idle thoughts.....I mean....really....idle thoughts

mgteich · Nov 2, 2012

Some nil coaches, even now, think that rugby players have the skills for nfl football.

OMGWTFJUDD said:
Just on point 7.

You are right that logistically a UK based NFL side would be a nightmare.

But id be less concerned about the watering down of talent, such has happened in the NHL.

Ice Hockey has a skill set that is held by a minute Number of people around the globe and it's also a skill set you can't just "pick up" in a few years. (plus it's a **** sport, sorry)

In US football the different skill sets required to play differing positions are much broader and , to me at least, much more tranferable and simpler to learn. Apart from QB.

Running, blocking, tackling and catching are skills that already exist in a number of sports or could be picked up through intense practice.

Eventually, the UK team would have "home grown" representatives and remember they would not just be drawing on UK players but there's a very real likelihood of players coming from all over Europe.

I don't know how much international BBall you guys watch, but size won't be a problem. I don't know what they put in the water but Lithuanians, Croations and Russians are HUGE!

Sure, a lot of players will still need to come from the US for a long time but eventually the traffic may well start going the other way..

captain stone · Nov 3, 2012

ausbacker said:
Gregory is being talked up more than McCourty is talked down.

And for the life of me, I don't understand why.
I never bought the line that Gregory/Wilson were the answers to our problems at FS.
What we need is a 4-down Safety who could be paired with Chung during running situations,
and with Gregory/Wilson during passing situations, and who could thereby hide the deficiencies
of his lesser-talented partners.

UK_Pat37 · Nov 3, 2012

patfanken said:
7. I can't see a franchise in London working until they can put an entire division over there. The logistics would just be too unfair. Besides would you really want to see more than 32 teams in the league. What would happen to the talent level. We've see what over expand gets you.....the NHL

8. Interesting bye week hypothetical - Brian Waters calls up Bill and says he's in great shape and dying to play the rest of the season for a Million Dollars. Your reply would be........

The logistics aren't really that unfair. If you rotate a west coats team so that they hit Europe, the east coast and then back around home, it's really not that much of a travel issue. Likelihood is it would be off the back of or leading into a bye week. The logistical issues are overrated. For an east coast game, it's slightly longer than a trip out west but really not that much different than flying out to somewhere like Seattle. Teh fact every team has a Thursday night game could mean they hit their London game after that. As I said, the logistical issues are overrated. The biggest issue is the difference in things like tax policy and how the NFL will comply with it compared to your system.

I do think they may consider two European teams and tap in to somewhere like Germany, where FYI, American football is much bigger...especially being played at an amateur level.

As for Waters...no. I'm not sure he's interested anyway.

VJCPatriot · Nov 3, 2012

I think that McCourty stays at Free Safety until we can get warm bodies back there who have a clue on how to cover. A CB tandem of McCourty and Talib looks good on paper, I"ll give you that. But as long as the Safety play hurts us, McCourty is going to be stuck back there for a while.

With Chung and Gregory finally getting healthy, we might see more snaps for them. But honestly does anybody have confidence in these guys getting the job done? Chungs struggles in coverage have been widely documented and Gregory hasn't covered himself in glory either.

Look at it another way which lineup gives you a better chance to win:

CBs: Talib, McCourty, Dennard, Arrington
S: Chung, Gregory, Wilson

or

CBs: Talib, Dennard, Arrington
S: McCourty, Wilson, Chung, Gregory

[Starters in bold]

I'm not even sure of the answer to that yet, but I think you want to keep Chung and Gregory OFF the field as much as possible.

As for the Waters scenario. NOT GONNA HAPPEN! But I think BB would take him back in a heartbeat. He's way more talented than any other of our interior linemen not named Logan Mankins.

RobertWeathers · Nov 3, 2012

VJCPatriot said:
I think that McCourty stays at Free Safety until we can get warm bodies back there who have a clue on how to cover. A CB tandem of McCourty and Talib looks good on paper, I"ll give you that. But as long as the Safety play hurts us, McCourty is going to be stuck back there for a while.

With Chung and Gregory finally getting healthy, we might see more snaps for them. But honestly does anybody have confidence in these guys getting the job done? Chungs struggles in coverage have been widely documented and Gregory hasn't covered himself in glory either.

Look at it another way which lineup gives you a better chance to win:

CBs: Talib, McCourty, Dennard, Arrington
S: Chung, Gregory, Wilson

or

CBs: Talib, Dennard, Arrington
S: McCourty, Wilson, Chung, Gregory

[Starters in bold]

I'm not even sure of the answer to that yet, but I think you want to keep Chung and Gregory OFF the field as much as possible.

Whatever combination best prevents the 20+ yard pass is what I am in favor for. Personally, I'd like to see Dennard and Talib as the CBs with Chung & McCourty as the safeties with Chung playing closer to the line and have Arrington/Wilson/Moore/Gregory in your nickle/dime.

