NFL Preseason Week Three No Dress Rehearsal ESPN Gets Worse

NFL Preseason Week Three No Dress Rehearsal ESPN Gets Worse.  They always talk about how week three in the NFL Preseason is a look at what we are going to get in the regular season.  i don’t think this is true anymore and probably has not been true for quite a while.  Jerry and Zeek are still having their little spat.  So be it.  Seems kind of funny to me.  ESPN is still the “king” of something but I am not sure what.  They keep doing strange things that should make them lose more viewers.  I know they have almost lost me.  Baseball keeps doing strange things as well.  Maybe I am the one that just does not get it.  But I have heard some other people saying the same thing.  I am all for doing some new things to try and bring in new viewers.  However if you do something that just makes it confusing then really you should have thought about it more.  Golf crowns a winner.  Not sure how many people watched but moving the end of the season to August is the right move to make.  You have to give it some time to get there.  All this and more in the Week That Was.

NFL Preseason Week Three

Week three of the NFL preseason has now passed on by.  The NFL made a huge mistake by not being prepared for the game they decided to play in Canada between the Packers and the Raiders.  It was a huge mess.  An short field with holes in it type of mess.  The Packers decided not to play any of their starters.  The Raiders did not play many of their starters either.  This is the second time in two years that the NFL has had problems with a field in a game being played in a different country.  I get it they want to expand the product.  If they really want to do that. Then they need to make sure the field is ready for a pro sports game.  They seem to be able to do it alright in London.  Not sure why they can’t get it done in other places.  This game just should have been called off.  There was no sense playing on an 80 yard field.  The game was a joke and it made the NFL look foolish.  Funny how the NFL keeps making all kinds of mistakes but the game just keeps getting more and more popular in spite of all those strange moves.

I still maintain that the preseason really means nothing as far as how the regular season is going to play out.  The year the Lions were the first team to go 0 – 16 they went 4 – 0 in the preseason.  Their fans were sure that it was going to be the Lions year to make history. It actually was their year.  Just not the kind of history the fans were thinking of.  Of course the preseason is good for testing out new things.  Taking a look at different players and in general getting ready for the season to start.  Most of the time when you are doing that.  You are not able to actually run what you are going to be doing for the season.  Maybe the preseason use to mean more.  It probably did a long time ago when playing football was a part time job that you only did during the season and then went to your regular job after the season.  It is a year around job now.  Players are in better shape in the off season so the preseason does not mean nearly as much as it used to.

I really think we need to get down to two preseason games.  It would make a lot more sense.  Of course that would probably mean going to an 18 game schedule.  I am not for that but would probably be better than playing the preseason games.  You know the owners are not going to give up two game of revenue.

The big news of course during week three was the retirement of Andrew Luck.  At first I was surprised and then after thinking about it.  The retirement made sense.  I get that the Colts fans are upset.  Some even saying that they wanted to return their season tickets.  Sure do that.  I am sure that someone else will grab them.  The Colts may not be the teams that they would have been with Luck but they still have a chance to be a pretty good team.  Players are transitional the team for the most part stays for ever.  LOL  yes I find that funny after typing that and remembering when the Colts moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis.  Still most teams stay.  The players move out.  It really could have been handled better but who ever leaked the story did not want it to be handled better.  There could not have been more than five or so people that knew and I know it was not Andrew Luck that leaked it.  Time will tell.  Everyone that picked the Colts to win the super bowl may want to change their pick.  If you have Andrew Luck in a keeper league hopefully you have not already selected your keepers and had your draft.

ESPN Annoys the crap out of me

My decrease is viewing programs on ESPN has been all thought my posts over the last few years.   I used to watch a lot of programs on ESPN.  I have watched less and less to the point that now the only program that I watch out side of live sporting events is E:60.  Which is a pretty good show when you can find it.  9 am on Sundays.  That makes it sound easy to find.  I go to watch it and it is not there.  Sports Center is there.  I look through the other ESPN channels I have in my package.  Not there.  The preview of the Little League World Series was but not E:60.  I get at least four ESPN Channels maybe more.  Not sure.  I am pretty sure that ESPN is a large part of my cable bill.  In Football season it is worth it and I end up watching a lot of ESPN.  I do think that is is a bummer that they not also have ESPN+ and for that I would have to pay more than what I pay now.  I have to have a limit so I draw it there.  The whole Randomness of when the one program I watch regularly on their stations is annoying.  I am still pissed at them for getting rid of The Sports Reporters and the half our OTL that they used to do on Sundays. That was part of my life for about 20 years before they tore it away from us faithful viewers.

I don’t know if you go to the ESPN web site ever.  I would say skip it and find an alternative.  They are now doing a full page ad at the top.  You used to be able to collapse them. This one it does not appear to give you that option and you have to actually scroll down the page to get to the content you want.  I get it.   Advertising is why I can get content without paying extra for it.  But it has to be done in a reasonable way.  Obtrusive ads just make me go somewhere else.

