NFL 2017

[Drachen596]

McDaniels agreed to be the new Indy coach and changed his mind. Remaining with New England.

I predict a Belichick and Brady retirement announcement during the off season.

[Freude am Fahren]

Yeah. Apparently part of McDaniel's staying is being more involved in head coach/GM matters like the cap and draft, which makes sense if they basically said, "stay and the team will be yours when Bill is done".

[G'day Mate]

So I don't know much about your American Throw-Ball but I got to looking at how the season is structured yesterday for some reason. Here's what stood out to me ...

- only 17 games in the season
- only play 13 out of 31 potential opponents
- only play some teams once every four years!

By contrast the AFL (Australian Football League) has a 22 game season with 18 teams, so you play 12 teams once and 5 teams twice in the season. There's some special rules as well that guarantee, for example, that the two teams from Adelaide will always play each other twice.

[Tom Servo]

17 weeks but 16 games, each team gets a bye week where they don't pay. And yeah, the focus is generally on your conference and your division. It does mean that you'll have the winners of some weak divisions make it into the playoffs, but ideally they get weeded out and the best team ends up winning.

[dodint]

And some days a team gets locked out of their own building and the Jags win.

[G'day Mate]

The other weird thing I found about the conferences (compared to NBA) is that they both seem to span the whole country. I would have though the LA Rams and Chargers and the New York Jets and Giants would play each other fairly often being local rivals but instead they're in different conferences so they only play every four years!

Also - is that Jags comment in reference to something that actually happened?

[JoshInKC]

I've no interest in football, and thus little to contribute, but if you think the nfl is weird, try to figure out the logic of the structure to our college football seasons/championship(s).

[dodint]

The Jags are one of the worst franchises in the league, in terms of fan support and on field success. That's why they play in London so much, they don't sell enough tickets to their home games.

The 'lock out' line was a joke. They beat two teams in the playoffs they probably shouldn't have, including mine because they mentally didn't show up.

Tidbit for you; the Jets and Giants play in the same stadium.

[G'day Mate]

I kind of know of the Jaguars reputation from watching "The Good Place". Didn't realise they had such a good year this year though!

I also find it hilarious that the worst team in the league is named the "Browns" - about the worst inoffensive name you could give a team - and they didn't win a single game this season

[dodint]

The Browns are criminally mismanaged.

The Browns were a team for a long time in Cleveland, they weren't always horrible. Then the owner decided to move the team because he couldn't get a free stadium. A few years after the Browns moved the new team, the Ravens, won the SuperBowl. The NFL expanded and gave Cleveland a new version of the Browns and they've been completely useless for close to two decades now.

It's sad, really. They're not even fun to make fun of. Just sad.

I watch hockey more than football. There are teams in the NHL that I hate and want completely contracted or moved to better cities, but they're not sad like the Browns. Or Cleveland, really.