Chung and Arrington need to raise their games though...

furry · Nov 3, 2012

patfanken said:
7. I can't see a franchise in London working until they can put an entire division over there. The logistics would just be too unfair. Besides would you really want to see more than 32 teams in the league. What would happen to the talent level. We've see what over expand gets you.....the NHL

8. Interesting bye week hypothetical - Brian Waters calls up Bill and says he's in great shape and dying to play the rest of the season for a Million Dollars. Your reply would be........

Get rid of the Jags as nobody watches them anyway, move the cowboys into AFC South and London into NFC East

Bigger question is who would support them. I've been a Pats fan since the late 80s when I first visited Boston and a huge NFL fan over all that time.

I would follow London out of curiosity but I wouldn't make the 8 hour drive 8 times a season, I'd save the money and take 2 trips to Gillette a year rather than just 1.

From the look around the crowds at my two Wembley game there are many many people who feel the same. I'm curious to see how they manage to sell two games next year before we even talk about a franchise.

On Waters, my response would be we'll send the plane

Patsfanin Philly · Nov 3, 2012

furry said:
Get rid of the Jags as nobody watches them anyway, move the cowboys into AFC South and London into NFC East

It will never happen. Look at the most valuable franchises in the NFL. Along with the Patriots, it's Dallas, Wash, NYG and Philly. Jerry Jones is not about to give up those rivalries for Tampa Bay, Carolina, NO and Atlanta...

furry · Nov 3, 2012

Patsfanin Philly said:
It will never happen. Look at the most valuable franchises in the NFL. Along with the Patriots, it's Dallas, Wash, NYG and Philly. Jerry Jones is not about to give up those rivalries for Tampa Bay, Carolina, NO and Atlanta...

I was being hypothetical / sarcastic

I agree it will never happen that way

mgteich · Nov 3, 2012

Move London into the AFC East and Miami into the NFC South. After all, Kraft is supporting this idea.

Patsfanin Philly said:
It will never happen. Look at the most valuable franchises in the NFL. Along with the Patriots, it's Dallas, Wash, NYG and Philly. Jerry Jones is not about to give up those rivalries for Tampa Bay, Carolina, NO and Atlanta...

Brady'sButtBoy · Nov 3, 2012

I had forgotten all about Demps. If you think of him as our 4th round pick next year (and Ballard as our 5th rounder) it makes it easier to see why BB would be willing to trade the pick for Talib. At this point, Demps in fact is a little more likely than the average 4th rounder to succeed in the NFL - BB had a peek at the kid in camp and in preseason, so he must a have at least a bit better idea whether Demps will pan out.

I agree with patfranken, I wouldn't give up on McCourty as a CB yet. He's good at safety but if he even has the chance to be an above average CB then McCourty needs to play there until it's proven finally that he is not.

To me, Wilson has more potential at safety than many seem to think. He's made some bonehead plays but in general looks competent and is improving.

Gwedd · Nov 3, 2012

It would take 10-20 years but, ideally, the way to set up Football in Europe is to get them to their own 32-team league. Mirror the NFL for organization of the conferences, divisions, etc. Heck, make them by country if you need to to add to the rivalries.

Once that's in place, THEN you can have the 2 Superbowl winners face each other for a real world championship game. Talk about hype.......

But....... yeah. Likely not gonna happen but you never know.

patfanken · Nov 3, 2012

Comments on the comments:

1. My biggest problem with any expansion into Europe would be that expansion itself. I don't think the NFL should grow beyond its current 32 teams, and as far sending a current franchise over there, we need to find 2 teams to go to LA before we think about London. Besides there are only 2 teams that I can think of that one can even CONSIDER being good candidates to lose their teams, and those are Jacksonville and SD, and SD is a stretch.

2. On the other hand I can't get it out of my head how teams in a European division would grow quickly into such great rivalries. You think Boston and NYC hate each other. Try London and Paris. Berlin and Rome, etc. We don't have a clue about "rivalries" compared to the Europeans we are novices.

3.Brady's butboy gets my point. With guys like Demps, Ballard, Larsen, etc, the Pats have stockpiled several promising prospects who might become one of the 15-20 new Patriots next year and add some very low cost new blood. We are certainly not likely to draft anyone in the mid rounds who is going to be a better LB/STer than Dane Fletcher

Like I've said the draft is critical to your long term team building on a sound economic model, but if a smart team can easily overcome a year or two when you either don't have the numbers or the success you would like through other methods. If you think of Demps and Ballard as replacing those mid round picks, you will feel instantly better.

Dragda · Nov 3, 2012

patfanken said:
On the surface, Don, that makes sense. McCourty was brought up in a zone system at Rutgers and played mostly zone in his first year. Over the last 2 years he's had to play more man coverage and zone coverages that require him to use the trail technique. In 2011 he didn't do well in man, and while improving this season, clearly he isn't what you'd call a man to man specialist.

I went back and watched all the long completions (10+ yds) in 2011 in the all-22 film. Almost every long play was against our zone defense. I didn't look at all the plays to contrast to see if they played man a lot or not.

The zone defense burnt most frequently--which we still seem to be using--is one deep safety and one shallow safety. One or both of the safeties is out of position due to teams adjusting their routes.

