Tag Archives: NFL

Crib Sheet: Winter Break

This Purple Yeti is too busy chopping wood for the fire to bring you much for the rest of January.  Look for some new giblets starting February.  In the meantime, I have the Crib Sheet to you warm.  Check it out:

Crib Sheet: Mizzou Fans Showed Up, The Team Didn’t

So last night’s Insight Bowl happened.  I’m still sleepy from the late running game.  Iowa held off Missouri for a 27-24 victory, with the biggest play in the game going to Blaine Gabbertt tossing a pick six in the 4th quarter to give Iowa the game.  Later on there was controversial overturn to receiver T.J. Moe on 4th and 6.  Really, the story of the game was a Tiger defense that let a 3rd string running back set an Iowa bowl record for rushing yards.  Missouri’s offense chugged along fine except for a few mistakes.  Overall, the team looked way less into than Iowa and I think the fight in the heart of the Hawkeyes made the score that we see today.  Now let’s check out the bowl edition of the Crib Sheet:

GameDay: KCGGD’s Best Weekend Evar

Okay, so no, I’m not talking about VH1 and guests like Chris Jericho and the unfunny guy from The State, I’m talking about college football!  Every year I’m reminded that we get piles upon piles of traditional football matchups on top of piles and piles of turkey.  This year is a little different, however.  The rivalry games are all over the place, but alot of them have national title implications.  It’s only halfway through the weekend and already the BCS title race has been blown up, kinda.

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Crib Sheet: A Thanksgiving Feast

Ho boy do we have a feast of news for you to munch in this Thanksgiving edition of the Crib Sheet.  There should be enough left over to keep you fed over the whole weekend as there is college football on pretty much all of the time.  Grab a bib and get ready for some Crib Sheet:

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GameDay: Money For Nothing

Okay, I have to take a couple of minutes to talk about the whole Cam Newton situation.  It seems like in the last couple of weeks, there’s been a vendetta against this guy.  Is it because he had a rough past?  Or is it because the SEC can’t handle other teams doing well?  At the end of the day, however, the discussion of players looking to get paid in college has come to a head.  What I say is that you need to pay the players, even with more stipend or a more comprehensive scholarship.

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Pick It and Stick It: Snot Rockets

The Big 12 used to be known for high scoring shoot outs. This year sees a return to defense as either the stars moved away to the NFL or schools coached up their kids. The only two top 10 offenses in college football this year that come from the Big 12 are Baylor and Oklahoma State. Guess who happens to play each other tomorrow? That game will be a shootout and is for the top spot in the Big 12 South. This year is turning out to be majorly weird. Don’t let that vex you as we set you up for this week’s Pick It and Stick It.

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GameDay: It’s A Playoff Every Week

I’ve been hearing for the last week or two about “Which #1 will go down this week?”  Do you really hear that in any other sport?  Sure, you may in college basketball, but you don’t in the NFL, MLB, or even golf.  The reason why is simple, college football is a playoff every week.  If we go to an actually off-season playoff, this will go away.

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Crib Sheet: Nice With Pumpkin Spice

Halloween is Sunday and we are cooking up various items around the place with pumpkin in them.  The roasted pumpkin seeds with cinamon and nutmeg were awesome but so where the pumpkin muffins.  Grab your favorite pumpkin related food and check out this week’s Crib Sheet:

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GameDay: Head Games

With the Eric LeGrand injury as well as the big fines being dropped in the NFL, I figured I would take some time to talk about violence and football.  Ever since I was a kid, the mantra of football has been to hit the other guy harder than you.  Not only does it provide a physical advantage, but also a mental one.  With the way things are going, the physical part of the game will go away.  I don’t think the sport will be the same.

I played little league football and I was pretty good.  No, I wasn’t quarterback, but I was big enough as a lil ‘un to plug up holes and do a decent job of blocking.  The best coach I ever had was from little league and he always said to hit the guy harder than you.  That’s the battle on the line of scrimmage.  If you push, you will win.  That’s the way it’s always been.  Once the other team knows that, it starts to wear them down emotionally.  It’s the spirit of the competition.

In high school, I moved up to varsity during my sophomore year and eventually started both ways a year later.  Hey, I got real big.  There are two moments I remember.  The first one was hitting a guy so hard in practice that he bounced a yard back from me and quit the team the next week.  The other one was in a game.  It was 4th and goal, the run was coming my way, and I was looking right across to the guy I had to block.  Before the snap, I knew instantly that I was gonna blow the guy up.  I did and we scored.  There is no better feeling on the field when you beat the other guy that way.

