Scholarship table
Bears decline Trubisky’s fifth year option.
Four of the top five picks in 2017 didn't get their options picked up. Lots of really good players in that draft, too.
Here's an interesting article in The Athletic about this sportswriter's conversation with a young(ish) Donald Trump in 1984, when Trump owned the USFL's Generals and was trying to force a merger between the leagues.https://theathletic.com/1795905/2020/05/06/the-nfl-is-largely-a-myth-my-1984-conversation-with-donald-trump/?source=dailyemailI will respect The Athletics' paywall. It's a great site, and subscriptions are super-cheap. Anybody interested in sports should get a sub. But here is are my favorite 2 paragraphs to give folks a taste ...“The NFL is largely a myth,” he told me. “We have franchises right now that could beat most of the teams in the NFL — Birmingham, Michigan, the Generals, a couple of others. Pittsburgh has an excellent team. The NFL used to scoff at the AFL. They’ve done a great job perpetuating the myth.”For the record, the “excellent” Maulers finished their one and only season in the USFL with a 3-15 record. Birmingham’s quarterback was Cliff Stoudt, Michigan’s was Bobby Hebert, New Jersey’s was Brian Sipe. The Super Bowl in the 1984 NFL season featured San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana vs. Miami quarterback Dan Marino.
Here's an interesting article in The Athletic about this sportswriter's conversation with a young(ish) Donald Trump in 1984, when Trump owned the USFL's Generals and was trying to force a merger between the leagues.https://theathletic.com/1795905/2020/05/06/the-nfl-is-largely-a-myth-my-1984-conversation-with-donald-trump/?source=dailyemailI will respect The Athletics' paywall. It's a great site, and subscriptions are super-cheap. Anybody interested in sports should get a sub. But here are my favorite 2 paragraphs to give folks a taste ...“The NFL is largely a myth,” he told me. “We have franchises right now that could beat most of the teams in the NFL — Birmingham, Michigan, the Generals, a couple of others. Pittsburgh has an excellent team. The NFL used to scoff at the AFL. They’ve done a great job perpetuating the myth.”For the record, the “excellent” Maulers finished their one and only season in the USFL with a 3-15 record. Birmingham’s quarterback was Cliff Stoudt, Michigan’s was Bobby Hebert, New Jersey’s was Brian Sipe. The Super Bowl in the 1984 NFL season featured San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana vs. Miami quarterback Dan Marino.
Everything Trump Touches Dies as the USFL has shown us. Pete Rozelle didn’t want him in the NFL. Jeff Pearlman’s book covers this pretty well. The league had a good initial plan but it went haywire pretty quick and was accelerated when Trump bought the Generals
Jeff Pearlman's book, Football for a Buck, is an awesome history of the USFL (my first pro football game was a USFL game, the Michigan Panthers, who still have more playoff wins than the Lions since 1958) and how Trump killed the league. The letter the Tampa Bay Bandits owner sent to Trump is a phenomenal takedown of him:https://jeffpearlman.com/one-mans-letter-to-donald-trump/
Sounds like Earl Thomas should have stayed home.
Run over by a train in Derrick Henry then caught...never mind
Pretty good list. I’d only change a couple guys. Offensive line was probably the easiest unit to pick.
Good thing I remembered Rich Moran. Otherwise I had Leotis Harris there and that is a pretty big dropoff.Hardest were the second running back (Terdell Middleton had one good year. MacArthur Lane wasn't bad either) and second receiver. (Jefferson was a flashy guy but wasn't as productive as Epps.)Probably the best to be left off the list was either Ken Ellis or TE Rich McGeorge.
Lane would be my change on offense.
Watching Bundesliga this morning. If the NFL doesn't have fans in the stands, I hope that Fox doesn't pump in fake crowd noise like Joe Buck said they were considering.No crowds is strange. But no crowds with crowd noise would be worse.
It would make sense for the NFL though, IMO. Soccer and basketball have near constant action. So there is plenty of chatter and player communication bouncing about. So it works. The NFL would have these prolonged dead periods with no noise in between plays
So, to make it really realistic, do you pump in the kind of noise that fans would make?When the road team is trying to pick up a 4th-and-1, do you pump in such a loud din that the offense can't hear signals and offensive linemen commit procedure penalties?