West Ham Online

"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."

"Be a tough call, as in the days when the Niners were better, the coverage in England was pretty shit, especially back in around 1988 when we all picked out teams for life out of a hat after buying the Madden game for the first time. Jerry Rice was incredible, but the lucky fucker had both Montana and Young throwing him the ball. Young is maybe my favourite Niners player. 43 rushing TD's in 169 games back then for someone who was in Montana's shadow was class. Used to think that Emmitt Smith was quality."

Got to have Dick Butkus on defense

"Pivotal role in Mars Attacks! as well.... Who is everyone's top players? For me: 1) Jim Brown 2) Lawrence Taylor 3) everyone else LT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWB9ia_ZPjk The video is just scary. The speed off the edge and the way he sheds or runs round blockers with ease before annihilating the quarterback, sometimes just carrying blockers with him. He's there before the QB can even finish his drop or get through any reads. The ferocity of the hitting combined with that hand chop is just brutal."

He was good in the Dirty Dozen

Of course the Browns famously traded their draft pick to the Falcons which allowed Atlanta to pick up Julio Jones

"Way before my time Jim Brown, but it was brutal back then so his record is very impressive. Clearly his finest moment though is playing Fireball in The Running Man."

Only player to have a career over 100 rushing yards average per game

There will never be another Jim Brown! Greatest player ever. I love this video of him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6cCXNBeVfc

No more Jim Browns for them then?

"The Jets to be fair were very good for a couple of years under the foot lover Rex Ryan, but mostly dreadful. Think they suffer from starry eyed clueless ownership a little bit like the Redskins. Weirdly Cleveland only have the third worst record in the last 10 years- the Rams and Raiders have been (slightly) even poorer."

"The draft system is there to help teams like the Browns who regularly finish low in the rankings but I think they have had Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder doing their scouting. They have drafted 5 QBs in the last 10 years!!! I can only think of one other team who have been so spectacularly inept despite being given so many first round draft picks, the Jets."

It's hard to believe with all the help in pace to prevent it that the Browns can be so spectacularly awful for such a long time. Maybe they are cursed- not even Belichick could do shit there as the head coach. Art Modell firing him probably in retrospect ranks as one of the dumbest moves in NFL history. The Ravens could have won a hell of a lot more than just one Super Bowl with him coaching the murderer Ray Lewis

In the last 10 years the Browns have drafted 14 players in the first round... 9 of them are no longer with the organisation and most of those had left the Browns by the end of their 2nd year. Maybe they are better off trading all Draft picks for players as they can't pick a decent college player for shit.

The Browns have an awful record of trades and drafts... even Kevin Costner made a better fist of it. ;-)

They'd be fucking stupid to do that. But then they are pretty fucking stupid.

Think garrapolo will end up at the browns as they have a mid first round pick to trade along with their number 1 overall pick

Here you go: http://www.footballxos.com/download/offense/pro-offense/2004-New-England-Patriots-Offense-Charlie-Weis.pdf There's a load more playbooks on that site too actually.

"I did have an electronic copy of a Patriots old playbook a few years ago, but I think it's been lost. The level of detail is extraordinary- they even get told where to stand in the huddle. It's over a hundred pages long and they all need to memorise it."

I watched on the bbc the other day how Matt Ryan did some of his calls.... there were 20 odd words in it for 1 play and he read most of it off 1st go. It's astounding. The whole game is. So technical. I have a greater appreciation of the sport than I did a few years ago.

"Fascinating isn't it- the level of detail. Also really interesting how they select and train all the coaches to keep continuity and evolution going. Really hardcore stuff. You can see why the standards never slip. It seems more like mental torture and conditioning than anything else, but I suppose that's what brings the results on the field."

"El Scorchio 1:14 Tue Feb 7 Thanks for that, really good read."

Am sort of thinking that Garropolo will probably join us with Kaepernick leaving.

"Yes- I feel much the same way. Absolute genius, but it's things like recording opponent's practices which really sour things. And we only know the stuff they've actually been caught for... He doesn't even need to do it."

"Shame that for all he's achieved, it's impossible to have any respect for Bellichek."

"bobbymoore 11:10 No prob! Here are a couple: http://www.masslive.com/patriots/index.ssf/2016/12/bill_belichick_patriots_coachi.html http://www.si.com/nfl/2017/01/12/bill-belichick-philosophy-nfl-coaches-blanket-coverage Really interesting stuff, I think."