Matt Leinart

Wabittwax

Looked pretty good yesterday, I must say. He's doing better than I thought he would at this point being a Cardinal and all. I'm a fan of Kurt Warner but it's safe to say his job is probably gone sooner rather than later.

Any thoughts?

perkdog

I think the Cards will get every mile out of Warner, and let Leinart watch for the year and learn their system. If they could shore up that offensive line the Cards could be in for a monster season, but the line stinks. No sense in Leinart getting the same treatment that David Carr got his first season.

stevek

What's the surprise? "Everybody" had Leinart as the quarterback much further ahead in NFL capability this season than the other quarterbacks in the draft.

I still don't have a good read on ths guy making it in the NFL. No way he's a lock to make it in the NFL, but I think he will be a productive journeyman of sorts, however never becoming close to great, and he'll windup playing for three or four teams during his career.

Boopotts

Yeah, but it's the preseason, and as I get older I start thinking that the preseason means far, far less then ESPN would like to have us believe. Look at Joey Harrington last year-- he absolutely tore it up in preseason, and then couldn't hit water out of a boat when they started playing for keepsies.

As recently as 6 or 7 years ago you never even used to hear about preseason games. A few were televised, but nobody except for degenerate gamblers ever watched them, and even your home team's preseason coverage would be stuck in the back of the sports section. Now, of course, every time someone farts on the sideline ESPN has one of their little hotpants 'sideline reporters' do an impromptu interview with the flatulent player, and the radio is abuzz with news of the gaseous outburst for the next two weeks. In a climate like that it's easy to start thinking that preseason success is somehow predictive of reg. season success, but I just haven't seen anything that would suggest that's the case.

grote15

As recently as 6 or 7 years ago you never even used to hear about preseason games. A few were televised, but nobody except for degenerate gamblers ever watched them, and even your home team's preseason coverage would be stuck in the back of the sports section. Now, of course, every time someone farts on the sideline ESPN has one of their little hotpants 'sideline reporters' do an impromptu interview with the flatulent player, and the radio is abuzz with news of the gaseous outburst for the next two weeks. In a climate like that it's easy to start thinking that preseason success is somehow predictive of reg. season success, but I just haven't seen anything that would suggest that's the case.



Does anyone else here avoid watching all the pre- and post-game coverage before and after every game too? In the old days, you had NFL Today for 30 minutes and that was enough. Now you have game coverage literally hours before kickoff every Sunday and I just find it mind-numbingly boring.

perkdog

Its great to watch if your into fantasy football though.

grote15

The NFL Sunday ticket on DirecTV is all you need for fantasy tracking these days. I find most of the segments on these pregame shows to be very high on the fluff factor with few segments offering any real value.

Michigan

<< <i>As recently as 6 or 7 years ago you never even used to hear about preseason games. A few were televised, but nobody except for degenerate gamblers ever watched them, and even your home team's preseason coverage would be stuck in the back of the sports section. Now, of course, every time someone farts on the sideline ESPN has one of their little hotpants 'sideline reporters' do an impromptu interview with the flatulent player, and the radio is abuzz with news of the gaseous outburst for the next two weeks. In a climate like that it's easy to start thinking that preseason success is somehow predictive of reg. season success, but I just haven't seen anything that would suggest that's the case.



Does anyone else here avoid watching all the pre- and post-game coverage before and after every game too? In the old days, you had NFL Today for 30 minutes and that was enough. Now you have game coverage literally hours before kickoff every Sunday and I just find it mind-numbingly boring. >>




I like the pre game shows in general, they might be more fluff than substance but all of them have at least some interesting
segments every week. ESPN's pregame show from 11AM to 1PM is at least one hour too long however, they have a lot of
time to fill and labor often to fill it with things of interest.

IrishMike

First let me say I am no fan of Leinart or the cards, but a long time Irish and Bear fan (bears suck). It was deja vu all over again watching Leinart play. Considering the lack of practice to date he was amazing. He look off receivers, went through his progessions and laid the ball in perfectly time and time again, just like he did against ND. Watching one game doesn't mean he will be a terrific quarterback, but I don't honestly know what else he could have done better against the bears. Even though they had some second and third teamers in they were covered and he still managed to lay the ball right there. If I were a Cards fan I would be excited about the long term with this guy. He showed he is the real deal and even at this stage better than many other starting quarterbacks.

perkdog

Lets see how he operates behind that offensive line though, I say Jay Cutler will prove to be the best QB taken in the draft.

Michigan

<< <i>Lets see how he operates behind that offensive line though, I say Jay Cutler will prove to be the best QB taken in the draft. >>




He is looking pretty good so far. Look for Jake the Snake to be demoted by the Broncos sometime this season if he falters badly.

kcballboy

<< <i>

<< <i>Lets see how he operates behind that offensive line though, I say Jay Cutler will prove to be the best QB taken in the draft. >>




He is looking pretty good so far. Look for Jake the Snake to be demoted by the Broncos sometime this season if he falters badly. >>



I look for 'The Mistake' to start 1-5 and then Cutler to come in and carry that team 7-3 the rest of the way to an 8-8 record and the Chiefs still win the Division. Then in the offseason, Denver will sell Cutler to a CFL team for $50 and Ladanin Tomlinson and Antonio Gates will retire to open an Orange Julius in South Cali, thus ensuring KC dominance for the next 5-10 years. Oakland just has to keep doing what they're doing and all will be well.

Boopotts

<< <i>

<< <i>As recently as 6 or 7 years ago you never even used to hear about preseason games. A few were televised, but nobody except for degenerate gamblers ever watched them, and even your home team's preseason coverage would be stuck in the back of the sports section. Now, of course, every time someone farts on the sideline ESPN has one of their little hotpants 'sideline reporters' do an impromptu interview with the flatulent player, and the radio is abuzz with news of the gaseous outburst for the next two weeks. In a climate like that it's easy to start thinking that preseason success is somehow predictive of reg. season success, but I just haven't seen anything that would suggest that's the case.



Does anyone else here avoid watching all the pre- and post-game coverage before and after every game too? In the old days, you had NFL Today for 30 minutes and that was enough. Now you have game coverage literally hours before kickoff every Sunday and I just find it mind-numbingly boring. >>




I like the pre game shows in general, they might be more fluff than substance but all of them have at least some interesting
segments every week. ESPN's pregame show from 11AM to 1PM is at least one hour too long however, they have a lot of
time to fill and labor often to fill it with things of interest. >>




Diff'rent strokes, I guess. I think just about all of it is unwatchable, although I will say that the pregame nonsense pales when compared to the in-booth game announcers when you're measuring for sheet stupidity. One of my favorite nuggets of wisdom that you year at least once annually is 'don't take points off the board (WTF?), which basically means that if it's 4th and 3 from your opponents 17 and you catch the opponent offside as you're kicking a FG, then it's a bad coaching strategy to accept the penalty instead of keeping the 3 on the scoreboard (assuming you made the FG). And I'm still waiting for someone to call out all these dumb coaches for doing stuff like kicking FG's when it's 4th and goal from the 2 in a tie game in the first half.

There's just so much folksy wisdom being passed around by coaches/commentators in the NFL that's just clearly wrong if you solve by inspection that I can hardly bear it.

Boopotts

Here's a wonderful example of the kind of responses that NFL troglydites have to new ideas. Read and enjoy. Fassell and Cowher's responses are, IMO, particularly amusing.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/columns/garber_greg/1453717.html