Are you guys saying you miss the replacement refs? :awe:
As for the QB discussion, Kaepernick is inconsistent (was definitely terrible against the Bears, did him and Cutler switch bodies during the game or something?), but he's still a very young QB (not sure why people are comparing him to guys in like their 10th seasons) and his play still averages out ok. I don't think he's wildly inconsistent overall either. Guess maybe it's because of Russell Wilson, although I also have to ask, why no mention of Luck?
Oh, and Kaepernick's huge contract is so incentive laden that there's very little chance he'd actually make all of it. Same with Dalton. The numbers look big but their actual pay likely won't be where people think it is, unless they're playing very well, in which case, they kinda earned it. Very different deals to the huge guaranteed contracts a lot of others have gotten.
As for guys like Bradford and Stafford, aren't they still on their rookie contracts? Stafford got an extension I believe, but he's also been consistent in putting up big numbers (which I think is overrated, especially considering Calvin Johnson, but hey better that than the QB carousel the Lions were doing before that...). But both of them are still young and have had a bunch of injuries, and Stafford has shown some promise. That's why they've got the huge guarantees.
The real mind blowing deals were Cutler, Romo, and Flacco.
Flacco had the Ravens in the perfect position. Coming off an excellent playoffs and a ring, plus the Ravens looked like they'd lose a lot of their defensive luster. They'd have had to pay big anyway (they would've had to franchise him to make him hold off, and they'd still have been giving him a big contract unless he'd gotten hurt). No idea what the Bears and Cowboys were thinking though, but then that's kinda why both of them have the reputations they developed. I could maybe see the Cowboys view as Romo has put up pretty good numbers over his career, but he's always had weird inconsistent play. Most of the time he's fine, but then he'll go on stretches where he's the joke of the league, and then he'll have a stretch where he plays about as well as anyone (or maybe it's the reverse). Isn't there even almost a meme about his play in November and December? Romo and Eli Manning really remind me of each other for some reason. Eli's stretches of good and bad tend to be season long though. Maybe that's why Dallas thinks Romo is worth it, if Eli has 2 rings...
I wish the Bears would sign Sexy Rexy to be backup to Cutler. :biggrin:
Actually, the only QB that's been mostly consistent the last couple of years is Peyton, unfortunately for him he still has his bad games at the worst times. Even Rodgers and Brees have been relatively wonky (both still very good, but not quite to the levels from even a couple of years back). Well Gabbert who was consistently total shit. And RGIII and Bradford consistently being injured.
It didn't take the Ray Rice thing for people to feel that way about him. He's been doing that for years. I remember one game where during the national anthem he teared up right as he started looking into the camera (I googled it and it wasn't the one from 2013 that is all over Google, it was a different one, it looked like he was looking around for the camera and then spotted it, looked right at it and squeezed out a tear). Looked phony as hell and he really just comes off as a fake person, reminds me of televangelists and politicians.
The Ravens as an organization are so full of shit it's not even funny. They act like they always cared and just didn't know (which is total fucking bullshit) how bad the beating was until they saw the video (which them not having seen it before was likely also bullshit, or at best ridiculous gross negligence on their part). Along with Ray Lewis at best covering up a double murder, Terrell Suggs has had 3 instances of domestic violence and they've done jack shit about it. One of them involved him shoving her onto the ground, holding her down, and pouring bleach on her while she was holding their baby son.
I did get a kick out of one of the shitty blog sites writing an article talking about how the Steelers were the epitome of class and the standard for the NFL after they were asked about it. Nevermind that they've had a bunch of players with similar issues (not to mention all the on field shit).
https://sports.yahoo.com/news/steelers-still-show-organizational-standard-111136083.html
Oh and "class" from the Steelers involved guys like Ben Roethlisberger (yeah, he's been nothing but a total class act...but I love the typical "we pray for them, and we've got a game so that's all I'm gonna talk about") or Troy Polamalu saying he couldn't judge the guy and that he's probably worse. I don't believe he even condemned what Rice did, just said it's not his place to judge. Which is either him basically saying "yeah I've done stuff like that too" or he has no actual guts to do anything about such clearly wrong things as that. Total class though. Hell even one of the players that lost his mother over domestic violence didn't condemn it, just said he prayed for them and wants to get Rice help. That's a nice thought, but I don't know, when Rice just blames it on him drinking hard alcohol that night and so he's totally changing, he's going to lay off the hard liquor from now on, I don't know, seems like Rice isn't getting the point so I don't think praying is the kind of help Rice needs.
Or how about Ron Rivera saying how we should remember that Greg Hardy is going through such a hard time. Then get him fucking help instead of defending him constantly, then deactivating him and starting out by pointing out the focus is football ("I want to remind you we played a game today." was the first thing out of his mouth even though Carolina had told reporters he would address it after the game so they were obviously wanting to know what the deal was and this has absolutely become a bigger issue than a single game).
That's one of the reasons the NFL is taking such a beating over this, just putting their head in the sand if not outright lying like they've done about every other fucking issue. "We're here for football!" That kind of response shows you clearly don't get it, and yet it's being echoed all over the NFL. Jovan Belcher murders his girlfriend. "It's sad, but we've got a game to play." "We've got players doing all sorts of shit, we don't care, we've got games to play."