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."

"Dallas, Packers, Niners and Steelers were all more heavily fancied to win the Superbowl before the 1997 season. Regionally, others too. Denver weren't particularly fancied going into that season. They'd gone 13-3 the previous year, but had been 8-8 and 7-9 before that. People locally were talking about Elway's career going unrewarded. They finished second in their division during the 1997 regular season, behind the Chiefs. But exploded going into the Wild Card game and play-offs."

"Just to give some other people's opinion: When the NFL did that 100 best Teams of all time, only two of Montana's and one of Brady's rank above the 1998 Broncos. (of the guys mentioned)"

"southbankbornnbred 12:23 Tue Oct 27 Elway will always rightly be in the GOAT discussion. But to say ""decidedly average"" probably glosses over the fact that he had the running back with #2 and #3 rushing yards in the playoffs - all time - in his two Superbowl wins. And Davis is MVP for the whole year in '98 with a top ten all-time season yards. Zimmerman is his HoF tackle for the first Superbowl. Neil Smith was slowing down but could still first the quarterback. Trevor Pryce essentially took over for him in '98. Bill Romanowski was scary, and was there both year and a pro-bowler in '98. Steve Atwater was perennial pro-bowler. Shannon Sharpe is a HoFer. I would say he had a better team around him than some of the others in that discussion, when they won their rings."

"Elway is the GOAT, in my personal opinion. Brady and Montana have the rings. Brees and Manning have the numbers. Rodgers has the highlights reel. But Elway could do everything, and even led a decidedly average side to two superbowl wins. If you had to put your mortgage on one QB to take you 99 yards downfield with two minutes of a game remaining, it would be Elway. ""The Drive"" is a thing of beauty, coming as it did when it did, on the muddiest of pitches. That took balls bigger than any other QB had."

"I certainly agree. It was a few years later than I found the Saints on a high school jazz band trip and he became one of the Dirty Birds. But shamefully, as a kid there was nothing more late 80s/early 90s cool than stuff like this. https://vault.si.com/vault/702288#&gid=ci0258bfec3014278a&pid=702288---cover-image"

"I liked Bo Jackson but Neon Deion got on my nerves with his showboating into the end zone, have a bit of respect and take a look at one of the best maybe even THE best RBs of all time, Barry Sanders"

Neon Deion Sanders also played a lot of baseball. Him and Bo were right in the era of me being a kid and saving my money to buy Sports Illustrated every week I could. So I can remember them being on multiple covers.

"Yes, Elway had a bullet of an arm"

"I reckon Michael Jordan could have made it in the NFL, possibly as a WR"

So yeah just the one summer https://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/fandom/post/_/id/10608/remembering-john-elways-summer-of-baseball He's no Bo Jackson. Hah.

Takashi Miike 4:53 Mon Oct 26 He was drafted and played the summer in the Yankees' farm system. Outfielder I believe.

bit harsh not including elway who probably had the best arm of the lot and had offers from pro baseball teams coming out of college

"Interesting topic amongst the commentators in last night's Saints game (for me at least). Say what you want about baseball but apparently it produces NFL quarterbacks. Especially at the shortstop position. In no particular order: Garoppolo Mahomes Rodgers Brees Wilson Roethlisberger Matt Ryan Stafford Goff Murray and every Pro Football Hall of Fame QB since sometime in the '70s ""ì other than Terry Bradshaw and Jim Kelly ""ì so people like Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Dan Marino, Fran Tarkenton, Dan Fouts, Warren Moon, Troy Aikman, Kurt Warner and Peyton Manning all played shortstop at a competitive level. Probably why I never made it as NFL QB (or lineman). I hated baseball (and could not throw my way out of a wet paper bag.)"

The Cowgirls got so many picks and players out of the Walker deal that it feels like they're still drafting off the back of it! It felt like I was still reading about fresh Walker-related drafts and picks years later. It's like the Carrick deal...

"Cowgirls/Vikes-type trade. What a fucking trade that was, I bet the cowboys were laughing their Texas size arses off"

"Yep thought we'd closed out against the Cards, but they came back well. Lot of mistakes on both sides late on. Lockett's ability to find space and to get his feet grounded is uncanny. He's not that tall, not phenomenally quick, and not really a unit - and yet his figures are right up there. That DK Metcalf chase back, as falace said below, was stunning."

Was a good game for me as I had Lockett in fantasy. (Made up for the fact that I followed most of the media and picked the wrong Mostert backup to start.)

crystal falace 2:23 Mon Oct 26 Wilson had an uncharacteristic stinker in the 4th quarter and OT. I'll forgive him it this once given the number of times he's won us a game when we've been playing shit

The falcons have lost 3 games already this season where at one point in the game they had over 98% probability to win.

I went to bed last night when the seahawks went up by 10 midway through the 4th quarter! Thought the game was over!

"This is my worst fantasy year for injuries by far - five of the six running backs I've started so far have gone down during games plus Kenyan Drake has been carted off twice! I've got a second fantasy team on the go that's just the same, bizarrely. That one also has Beckham jr in it, so not just RB's. Six straight fantasy defeats in that one, so I know how the Jets feel now..."

"That said, I genuinely don't want him to go mid-season now. We might as well just tank it to 0-16 and have the option of taking Lawrence in the draft - or of asking a team to masively over-pay to get Lawrence and land some Cowgirls/Vikes-type trade. We've already got quite a few first and second round picks in the tank. At this rate, we might end up with the entire first round draft - and we'd still fuck it up. It's become comical."

"Final word from me on the Jets this week - I won't bang on about it (!) - Gase has fallen so far that he didn't even call the offensive plays on Sunday. He was appointed for his alleged ""genius"" (hahahahaha!) as an offensive mind! Got described as such when he got the job because he knows absolutely nothing about the defensive side of the game. (I can barely go on without laughing...) On Sunday, he even gave up the pretence that he knows anything about offence. So Dowell Loggains (OC) called the plays when we had the ball. All 5ft 5"" of him. From defensive ""genius"" to not even leading his own offence ahead of a man who can barely see above his clipboard. Only the Jets could do this as a franchise now that the Non-Skin, Skins have showed glimmers of improvement."

Gash?

"Going to have to find a similar nickname for Gase, too, as he's in danger even of surpassing Kotite as our worst-ever coach! I'd say it's close right now."