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“Warded” Off, Hines Ward’s 14-year Tenure With Steelers Comes To An End
Hines Ward’s constant, ear-to-ear smile tucked behind a black facemask has been a lasting image for Pittsburgh Steelers fans the past 14 seasons.
They won’t see it again.
At least, not in a black-and-gold uniform.
The franchise’s all-time leader in just about every meaningful receiving category will be released sometime in the next two weeks said president Art Rooney II on the team’s website on Wednesday.
“We had a conversation today with Hines Ward and informed him that we plan to release him of his contract prior to the start of the 2012 NFL calendar year,” Rooney said. “Hines has been an integral part of our success since we drafted him in 1998, and we will forever be grateful for what he has helped us achieve.”
A four-time Pro Bowl selection and MVP of the 2006 Super Bowl, Ward will finish his Steelers career with 1,000 catches, 12,083 yards and 85 receiving touchdowns. He helped Pittsburgh to three AFC championships and a pair of Super Bowl wins. Read More >>
Deal Or No Deal? Franchise Tag Most Likely For Hawk’s Lynch.
The Seahawks have slightly more than a week remaining to get a deal done with free agent running back Marshawn Lynch. If the Seahawks and Lynch cannot come to terms on a new contract by March 5, the Seahawks have the option of tagging him their “franchise” player, which would virtually assure Seattle would retain Lynch’s services.
If the Seahawks apply the franchise tag to Lynch, any other team signing him to an offer sheet would have to compensate Seattle with a pair of first-round draft choices, absurd compensation, particularly for a running back, and especially for one already in the second half of his NFL career.
Seattle’s other option is to use the “transition” tag on Lynch. In this event, the Seahawks would not be entitled to draft picks if Lynch signed an offer sheet with a competing club, but they would be able to match that offer. A match would ensure that Lynch, Seattle’s leading rusher the past two seasons, would remain a Seahawk. Read More >>
Super Story… (46)
The seconds passed, Brady steps into, out and back into the pocket again, fixes the spot in the endzone he wants to place the ball, and throws the last pass of Super Bowl 46. Down 21-17 in the last minute of the game, Tom Brady and Patriots tried to construct one last drive to win the game.
The Patriot’s drive stalled just below the wrong end of the 50-yard line, when it was time for Brady’s ‘Hail Mary’ to take flight. Aaron Herndanez, Patriot’s tight end, goes up in the endzone, using all his body and fundamental basketball force to block out the three Giant’s defenders, and make a play on the oncoming ball. The football seemingly glances off all eight pairs of hands to the side, while Rob Gronkowski, the Patriot’s other notable tight end, rhin-aceously charges toward the ball, but is too late to sweep-up the football before it hits the turf. Read More >>
Look Who’s Talking Now
If you like “A 6-5, 230 pound quarterback, with a laser rocket arm” maybe Peyton Manning isn’t for you…
Football scenery in Indianapolis has shifted into the apocalyptic over the past two year. The Indianapolis Colts finished the NFL season with an overall 2-14 record; giving them the proud ownership of the 1st overall pick in the NFL Draft. And it just so happens that Andrew Luck, college football’s most highly touted quarterback prospect since (Indy’s own) QB Peyton Manning, will be foregoing his senior season at Stanford, and entering the 2012 draft.
This unique situation wouldn’t be tracking proverbial substance across the ground if Manning hadn’t sustained a severe neck injury that caused him to miss the entire 2011-2012 season, and is currently putting the future of his playing career in doubt. A $28 million contract option bonus due from the Colts to Manning on March 8th would give the Colts financial justification to part ways with the QB. And the strategic advantage of drafting the young Andrew Luck could make the ”rebuilding” phase of the talent-ridden franchise all the more smooth. (Let’s be honest, all the prime-time Colt’s games last year we’re not fun to watch). Read More >>
The Visible Spectrum
… Another year, another championship featuring a team from New York or Boston. Some years, if we’re lucky though, us spectators get the special benefit of watching two of America’s largest sport markets duke it out in the same championship game. When the right side of this coin flips, this media Supernova can leave us sport’s fans outside the market left behind in the massive glare of the oncoming media onslaught. Outside of the happenings of Upper East Side of the United States, time begins to crawl, in a unobservable manner where our attention slowly, but forcibly, approaches the day of the game. Minor news regarding team’s organizations, player’s injuries, fan reaction and strategic speculation may seem to stretch on for days. From their perspective, everything outside of their market’s big game comes to a stand-still, no passing news surrounding buzzer beaters, college upsets and player trades and signings can penetrate through the realms of their metropolitan pride. When these media Supernovas happen, we’re all subject to a cosmic censorship of the sport. Read More >>
NFL’s Con-fessional Bowl
Let me give you a scenario, and you can tell me if it seems like something you’d enjoy watching. The scenario involves a group of athletes voted to play in an all-star game. Fans have a certain number of votes per each position, and may cast an unlimited number of ballots - representing what is supposed to be 1/3 of the total vote for athletes. These athletes that eventually get voted in get to travel, usually with their family’s, to Honolulu, HI a week before the all-star game. Keep in mind these athletes are still recovering from a full 16 game season of hitting, tackling, lifting and rehabbing. The athletes will get to lounge around in 80-90 degree weather, practice a little bit with their fellow conference all-stars, play pranks on each other, converse, surf, and talk about who is going to win their sport’s champ
ionship the next week. Doesn’t sound half bad for the athletes, does it?
