Sunday Football Fever

Ok, not really, but these are pretty funny.  ESPN has redone some of the NFL logos to reflect their week one performance.

Check them out here!

Some of them are quite clever, like the crying Patriot and the Falcon trying to crack out of its shell.

Which was your favorite?

Filed under: Humor

Tags: atlanta falcons, logos, new england patriots

Tom Brady is out for the season.

It’ll be interesting to see how Matt Cassel handles this new role, having only thrown 33 passes in college and having only attempted 39 passes in the NFL prior to this season.  My guess is that he won’t be given much of a chance, since the Pats have Chris Simms and Tim Rattay set up for tryouts this week.  Really though, this just means that the Patriots won’t be near the juggernaut that they were last year.

But on the upside, Brady now gets to spend more time with Gisele Bundchen.

Filed under: Injuries, Player News

Tags: chirs simms, matt cassel, new england patriots, tim rattay, tom brady

Tom Brady says he’s ready to go for this Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs.  In fact, Brady said he “could have played in all four exhibition games”, but apparently decided to rest instead.  Probably a wise decision.

This is obviously good news for the Patriots.  As I heard on PTI last night: The Patriots without Tom Brady are like… the Kansas City Chiefs.  Since he’s started 127 straight games, it’s hard to know for sure if that’s accurate, but it sounds about right to me.

Filed under: Player News

Tags: kansas city chiefs, new england patriots, tom brady

The Boston Globe highlights a handful of rule changes for the upcoming NFL season.  Their article is largely about how the Patriots will deal with the changes (they’re a Boston paper, after all), but the changes are interesting.

• The “force out” ruling on sidelines catches is gone. In the past referees could rule that a player would have come down inbounds if he hadn’t been forced out of bounds.  Now you need two feet on the ground inbounds, period.  If the defender forces you out on your way down, too bad.
• The 5-yard incidental facemask penalty is gone. It’s either a 15-yarder or nothing.
• Instant reply on field-goal and extra-point attempts. This is certainly a result of Phil Dawson’s bizarre field goal against the Ravens last year.  It cleared the crossbar, then hit the curved part of the support bar, then bounced back over the crossbar.  It was initially ruled no good, but then the officials correctly changed that ruling.  It was a nice job by the officials, but it was silly that they weren’t allowed to use the replay on it.  Now they can.
• Teams can designate two defensive players to have radios in their helmets, but only one of them can be on the field at a time.

All in all, I like the changes.  The first two help to remove some arbitrary calls from the refs and make things more cut-and-dried, while the others are just standard steps forward.

The season is getting close!

Filed under: League News

Tags: boston globe, facemask, instant reply, new england patriots, rules