ironwasp
Rotational Player and Threatening Starter's Job
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For what they are worth, my thoughts on the Giants-Dolphins game at Wembley last night
+ It was an incredible thrill for me to be at an NFL regular season game; even a fairly poor one featuring one ordinary and one bad team that I have few feelings for. There is an enormous NFL following out here in the rest of the world, and last night felt like a real celebration of our love of the game. The atmosphere in the stadium was great from start to finish. Hats off to the two teams and the NFL for making a big effort throughout the week, and for having the courage to come out here. I sat there most of the night thinking how great it would be to see the Pats here (I know few of you would agree and I absolutely understand why) and I am now indescribably excited about visiting Foxborough for the Eagles game next month.
+ Those saying London is a poor choice because of the weather should understand that this is the first Sunday during the regular season that it has rained here. Any other week and the weather would have been great. That said, I have no idea why the powers that be chose not to close the roof. The weather (among other things) prohibited the game from being the spectacular affair the NFL and the fans would have wanted.
+ The 80,000 plus fans there last night formed a knowledgable crowd. I suspect it was a pretty hard core NFL crowd. You could hear from the noise that they knew exactly what was happening and why 98 per cent of the time. This is a marked difference from the exhibition games played here 20 years ago when nobody knew what the hell was going on.
+ The Dolphins are not a good team, but they are a courageous team. They were second best all night but hung in there until the end. The defense (helped by the weather and a pretty average performance from Eli and the Giants offense) stood up well. Jesse Chatman ran hard all night and the moment of the game was Ted Ginn Jr's great TD catch late on which gave the crowd what they really wanted to see. Ginn in particular seemed up for it all game long and was constantly urging the crowd to get behind the Dolphins, which mostly it did. I don't think the Dolphins will go 0-16.
+ The Cleo Lemon era there should not last long. The guy has no arm whatsoever. Without any sort of vertical passing attack it was pretty easy for the Giants to neuter the Dolphins. THat said, I think if Ronnie Brown had played last night, they would have won.
+ The Giants are not a team to fear particularly. Looking down the rest of our schedule you might mark that game out as a potential problem. But they didn't look that strong, and I think they'll struggle to beat good teams.
+ The NFL should NOT be tempted to bring the Superbowl here. It's an American original and belongs in the US, a festival day for the fans of the game over there. But I do hope we see another regular season game here before too long.
I know some other posters from here were at the game last night and I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.
+ It was an incredible thrill for me to be at an NFL regular season game; even a fairly poor one featuring one ordinary and one bad team that I have few feelings for. There is an enormous NFL following out here in the rest of the world, and last night felt like a real celebration of our love of the game. The atmosphere in the stadium was great from start to finish. Hats off to the two teams and the NFL for making a big effort throughout the week, and for having the courage to come out here. I sat there most of the night thinking how great it would be to see the Pats here (I know few of you would agree and I absolutely understand why) and I am now indescribably excited about visiting Foxborough for the Eagles game next month.
+ Those saying London is a poor choice because of the weather should understand that this is the first Sunday during the regular season that it has rained here. Any other week and the weather would have been great. That said, I have no idea why the powers that be chose not to close the roof. The weather (among other things) prohibited the game from being the spectacular affair the NFL and the fans would have wanted.
+ The 80,000 plus fans there last night formed a knowledgable crowd. I suspect it was a pretty hard core NFL crowd. You could hear from the noise that they knew exactly what was happening and why 98 per cent of the time. This is a marked difference from the exhibition games played here 20 years ago when nobody knew what the hell was going on.
+ The Dolphins are not a good team, but they are a courageous team. They were second best all night but hung in there until the end. The defense (helped by the weather and a pretty average performance from Eli and the Giants offense) stood up well. Jesse Chatman ran hard all night and the moment of the game was Ted Ginn Jr's great TD catch late on which gave the crowd what they really wanted to see. Ginn in particular seemed up for it all game long and was constantly urging the crowd to get behind the Dolphins, which mostly it did. I don't think the Dolphins will go 0-16.
+ The Cleo Lemon era there should not last long. The guy has no arm whatsoever. Without any sort of vertical passing attack it was pretty easy for the Giants to neuter the Dolphins. THat said, I think if Ronnie Brown had played last night, they would have won.
+ The Giants are not a team to fear particularly. Looking down the rest of our schedule you might mark that game out as a potential problem. But they didn't look that strong, and I think they'll struggle to beat good teams.
+ The NFL should NOT be tempted to bring the Superbowl here. It's an American original and belongs in the US, a festival day for the fans of the game over there. But I do hope we see another regular season game here before too long.
I know some other posters from here were at the game last night and I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.