NFL Week 3 Thread

[Sophie Scholl]

I'll be in Ralph Wilson Stadium watching Drew Brees give me fantasy points this Sunday while doing my praying for a career ending injury to Jamarcus.

[CountDeMoney]

For comparison's sake:

• The Ravens have had 50 Pro Bowl berths to the Browns' 10 since 1999.

• Of the Ravens' 22 full-time starters, 16 are their own draft picks. Of the Browns' 22 starters, only nine are their own picks.

• The Ravens have 20 draft picks on their roster from the 2005-2008 seasons. The Browns have 12.

• Five of the Ravens' No. 1 picks since 1999 have gone to the Pro Bowl, with defensive tackle Haloti Ngata being named a first alternate and quarterback Joe Flacco apparently on a path toward Hawaii. Three of the Browns' first-round picks have made it in that span.

• The Ravens' defense features three Pro Bowlers and a first alternate and the Browns have one (Shaun Rogers).

[CountDeMoney]

NFL Has No Business Being In Jacksonville

It was a fine afternoon for football Sunday in Jacksonville and 46,520 fans (actually, probably less) showed up to rattle around the city's Municipal Stadium for the Jaguars' home opener. The stadium, which hasn't had a name-rights deal in two years, can seat over 76,000. The Jags long ago gave up on that number, and in an effort to avoid television blackouts they covered up sections to cut capacity to 66,066.

They still didn't come close to selling out.

They've publicly stated there is no hope for filling the joint for a single game the entire season. They aren't even blaming the fact they're coming off a 5-11 campaign.

"Even if we made the playoffs last year, we'd still be in this situation," Bill Prescott, the team's CFO, told the Florida Times-Union. He went on to claim that based on playoff appearances in two of the last four years, the postseason is worth only a 5 percent bump in sales.

This is all the economy's fault, Prescott maintained.

If that's true, then the NFL's grand small-market experiment hatched in 1995 is all but over. Jacksonville as a viable professional sports market isn't going to end well. Eventually everyone will have to admit it.

No one is blaming fans for staying home. Even with discounted tickets and generous package rates, attending a pro sports event is an expensive and time-consuming proposition. You can be the most loyal fan in the world and never go to a game. Jaguar fans shouldn't apologize for saving money for something more important than football.

Still, a market that can truly support professional sports has enough people who either can afford it or simply won't live without it. Every town will support a new team or a big winner. The truth comes not in good times but, like now, bad.

Jacksonville is struggling. The unemployment rate is 10.5 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and like much of Florida foreclosures are high.

Yet by any known economic metric, what Jacksonville calls a disaster would be considered a renaissance in Detroit. The City of Detroit's unemployment rate is nearly 27 percent; the metro area checks in at 17.7.

While the Jaguars weren't good last year and dropped to 0-2 with a listless 31-17 loss to Arizona, the Lions are in the middle of a 19-game losing streak and have won just a single playoff game in 51 seasons.

And still Detroit sold out its opener at Ford Field, capacity 65,000.

It's a numbers game. Metro Detroit has a population of nearly five million; Jacksonville just 1.3 million. Metro Detroit has 17 Fortune 500 companies that can buy luxury suites and bulk tickets. Jacksonville has just two and none in the top 200.

So even though the Jaguars have no other major pro teams to compete against, it struggles. The Lions go against franchises – successful ones – in MLB, the NBA and the NHL, plus, like Jacksonville, two nearby major college programs. Even in a crippling economy, though, there's enough money to go around.

Jacksonville was a bold gamble that didn't make sense in the best of times. Green Bay is the only NFL market that's smaller, but with its history and public ownership, it's really the team of the entire state of Wisconsin (population 5.3 million).

Florida already had two long-established NFL franchises, though, when the Jaguars were created in 1995. There never seemed to be a big enough base to make this work.

Television blackouts caused by non-capacity stadiums are going to be an issue across the country this year. Only 20 of 32 teams have presently sold out the season. Still, everyone else filled the stands for their home opener.

Jacksonville barely got to 70 percent of its rigged lower "capacity."

The franchise, the NFL and the city have all poured tremendous resources into making this work. The stadium is fresh, modern and located conveniently downtown. The team has been a success, with six playoff appearances in 14 seasons. In an effort to help boost the league's appeal in the region, the NFL even staged a Super Bowl there in the face of loud criticism for putting the big game in a small city.

None of it has worked, at least not enough.

The Jaguars have dropped ticket prices, marketed relentlessly and tried to create value at concession stands. The city's mayor has called on area businesses to help. The players have even made appeals.

And still there were officially 20,000 empty seats, although independent media accounts estimated that number at closer to 30,000.

In a sign of desperation, team owner Wayne Weaver even told the Associated Press that he'd consider drafting University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow next year to help with ticket sales.

"Star power is incredible, and Tebow is an iconic figure," Weaver said.

That's a gimmick that's rarely worked for pro teams and speaks to a backward way of running a franchise. You draft (and play) Tebow if your football people think he can win games, period.

There was a time in the 1980s and '90s when the profession of sports marketing was new and hot. It created a false sense a team could offset basic business realities. Anything was deemed possible, everything saleable.

So the NFL set up shop in a small, sleepy city and let Los Angeles go without a team. In hockey, the NHL pulled teams out of Canada and expanded across the Sun Belt, only to now find at least a half-dozen franchises in serious trouble.

