2014 NFL Season

[LL!]

I may have lost to Maxx last night because Larry Fitzgerald was apparently too disgusting for Carson Palmer to look at, but the inaction of Larry Fitz actually won me another Fantasy game, so I'm not too upset.

[HC]

I may have lost to Maxx last night because Larry Fitzgerald was apparently too disgusting for Carson Palmer to look at, but the inaction of Larry Fitz actually won me another Fantasy game, so I'm not too upset.

Fitz' is old hat. It's all about Michael Floyd now man!

[DMN in the House]

Well the Giants game wasn't worth the wait. As awful as expected.

Winless for Winston it is!

It's 'Win None for Winston'.

[HC]

[Meacon Keaton]

I may have lost to Maxx last night because Larry Fitzgerald was apparently too disgusting for Carson Palmer to look at, but the inaction of Larry Fitz actually won me another Fantasy game, so I'm not too upset.

Fitz' is old hat. It's all about Michael Floyd now man!

It's always been about Michael Floyd! Go Irish!

[gunnar hendershow]

Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti has written a letter, essentially apologizing, to Ravens fans. He addressed it directly to season-ticket holders but it's really directed to everyone with any interest in the league as a whole.

Sept. 9, 2014

Dear Ravens Stakeholder:

You deserve an explanation.

What happened with the Ray Rice incident? How could it come to this? Why didn’t we act earlier?

As a PSL holder, suite owner, sponsor and supporter, you have a stake in us. You have invested in us – emotionally as well as financially, trusted us, and believed in us. We value that trust and owe you full disclosure.

First, let us say that we did not do all we should have done and no amount of explanation can remedy that. What we can do now is share with you everything that occurred and vow to learn from all that has happened.

Here is how the situation unfolded, and here are our thoughts behind the decisions we made.

On the morning of Feb. 15, we learned that Ray and his then fiancé, Janay, had been arrested at an Atlantic City casino, and both had been charged with “simple assault” resulting from an altercation with each other. After the couple was taken to police headquarters, and after a report was written, they were allowed to leave together.

A number of Ravens’ representatives talked with Ray during the course of that day. His explanation was that after he and Janay had consumed a great deal of alcohol, they had had an argument and that they struck each other.

We at the Ravens organization issued a statement to the media that we were aware of the incident, that we had talked with Ray, and that he deserved the due process of law.

We then began our own process to discover as much as we could about what happened. We talked with representatives of the casino, the police who arrested the couple, the prosecutor and a lawyer who represented both Ray and Janay in the case. Soon after, the video of Janay and Ray coming out of the elevator became public.

We contacted the casino management and asked if there was video of the incident from inside the elevator that we could see. The casino would not share such video. We asked the local New Jersey police and the police refused as well. We asked the prosecutor’s office and that office refused. It was our understanding at that time that Ray’s attorney had not yet seen the video. NFL officials had been informed, and we know they were also trying to retrieve and/or see the video.

Assessing the situation at of the end of February, this is what we knew: A player who had been a model citizen in the community and terrific teammate for six seasons had been charged with simple assault against his fiancé. At that time, his fiancé Janay had been similarly charged.

Ray and Janay both told us nothing like this had happened before. He was showing great remorse; they were meeting regularly with our team chaplain and were diligently attending couples counseling.

In March, the prosecutor dropped the case against Janay, but elevated the charge against Ray from simple assault to aggravated assault. At this point, we decided to defer action until completion of the court proceedings. We stopped seeking to view or obtain a copy of the video. We halted our fact-finding. That was a mistake on our part.

In May, the prosecutor recommended, and the judge agreed, that Ray should be accepted into a pre-trial intervention program that will eventually have the assault charge dismissed from his record, pending a year of good behavior.

The police had seen video from inside the elevator. The prosecutor and the judge, who had also seen such video, allowed Ray into the program that would eventually clear him of the assault charge.

On June 16, Ray and Janay met with Commissioner Roger Goodell, who then announced on July 27 that Ray Rice would be suspended for the first two games of the season. Ray subsequently met with the media and answered questions.

Yesterday morning Sept 8, all of us saw the video from inside the elevator. It is violent and horrifying. I immediately came to the office and called a meeting with Dick Cass, Ozzie Newsome, John Harbaugh and Kevin Byrne. The meeting was relatively short. The decision to let Ray Rice go was unanimous. Seeing that video changed everything. We should have seen it earlier. We should have pursued our own investigation more vigorously. We didn’t and we were wrong.

We are moving forward and believe we can help put more of a spotlight on intimate partner violence, while increasing education and awareness to this issue to all in our organization. Our recently announced partnership with the House of Ruth is a start.

