At the insistence of Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, the FAA is apparently targeting a pilot who was hired this month by disgruntled fans to fly messages like "Hire a GM!" over the team's training camp. A "Mike Brown Step Down" banner was flown over games last season. Brown's futility (1 winning season in 18 years) in Cincinnati has spurred fans to pay thousands for billboards and distribute urinal cakes, while HBO's Hard Knocks series has recently shown insight into his cluelessness. [more inside]
posted by cashman on Aug 26, 2009 - 63 comments

The game as it was played in 1958 “is still an entertaining sport to watch, but it’s just not near as complicated,” Reid said. Writer Mark Bowden watches the 1958 NFL Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants with Eagle's coach to find how he thinks the game has evolved. They find a game that is at times barely recognizable as being in the same sport. (Via)
posted by octothorpe on Sep 19, 2008 - 53 comments

Now that Super Bowl XLII is over, all that remains is for NFL Flims to tell the tale. Documenting the greatest moments of the game since 1962, NFL Films is known for its distinctive style, its stirring music, and, until his death in 1983, the "Voice of God" narration of John Facenda.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Feb 3, 2008 - 93 comments

Through alcohol and vicodin addicition, trauma, grief, and loss, Brett Favre has thrown the ball for the largest muncipally-owned professional sports team in the United States. After reinventing himself several times over, and leading his team to an improbable string of wins and accomplishments a year after almost retiring, he is Sport's Illustrated's sportsman of the year.
posted by absalom on Dec 4, 2007 - 64 comments

The Football Albums. Music and football. Surely there's something better than "Hail to the Redskins" and "The Superbowl Shuffle?" One man believed there could be. That man was Peter Hughes, Inland Empire indie rock mini-star, sometime member of Nothing Painted Blue and the Mountain Goats, baseball diarist, and leader of the now-defunct band Diskothi-Q. In 1999, Diskothi-Q released The Football Albums: a double CD of 32 songs, one for each team in the NFL. All are now freely downloadable as .mp3s: AFC and NFC. (.mp3 links follow) Get ready for the big game this weekend by pitting "Colts" against "Patriots." Revel in the untamed savagery of "Eagles" or sympathize with the touching lament, "(Nobody Cares about the St. Louis) Rams."
posted by escabeche on Oct 29, 2007 - 21 comments

Max McGee was not expected to play in Superbowl I. He ended up catching 7 catches for 138 yard and two touchdowns including the first ever in Superbowl history. After retiring he became one of the most popular broadcasters the team ever had. He also was one of the founders of Chi-chi's restaurant. He died from a fall on Saturday. He was 75.
posted by Bonzai on Oct 21, 2007 - 14 comments

The Final Cut. "I never thought the end would come like this -- with me holding the end of my life's passion in one hand and a foot-long Italian sub on wheat in the other." The side of the NFL you rarely see: former Redskins lineman Ross Tucker tells his story.
posted by bijou on Sep 9, 2007 - 84 comments

Streaming NFL Games [more inside]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Sep 8, 2007 - 25 comments

Bill Walsh, 11/30/1931-7/30/2007. Walsh, former coach of the San Francisco 49er's (cool tribute up on their site, currently), lost his fight with Leukemia yesterday. His career included an impressive 6 division titles and 3 super bowl wins, and his inventions included many tactics and devices still being used by many teams today, including the West Coast Offense and those laminated play cards you see many coaches using. He was also the creator of the Minority Coaching Fellowship program, helping minority coaches get a foothold in a previously white-dominated profession. RIP, Bill.
posted by allkindsoftime on Jul 31, 2007 - 19 comments

One of the stars of the new NFL season will make its debut this Sunday. It's not a player - it's Arizona Cardinal's stadium. It's got a retractable roof, and a movable grass field that can roll out of the facility where it will reside most of the year and get its nourishment, maintenance and grooming. First of its kind in North America. NPR audio piece.
posted by jaimev on Sep 8, 2006 - 37 comments

Please, do mention the war. Really, it's hard not to. After all, in a sense football is war, as the General famously joked. Sometimes it's peace. Same goes for that other football, by the way.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jun 3, 2006 - 11 comments

The Steelers were 7-5, then won their final four regular-season games to secure the AFC's last playoff spot. They went to Cincinnati and won a wild-card game. They won at Indianapolis, which had the league's best record. And then they handed Denver its first home loss in the AFC championship game. And now they're the first 6th seed playoff team ever to win the Super Bowl. History made.
posted by allkindsoftime on Feb 5, 2006 - 138 comments