The last couple of weeks once again shone the light on just how violent football is as a sport.  In terms of collisions, it’s right up there with boxing and maybe MMA.  I knew that going into little league, I knew it in high school, and I know it today.  I’m okay with it, too.  The risk was there from the beginning and will still be there in the end.  That’s why the latest rounds of attention doesn’t mean much.

Every couple of years, a football player gets hit the wrong way and ends up paralyzed.  What usually follows is about a month of attention from the media and the sports media about how football is too violent.  After about a month, the attention goes away.  Even with the science of concussions and hits maturing into a full study,  I can tell you that we won’t remember it a month from now.

Both sides are filling the airwaves with crap and the quicker it goes away the better.  On one side, you have people who’ve never played football talk about how the sport should be banned.  There may be an actually ex-footballer in they’re talking about how serious a hit can be.  The rule of thumb with those guys is that the more mainstream the show, the more they abhor the violence.  I’ve heard on TV how terrible it is and I’ve heard on podcasts how it’s just the flavor of the week.

The other side of the talk are employed football players.  You’ll see some guys say sorry, but you’ll see other guys talk about how they don’t know how to do it differently.  James Harrison even said he might retire because of the recent changes.  With football players, you’ll hear about how they don’t want to change and how it will turn into Arena football if they make more big hit changes.  While rule changes may tilt things that way, it won’t fundamentally change football.  It’s just a matter of two sides claiming the extreme until people get tired of it.

So when you go out and read about how concussions kill or that they are putting on a pink dress, since there are already pink gloves, on football.  Just sit back, relax, and take a breath.  Football isn’t going to change for the worse and no one is going to die on the field.  The only time to really be worried if there ends up being enough push to ban football. Even then, it’s alright because there’s always MMA.  We are wired to enjoy violence without killing anyone and we’ll get our fix eventually.

Crib Sheet: My Head Hurts

It looks as though the NFL cracked down on concussions and big time hits, doling out suspensions for head on collisions now.   What does this mean for college football?  Probably the same type of suspension.  I’m not sure they will completely lock down like they do in the NFL.  I’m guessing that this sport may be going away in the next 15 years, or at least it will turn into more of an arena style of play.  Even for the colleges.  Now check out the Crib Sheet:

GameDay: Football Weather

So I woke up this morning to a cool and crisp chilly Iowa morning.  Yeah it’s football weather.  I love it when people say that.  It usually means it’s getting colder and there’s potential for rain or snow.  You never hear that with any other sport.  I guess that is part of what makes football so manly.  You look forward to playing in terrible weather.  Let’s just hope the powers that be don’t screw that up.

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Crib Sheet: (Not So) Secret Agent Ban

Apparently there’s still some fallout from the NCAA’s investigation of schools regarding sports agents and football players.  Read all about it below.  Our take on the whole thing?  The times they are a changing and much like any other huge organization, change comes slow.  This week’s Crib Sheet points out that while the NCAA is running around doing investigations, they are cutting drug testing budgets.  We think the NCAA needs to lean down more and seriously reconsider just how sports are played today.  On the Crib Sheet:

Crib Sheet: Media Blitz

We’ve been sacked from the Big 12 Media Days on this week’s Crib Sheet.  We’ll go over the last media day next, as we have a major pile of news dump on you.  Here we go:

Crib Sheet: Tasting a Buttload

Okay the holidays are over and we are in the middle of summer.  College football is so close right now we can taste it.  You know how we can tell?  We have a buttload of news to go over in this week’s Crib Sheet.  So enough jibba jabba, here’s the sheet:

Magnifying the Expansion Part 6: Fanning the Flames

Okay, we talked about the Big 10 expansion with all of the good bits on the business side of things, but what about us?  What about the fans?  How will the average stool jockey be affected if and when the Big 10 decides to expand out beyond its current bounds?  From the Trojan sporting LA type to the gator chomping tanned Floridian, the effect could be small.  Or it could be big.  The closer the proximity to the Big 10, the more the fans will experience change, especially right here in Kansas City.  Let’s see what can happen as we narrow the focus down to right here at the KCCGD headquarters.

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