We view ourselves as a family. Like families, we have used tough love in the past (fines, benching and releases) with repeat offenders. Because of his positive contributions on and off the field over the last six years, Ray had earned every benefit of the doubt from our organization. We took everything we knew and decided to support Ray Rice until we could not.

We hope that Ray will continue to work to be the best husband, father and person he can be, and he will turn this awful situation into something positive. We also have learned a great deal and will continue to strive to be an organization and team you and Baltimore will be proud of. I am sorry we let you down.

Sincerely,

Stephen J. Bisciotti

Owner, Baltimore Ravens

[HC]

No vote on the new drug policy tonight. Still hung up on DUI apparently. The NFL wants to be able to suspend a player 1 game after any DUI related incident, before a trial or anything, which obviously the Player's Union is against. God this is taking forever.

[Thrilla]

Well the Giants game wasn't worth the wait. As awful as expected.

Winless for Winston it is!

Watched the Giants/Lions last night, looks like it is going to be a long old season for the Giants, nothing seemed to be clicking at all. Lions looked good but I guess we will have to wait until they play a better team to get a true idea of how good they'll be. Golden Tate already looks like a great addition though. I don't like the Lions jerseys though, spent half the game thinking they'd drop a drink down the front of the top or something due to the colour difference.

[Meacon Keaton]

Golden Tate is always a great addition! Go Irish!

[The Buscher]

Still gotta pay Eli 17 mil for one more year too, so there's another top pick in 2016 for ya,

There'll be a clean out after this season if it goes as badly as expected but Eli will stick around for another year. New GM, new coach and new QB if the pick is good enough a top one. No problem having the new guy sit behing Eli as he plays out his last year in New York.

I love him and he'll always be loved for the two Superbowls but it sadly looks like his time is up.

I'm not sure Eli is truly "done", per se. The guy is only 33. He was horrendous last year, but their offensive line was one of the worst in football. He had to run for his life and force bad throws. And while 27 INTs is never a good number, I've never seen a team have so many balls bounce off of the receivers' hands and into the hands of the opposing team. Unfortunately this often gets overlooked because ESPN, etc. are just obsessed with the stat and don't really care about the circumstances behind it. If you watch a montage of the INTs, it's staggering. Like 15 of them were "clean" INTs which is still far too many, but he definitely got victimized by some really bad luck along the way. His biggest crime is when he throws off of his back foot...it leads to an interception 100% of the time yet he still does it.

But without an offensive line, he has zero chance anyway. It's one thing to throw a rookie or a guy with little experience into a scheme like this, but for a guy who has been in the league for over 10 years and has only known one system, it's very hard to ask him to forget everything he knows and start over. If the offense plays like this all year, McAdoo is most likely out the door after a year and they'll need to start all over again.

This might be a rough year for the Giants, but I would be floored if they get Winston, or Mariota for that matter. They might be bad but I don't see them being "top 5 pick in the draft" bad. And if Coughlin somehow survives another bad season, they won't take a QB at all. He and Eli are tied at the hip I think.

[gunnar hendershow]

I think Eli would benefit from a Kurt Warner or, now, Carson Palmer situation where he's going to QB a team that has a lot of pieces but is missing a QB. Assuming the Giants go into full rebuild mode that is. If I'm the Rams I make a big push to get him.

[livid]

Still gotta pay Eli 17 mil for one more year too, so there's another top pick in 2016 for ya,

There'll be a clean out after this season if it goes as badly as expected but Eli will stick around for another year. New GM, new coach and new QB if the pick is good enough a top one. No problem having the new guy sit behing Eli as he plays out his last year in New York.

I love him and he'll always be loved for the two Superbowls but it sadly looks like his time is up.

I'm not sure Eli is truly "done", per se. The guy is only 33. He was horrendous last year, but their offensive line was one of the worst in football. He had to run for his life and force bad throws. And while 27 INTs is never a good number, I've never seen a team have so many balls bounce off of the receivers' hands and into the hands of the opposing team. Unfortunately this often gets overlooked because ESPN, etc. are just obsessed with the stat and don't really care about the circumstances behind it. If you watch a montage of the INTs, it's staggering. Like 15 of them were "clean" INTs which is still far too many, but he definitely got victimized by some really bad luck along the way. His biggest crime is when he throws off of his back foot...it leads to an interception 100% of the time yet he still does it.