Maybe if we played man under and deep zone or mix things up a bit we'd have more success.

I haven't spent much time looking at film this year because I am traveling so much and the Game Rewind takes too much bandwidth for hotel internet.

UK_Pat37 · Nov 3, 2012

patfanken said:
Comments on the comments:

1. My biggest problem with any expansion into Europe would be that expansion itself. I don't think the NFL should grow beyond its current 32 teams, and as far sending a current franchise over there, we need to find 2 teams to go to LA before we think about London. Besides there are only 2 teams that I can think of that one can even CONSIDER being good candidates to lose their teams, and those are Jacksonville and SD, and SD is a stretch.

2. On the other hand I can't get it out of my head how teams in a European division would grow quickly into such great rivalries. You think Boston and NYC hate each other. Try London and Paris. Berlin and Rome, etc. We don't have a clue about "rivalries" compared to the Europeans we are novices.

3.Brady's butboy gets my point. With guys like Demps, Ballard, Larsen, etc, the Pats have stockpiled several promising prospects who might become one of the 15-20 new Patriots next year and add some very low cost new blood. We are certainly not likely to draft anyone in the mid rounds who is going to be a better LB/STer than Dane Fletcher

Like I've said the draft is critical to your long term team building on a sound economic model, but if a smart team can easily overcome a year or two when you either don't have the numbers or the success you would like through other methods. If you think of Demps and Ballard as replacing those mid round picks, you will feel instantly better.

Is it two or three franchises LA have sent down the pan? They've had enough chances. Give someone else a go.

Great point about rivalries. Whilst I think a European division is unlikely...for now...it would be interesting! The German/English soccer rivalry is huge...I think a London/Berlin rivalry would be extreme.

I see them putting one of the 32 franchises in London first...then they may test out other markets like Germany. The NFL would make unbelievable amounts of money there.

Patsfanin Philly · Nov 3, 2012

mgteich said:
Move London into the AFC East and Miami into the NFC South. After all, Kraft is supporting this idea.

If you're assuming that Jax is the likely candidate to move to London, adding them to the AFC East and moving Miami to the NFC South makes sense. Then you take the Saints and put them in the AFC South (replacing JAX) with Indy, Tenn and Houston....
It's not like teams haven't switched conferences before. Clev, Pitt and the Colts were all in the NFC before the merger. Seattle was once in the AFC West and Tampa Bay was also there for a short period of time.

JoeSixPat · Nov 3, 2012

Nice Post.

These are far from idle thoughts - they're the key to the rest of the season in many ways

The Gregory injury had much more of an impact than most fans thought - when he was signed it didn't get much attention, but he's clearly one of our best players and playing without him has had a significant domino effect.

Adding Talib helps limit the ongoing domino effect - but more importantly, the Patriots now have a guy they can assign to cover the best WR on the other team and can expect him to generally get the job done.

That's HUGE in so many aspects of the game - not the least of which is stopping big plays and third down conversions.

gomezcat · Nov 3, 2012

Great stuff, Ken, as always. I went to the Wembley game last week and, as I posted elsewhere, thought that the secondary mostly played well; once the result of the game was beyond doubt, I spent more time watching the D and they made Bradford/Clemens really work for their completions.

Re games in London- I personally DON'T think that the NFL is actually thinking of a London franchise any time soon. The NFL, for the most part, is extremely well run in commercial terms and they will know that a Franchise isn't remotely sustainable at the moment.

I think the purpose of the games at Wembley has been to get more people interested in Football, which it has done, and therefore more revenue through TV, merchandising etc etc etc. The arguments against a team in London have been done a lot and I won't repeat them here.

Joker · Nov 3, 2012

They should hold the next game in Oslo ,Sweden....get them Swedish chicks interested in tight ends....

Mike the Brit · Nov 3, 2012

gomezcat said:
The arguments against a team in London have been done a lot and I won't repeat them here.

Well, since it's the bye week, I will ...

Ridiculous travel
Taxation You'd have a much worse version of the state income tax issue that there is now.
Employment law/anti-monopoly There's no way that the salary cap and draft would be legal in the UK
Dilution Either you expand the number of franchises or you move one. Either you bring another mouth to the table or you take one from a less profitable location -- but why assume that London will be MORE profitable?
PEDs

The main argument for:

Global Brands It's sad if your main sponsors are domestic beers and domestic airlines. But global brands want a global product. That's the NFL's main limit. It's dominant in the U.S. but can't get past that.

BUT!!!!

It's perfectly possible to expand the interest in the game globally but keep the franchises in the USA. It's about broadcasting (including the internet) and merchandising -- both of which are hopeless outside the U.S.

italia44 · Nov 3, 2012

Joker said:
They should hold the next game in Oslo ,Sweden....get them Swedish chicks interested in tight ends....

I could be wrong,joker,but I see you more as the "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"-type:yeahthat:http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTczNDk4NTQ0OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDAxMDgxNw@@._V1._SY317_.jpg

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