The 2013 NFL Preseason Thread
 

We should probably stop posting in the off-season thread considering how deep we are into the pre-season.

Dustin Keller did just about every injury you can do to a knee:

Dustin Keller (knee) out for Miami Dolphins' season - NFL.com

Ouch.

Goodness.

apparently Von Miller will be banned for 6 games. no ideas what he may have done.

Wow, the Broncos are getting hammered this preseason.

Pot. Despite the "NFL Source" that says otherwise.

The Niners and Chiefs swapped underperforming (in the Niners' case, non-performing) 1st round pick WRs today, with Jon Baldwin heading west for A.J. Jenkins.

Heh, shades of Jon Avery and Marcus Nash. That worked out. (Yes, I'm still bitter) Though I think Avery got to play a little in the XFL, so that's nice.

http://www.phins.com/news99/News_9909221036.html

A guy at work mentioned this trade at lunch and I was sort of confused. Baldwin's been bad...but that's only because he has a body of work to judge him bad at. Jenkins has nothing.

So did anyone see Pam Oliver get drilled in the face with the football last night?

Yeah I think all things considered you at least want the guy with the physical attributes to be decent. Jenkins has been nothing except a very puzzling pick from a front office that is usually very good (and off the top of my head I think there were still many higher rated WR on the board at the time)

Yeah. Almost seemed intentional.

How enjoyable is football when you cringe after every play anticipating someone getting hurt?

Not sure if this belongs in the season thread but if media reports are accurate (big if) sounds like Hernandez is really boned. They found the gun used in the 2012 double homicide and the girl involved sounds like she hasnt id'd him by name but was given it to hold on to "for a football player". Wonder what he's going to get for triple homicide?

This is interesting: Google CEO Larry Page Discusses TV Package with NFL Head Roger Goodell - Peter Kafka - Media - AllThingsD

Google looking into buying NFL Sunday Ticket rights and broadcasting it on YouTube. Of course one consideration for the NFL is that doing so may reduce the price that CBS & FOX are willing to pay for TV broadcast rights (esp since I can stream YouTube on my TV and so can many others)

I think you're leaping to conclusions, especially with the bolded part. I would imagine any such deal would include provisions requiring Google to block Sunday Ticket from being accessed on TV's without paying a higher premium. The NFL is looking to boost its revenue stream by adding an Internet component and cutting into its TV revenue stream to do so would be counterproductive.

I'm no techie...can you really block the ability to send video over a cable?

edit: Ah I see. You're talking Smart TV-like built in apps.

I don't know if that's possible. Maybe they could make Chromecast not pick it up from a Android tablet/phone, but it can easily be done by mirroring your Chrome browser tab.

Couldn't you also just run YouTube on your computer and hook your computer up to your TV and watch it like that?

Detroit fans, any thoughts on Joe Fauria making the Lions? He was a terrific mismatch at UCLA with his size and terrific hands, and I was surprised he wasn't drafted. I heard he's making it difficult to cut him and that the Lions may end up cutting Scheffler instead of Fauria.

Is he related to Christian Fauria?

Which is basically the same thing, only sans wires ;).

There has been a lot of buzz around him, especially recently. The Lions will keep 3 tight ends. Pettigrew (for better or worse) is a lock. After him there's Scheffler, 7th round pick Michael Williams, who is definitely more of a blocking TE than a receiver and then Fauria. Fauria is currently the 4th TE.

Scheffler has seen very, very limited action in the pre-season. Only a handful of snaps. Fauria has seen a lot more action and has been pretty impressive during practice. It's possible Fauria could be out Williams as well, if the Lions think they can get away without a blocking TE. (Williams was essentially brought in to replace Will Heller.)

I think the Lions like his size. He definitely has a shot.

Yeah, it'd be pretty easy to do. I've done the same with NFL Game Pass on my TV for what I've watched of the preseason so far.

An update on this. Fauria had a pretty good game tonight. He did get hit with a chop block penalty, but he ended up with 3 catches for 44 yards and a touchdown. This was all in the second half with the first stringers were out, but it was a positive sign.

Also, the third string TE, Michael Williams, injured his hand. Not sure how serious.


Apparently he's his nephew.

You can hook an iPad directly up to a tv through HDMI or stream to an Apple TV through AirPlay. The NFL probably views the direct tv deal as a cap on potential revenue with its tiny subscription base. I'll bet Google or even Apple or MSFT pays a lot more for the rights.

That new WR Detroit got named Reggie Bush seems really good. :D

Tebow not playing in a 40-9 blowout loss is probably not a good sign.

I think Kellen Moore can be a Chad Pennington type QB. He's very accurate. Joique Bell might be the better runner out of the backfield for the Lions, they ought to just make Reggie a WR/RB hybrid like Harvin and solve their problem of finding a guy to play opposite Johnson.

