NFL TONIGHT

[b_000_m]

Colts vs Pats, I reckon Pats win by 5-7 points.

[TightEnd]

Was a wonderful game. Unlucky on the prediction, no one picked the Colts.


made a fair amount on Denver at odds against to beat the Steelers, a successful night.

[Acidmouse]

Dear God the worst team on paper in the NFL won again tonight! 49'ers 3-5! come on. Top is only 4-3

[TightEnd]

the worst team on paper in the NFL  

not true. two years ago they had the worst record in the nfl, last year the fifth worst record. With a couple of years of high draft picks behind them including a No 1 pick Alex Smith and Vernon Davis, a talented Tight End, together with new coaching and the legend that is Larry allen on the OL, the 49ers are on a slow march back to respectability

On a general point the whole ethos of the NFL is to ensure parity and the draft process helps ensure that. On "any given sunday" any team can beat another...look at Miami and Detroit beating Chicago and Altlanta respectively yesterday.

[TightEnd]

On a general point the whole ethos of the NFL is to ensure parity and the draft process helps ensure that. On "any given sunday" any team can beat another...look at Miami and Detroit beating Chicago and Altlanta respectively yesterday.

Yeah but then they f**k mess it up by imposing a salary cap on teams so that some teams get the best players in the draft but then have to swap them for "future picks" because they cant afford to keep them as they will demand too much salary wise.

No this is mistaken. The team with the worst record gets the first pick in each of the seven draft rounds. Any team selecting first if it has been managed correctly in the years prior will afford the demands of that pick. Only if they are in cap problems will they trade down for picks, but that is mismanagement not a league "mess up"

All teams operate to the same salary cap. If a team gets a "Reggie Bush" type talent early on as the Saints did in April they have to manage their roster to get him in. The Saints do so, and spent $30m on Drew Brees in the summer too.

The key is effective squad management, not overpaying for free agents and effective drafting.

The 49ers problem for years was many fold

a) Talent retired
b) New talent acquired was done so at inflated prices
c) drafting was crap

It is possible to beat parity, look at New England and Indianapolis. They afford superstars in the squads and select squad members fantastically to be able to do so

[Acidmouse]

Ok they were the longest odds at start of the season 150/1 joint outsiders to win the superbowl.

[TightEnd]

I always understoods a teams salary cap to be based on a percentage of the income that the franchise generated, is this not the case?

No, In baseball it works like this...the more tv revenue. sponsorship, gate receipts you get the bigger your salary budget is...hence the huge advantage the Yankees, Red Sox and West Coast teams have starting each year compared to the small market teams like Milwaulkee and Kansas

In the NFL, each salary cap is identical..$125m from memory. All teams within that have a rookie salary cap too...money within which all drafted rookies have to be be paid.

All teams are on a level footing in theory, only years of poor/good management and free agent signing tilt the league in favour of regular winners.

[Acidmouse]

I wish they did the same with Rugby League here, they spend all the money on a few good imports and let the young developing players rott.

[TightEnd]

I wish they did the same with Rugby League here, they spend all the money on a few good imports and let the young developing players rott.

Its a complicated question

It is an irony that the "land of the free" operates the most restricted/socialist(in principle)/utopian system in its selection of playersin its national sport

This is of course because of the power of tv, who wanted interesting games to get ad revenue up, so attempts to introduced parity via a salary cap, and then hey presto the value of the tv contract went up

Rugby Union the English premiership runs a salary cap and there is now a lot of jockeying for position at the top of the table each season

Rugby league is by contrast far less competitive...though I beleive there is a partial cap there too

If Chelsea and the Big 5 in the Premeirship had a wage cap, arguably the Premiership would once again be interesting. Would never happen though.

[Rooky9]

All teams within that have a rookie salary cap too...money within which all drafted rookies have to be be paid.

This is the real key.

[Sark79]

Do you think Chambers can cut it at that level?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/6125496.stm

[TightEnd]

Not a hope in hell...he's already done two nfl europe mini camps and failed to be picked

To be a good receiver you need not only good speed, but good hands and the ability to block

Intelligence to learn the playbook is key too


All he has is speed

[Newportlad]

When i used to pay Britball in the UK, we had Jason Livingstone in our team (100m runner who was thrown out of Olympics in Barcelona '92 for positive drugs test).
As he had absolutely no ability to catch a ball, we put tried him out as Running Back.  He was great at ouside running plays (sweeps etc.), but could not run 'between the tackles'.   Just goes to show that speed is by no means everything (though it helps).