5.21.10 2:29 pm by Brian
Now to wrap up the discussion of “gauntlet” game scheduling for the 2010 NFL Regular Season, I move on to the National Football Conference’s 16 teams. As a recap of the prior story, I’ve repeated my opening few paragraphs. If you are familiar with what I’m working with here, feel free to hit the jump and read on.
To further explore that idea, I’m defining a “gauntlet” schedule as a series of at least three or more games in a row that are taxing to a team either because they have to face strong teams or because there is significant travel involved. A team can have a difficult schedule but avoid this “gauntlet” idea if the games against the tougher teams are further spread out across the season; by the same token, a team with an easier schedule who has to face good teams multiple weeks in a row can still face a “gauntlet.”
If a team does face such a “gauntlet” during their schedule, it is also important to note when it happens in the scope of a season. If a team has a series of tough games at the beginning of the season, then it’s problematic because they might stumble out of the gate and never recover. If the “gauntlet” comes at season’s end, there will be added pressure on building up a good record before those games so that the team can “absorb” losses if they have to. And “gauntlets” in the middle of the season are perhaps most problematic, because they can jostle teams into and out of playoff position with little time left to recover.
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5.04.10 4:09 pm by Brian
A recent saying has taken root in the NFL that you’re not truly an NFL superstar until you have a rule change come about because of something you did or something that happened to you. We have the “Tom Brady Rule” about defensive players not being able to hit quarterbacks below the knees after Brady’s 2008-ending injury—and some would add the “Tuck Rule” to Brady’s résumé as well—and this season will see a “Flozell Adams Rule” where personal fouls occurring at the end of a half can be assessed on the kickoff that begins the next half of play thanks to Adams’ antics with Justin Tuck the New York Giants before halftime in a game last December.
I think one of our old NFL superstars could use a rule of his own, however; #4 for the Minnesota Vikings, Brett Favre.
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4.24.10 5:38 pm by Brian
In my story, 2010 NFL Season Divisional Predictions — Pre-April/Pre-Draft Version, I asked you–readers here at The Sports Geeks–to weigh in on who you thought would end up winning each of the eight (8) National Football League divisions for the 2010 season. I also tasked you with picking the two teams that you felt would have the best chance of making the playoffs as a Wild Card team from each conference.
The polls have since closed–less than 24 hours before the start of the 2010 NFL Draft’s 1st Round in prime-time–and I wanted to share those results with you here, along with a comparison to my original picks from the story.
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4.20.10 6:59 pm by Brian
Although the final seconds ticked off the clock of Super Bowl XLIV over two months ago, there has hardly been a moment to rest and take a breather from news in the National Football League. The Saints’ triumphant victory was a feel-good story that had all of Louisiana in jubilation, and the offseason moves all over the league have kept football on the minds of sports fans everywhere.
After a number of delays—presumably to tweak the schedule match-ups with all of the offseason moves being made this NFL offseason—the 2010 regular season schedule has finally been released to eager fans. Finally, those die-hard fans can begin circling specific dates on the calendar to make their plans for game-viewing beginning in September.
Here at The Sports Geeks, we understand that not everyone can sift through the 256 regular season games to find the biggest stories of the upcoming season. To help out the casual NFL fan, I dived into the entire schedule to pick out some of the juicier storylines—along with the dates those games will be played—to provide a one-stop guide to the regular season’s most dramatic games. As with so many things, however, the NFL is subject to change; some games highlighted on this list may end up being snoozers if players are injured or teams are underperforming compared to the expectations currently held of them.
Obviously, divisional games are always big draws; playing six games a year against rival teams creates dramatic storylines, and the interactions between both players and fans makes for must-see games. However, for the sake of this list, those divisional match-ups have been avoided as much as possible to focus in on the other storylines present behind the games on the docket.
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4.05.10 11:16 am by Brian
Here at The Sports Geeks, it isn’t all just sporting news and analysis; we like to touch on how sports play a role in other aspects of daily life as well. For this article, I’m taking a look at EA Sports’ Madden NFL video game franchise and a potential opportunity for this year’s demo to help teach fans about this year’s new playoff overtime rules.
Edit: Thanks go out to PastaPadre, a leader in the sports video game community, for mentioning this story in his April 13th, 2010 write-up on the Madden NFL 11 demo.
In the video game business, few games are as sure a sale as EA Sports’ yearly incarnation of the Madden NFL series. Since an exclusivity deal was struck between the NFL and EA Sports in December of 2004, the series has been the only officially-licensed video game representation of the league. While this move angered fans of the NFL 2K Sports series of football games, sales of Madden NFL have not shown any signs of slowing down; such is the safety of being the only licensed product on the market.
With the introduction of the current console generation, the Madden NFL team has put out a downloadable game demo on the online services for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 before the retail release of the full title for the past few versions of their title. Some might argue the necessity of such a demo—given that consumers surely know from year-to-year whether or not they’ll be making a purchase—but in some ways the demo has come to serve the role of a “teaser,” satisfying the appetites of gamers waiting for the new iteration of the game as the season approaches.
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3.31.10 1:13 pm by Brian
As part of my coverage of the National Football League here at The Sports Geeks, I will be making predictions at different times during the offseason as to who I think will end up on top of the eight divisions for the 2010 NFL Season. This article represents predictions made based on free agency transactions and trades before the start of April and the upcoming 2010 NFL Draft. The next set of predictions will come at some point after the 2010 NFL Draft, followed by a set of predictions before the NFL Preseason begins, and finally followed by my official predictions for the season, which will be out the first week of the season with the NFL’s Kickoff Week.
Despite the fact that the upcoming NFL season is uncapped, there have been about as many signings and trades as one would expect from any NFL offseason. That said, some big names have shifted around in the team landscape, including new Baltimore Ravens WR Anquan Boldin, new Chicago Bears DE Julius Peppers, new Cleveland Browns QB Jake Delhomme, and new New York Jets RB LaDainian Tomlinson.
It is early in the offseason to be considering how the regular season will play out—I’m unaware of anyone else making predictions this early—but using the moves that have been made so far in conjunction with the projected strength of schedule for each team (based on last season’s records), it is possible to begin making projections about how the season will play out.
Without further ado, here goes; note that these predictions are based on free-agency signings and trade transactions as of Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 and that the numbers in parentheses beside a team’s name represent their rank (out of 32) for strength of schedule–the higher the number, the easier the schedule based on last year’s records.
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