Sports

[Spurt]

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@gardenman wrote:

Cowboys' fans were polled and feel that the Cowboys will win 10-11 games this year. That's probably about right. There are nine more or less sure wins on their schedule. (Giants twice, Lions, Bears, Vikings, Texans, Jags, and a split with the Eagles/Commanders.) Likely losses would include the Bucs, Bengals, Rams, and Packers. Iffy games would include the second games with Eagles/Commanders, Colts, and Titans. They'll win a few they should lose, lose a few they should win, but ten to eleven wins is a reasonable projection based on the schedule.

If things go bad, they could drop a few of those winnable games. The Lions and Jags should be better this year. The Jags have a lot of talent and a competent head coach. Getting a split from the Eagles/Commanders could be challenging if Hurts and Wentz play well. That could drop them to the six to seven win category which would be pretty bad for Mike McCarthy.

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@gardenman 

Keeping my fingers crossed......😉

[Spurt]

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@teganslaw wrote:

The Colts are Cynthia Frelund's "sleeper pick" to win this season's Super Bowl Championship.  That is some confidence! 

 This is a possibility. The team has a talented roster. If there are no major injuries and if Ryan performs well, they could do it.  A good start would be to win the AFC South. 

The talks and investigation into Deshaun have wrapped up. Expecting announcements and a final decision within a couple weeks. 

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@teganslaw 

That's good news for your COLTS----BELIEVE! 

[Spurt]

@gardenman 

Yep, both our team's success or failure will depend a lot on how our QBs do.....and for my Washington team it's also staying healthy! We need Chase Young and Logan Thomas to be on the field and NOT the sidelines! So important to the defense and offense respectively!

In response to a report that Snyder is going to be more aggressive on the media that criticizes him....one NFL fan wrote---

"I think Dan Snyder is doing an excellent job. And Jerry Jones and John Mara are also top notch…Fly Eagles Fly".....🤣🤣🤣

[fairydogmother]

Even though we can't get Lions games here we have sling tv now. So we will be able to access NFL Redzone

But they only show scoring plays and remarkable highlights. 
These can be pretty sparse for Detroit. 😆 

[gardenman]

Happy Fourth of July! Each day brings us closer to the start of the new season. As of yesterday, we were ten weeks from our first regular-season Sunday slate of games. It's coming fast now.

Not much news to report. The Eagles signed their last draft pick in center Cam Jurgens. The Eagles' entire rookie class is now signed and ready for camp.

There's a lot of chatter on how hard it is to know where Jalen Hurts will be this year in terms of performance. (It's hard to know where any QB will be in terms of performance. They tend to go up and down like the stock market.) I'm expecting some improvement, but I don't see him being the league MVP. It'll take some time for him to reach his potential. This is the first time since high school he's been in the same system for two years running, so he should have a better grasp on things. He also worked with Tom House on his throwing motion in the offseason. The mental processing part is often his big issue, but familiarity in the system should help there a bit. At worst, his level should be comparable to last year and that was good enough for a playoff berth. At best, he'll improve a lot and be very good. I don't expect a huge change though. Incremental improvement is more likely.

The Cowboys and Dalton Schultz are still said to be far apart on a long-term deal. That likely means he plays under the tag this year and probably next year also. The franchise tag price for a tight end is below market value with the recent deals, so the smart business deal in terms of dollars and cents is to just keep tagging him and then replace him. It's not the smartest move in terms of player happiness though. We'll have to see if the Cowboys come up or if Schultz accepts a below-market deal.

Brett Favre expects to see Davante Adams' numbers slip a bit now that he's not playing with Aaron Rodgers. Well, duh! You go from catching passes from a QB who might be the all-time best QB to anyone else and a receiver's numbers should slip a bit. Rodgers is special. Carr is okay but he's not in the same class as Aaron Rodgers.

We should start hearing of more suspensions and disciplinary results in the coming days/weeks. The two big ones are Alvin Kamara and Deshaun Watson. I would expect other names to crop up also. July is often suspension month.

Have a great Fourth!

