NFL (since 2016)

[crystal falace]

"Free agency started last night and was pretty crazy some huge money being spent. Osweiler getting £18m a year for the Texans, leaving the Broncos without a QB, Giants have spent a fortune on good but not great players, Oliver Vernon has more guaranteed money than JJ Watt. lots more deals but cant be bothered to list them all."

[crystal falace]

Two minute tommy sounds like a high school insult

[Far Cough]

"Haha, yeah Staubach was good but the Vikes had their own version, QB Tommy Kramer also known as ""Two Minute Tommy"""

[southbankbornnbred]

"Irons - yep, bang on that. Staubach was one heck of a QB, too. The number of comebacks that guy made to win games was extraordinary. He ""was"" the two-minute drill!"

[ironsofcanada]

"southbankbornnbred 1:22 Wed Oct 30 Watching some of the 100 years stuff over the last few months,I think also part of it is the fact that they were probably the best team, with a huge star (Roger the Dodger Staubauch) when football was starting to become America's game. Pro football was an Midwest then East Coast thing for a long while. The Cowboys were the first team outside those areas to win a Superbowl."

[southbankbornnbred]

"The whole ""America's Team"" thing was largely self-imposed. Some polls indicated that they were the most popular team across the country - but that's like saying Man Utd are ""England's Team"" now: you're just polling fairweather fans. I guess a more accurate comparison would be Juventus in Italy. They are not even the most popular team in their own city - yet, across the country, most neutrals tend to support them. So you find that Juve are as popular in Bari as Bari, for example."

[Far Cough]

"Although I'm a Vikings fan, I used to have a soft spot for Don Shula's Dolphins but that was because the ship I was working on used to pull into Miami every week, but when I moved to Minnesota, I had to support the Vikings"

[southbankbornnbred]

"Crystal - it was a very American moniker and especially so for the 1970s and 1980s when it was being bandied around a lot. Also very much a Texan attitude - the idea that they are the biggest and the best. It was effectively a reflection of the state's oil-rich status, which they saw as the rest of America's ""dream"" - they saw themselves as the driving force of the US economy. A bit like California does now with the tech twats like Zuckerberg."

[southbankbornnbred]

"I'm quite sure that had Johnson stayed as head coach of that Dallas side, they'd have looked a lot like Belichick's Patsies and gone to nine or so super bowls. But thankfully it never happened."

[southbankbornnbred]

"What was hilarious is that the fall-out in Dallas came when the owner, Jones, gave an interview saying that his side would win the super bowl under any head coach - thereby trashing Johnson's ability (which was high). Jones was trying to give himself all the credit for spending his way to the top. Johnson got pissed off and quit. Switzer took over and won the next super bowl with Johnson's team - but then it all fell apart because Jones was an egotistical maniac and a succession of Dallas coaches were nowhere near as good as Jimmy Johnson."

[Far Cough]

"Yeah, they ended up with Emmit Smith on top of that deal and I think Aikmam might have been connected to it as well? I liked Johnson when he was coach of the Miami Hurricanes but went off him when he was at Dallas"

[crystal falace]

"never understood the America's team label the Cowboys got, i know they were the biggest supported team with loads of money but surely more of the country hated them than supported them. Like calling Liverpool ""England's team"" The fact that they still use the label now is a joke."

[southbankbornnbred]

"The trade was very poor for the Vikes and great for Dallas. Johnson was adept at trading for picks and built the Dallas dynasty on the back of it. That team should have won more super bowls than they did: they had all the money in the world prior to the salary cap, a very good coach and an entire, expensive squad in place. But, thankfully, Johnson and Jones fell out and the Cowgirls were never quite the same afterwards (although Switzer won one SB with the remnants of Johnson's team). Personally, I'm pleased it all fell apart in Dallas in the mid-90s. They were like Man City are now - and just spent their way out of any threat. Had a lot of fair weather fans, too."

[Far Cough]

Ah ok :-)

[southbankbornnbred]

Cough - that was what I was getting at mate. ;-)

[Far Cough]

"southbank, not really, he started very well then his production tailed off and the view of many was the trade was better for the Cowgirls than it was for the Vikes"

[ironsofcanada]

"Far Cough 12:27 Wed Oct 30 Helped make the great Cowboy teams, I hear. A little before my actual NFL time, I do, however, remember Dreadlock Ditka trading everyone of his picks that year for the right to draft Ricky Williams. And then Williams ends up in the CFL for a year."

[southbankbornnbred]

"That worked out really well for the Vikes! Dallas, on the other hand, used it to build an era-defining team of multi-gabillionnaires using Jones' cash and Johnson's superb coaching: but only after they purposefully tanked the first season to get the top pick (Aikman)."

[crystal falace]

"One trade which happened yesterday which did seem very odd to me. Talib was traded to the dolphins for a 7th round pick, but the Rams also gave the Fins a 5th round pick. Essentially buying a draft pick to take the salary cap hit on him."

[Far Cough]

Anyone remember the Herschel Walker trade? One of the biggest if not the biggest trade in NFL history?

[southbankbornnbred]

"Irons - yep, it was never going to last, that league. Especially when Donald Trump got involved!"

[ironsofcanada]

southbankbornnbred 12:23 Wed Oct 30 The league had to collapse for him to come back though.

[ironsofcanada]

"Bo Jackson was huge and did go play baseball, if I remember correctly. Then the Raiders let him do both. But Tampa Bay lied to him and said that flying him somewhere on a private jet was not a violation of NCAA rules but it was and it ended his college baseball career. He said publicly he would not play for them and they still drafted him. The hype around him was incredible but the commercials still hold up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaSdlW1W9yU I also remember Brian Bosworth in a similar time. The days of reading Sports Illustrated and going to practice at 6:30 in the morning."

[southbankbornnbred]

"Jim Kelly's 1983 NFL rights were always held by the Bills. They drafted him in the first round that year. He wasn't sure about playing in Buffalo's cold weather, so fecked off to the rival USFL for two seasons and played in Houston. But he returned to the Bills in 1986 and became a local legend. By losing so many superbowls! ;-)"

[southbankbornnbred]

"""Better things"" in the sense that Montana began to perform better at the 49ers. He was not a better QB than Elway. For me, Elway is the GOAT. Sorry, Patsies, it's just the way it is."

[crystal falace]

Think the manning debacle kind of worked out for everyone. Chargers had a young QB who they thought might be too small and injury prone to play for them so shipped him off to New Orleans once they acquired Rivers