Welcome back to Following Football 2.0! Here are football results that span the globe, giving you the constant variety of footy...thanks Jim McKay, may you rest in peace!
For the NFL pre-season games, you have to sort of ignore the FINAL scores and look at how the guys who'll actually BE on the team did.
PHI def IND, 36-10 (Tebow scored a td as quarterback, got a standing ovation when he came on),
HOU def SF, 23-10
MIN def TB, 26-16 (Jamies Winston was outplayed by Teddy Bridgewater)
KC def ARZ 34-16 (but Arizona led 10-0 when the first string came out at the end of the first quarter)
DEN def SEA 22-20 (no Manning, but Brock Osweiler scored on first five drives)
OAK def STL 18-3 (welcome to the big time, Amari Cooper!)
CIN def NYG 23-10 (listened to the game on radio - good signs on both sidelines)
JAX def PIT 23-21 (like last week, first string Steelers played well and led.)
CAR def BUF 25-24 (Bills' Matt Cassell 7 for 8 w a touchdown)
ATL def TEN 31-24 (Marcus Mariota went INT, fumble, TD drive)
SD def DAL 17-7 (rough for Cowboys, talk of LA for Chargers)
WSH def CLV 20-17 (Josh McCown has the best quote after theowing a TD to a WIDE open receiver: "He looked lonely, so I threw him the ball.")
CHI def MIA 27-10 (but Miami's first string won 10-3; Ryan Tannehill went 6-7 with a TD pass)
DET def NYJ 23-3 (Nebraska's Ammer Abdullah had a good first outing!)
BAL def NO 30-27 (Joe Flacco led his first atring to a "victory" early)
And finally, GB def NE 22-11 - Tom Brady did play two short series, going 1 for 4.
(Of course, we have no record of predicting this season...we are officially 0-0!)
In the CFL, we actually went four for four, raising our record above 50% to 17-15 and up into the top 20% in competition with the Canada Crew:
Edmonton over Montreal 15-12 (after the Alouettes held a 12-0 lead)
Toronto over Winnipeg 27-20 (not as close as it looks)
Hamilton over BC 52-22 (the Cats absolutely dominated all phases of the game)
Calgary over Ottawa 48-3 (looks more like last year's champ over last year's 2-16)
So, right now Hamilton and Toronto in the East, and Calgary and Edmonton in the west, are all 5-2, with poor Saskatchewan still at 0-7 on their bye.
Finally, in the AFL, round 20, Fremantle got their fondest wish by losing to their fiercest rival, West Coast, by a score of 104-80, going down early by six goals and struggling back in the fourth to make it respectable.
Let me explain.
With the win, West Coast stays ahead of the defending champion Hawthorn Hawks for second, which if it held up for three more games would most likely mean that the Hawks will probably have to travel across country TWICE: once at West Coast, and again to play at Fremantle in the prelim finals. That's a tough challenge, even for Hawthorn. Fremantle is still going to end in first place, even with the loss, and if the Eagles can get past the Western Bulldogs next week, they should be able to stay ahead of Hawthorn for second, and both would host qualifying finals in the same stadium!
By the way, we're up to 126-45 this season, positioning us in the top 2% in every comptitive category of punters predicting Aussie footy outcomes (there are 180,000 in the afl.com.au contest!).
The rest of the games this weekend...
Western led Melbourne 76-2 before slowing down a bit to win by a 'mere' 98 points, 153-55, to solidify fourth place (and as discussed in Thursday thoughts this week, fourth is WAY better than fifth!)...Richmond similarly disposed of Gold Coast, although instead of it being the Bulldogs' brilliance, it was the Suns' attrition as even more players went down to injury in a 138-55 loss...Brisbane climbed out of the basement with a dominant win over new wooden spoon favorite Carlton, 131-67...Hawthorn and Geelong had another classic Kenneth Curse battle, this time with the Hawks winning handily, 121-85...Port Adelaide probably ended GWS' finals hopes with a 111-90 win in Adelaide over a team with no healthy midfielders...North Melbourne survived St. Kilda's first half onslaught and came back in the second to win in Tasmania, 120-83... Sydney showed what a champion team is made up, overcoming a great effort that should've given Collingwood a win, instead resulting in a Swans 87-76 victory...and finally, Adelaide utterly annihilated what was left of Essendon's self-esteem, winning 171-59 after Essendon actually WON the first quarter. Pity the poor Bombers' fans, who watch their team literally give up each and every game now.
As for standings, here they are, with three rounds to go: Fremantle (16-3), West Coast (14-4-1), Hawthorn (14-5), Western (13-6), Sydney (13-6), Richmond (12-7), N. Melbourne (12-7), and Adelaide (11-7-1) fill out the top eight for the moment who would make finals. Ninth is Geelong (10-8-1), GWS (10-8), Collingwood (9-10), Port Adelaide (9-10); then a gap down to St. Kilda (6-13), Melbourne (6-13), Essendon (5-14), Gold Coast (3-15-1), Brisbane (3-16), and Carlton (3-16).
Tomorrow, our regular Monday report features updated ratings and rankings, deeper observations from the weekend's action, and FREE TURNIPS FOR EVERYONE! Yes, that's right, we... Oh. Never mind; I've just been told that we can't do the turnip over the internet thing. Yet.
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