[Spurt]

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@fairydogmother wrote:

Even though we can't get Lions games here we have sling tv now. So we will be able to access NFL Redzone

But they only show scoring plays and remarkable highlights. 
These can be pretty sparse for Detroit. 😆 

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@fairydogmother 

I can empathize and sympathize being a long time Redskin fan living in Texas and have to rely on Red Zone to see bits and pieces of my games untill they play the Cowboys....I hate it that the NFL gave exclusive live rights for NFL Sunday Ticket to Direct TV....A lot of us might be willing to purchase it if it was on another platform to see our fav out of market teams.  I know you can stream the games  the next day via Game Pass but I want to watch the games live and dont want to sign up for DirectTV  Good luck to the Lions!

[Spurt]

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY NFL FANS!!!!

We went to see the Elvis movie and that Tom Parker was a con artist and selfish SOB....If they had connected and ever met I think he would've been Dan Snyders best friend....they both think a like!....Interesting movie.....poor Elvis he was conned and abused all because of Parker's HUGE gambling debts! Elvis tried to break away from Parker but Parker threatened a lawsuit and payment for his services going back to when he signed Elvis back in the 50's and the payment amounted to over 8 million dollars, (even though Parker got half of Elvis's earnings over the years)...yep sounds like Snyder and what he'd do to the other NFL owners if the was forced to sell the Washington franchise---either hit them with a HUGE lawsuit or threaten to expose some skeltons his attorneys would dig up... 

[gardenman]

The NFL Sunday ticket is probably overpriced these days also. at around $300. If you have a VPN and don't mind streaming games you can bypass it and watch for relatively low cost. Between illegal streams and stations streaming their live channels, you can typically see things live that the powers-that-be don't want you seeing live. It gets you on the iffier side of the law, but if they start prosecuting everyone who watches illegal streams, they're going to need to build a lot more jails.

A VPN would let you use a server located in whatever city you choose that's streaming the game. As far as the local channel was concerned, you'd be in that city. I don't know if the local channels are forced to black out their streams during games, but if not, you'd be golden.

If they lowered the price and made Sunday Ticket more widely available, they'd vastly multiply the sales of the service. At $129.99 a year and available to everyone, they'd likely sell ten times the subscriptions they sell now. 

[teganslaw]

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@Spurt wrote:

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@fairydogmother 

I can empathize and sympathize being a long time Redskin fan living in Texas and have to rely on Red Zone to see bits and pieces of my games untill they play the Cowboys....I hate it that the NFL gave exclusive rights for NFL Game Pass to Direct TV....A lot of us might be willing to purchase it if it was on another platform to see our fav out of market teams.  I know you can stream the games  the next day but I want to watch the games live and dont want to sign up for DirectTV  Good luck to the Lions!

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 Spurt,I have NFL Game Pass but not Directv. I haven't seen any connection between the two. NFL Sunday Ticket is part of Directv, so maybe you meant Sunday Ticket instead of Game Pass? Just trying to clear things up as the changes can be confusing. 

I also saw that NFL Sunday Ticket could be moving to Apple TV.

[Spurt]

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@gardenman wrote:

The NFL Sunday ticket is probably overpriced these days also. at around $300. If you have a VPN and don't mind streaming games you can bypass it and watch for relatively low cost. Between illegal streams and stations streaming their live channels, you can typically see things live that the powers-that-be don't want you seeing live. It gets you on the iffier side of the law, but if they start prosecuting everyone who watches illegal streams, they're going to need to build a lot more jails.

A VPN would let you use a server located in whatever city you choose that's streaming the game. As far as the local channel was concerned, you'd be in that city. I don't know if the local channels are forced to black out their streams during games, but if not, you'd be golden.

If they lowered the price and made Sunday Ticket more widely available, they'd vastly multiply the sales of the service. At $129.99 a year and available to everyone, they'd likely sell ten times the subscriptions they sell now. 

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@gardenman @teganslaw 

The NFL owners are too greedy, but they know how popular the NFL is.....But the NBA is much more reasonable and only charges $99 a year for 82 games and includes NBA TV (with the league news and highlights)