But without an offensive line, he has zero chance anyway. It's one thing to throw a rookie or a guy with little experience into a scheme like this, but for a guy who has been in the league for over 10 years and has only known one system, it's very hard to ask him to forget everything he knows and start over. If the offense plays like this all year, McAdoo is most likely out the door after a year and they'll need to start all over again.

This might be a rough year for the Giants, but I would be floored if they get Winston, or Mariota for that matter. They might be bad but I don't see them being "top 5 pick in the draft" bad. And if Coughlin somehow survives another bad season, they won't take a QB at all. He and Eli are tied at the hip I think.

They're definitely Top 5 bad. You don't let Detroit shoot themselves in the foot that many times and still let them win by 3 TDs.

[PatDaMan]

Still gotta pay Eli 17 mil for one more year too, so there's another top pick in 2016 for ya,

There'll be a clean out after this season if it goes as badly as expected but Eli will stick around for another year. New GM, new coach and new QB if the pick is good enough a top one. No problem having the new guy sit behing Eli as he plays out his last year in New York.

I love him and he'll always be loved for the two Superbowls but it sadly looks like his time is up.

I'm not sure Eli is truly "done", per se. The guy is only 33. He was horrendous last year, but their offensive line was one of the worst in football. He had to run for his life and force bad throws. And while 27 INTs is never a good number, I've never seen a team have so many balls bounce off of the receivers' hands and into the hands of the opposing team. Unfortunately this often gets overlooked because ESPN, etc. are just obsessed with the stat and don't really care about the circumstances behind it. If you watch a montage of the INTs, it's staggering. Like 15 of them were "clean" INTs which is still far too many, but he definitely got victimized by some really bad luck along the way. His biggest crime is when he throws off of his back foot...it leads to an interception 100% of the time yet he still does it.

But without an offensive line, he has zero chance anyway. It's one thing to throw a rookie or a guy with little experience into a scheme like this, but for a guy who has been in the league for over 10 years and has only known one system, it's very hard to ask him to forget everything he knows and start over. If the offense plays like this all year, McAdoo is most likely out the door after a year and they'll need to start all over again.

This might be a rough year for the Giants, but I would be floored if they get Winston, or Mariota for that matter. They might be bad but I don't see them being "top 5 pick in the draft" bad. And if Coughlin somehow survives another bad season, they won't take a QB at all. He and Eli are tied at the hip I think.

eeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh I think they're top 5 bad. You can't name many teams that looked worse this weekend. It's a shame cause McAdoo has been good with the Packers the past few years, but I guess most of that could've been McCarthy being a great coach, but Eli has looked absolutely miserable. I wouldn't be shocked if they finish 4-12.

[TCO]

Have to play the NFC West too, that certainly doesn't help things. The Rams game should be worth a watch for the sheer offensive ineptitude!

[gunnar hendershow]

I think the NFC East shakes out where a 9-7 or 8-8 Eagles team wins it, then you have Washington, Cowboys, and Giants all duking it out for the top pick.

[The Buscher]

The Giants looked like absolute shit but in general I take most things that happen week 1 with a grain of salt. I never thought they would make the playoffs this year, but I had them penciled in for 7-8 wins and a 2nd place finish before the year started. I still think the running game will be a strength for them, Detroit's run D was never going to make for a good debut for them. DRC looked horrific as well, but then again he was matched up against Megatron who makes everybody look foolish.

All told as bad as the offense looked it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually get it together from a passing standpoint, but much like last year it'll be one of those "too little too late" deals where they get a few wins that ultimately wind up being pointless and end up hurting their draft position as a result. Maybe the Giants pick near the bottom of the top 10 and settle for Hundley or something.

[DYSI]

It's just week 1 guys. Things happen and I doubt the Giants are going to be one of the bottom 5 teams in the league. I can still see a .500 season (which is looking great now) but it's all on the shoulders of our O-Line. If something clicks and we find the right combination then that would instantly benefit the run and pass. Our defensive was strong against the run and we have the talent to be a top pass defense, but our offensive just put them in bad spots constantly and it's not like we didn't play a Top 5 offense.

I could see a bad season but you gotta be optimistic!

Unless we get blown out Sunday.

[The Buscher]

I think the soonest I'll punt the season is week 4...when they play Joe Theismann's Former Team on Thursday Night Football. If the Giants can't beat them, they are cooked.

[Meacon Keaton]

More big news out of Baltimore...

http://www.sportspickle.com/2014/09/ravens-release-joe-flacco-seeing-video-playing-football

[DYSI]

More big news out of Baltimore...

http://www.sportspickle.com/2014/09/ravens-release-joe-flacco-seeing-video-playing-football

Looks like Josh McCown might come out of retirement.