NFL Week 12 thread -- As sweet as a Kolber kiss

Remember when Pittsburgh‘s Tomlin tried to trip Baltimore’s Jacoby Jones on the field Of play and wasn’t punished?

 

This is the sort of thing I assumed would be rampant and readily reported in football all season at all levels.
A Baltimore Sun story quoted an NFL medical official as saying the league is confident that it will soon identify the origin of the outbreak.

 

There's only one person on this board who believes that. The rest of us are giving him shit.

 

It really depends on the next two days. If there are no more positive tests, they should play Sunday. Based on the rules, the Ravens being short-handed is irrelevant. The only issue is if they can play it without putting more people at risk or not.

 

Looks like he either lives in Pennsylvania or is from there.

 

Actually, that isn't what I wrote, either. Y'all are whacking away at straw men. Perhaps that is intentional. Perhaps it is your ignorance. Either way, that isn't what I wrote.

 

I mean I'm not the one saying a team that couldn't practice should be forced to play because moving/cancelling the game would screw the Steelers.

 

What do you think I'm here for?

It was actually a handful of simple if/then's:
1. Because CBS needs a game, the Lions (even) and Cowboys (odd) alternated playing an AFC team on Thanksgiving.
2. Because of the four-year schedule rotation, the Lions play the AFC South in Summer Olympic years and the AFC East in Winter Olympic years.
3. Because of the schedule, only two of those teams will play in Detroit. In this case, the Lions' AFC home opponents were Houston or Indy, because they play Tennessee and Jacksonville on the road.

The NFL started letting CBS do NFC/NFC games to balance out the schedule in 2014; this is the first time since that was instituted that they didn't crossflex an NFC North opponent into this matchup.

The nuances of the NFL schedule, which since they added the Texans to make 32 teams is actually unnervingly balanced, is one of the few NFL offseason things I actually like. Both of my last two jobs have been in places where divided regional loyalties mean one group of fans (in this case Packers fans in Minnesota) lose out because of TV scheduling conflicts. I normally go through the schedule when it's released not because I care about what games are good but because I want to find the weeks I need to go take a hike, find an illegal stream or enjoy the radio (such as last Sunday because the NFL moved the Colts-Packers game into a conflicting time slot with Cowboys-Vikings).

 

Watt clearly got those hands from his one year as a tight end at Central Michigan.

 

I'm saying the team that can't practice should have to play because those are the rules. The Steelers lost practice time as a team and had some key guys, including Roethlisberger, unable to practice at all a few weeks ago. I did not complain about that. The league needs to enforce the rules or throw them out and create a new set of rules it will actually follow.

If the game has to be postponed until the end of the season because the outbreak is still out of control, that makes sense. Teams have had to play without players or without practice time all season. Either the rules matter or they don't. I guess you fall in the camp of saying they should not matter.

 

I continue to maintain that Lions fans never knew how good they had it with Wayne Fontes. Lions have played in as many playoff games under Fontes (five) as they have in the 23 seasons since.* 27-17 (.613) in regular season games on and after Thanksgiving.

*Having one Barry Sanders may have helped this situation.