RedRamage

I agree with everything here, include, unfortunately, the last part. Salary Cap/Floor ultimately benefits the owners, and as @gehringer_2 pointed out, teams could find ways to overpay for other things (coaches, facilities, scouting, developing, etc.) to gain and advantage there if they're just capped on player salary. I think a big part of what makes the NFL successful is that a HUGE portion of team revenue comes from TV rights, and those rights are shared across the board. And in my opinion there's good reasoning for this. No one is paying to get the YES Network, for example, to watch the Yankees take batting practice or run fielding drills. They're paying to watch the Yankees play other teams, so should not the other teams get some of that revenue? But getting sharing like that will be very, very hard to get the owners to all agree too and you're right that it will require open accounting.

I thought about something like that too, but I'm not sure how it would work that would actually help smaller market teams compete. (This of course assumes a smaller market team where ownership actually wants to compete, not just make a profit and call it good enough.) Let's say the Twins have a player going up for free agency. The Dodgers or Yankees can just through a huge number at said player. If the Twins have the right to match that offer, that doesn't mean they'd have the ability to match it. Maybe some sort of "restricted" free agency where players are able to negotiate with other teams but the current team is allow to match but if they elect not too they get some sort of bonus? Actually... is might be nice if the new team has to pay a set fee to the old team for a restricted free agent, but again this assumes a small market team that's trying to compete. There'd have to be some salary floor in this situation to make sure the owner isn't just pocketing the fee.

Just watched this video by Trevor May: The TL;DW (Too Long; Didn't Watch) version: Free Agency seems to have issues. The problem, from a players perspective: Teams have control for a LONG time... players are taught that Free Agency, which may not come until way late in a player's career, is the one time to get that big contract so they need to maximize that one deal. They may never get another shot. Because of this players are unlikely to resign before free agency and other things (like team, city, family, friends, etc) become less important than the big payday. May suggestion one possible solution (while admitting it's just an idea, it may not work): Reduce the time it takes to get to free agency. If players see that they have a shot at two (or more) big deals, there may be less driving force to maximize that Free Agency contract. They may be more willing to re-sign with a team even before free agency. Obviously this would make owners unhappy, so the combined with this May suggests limiting Free Agency contract to a maximum of 5 years. This would mean that even if you were paying a player $25M a year, the full contract value would only be $125M. This would slow down the huge ballooning contracts of many hundreds of millions without limiting AAV per year and, presumable, not price smaller market teams out as much. Summary over. Not being someone who's hugely well versed in baseball front office stuff, I'm curious what people think of this. Personally the limiting Free Agency contracts to just 5 years doesn't seem like a big enough benefit to the owners to make them willing to shorten team control. I also question how much that will help small market teams. I fear that it would just make the bigger markets willing to pay crazy AAV knowing that their only taking on 5 years liability so if the contract ends up being a dud they're not chained to it for 8, 10, or more years.

I'll be in my house for this one!

Ah, okay... yes I was missing something.

You know they're not undefeated, right? Am I missing something?

I thought that too when watching the game. Lopez was showing up a lot during the game... 5 total tackles, 3 solo, 1/2 a sack and 2 TFLs... DJ Reader? 2 tackles, 1 solo. McNeil? 1 tackle, 1 solo. Williams? 0. According to pro-football-reference he was only in on 8 plays.

You didn't let him finish! He was saying that he's STUNNED that Daboll was fired --- now, instead of like a few weeks ago.

I also think they are being much more open about concussions being an issue AND trying to have stricter rules for dealing with them. That will help, obviously, but there's no real way to eliminate concussions or damage from repeated collisions. I could foresee an instance where someone sues the NFL or the NCAA or a school. Whether they should win or not is obviously very much up for debate, but I could foresee a situation where they win big. If that happens I don't think it'd be too long before others started suing as well... which could lead to schools just shutting down football programs. If the potential liability starts to outweigh the financial benefit it might happen. I certainly hope it doesn't and I hope I'm just speculating way outside of reality.

Yeah, it's hard to wrap my head around it. My only thought was that something happened and he thought he was in so much trouble with the police chasing him that he didn't figure there was any way out. The question is what was the trouble? Was it real? And if so... was it really that bad? Or was it more "imaginary," potentially brought on by mental issues? And if so, where those mental issues exasperated by concussion/head injuries? I've speculated in the past that I wonder how much longer football as we know it will exists. I could easily see in 10 or 20 years that there are radical changes or the whole sport itself mostly disappears.

I thought they were talking percentages.

Win/Loss/Tie record for individual players is a stupid stat. I mean I'm happy for Stafford that he gets to play on a winning team, but really this super duper highlights why it's a stupid stat. Do we really think that Stafford's talent level is increasing as he's getting older?

Honestly... I kinda am. I was skeptical at first and I do still very much dislike that that the surprise onsides kick is no longer available. But, that said I like that it's not 90% of the time kicked into the endzone for a touch back. I like that there are returns happening. I think the way the team are lined up prevents high speed collisions so reducing injuries.

Yeah I missed that the first time too. I thought an Out of Bounds went to the 40, but I guess not if you kicking from the closer on?? Not sure on the rule, but obviously the Lions knew the rule and took advantage both times.

It sure feels like SOL broadcasts.

Dang... that's sad. I just looked up some info on him and he was born in GR, MI!

As much as I hate the Packers, I loved (no pun intended) that uniform. How incredibly AWESOME would it be to have the Packers wear this and the Lions wear a similar uni decked out like the Portsmouth Spartans?

Meh... the media - specifically the national talking heads - say a lot of stuff. And I truly think much of what they say is designed to attract attention (negative or positive) more than it is to try to convey what they actually think.

Shamelessly stealing from Reddit:

I also wonder how much his time as assistant head coach in NO helped. Campbell was never an OC or a DC, but he had a stretch as an interim HC and 5 years as an assistant HC. Now, obviously I'm just some old dude on the internet, not a member of any NFL front office and certainly not an owner. But I wonder sometimes if teams are too often swayed by the success an OC or DC has. The skills to run an offense or a defense obviously have some overlap with running a full NFL team, but there's also lots and lots of parts that don't overlap. Now of course the odd thing here is that AG seemed like the type of guy who had some of those skill that an HC needs (aka the whole: "Leader of Men" thing).

A game manager is a person who manages the game.

Remember 2003? Charles Rogers breaks his collar bone during a bye week practice?

With this win Dan Campbell is now 44-30-1 as Lions head coach. He has sole possession of 5th place in total wins by Lions head coaches. Based on winning percentage he's now 4th all time among Lions HCs:

While I'm not ready to fire Morton, I do think he hasn't been fantastic. In fairness the DL of the Bucs is very good, but there doesn't seem to be much creativity in this game. Way too many runs up the middle and that line stuffed too many of them. I'd like to see more play action and/or runs outside. Especially at the end of the game... I mean running the ball for kill clock and force TB to use TOs WAS the right call, but why not try something a little outside instead of right up the middle?