It turns out sometimes you can't market the impossible. Not enough people in the South want to watch a hockey game. Not enough people live in Jacksonville to support a big NFL franchise through thick and thin.

No one wants to see the franchise fail and no one is publicly saying it has or will. Weaver hasn't expressed plans to sell.

However, while there's a loyal fan base of Jaguar fans, what's the attendance going to be by season's end, especially if the 0-2 team continues to sink?

And how do you increase interest for next year if half the games aren't on television?

If the only thing that can fill the seats in Jacksonville is a roaring economy and a Super Bowl-contending team, then how long into the inevitable economic downturns will it take before everyone admits the obvious?

Well, Baltimore tried telling the Expansion Committee that in 1995 with a better stadium deal, but nooooo...Paul Tagliabue told us to build a museum instead.

Well, today is the Ravens' 97th consecutive sellout.  So fuck you, NFL.   Didn't want to do The Right Thing(tm) the right way?  Fine.  Thanks for the Browns, Mr. Modell.

They're calling for rain today, but Tagliabue's Neo-Browns are gonna get their assfucking dry.

[Neil]

Flacco, in a Pro Bowl?  Maybe one day, after Brady and Manning have retired.

If Brady keeps playing the way he has, he'll probably still make the Pro Bowl, because bandwagoners love his cock.

[CountDeMoney]

Brady Quinn, 4/5, 16 yards, 1 INT.

[CountDeMoney]

Oh, and just add a sack for -6 yards on 3rd and 4. Lulz.

[jimmy olsen]

Damn, Brady's overthrowing everybody.

[CountDeMoney]

Damn, Brady's overthrowing everybody.

Dude, he's been doing that all season.  He's not going to be back on track until next season, when he's comfortable planting that bionic leg of his.

[CountDeMoney]

Dear God, the Browns are bad.

My Bernie jersey is rolling over in its box in the closet.

[jimmy olsen]

Fred Taylor looked awesome on that drive.

[Neil]

Boller is in.  He's gonna be starting next week, after the Rams offence responds to his masculine touch.

[Ed Anger]

Awww, wittle brady is throwing a mini-tantrum.

[sbr]

He needs to stop tantruming and concentrate on punching Galloway in the nuts. 

[Ed Anger]

He needs to stop tantruming and concentrate on punching Galloway in the nuts. 

Clearly you are a Brady lover. You have been entered into the list (tm).

[Ed Anger]

LOL.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/26/SP0L19ST9M.DTL

Gannon not welcome in Alameda

David White, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, September 26, 2009


(09-25) 20:59 PDT -- The Raiders can't keep Rich Gannon out of the Coliseum's broadcast booth, so they want to lock the quarterback-turned-TV analyst out of the team facility in Alameda.

Team officials told CBS Sports they did not want Gannon to attend Saturday's television production meetings in advance of Sunday's Raiders-Broncos game, The Chronicle has learned, citing his public criticism of the organization in recent years.

"Rich Gannon is not welcome here," Raiders executive John Herrera said Friday when asked about the ban. "We told CBS we did not want him in our building, we did not want him to be part of our production meeting, and that's where it sits."

The Raiders also asked CBS to remove Gannon from Sunday's broadcast crew but the network declined. The team had previously asked CBS to remove Gannon from working their Nov. 30 game against the Chiefs last season to no avail.

"Rich Gannon is an objective and analytical broadcaster and he will be broadcasting the game as assigned by CBS," said LeslieAnne Wade, senior vice president of communications for CBS Sports.

Telling Gannon to stay away from team headquarters is a new wrinkle that may not be enforceable. League policy says teams must make the head coach and players available to the network television crew for production meetings.

"It is not permitted under league policy regarding cooperation with our network partners," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said when asked if the Raiders could ban Gannon from the production meetings.

The Raiders later conceded the point and relented, the Associated Press reported.

Attempts to reach Gannon for comment through CBS Sports were not successful.

After 12 nondescript seasons, Gannon's career bloomed late when he signed with the Raiders in 1999. He led the Raiders to three straight playoff berths and a Super Bowl XXXVII appearance.

He was voted the league MVP in 2002, made four straight Pro Bowls and was on three All-Pro teams before retiring before the 2005 season.

Gannon went straight into broadcasting, and that's where his relationship with the Raiders became more strained by the season, according to Herrera.

"He's attacked us on a regular basis since becoming a member of the media," Herrera said. "After affording him the opportunity to establish a career here, he has since gone on to attack us in a way that's totally unacceptable."

Herrera quoted Gannon as saying in several interviews they should just "blow up the building and start over" in Oakland. Team officials took that as literally as they did figuratively, and told Gannon as much before last season's home game against the Chiefs.

"We think in a post 9/11 world, that's not a very proper thing to say," Herrera said. "It's uncalled for. He seems to be a guy who can't get over the fact that he played the worst Super Bowl game in the history of the game and he wants to blame everybody but himself.

"I guess it's our fault he threw five interceptions."

Gannon has, indeed, talked often about the "dysfunction" within the Raiders organization, but he's tempered his criticism in recent months.

Earlier this week, he gave a detailed critique of quarterback JaMarcus Russell's accuracy problems and gave coach Tom Cable "a lot of credit" for the team's 1-1 start.

Local fans won't hear what Gannon has to say during Sunday's game, one way or another. The broadcast will be blacked out in the Bay Area because the game didn't sell out.