There is also one radio show I still listen to on ESPN.  Golic and Wingo in the mornings.  Even that is getting to be a chore lately.  The options are limited though.  Where I live we only have one Sports Radio channel now.   The mornings are taken by the Golic and Wingo show.  Some of the stuff they do on there is fine.  They get some interesting guests.  The problem I have is when they turn into a married couple and bicker all the time.  There are other issues that annoy the crap out of me as well.  The loud air horn they use.  The stupid sound effects.  None of these add anything to their show and just tend to make it really annoying.  I am clearly not the only person that feels this way.  The local sports channel is taking an hour of their show away and giving it to one of the local crews.

College Football Season Kicks Off

The College Football Season started this past weekend.  It started with a good rivalry game between Florida and The University of Miami.  Miami was able to hang with the Gators for most of the game but in the end lost 24 – 20.  Florida is ranked and Miami was not so this is hardly a surprise.  Also no surprise that Urban Meyer was in attendance.  He used to coach the Gators won two championships if memory serves me right.  LOL.  One Writer for Yahoo Sports thought that it was surprising that Meyer was wearing a Florida Shirt.  What does he actually think is surprising about this?  I don’t know he really does not say in his story.  Just a picture of Meyer wearing his Florida shirt sitting up in a box.  Meyer spent 6 years at Florida.  Won those two championships and then road off into setting Sun.

There are a few questions about the way that Meyer left the program.  It has really not been a contender since he left.  Not sure who is at fault with that.  It probably is a combination of many different things.  The thing we do know is that there was no animosity in the departure.  I am sure that the school has fond memories of Meyer and he has fond memories of his time there.  It is hardly a surprise at all that he would wear a Florida shirt.  Now if he had been wearing a Miami shirt that would have been a different story.  Queue Ohio State Fans heads exploding now…

Next Week the Season Kicks of Full Force

Starting with Thursday the College football season kicks off full force.  From Thursday to Sunday almost ever college football team will be in action.  Hopefully the game between Florida and Miami is not an indication of how this week of football is going to be.   The only reason that game was watchable is because it was the first real game of football we have been able to watch since last February.

MLB what the Uniform

This weekend MLB decided to get in on the alternate uniform game that has been going on in other sports for quite some time. Maybe they have been doing alternate uniforms for a while.  I don’t really remember them doing it.  But they probably have.  This past weekend it was just an odd thing and to me a huge fail.  I don’t know how many teams they did it with.  I know of at least two games they did it.  The Twins vs The Tigers and The Dodgers vs the Yankees.  All four of those teams have some pretty iconic uniforms. There were a lot of uniforms to pick from if you wanted to do an alternate uniform for those games.  So what does baseball decide to do?  How about one team wears black and the other team wears white.  I heard a few people say the uniforms looked sharp.  I suppose they could have.  They were black and white.  If you put the two games on the screen next to each other you would not have been able to tell which game it was or which team it was.  I have complained about this type of thing before.  Why do you want to dress a team in a uniform that has nothing to do with the usual colors they wear.  It just makes no sense.  If they are going to do the alternate uniforms that are part of the teams history go for it.  If they are going to do this kind of crap then just stop it please.

The Golf Season is Over

Golf came to an end this past weekend.  Rory McIlroy took home the tour championship.  He won a record $15 million for that Championship. Since it is the first year for this set up. It is difficult to gauge the ratings on this.    I have not seen the rating for this past weekend yet. There is no way that they are worse than what they were last year when the Championship was going against NFL football.  We really will not be able to tell how it is going till we have a few years of data.  What we do know it that it was very exciting.  Even if you were not watching much of it you heard about it or were checking scores.  The purse was the larges ever passed out for a tournament.  That included any of the majors.  Just wish that number you know that at least part of it was the right decision to make.  The real test will be next year.  There will be a year of data to compare with and see if the numbers are going up.

On the Tube TV Not You

If you are a Big Brother watcher then you know the mistake the house guests made this week.  If you are not a Big Brother watcher than you should be.  They had the opportunity to get Christie one of the better players out of the game and the changed their minds at the last minute and kept her.  This move by the rest of the house made me think what a bunch of rubes.  The way that Christie was able to flip the house into keeping her was an amazing move.  It would have to rank as one of the top moves in Big Brother history.  The fact that the voters in the house fell for it makes me want Christie to win the game now.  The only real problem I have with Christie and that she is a huge crier over nothing.  I get it.  Big Brother is an emotional game.  It brings just about everyone to tears at some point.  It should not be bringing them to tears every single day.  But if that is the worst thing she has going on then I am good with her winning the game.

Over all we are getting in to a really exciting time of the year.  NFL and NCAA football are about to go full force.  The we get the NHL and NBA.  Sports life is good right now.  TV life is about to get good as well.  We will have all the new season of the shows we love starting in September.   What do you think?

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