I do not like it, it was obvious since long ago NE needed a third QB on the roster, and since NE did not drafted one then free agency was the only answer, according to the reports the contract is up for 7.5 millions if all incentives are included, so from a business perspective is not a bad deal.

However we are about 2 months and a half away from the beginning of the regular season and this movement is coming simply too late, also you do not bring someone like Cam Newton to be at the bench which means Belichick is not convinced by what he is seeing in Stidham and Hoyer and this is a problem, if this movement happened after the draft then Cam could have had more time to learn the playbook or to adapt the playbook to his skill set and when we take into account the exceptional circumstances we are in because of the pandemic this is going to become an even bigger challenge.

Also while Cam is still young, he is only 31, the style of football that he plays is extremely taxing to his body to the point he has not looked the same for quite some time, can he become more of a pocket passer? This is difficult to know because he has been going through a shoulder injury during the past two years and he was even trying to change the mechanics he used to throw the ball, all in all this is a gamble for NE, as a fan I hope it goes well but I do not have high hopes of that happening.

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Agreed, the schedule this year is many times more difficult than the one NE had to face during the past year, in fact taking into account the records of the teams during the previous season NE has the hardest schedule in all the NFL, we also talked a little bit about it when the NFL scheduled was released and if NE can go 5-5 during the first 10 games then there is hope to get to the post-season but anything worse than that and most likely any hope for a post-season game will be over.

Err, am I the only one who thinks that that makes no sense This is like re-naming the New England Patriots to Boston Patriots. It's the "Redskins" name and logo that got more and more criticism over the years or am I missing something here ?

Edit: Ok, got it. I don't know all satirical outlets in the world unfortunately^^

The hardest part is actually getting the sarcasm, when it's not your first language And I am following things closely at the moment in US (Corona, Politics) and there are some news, where I think "ok, this can't be true", but it is reality in fact and I am scratching my head in disbelief then It's a good show and I enjoy it, but you always have to double-check everything^^

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Count me in. I never played FF, but always wanted to try it.

As you say I think it is deserved and it is a way to show their player they really want him, however this is a risk, there is a reason on average the longest contracts on the NFL are up to 4 or 5 years, if something were to happen to Mahomes, something that a true lover of football does not want to happen, then they will be in salary cap hell for quite some time even with whatever precautions they took when drafting his contract, in fact it will be fascinating to see how KC will navigate the salary cap from now on, in the case of Mahomes they were getting a massive overproduction when he was on his rookie deal but that will not be the case anymore, it will be interesting to watch if they can avoid what happened to Seattle and Russell Wilson which went from a juggernaut to just another good team when they paid him his money.


Maybe a compromise could be reached, preseason games for the most part are useful to look at the drafted new talent and whatever players the team got on free agency, the owners could just make it official and exclude anyone that has been with the team for one year or longer from participating on those games, this arrangement will get most parts happy, the fans will have something to watch, the owners get some money out of this, new players get a chance to prove their worth to the coaches and try to secure a spot on the roster and coaches get a chance to see their players compete.


Just a question, what kind sites do you have on mind? If it is a website which accepts bitcoin then you can count me in even if I am quite sure I will be last place, but if something like PP is needed then I will have to think about it since I have been avoiding getting a PP account.

For me the possibility of no 2020 NFL season is next to zero. It would take very special circumstances to cancel it all together, there is just too much money involved and as we all know money makes the world go round Look at german football (soccer) Bundesliga. Lots of shops were still closed, gatherings of more than 3 persons were forbidden, masks mandatory in all indoor places, but football started again. And the Bundesliga isn't as powerful as the NFL is. Now you basically have all leagues in Europe playing again, that weren't cancelled; Basketball is played again too. All this with sophisticated hygiene concepts, no spectators and it worked; I didn't hear of any issues.

This virus is relatively easy to control in the end, if everyone is on the same page and shows just some discipline (a bit of social distancing and wearing a mask is enough). What a lot of people in the US don't seem to understand is, that if you show discipline for some weeks, you can be "done" with this relatively fast and go back to normal step by step. If you refuse to co-operate and insist on your "freedom" (which is good in general, but not with this matter), you will be stuck in this situation waaaaaaaaaaay longer. 

The situation in general is embarrassing enough for the US and if they fail to have something like a NFL season, this would be even more embarrassing imo, because it's all in their power to improve the situation.

Even if the situation is like it is now by August/September, I still think the NFL would start (because money). Only if the situation worsens even more, I could think of the season being postponed. Only postponed though, because money again. To cancel the whole season, I don't know what would have to happen. Since you are also active in the US election thread, I will post this quote from Condoleezza Rice here, which I also posted/referred to in that thread:

Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/presidential-election-postponed/

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As for NBA and MLB, this is even easier to manage imo. NBA has small rosters/staff and Baseball is no-contact sport 99% of the time and outdoor in a lot of places; biggest problem is probably the chewing tobacco and the spitting For NHL not sure, because they have bigger rosters, there is a lot of contact and the arenas are cold-ish, which is something this virus seems to prefer from all we know.

I think what we'd do is just sign up for a league via ESPN or Yahoo Sports (use a new email address to register) and then have someone collect and hold the BTC (I'd nominate DireWolf for that). Maybe just small stakes... somewhere between 0.001 and 0.003 BTC per player, or something.

I dunno. I kinda talked myself out of it while writing this. Seems like it might be more trouble than its worth.

I'd feel comfortable with you playing and holding the funds. It's not unusual in the real world for someone to do both. We'd need at least 8 players; 10 is ideal. Also ideally they should be people who have commented in this thread or the old one from time-to-time, or else have an established history of commenting in the Gambling section of the forum (ie, no newbs or Jr members).

The hardest part would be arranging a draft... It would take a lot of coordination to do a live draft, and since we all live in different time zones, it might be hard to pin down a time. I think of ESPN and Yahoo Sports have autodraft features (where you rank the players you want, down to 100 players or so) so we could just do that.

+1, especially with the MLB kicking off their season in a couple weeks. the prevailing attitude seems to be that leagues will make all efforts to go ahead regardless of the pandemic.

it might get pretty wonky though. news just dropped that all NFL players will have the option of sitting out the entire season.


i love the ravens and 49ers this year but who the hell knows what their rosters will look like come september?


i'm in, if you guys will have me. i'm pretty flexible re live draft and also fine with an auto draft.

Looks like we have six members interested in a fantasy football league, we're 60-75% there.

Here're the members who expressed interest so far:

@figmentofmyass
@nutildah
@bbc.reporter
@South Park
@tyKiwanuka
@DireWolfM14


I'm calling out some of the members who were active in the Essential NFL thread throughout last season.  Maybe we can entice two or four of them to join as well.

@Hueristic
@wheelz1200
@DaveF
@Gyfts
@rdbase
@ralle14
@morvillz7z

As some of you might have heard, there are some MLB players that opted out of the shortened 2020 season. Only a few until now, but I expect more to come. Zimmerman from the Nationals stated the following:

Source: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29384355/nationals-ryan-zimmerman-joe-ross-opt-2020-season

I think this is also a scenario that is very likely to happen in NFL and something that could put the NFL season in jeopardy, if you have too many players refusing to play or some bigger names opting out. As said above Baseball is easier to handle Corona-wise than Football, so I am not that sure anymore about the chances of no season at all being "next to zero"

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I left a post in that thread noticing them about our interest to start a league for next season.