Supersized in the NFL Analyzing data from the 2003-2004 season, researchers say "more than a quarter of NFL players had a body mass index that qualified them as class 2 obesity" -- equivalent to a 6-foot man weighing between 260 and 300 pounds. Even those players weren't the biggest ones: the study counted more than 60 players -- 3 percent -- with body mass indexes placing them into class 3 obesity, with individual weights approaching 400 pounds. "I don't know what's going on in the minds of coaches", said lead researcher Dr. Joyce Harp, an assistant professor of nutrition and medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Players' growing girth "is a major concern," said Dr. Arthur Roberts, a former NFL quarterback and retired heart surgeon (.pdf file) whose Living Heart Foundation works with the players' union to evaluate heart-related health risks faced by current and retired players. More inside.
posted by matteo on Mar 1, 2005 - 42 comments

The battle for the NFL After EA Games bombshell announcement that it had signed a five-year exclusive licensing deal with the NFL, many sports games fans are wondering what will happen to their favorite franchises that don't feature John Madden. You can bet ESPN is hoppin' mad (and probably Microsoft as well), as are fans of its NFL 2K series (of which I'm a proud member). Do deals like this hurt the fans or the sport ... or even the gaming industry itself? I certainly think so. Sports is about competition! Oh, no, wait it's about money. Never mind.
posted by WolfDaddy on Dec 17, 2004 - 34 comments

Going Poston! - This is a Flash parody about the NFL's most notorious player agents, the Postons, Carl and Kevin. This article from a month ago, pretty much sums up why they're becoming so infamous.
posted by Witty on May 13, 2004 - 7 comments

This Super Bowl halftime, make it to the Lingere Bowl. American TV hits a new low by inventing another sport along the lines of Foxy Boxing and Hot Oil Wrestling. The gridiron action features Team Dream vs. Team Euphoria (featuring washed-up former NFL players as coaches) in full contact football while wearing skimpy clothing. Even weirder, but there will be cheerleaders to cheerlead the players that are already dolled up to look like cheerleaders in some sort of subtle hot lesbian action. It's all pay-per-view, but this "Girls Gone Football" seems more like a new low than a step forward for real women's sports.
posted by mathowie on Dec 3, 2003 - 40 comments

On sunday, Rush Limbaugh commented that Donovan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, was overrated and was only seen favourably by the media because they want to see a black quarterback do well. McNabb responded, and earlier tonight Limbaugh resigned from his post on ESPN's pre-game show. N.D. Kalu, one of the Eagle's defensive ends, offered this choice quote: "He speaks well, he's well-read, but he's an idiot."
posted by The God Complex on Oct 2, 2003 - 100 comments

Democrats need to Hail Mary into the business ethic of the NFL in order to win. I just might have to watch the NFL playoffs this year.
posted by crasspastor on Jan 11, 2003 - 5 comments

Run Ricky Run. Ricky Williams, running-back for the Miami Dolphins, gets an A for effort for designing and maintaining his own website. He keeps a journal where he sounds off on everything from battling fame and the perks that come with it, to meeting his idol (Jim Brown). He even talks about money problems, just on a much larger scale then you or I would have.
posted by Starchile on Nov 26, 2002 - 15 comments

It's sad we lost, but the Mayor got what she had coming This woman is an atrocity to the beautiful city of Dallas - she is grossly uncouth, lacks class, and is not fit for the position of mayor in one of the greatest cities in America. She made a bet on the Cowboys when they started the season with a game against the Houston Texans - and lost. The agreement was that if the 'boys won the game, the Mayor of Houston would wear a 'boys cap and jersey at a city hall meeting. Likewise and reciprocal from the herself. Yeah.
posted by JessicaRose on Sep 18, 2002 - 25 comments

The Football Prospectus is up and running. The good folks who work on the Baseball Prospectus have turned their attention to NFL. This is their inaugural effort. Their contrarian thinking and in-depth statistical analysis has (slowly) started to creep its way into MLB coverage. Can their unique take and historical perspective change football's conventional wisdom as well?
posted by herc on Aug 16, 2002 - 9 comments

Ryan Leaf retires from NFL at 26 This article calls him one of the biggest busts in NFL history. When signed in 1998, he said "I'm looking forward to a 15-year career, a couple of trips to the Super Bowl and a parade through downtown San Diego." Instead he got interceptions, fights related and unrelated to his job (for which he blamed everyone but himself), and a lot of disappointed fans. What happened?
posted by GaelFC on Jul 26, 2002 - 23 comments

Seahawks Stadium was open to the public for the first time this past weekend, with activities on the field for kids, concession stands open with video menus advertising $3.25 hot dogs, and tours of the private box seats and the media room. It's a large stadium with fantastic views of downtown Seattle from some seats and views overlooking Elliot Bay from the western railings, the best hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars can buy.

