The Weird, Wacky and Awesome World of the NFL - General Banter thread V3

Sam Darnold gets the backup job in San Fran. I'm not surprised, I'd imagine they'll be shopping Lance now. Bears might be interested in him as a backup.

Isaiah Simmons is being traded from the Cardinals to the NY Giants for a seventh-round pick in 2024.

Worth the punt by the Giants for Simmons who never lived up to the athletic hype in the desert.

If its Braden Mann they were hoping to sign, they dodged a bullet! You'd be better off ignoring punts altogether😂

Now that he has been cleared of any potential charges, seems surprising that Matt Araiza isn't being given a punting try-out.

It's an awful story and the NFL not looking after him and others is disgraceful.

I remember reading a lengthy interview with Andrew Luck and he shed some light on what he went through and he played the best protected position in the game, outside of kickers.

I hope Eric and others like him win their case. I hope at some stage soon that CTE can be identified in living people and treated.

I have a lot of friends who played rugby and suffered multiple concussions. One of them is very worried about his future.

I'm not a medical person, no clue about it at all, but I recommended he use a brain trainer every day and read books on multiple subjects in the evening. I don't know if it'll help him but you are better doing something I think. He told me his mood has picked up after a couple of months doing it. It might have nothing to do with what I suggested but hopefully it does and he can pass that onto other friends of his.

I played rugby and I had two concussions over my time which isn't much. I never have had memory loss or anything like that thankfully. I did suffer from stress at one stage though or at least I thought it was stress. What I recommended to my friend is what I did and I've never had any headaches or stress since.

I love physically tough sports but there's no excuse for head hits. I once saw a player kick a player on the ground in the head. I was playing and I ended up with a three month ban for what I did to him. He got no punishment for kicking my teammate's head.

That's the way things were back then.

I coach mini-rugby now and you have to do a lot of work to qualify as a kids coach.

HIA is a big part of it.

I got one question wrong and it wrecked my head until I finally realised my mistake. The question was how high you can tackle a player and I said waist, the answer is below the waist.

I think that's where rugby is heading in the next decade at senior level.

The NFL needs to look at Rugby Union and take on board what they are doing. Disqualification from the game and a huge fine is how they stop it. And nobody wants it, not the players or the fans.

I do some work with the seniors in tackling. I always tell them that you wrap your arms around and under the opponents armpits.

Head should always be to the side you are pushing from no matter the height of the tackle, that avoids head hits and keeps the tackling player safe as well. Cheek to cheek in low tackles and cheek to armpit in higher tackles.

So because of the clocks changes being out of synch between here and the States, just watch out games \ coverage will be an hour earlier for the Sunday games until things realign Saturday week.

McDisaster f*cks up another HC job - big surprise.

I am sure BB will bring him back as OC with the Pats.

I'm surprised to see a coach with a 3-5 record fired so early in the season.

There's no sign or even indication that Jonathan Gannon, Frank Reich, Matt Eberflus or Brian Daboll are on the chopping block.

Sean Payton in the same division has the same record as the Raiders and not a mention of him being on a hot seat.

I wonder what nickname JRG has for Payton. Paythetic maybe?

McDaniels hasn't done a good job. I'm just surprised at the timing of the firing. I don't think anybody should be fired before it's pretty certain your season is over.

I'm not saying it's what anybody with the Raiders wants but the best thing for the future of that franchise is a very early pick in the draft with so much QB talent coming out in '24.

O'Connell isn't going to be the guy.

I think signing Hoyer was a mistake, his time in the league, as a backup, is done in my opinion.

To make sure things are clear, I'm not saying McDaniels is a great or even good head coach.

I'm simply saying that at 3-5 their season wasn't done and I don't think he should be sacked this early.

I expect things to get even worse for the Raiders now.

As you know I'm a Patriots fan and over the years it's been mentioned many times that he'd end up taking the reins from Belichick and I never liked hearing it and that's before he went to Denver. I just don't think he has the personality and leadership qualities required to be a successful head coach.

He did go into two bad situations though.

Have to say though I was very surprised that he let Derek Carr walk.

I'm not disagreeing with you on McDaniels. I wasn't suggesting he was average by saying he's not great or good.

I don't agree that the Raiders had a good roster.

Derek Carr wasn't doing anything special and mostly because he had an awful set of wide receivers.

Their offensive line was poor and their defensive secondary was bad.

They made the playoffs but that had a lot to do with a very friendly schedule.

I'm not defending McDaniels here. I'm just saying it as I see it.

And McDaniels was head hunted. He couldn't turn down a head coaching job again. He did it a few seasons ago because of his family situation.

Anyway, for the most part we are in agreement I think.

We made the playoffs with McDaniels in 2021.

Or are you talking about in head coach positions?

If so there was Charlie Weis who had a couple of good seasons with Notre Dame.

Eric Mangini had a couple of winning seasons with the Jets.

And then there was Romeo Crennell who did the impossible by guiding the Cleveland Browns to a winning season in 2007. Their first since 2002 and last until 2020.

So there was four in total who were successful as head coaches.

They may have overall losing records but they all had winning seasons.

Like Romeo was over the Browns, how in earth can you come out of there after a couple of seasons with a winning record.

Same applies with Mangini, he was with the Jets.

The fact they had winning seasons means they had success.

When are you going to give up? Any coach who had a winning season had success. Nobody mentioned hanging banners, that's done when you win titles.

Well you have a bit of a warped sense of succes for a coach. Would you fire every coach who didn't make the playoffs?

If a team goes 11-6 in the regular season in the NFL and doesn't make the playoffs does that mean the coach didn't have a successful season?

If you win more than you lose that's a successful season in my opinion. It's not a great season but you've had success.