Also, Luke Kuechly is looking like one of those players that makes a huge difference for a long time. Made Flacco look real bad on some throws.

How would you even...? Most TVs anymore have a VGA in. It would be the simplest thing in the world to hook a laptop up, and then there's even cats like me who use our TVs as a PC monitor.

About the only way you could block it (maybe) would be Smart TVs, put a block in the app.

Looking at the boxscores from last night... Carolina scored 34 points last night, on a punt return, two interception returns, one fumble return, and two field goals. Kinda crazy.

The NFL's major Sunday afternoon TV partners, Fox and CBS, have expressed discomfort with Sunday Ticket becoming widely available. Their fear is that if people have lots of games from which to choose, then they will flip over to those games during beer commercials, driving down the price they can charge for those spots.

I think that there is also something in that mix about it being more valuable for people to be watching the local affiliates and commercials than the national affiliates, but JonInMidGA or someone who understands that better can confirm or deny that.

Basically, I can see a world where Sunday Ticket is no longer exclusive to DirecTV, but I think that it is not as simple as selling those rights to the highest bidder. The big dogs (i.e. the Sunday afternoon broadcast partners) will have to be happy with any arrangement.

The benefit is mostly in the sense of affiliate relations as far as I can think of.

{tries to think of another angle} Local breaks in NFL games are always filled with local spots, so there's no additional spots for the network or anything. That money stays local, nothing there. National network makes its coin on the commercial inventory it sells, that inventory would actually increase on a national feed they had 100% control of.

Yeah, I'm thinking affiliate relations.

I had thought they were cousins, but nephew works.

That's terrific (about Fauria playing well). I really thought he had a good chance to make an impact for an NFL team, so it was pretty surprising to me that he didn't get drafted. His blocking deficiencies would have kept him from being a higher end draft pick, but a strong receiving TE with that kind of size and pretty good athleticism? I would have thought someone would have used a 6th round pick on him or something like that.

Well, it's a good sign for Patriots fans.

I straight up turned that game off after like...the first offensive possession (if you can call it that) of the 2nd half.

Preseason and all...good to get those kinks worked out now, but no reason I have to sit and watch it.

I would not put too much stock in it if Tebow plays significant minutes in the last one. It's the 3rd preseason game so Brady is going to get his maximum preseason snaps. I think it is clear that Mallet is the 2nd QB so it makes sense to give him a good, long outing. In the past, Belicheck has featured one backup QB in one game and then played the other significant minutes in the next.

All that said... I'm still not sure why Tebow is around.

Almost all of that was caused by Kuechly.

BLOCKBUSTER TRADE!!

Backup OLB Adrian Robsinson to the Eagles
Felix Jones to the Steelers

Chances that either of these guys is on the roster in 4 works?


Jones might make sense if Pittsburgh didn't already like 4 mediocre RBs to split time until (if?) Bell gets healthy.

The fact that the Steelers even made the effort to trade for a "mediocre RB" in Jones when they have the depth of mediocrity that they do suggests to me they don't share your opinion of Jones.

Which means he probably has a legit shot at starting until Bell gets healthy or he gets hurt (guarantee the second option is much more likely).

I like Jones to the Stillers, actually.

KEEKS!!!!!:D

Bell's foot must be pretty bad.

Kind of surprised they didn't go to Willis McGahee though. He seems like the perfect Steeler type RB.

I love Kuechly, hopefully he can avoid the injury problems Carolina's last two MLB's were ravaged by (Dan Morgan/Jon Beason)

Actually, reports are that Bell's foot isn't as bad as they feared. It's not a full Lis Franc injury like MJD had last year or DMC two years ago. I have heard six weeks as the prognosis. If that presumes the first two weeks are preseason as well, he might be back by Week 5.

As of yesterday, they are only officially ruling Bell out of tomorrow night's game vs KC (preseason #3).

Bell will not have surgery, just resting this week, and, per Tomlin, not ruling him out for final preseason game and/or week 1 vs Tennessee

The crazy thing is he looks like he is improved significantly over last season. Might be the next dominant MLB, potentially up there with Lewis and Urlacher. I hope he stays healthy too, just because I like seeing great players play.

I agree with you in the sense that NFL rights are not a rational economic market. However, if a bidder were willing to make an over the top bid that made the economics a non-discussion point, I bet the NFL's tune would change. Any one of the tech companies could easily outmuscle one of the networks purely from an available cash perspective. If Google gets involved, it could make for some very interesting stories.

Packers an injury away.....
 

.....from having Vince Young as their starting QB.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap100...leased-by-pack