Sports (News & Discussion)

[General Ceel]

A catch-all thread any sports related topics we might like to discuss that don't necessarily warrant their own threads.
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Here in the USA the college and NFL American football seasons are both underway. In college my Penn State Nittany Lions are off to a 3 - 0 start. But in the NFL my Pittsburg Steelers lost in week 1. Not too happy about that, but this is a team that always manages to put together a winning record and usually makes the playoffs, so I'm hopeful of good games to come. They're about to kick off in Monday Night Football, though I'm not staying up to watch it.

Meanwhile in my other love, motorsports.... IndyCar has wrapped up its season already. But over in Nascar they'll be racing through mid November yet. The top 3 Nascar touring series (Trucks, Xfinity, Cup) have entered their playoff rounds. Unfortunately some of my favorite drivers have been eliminated, but I'm still excited to see who this year's champions are.

I guess that brings us to cycling. I didn't watch a single minute of this year's Tour de France. As much as I enjoy the race, I made the tough decision to opt out. When I start watching I want to watch it all, and I just didn't want to spend my time on it. Those hours were instead spent on things like getting back into shape and continuing to build up the youtube channel.

[Danster]

For my US sports I'm all things Boston.

So I'm not all that optimistic on the NFL side, but after so much success, Patriots fans can't exactly grumble too much about spending a bit of time in the wilderness. I expect us to finish last in the AFC East, when did that last happen? There's some talk about pressure on Belichick if this season goes poorly, but surely the guy has earned the right to call it a day when he wants.

I'm still reeling about the Celtics bottling it in the Eastern Conference Finals. They should really have beaten the Heat either with a sweep of 4-1, but to let them get to 3-0 up before they started playing was unforgivable. I love Tatum, but I worry whether he's good enough to carry a team all the way through; he's not a Giannis, at least not yet. He puts up brilliant numbers, but often doesn't show up when it really matters.

With motorsport I only really follow F1, but have switched off this year due to the boring, tedious dominance of Red Bull and Max Verstappen. I've followed a lot of grassroots motor racing as my boss is competing in a Mini series, though it's his first year and fair to say he's found it tough. I've been to a few events on circuit though and it's a cracking atmosphere.

I followed the Tour de France every day until THAT Vingegaard time trial. It was just too unbelievable for me, and with Sep Kuss making it a clean sweep of Grand Tours of Jumbo Visma, it's hard not to get flashbacks of the US Postal operation.

[General Ceel]

I hate watch Formula 1. The sport is broken and millions of people, and the series itself, just keeps on pretending like everything is fine. In some sick way I was actually hoping that Red Bull would win every single race this year for the simple fact that it would be so ridiculous that nobody could deny that the series is broken.

Both Penn State and Pittsburg won their games this past week. I'm happy about that, but Pittsburg still has a lot of work to do. The defense is incredible once again, but the offense needs to get it together.

As for cycling... I despise time trails in tours. I know they've been around forever, but to me they just don't fit. It feels like sticking a completely different sport that happens to be on a bike into the middle of a road race. I like them in concept, but not as part of tour.

[Danster]

Yeah, Formula 1 is rubbish at the moment.

I'm inclined to agree about time trials, they are just so decisive in the general classification despite it being the most boring stages to watch. And it can encourage boring races in the mountains as teams with a top time trialler can just ride tempo to mitigate against any attacks in the slopes and then take a minute out of the competition in the time trial.

[General Ceel]

The weekend is here. I've got a couple football games and a couple of races to occupy my time. We're supposed to have rain all weekend from the remnants of a tropical storm so its a good time to be on the couch.

[Danster]

My football (soccer) team are currently getting their arses handed to them by a pretty rubbish side. 5-0 down and still half an hour to go.

Luckily it's away as if we were at home I'd be sat their watching it.

[General Ceel]

There was a time when I'd subject myself to watching the whole of an obvious loss by a favorite team. These days, not so much, unless we're talking playoffs. I can find something more productive to do!

[Danster]

When you're at the ground you have no choice! But yeah, I did switch off. 1,500 Norwich fans have travelled 380 miles to support them as well. A 760 mile round trip.

The over-paid, underperforming millionaires should refund every fan who went today.

[General Ceel]

"The over-paid, underperforming millionaires..."

Now there is an interesting topic. The owners have too much money, but so do the players who in many sports had to form strong unions to get their cut. I never know who to support. Among "real people," my allegiance is always with the little guys standing up the the corporations.

Anywho....

In American football this weekend both of favorite college and professional teams won their games.

In motorsports... didn't watch the F1 race because it was during the middle of the night here, but as expected, you know who won. Blaaa.

In the NASCAR Cup Series my favorite team got their 300th win, but my favorite driver got shuffled back several spots on the final restart after running as high as 2nd.

And on two wheels... it was cool to see 17 year old Haiden Deegan win the 250 class in the first ever SuperMotorCross Championship. Pretty cool venue too. They built a track inside the L.A. Coliseum with part of it driving up the steps of the stadium and then back down to the stadium floor. Its even cooler than the NASCAR Cup Series building a quarter mile asphalt oval on the floor of the stadium for the Busch Clash the past two years.

[Danster]

Currently watching the England Women versus Netherlands in football (Soccer). Currently 1-1 but the Dutch goal should never have stood, dodgy officials.