This scenario I’m describing is the NFL Pro Bowl, a game held (as of the past few years) a week before the Super Bowl. It is the only major sports all-star game that garners lower T.V. ratings than its regular season games. Players are voted in based on what could essentially be equated to a popularity contest. Coaches for each conference are automatically selected from the teams that lost the NFC and AFC title games, coaching teams, with usually, a good percentage of players opting out of the game for various reason, some related to injuries sustained during the regular season, some because their respective team is the one playing in the Super Bowl the following week… And if you’re Randy Moss, back before the game was held after the Super Bowl, you’ll opt out of playing, cause the week before your New England Patriots ended up losing the Super Bowl. Hawaii was just not motivating enough.
Worst Jersey Ever..? Do You Think You Could Do Better?
To be honest, when I think of the pioneering of sports jersey’s, I don’t think of the 500 different helmet, jersey and pants bottom combinations Nike has branded against Oregon Ducks. I do though get mixed feelings when I see the throwback uniforms the Memphis Grizzlies sported against the Clippers last Thursday (pictured on the right). 
The Grizzlies’ retro jersey’s, and the game against the Clippers, was to be a sentiment to the old American Basketball Assosiation, 1967-1976, a “lively” league famous for its prominent red, white and blue basketball, entertaining (.. although unconventional) half-time promotions and the adoption of a three-point shot; advertised as the “home run” of basketball. If you’ve ever seen the movie, Semi-Pro, then know Will Ferrell and the Flint Michigan Tropics weren’t far from what the ABA was at the time. The league was successful enough though that Four of ABA teams eventually were adopted into the NBA: the Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and New Jersey Nets. Thursday was to be allusion to a rematch of the old Los Angeles Stars and Memphis Pros/Tams/Sounds; and yes, Memphis did change their team name 3 times in 5 years. Read More >>
Super Bowl Sunday!!!
It’s 2007 all over again. As with that year, the New York Giants and New England Patriots will meet for the NFL championship. To start the two weeks of preparation, start with comparisons of the team. And then find out who we see winning the title game.
A head-to-head breakdown of NFL Super Bowl XLVI, to be played Feb. 5 at Indianapolis:
Offenses
The Patriots were second in total offense at 428 yards per game and third in scoring offense (at 32.1 points per game. The Giants weren’t too shabby either, finishing eighth (385.1) and ninth (24.6) in those categories, respectively. Tom Brady maintained his status as an elite passer, and his counterpart, Eli Manning joined him in that echelon with his best career season.
Each QB has two prolific targets. Brady’s steady playmakers work the inside, tight end Rob Gronkowski and wide receiver Wes Welker. Manning relies on starting wide receivers Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz to stretch the field and make big gains.
The difference comes in the supporting cast.
Where’s the respect!?
So who are the real heroes from this past holiday weekend of NFL play? Not so much Tim Tebow or Arian Foster or the Harbaugh brothers.
Try Plaxico Burress and Evan Dietrich-Smith.
Those two were the targets of the biggest, most tasteless public displays of disrespect on an NFL field in recent memory—and they each handled the acts with more grace than the perpetrators deserved.
You’d think that a grown man who plays this sport for a living would not have to be reminded that dribbling another man’s head on the turf and stomping on his arm crosses the line. Or that making fun of someone getting shot and going to prison is in the same category.
But you’d be wrong, because the Lions’ Ndamukong Suh and the Bills’ Stevie Johnson, respectively, weren’t aware of this before the weekend’s games.
So off they went, Suh losing all of his composure on Thanksgiving Day against the Packers, and Johnson losing any aura of maturity Sunday afternoon against the Jets.
But they did worse than just make fools of themselves—especially after, naturally, their teams lost. They violated what once was a serious, if not sacred, code among players: play hard, play to win, play all-out, but don’t threaten another player’s livelihood. Respect another combatant in battle (and knowing what we know now about the long-term effects of this game, that’s no longer too harsh a characterization) as you’d want that combatant to respect you. As players whose chosen profession exacts a terrifying toll, they’re all in this together.
Happy Har-Bowl-Giving
For the moment the plan is to make a quick appearance, take some pictures and shake some hands, and then scurry to a place where the television cameras can’t possibly get close enough to capture human emotion.
Of course, plans in the Harbaugh family have been known to go awry, particularly during the Thanksgiving holiday when football has always – always – trumped all. There were many a turkey dinner when one of the boys would call dibs on the wishbone and the other would snatch it, or one would insist on licking the last drop of creamed corn from the bowl and the other would steal it away, and about the only thing that could quiet the ruckus was a game of catch on the outside lawn in NFL Gear.
“Eating was always a competitive sport. Fun, messy, loud—I’m sure you can imagine. Our Thanksgivings were probably like every American household when the kids were growing up, with everyone eating until they’re stuffed and the night ending with football, either watching or playing it in our favorite NFL Gear from Onthefield.com,” Jackie Harbaugh was saying earlier this week.
The basics haven’t changed—there will be a roasted bird, a pigskin, some squabbles—but never has a Harbaugh Thanksgiving featured trimmings quite like this. Because as anyone worth their Madden NFL 12 surely knows, history will be made Thursday night when John and Jim Harbaugh become the first brothers to face each other as NFL head coaches.
— No turkeys on the field this Thanksgiving: Check Thursday’s NFL previews: Green Bay Packers at Detroit Lions, 12:30 p.m. ET | Miami Dolphins at Dallas Cowboys, 4:15 p.m. ET | San Francisco 49ers at Baltimore Ravens, 8:20 p.m. ET
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