balanced story.

The problem arises if you take those personal relationships too far or either party uses it for leverage or even just allows it to interfere with their work. As we witnessed with GamerGate, the problem centered around con-artists and malicious personalities trading sex for favors. Positive press coverage, artificially platforming for those who didn't deserve it, attacking those who did nothing wrong.

That is why there is such a giant ethical problem with this controversy. Was Russini fucking to get ahead and get information she normally wouldn't have access to? Was Vrabel fucking to prevent negative coverage of him as a coach? It probably wouldn't be such a huge dilemma if she wasn't directly involved in covering him and the team he was associated with.
 
LordofCringe7206 Vol. 2 said:
That is why there is such a giant ethical problem with this controversy. Was Russini fucking to get ahead and get information she normally wouldn't have access to? Was Vrabel fucking to prevent negative coverage of him as a coach? It probably wouldn't be such a huge dilemma if she wasn't directly involved in covering him and the team he was associated with.
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I maintain it's more of a professional violation for Russini than Vrabel, just because his ability to coach isn't impacted by him fucking a reporter. IDK, maybe Amy Adams-Strunk would be more upset about the fact that he was feeding stories to Russini during his breakup with the Titans, but Vrabel could've just as easily been telling his side to Schefter/Rapoport/pick your talking head who wasn't nobbling his schlong, that breakup was acrimonious af.

Journalists, however, thrive on the thin veneer of objectivity for normies to take their word for anything, they literally trade in reputation. It's a much bigger deal for her and her employer that Russini was sleeping with/blowing/otherwise sexually rewarding sources, because not only is it unethical from a moral perspective (her baby may very well be his bastard, her husband is the real victim in all of this, moreso than Vrabel's wife), it taints the veracity of her coverage in general. When it comes to any reporting on a male figure in the industry, she might be perceived to be setting a narrative for a dude she's romantically tangled with instead of objectively reporting on what her inside sources are telling her.
 
Absolutego said:
I maintain it's more of a professional violation for Russini than Vrabel, just because his ability to coach isn't impacted by him fucking a reporter. IDK, maybe Amy Adams-Strunk would be more upset about the fact that he was feeding stories to Russini during his breakup with the Titans, but Vrabel could've just as easily been telling his side to Schefter/Rapoport/pick your talking head who wasn't nobbling his schlong, that breakup was acrimonious af.
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I disagree because there is actually a lot of ethical issues from Vrabel's point of view. From a negative view he could be purposely sabotaging his team by providing information to her that he shouldn't. While that probably wasn't happening, there are also ways that this relationship benefits Vrabel at the expense of others in the league.

People have been noticing that Russini may have been helping the Patriots out with this whole AJ Brown saga by tanking his image in the press to help them out with an easier path to obtaining him. People also have been bringing up how something very similar happened when Julio Jones went to the Titans years ago. Russini again was helping tank his image to help the Titans more easily acquire him.

In short: this is just one reason why Vrabel has a violation with this whole saga. Him being in coordination with a top journalist can actually impact his team.
 
Holy shit, the objectively worst team in the league has a straight page of discussion...
Anyway, for the few of you that are legit 49ers fans, here is a great channel you should follow explaining why their first pick was in fact solid:
This guy is a small indy channel that does great breakdowns of the finer points of all things football, focused of course on SF but is useful to anyone wanting to get invested into how games break down from a coaching POV.
 
LordofCringe7206 Vol. 2 said:
I disagree because there is actually a lot of ethical issues from Vrabel's point of view. From a negative view he could be purposely sabotaging his team by providing information to her that he shouldn't. While that probably wasn't happening, there are also ways that this relationship benefits Vrabel at the expense of others in the league.

People have been noticing that Russini may have been helping the Patriots out with this whole AJ Brown saga by tanking his image in the press to help them out with an easier path to obtaining him. People also have been bringing up how something very similar happened when Julio Jones went to the Titans years ago. Russini again was helping tank his image to help the Titans more easily acquire him.

In short: this is just one reason why Vrabel has a violation with this whole saga. Him being in coordination with a top journalist can actually impact his team.
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The most direct evidence of this happening imo is the fact the NFL's immediate reaction was to refuse to investigate him. You don't follow the smoke when you don't want to find a fire. People have known about this. The upper echelon of the NFL and surrounding media is a small knit group who are all in bed together. I assume most of the insiders and at least some front offices have been aware of Russini fucking her way to the top for years.

The league being fixed has been a popular narrative on social media the past couple seasons and the pressure has been building over the part time ref situation. The FTC is looking into the NFL coincidentally just as the NFL plans to balloon the cost of the media deals at the end of the season. This season already has the looming spectre of scab refs. A season long scandal over the rather obvious collusion between teams and sports media is the last thing they want. It jeopardizes billions in media and gambling profits.

There is the integrity of the game as well, but they long since stopped giving a fuck about that.
 
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