On Saturday, the first day of the public open house, a man jumped to his death from a northwest ramp of the stadium.
posted by dan_of_brainlog on Jul 22, 2002 - 15 comments

Take the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic is a 50-question IQ test administered by the National Football League to all prospective draft picks. Teams use the test results to varying degree, in part to determine the ability of athletes to learn systems and grow as a player. Interestingly, offensive tackles and centers have the highest average NFL Wonderlic scores. (The test here is a fast 15-question sample; you'll need a piece of paper to jot down your answers.)
posted by werty on Mar 1, 2002 - 31 comments

'A willing participant'? A woman parties and cavorts with athletes, brags about posing for Playboy. Fast forward a couple of days and she presses rape charges. NFL defensive lineman is one of the guys supposedly holding the camera videotaping the sex, so he's charged. He's got a record of drug use so he's no angel either. Of course, "no means no" but what was she doing there in the first place?
posted by owillis on Feb 8, 2002 - 21 comments

A botched call late in the 4th... and now New England is in the AFC championship game. A hometown call?
posted by msposner on Jan 19, 2002 - 45 comments

A feel-good story for the holidays, involving a pro football player. Warrick Dunn of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers makes the down payment and furnishes homes for single mothers and their children in Tampa Bay and his native Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This program has now been copied by NY Giants' Jason Sehorn. (more inside)
posted by msacheson on Dec 19, 2001 - 17 comments

"It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't World War III" Watch the Browns/Jaguars game? Maybe it was a bad call, but throwing plastic bottles full of beer? Anybody who knows me knows I speak out loudly and firmly against the ridiculous sports culture we have in this country. This incident makes me ashamed to be a Clevelander, even a transplanted one. What is it that gets people this riled up and stupid?
posted by starvingartist on Dec 17, 2001 - 120 comments

Does the Dallas Cowboy's owner suffer from delusions of adequacy? When Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys fired Jimmy Johnson he sold his soul to prove that he's in charge. Now his ego has made America's Team an NFL laughingstock.
posted by marc-hamilton on Nov 12, 2001 - 23 comments

This coming Sunday 1,643 men will start hitting each other and continue to do so for at least 17 weeks: NFL Football is back! But what happened to all the dynasty teams? And what drives its fans to play God? Is it the end of the quarterback? The real question is how many players will have run-ins with the law...
posted by owillis on Sep 3, 2001 - 16 comments

Victor Kiam dies. This is quite a shame... just thought I'd post and let all know
posted by monkeyJuice on May 29, 2001 - 9 comments

NFL Realignment. Seattle returns home. North and South finally get representation after being discrimated against for years by East, West, and Central. And of course, plenty of work for designers and coders to integrate new graphics and site changes. Yippee!
posted by lescour on May 22, 2001 - 12 comments

Quoth the Ravens, nevermore. 34 - 7, and the Vince Lombardi trophy goes back to Baltimore. My favorite spots were...
posted by baylink on Jan 28, 2001 - 35 comments

Superbowl Sunday meets The Matrix Some of you may not need a reason to watch the phenomenon that is Superbowl Sunday. Others of us need technological cajoling. Here's a video demonstrating the replay special effect. (Sorry about the Verizon ad.) via slashdot.
posted by crunchland on Jan 24, 2001 - 21 comments

Well, only 10 shopping days left until Super B(bleep)l Sunday, and of course, everyone's ready for the big... commercials. This one, from People for Eating Tasty Animals -- er, um, sorry; mispronounced that -- was refused by CBS, or so saith the minions at AdCritic. Hope they're planning a Superbowl focus page during and after the show. They really oughtta hold a vote. No, wait... it would take too long. :-}
posted by baylink on Jan 18, 2001 - 7 comments

TPD to NFL: Sure, we'll arrest your quarterback for getting a lapdance. Oh, do I wanna see them be dumb enough to try this.
posted by baylink on Jan 9, 2001 - 5 comments

So Charles Schulz ran out of ink about two hours ago, preceded in death by about five hours by Tom Landry. The worst part is, both were in my dead pool, which starts in about 24 hours. (The second-worst thing is all the "It's a sad day for Snoopy" and "Good grief" ledes we're going to have to endure. Blech.)

The Dallas Morning News obit went over the wires at 85 inches before Landy was even cold. Gee, you think they saw this one coming?
posted by luke on Feb 12, 2000 - 9 comments