31 January 2012

American Football is the most watched sport in America and growing!

According to Wikipedia:
...The Super Bowl has frequently been the most watched American television broadcast of the year. Super Bowl XLV played in 2011 became the most watched American television program in history, drawing an average audience of 111 million viewers and taking over the spot held by the previous year's Super Bowl, which itself had taken over the #1 spot held for twenty-eight years by the final episode of M*A*S*H. The Super Bowl is also among the most watched sporting events in the world, mostly due to North American audiences ... 2011's Super Bowl XLV holds the record for total number of U.S. viewers, attracting an average audience of 111 million viewers, making the game the most viewed television broadcast of any kind in U.S. history.
From The Nielson Company:
Prime-time television viewership numbers compiled by The Nielsen Co. for Dec. 26-Jan. 1. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership for the week. The Top 5 programs were:
  1. "Sunday Night Football," NBC, 27.62 million viewers
  2. "Sunday Night Football Kickoff Show," NBC, 21.23 million viewers
  3. "Monday Night Football," ESPN, 15.64 million viewers
  4. "60 Minutes," CBS, 14.45 million viewers
  5. "Football Night in America", NBC, 14.44 million viewers
 From Orange County News:
Prime-time NFL football draws its biggest audience in 15 years ... "Sunday Night Football" drew the largest audience in its six seasons on NBC.
From NFL Communications:
49ers-Ravens on Thursday Night Football most-watched game ever on NFL Network ... Ranks as Thanksgiving’s all-time No. 1 show on cable & tops 2010 NFLN Thanksgiving game by 50 percent.
Clearly not a game in decline, no matter what some Soccer elitists would like to claim (And I love soccer too!)


28 January 2012

I LOVE The NFL PRO BOWL!

I love it! The best of the AFC vs. the best of the NFC. A forced 4-3 Defense (which I prefer to the 3-4 even though Green Bay runs it exclusively).

In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the National Football League (NFL). Since the merger with the rival American Football League (AFL) in 1970, it has been officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference (AFC) against those in the National Football Conference (NFC).

Unlike most other sports leagues, which hold their all-star games during (roughly) the halfway point of their respective regular seasons, the Pro Bowl is played at the end of the NFL season. The NFL's all-star game has a tattered image. It is the only major all-star game that draws lower ratings than its regular-season games. However, the biggest concern of teams is to avoid injuries to the star players.

The first "Pro All-Star Game," featuring the all-stars of the 1938 season (as well as three players from the Hollywood Stars and Los Angeles Bulldogs, who were not members of the league), was played on January 15, 1939 at Los Angeles's Wrigley Field. The NFL All-Star Game was played again in Los Angeles in 1940 and then in New York and Philadelphia in 1941 and 1942 respectively, after which the game was suspended due to World War II. The concept of an all-star game would not be revived until 1951, when the newly rechristened Pro Bowl played at various venues before being held at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii for 30 consecutive seasons from 1980 to 2009. The 2010 Pro Bowl was played at Sun Life Stadium, the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins and host site of Super Bowl XLIV, on January 31, the first time ever that the Pro Bowl was held before the championship game, with the conference teams not including players from the teams that will be playing in the Super Bowl. The 2011 Pro Bowl was played again in Hawaii, but again held during the week before the Super Bowl. The 2012 game is also scheduled for Hawaii.

Currently, players are voted into the Pro Bowl by the coaches, the players themselves, and the fans. Each group's ballots count for one third of the votes. The fans vote online at the NFL's official website. There are also replacements that go to the game should any selected player be unable to play due to injuries. Prior to 1995, only the coaches and the players made Pro Bowl selections.

In order to be considered a Pro Bowler for a given year, a player must either have been one of the initial players selected to the team, or a player who accepts an invitation to the Pro Bowl as an alternate; invited alternates who decline to attend are not considered Pro Bowlers. Being a Pro Bowler is considered to be a mark of honor, and players who are accepted into the Pro Bowl are considered to be elite.

The Pro Bowl head coaches are traditionally the head coaches of the teams that lost in the AFC and NFC championship games for the same season of the Pro Bowl in question (not the case for the 1980 and 81 seasons played in 1981 and 1982). However, for the 2010 and 2011 Pro Bowls, a new rule was presented: The teams that lose in the divisional playoff game with the best regular-season record will have their coaching staffs lead their respective conference Pro Bowl team. If the losing teams of each conference had the same regular season record the coaches from the higher-seeded team will get the Pro Bowl honor. This was, presumably, to allow the coaches more time with the players while the Pro Bowl is held during the week before the Super Bowl, since the conference championship losers would only have one week to prepare as opposed to three weeks when the Pro Bowl was held the week after the Super Bowl.

The Pro Bowl has different rules from other NFL games to make the game safer.

  • No motion or shifting by the offense
  • Offense must have a tight end in all formations
  • Offense can’t have 3 receivers on a side
  • Intentional grounding is legal
  • Defense must run a 4-3 at all times
  • No press-type coverage except inside the 5 yard line
  • No blitz
  • Not allowed to rush a Punt, PAT or FG attempt
  • No calls can be challenged
  • Players can tweet to Twitter on the sidelines and locker room

The teams are made of players from different NFL teams, so using their own uniforms would be too confusing. The players each wear the helmet of their team, but the home jerseys and pants are either a solid blue for the NFC or solid red for the AFC, while white jerseys with blue or red accents, respectively, for the away team. While it has been speculated that the color of Pro Bowl jerseys is determined by the winner of the Super Bowl, this is untrue. The design of Pro Bowl uniforms is changed every two years, and the color and white jerseys are rotated along with the design change. This has been Pro Bowl tradition since the switch to team specific helmets, which started with the January 1979 game. The two-year switch was originally created as a marketing ploy by Nike, and has been continued by Reebok, who won the merchandising contract in 2002.

The early Pro Bowl, contested by the National Football League's Eastern and Western Division stars and played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, featured the same uniforms from the 1950s to mid-1960s; the Eastern team wore scarlet jerseys with white numerals and a white crescent shoulder stripe, white pants with red stripe, red socks, and a plain red helmet. The Western team wore white jerseys with royal-blue numerals and a Northwestern University-style triple stripe on the sleeves, white pants with blue stripe and socks and a plain blue helmet. Perhaps oddly, the Eastern team, wore home dark jerseys, although the host-city team, the Los Angeles Rams, were members of the Western Conference. From January 1967 to January 1970 both teams wore gold helmets with the NFL logo on the sides; the Eastern helmets featured a red-white-red tri-stripe and the Western a similar blue-white-blue tri-stripe. In fact the players brought their own game helmets to Los Angeles, which were then spray-painted and decorated for the contest. (For the 1970 game the helmets featured the 50 NFL logo, commemorating the league's half-century anniversary.)

In the earliest years of the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, the players did not wear their unique helmets, as they do now. The AFC All-Stars wore a solid red helmet with a white A on it, while the NFC players wore a solid white helmet with a blue N on it. The AFC's red helmets were paired with white jerseys and red pants, while the NFC's white helmets were paired with blue jerseys and white pants.

Two players with the same number who are elected to the Pro Bowl can now wear the same number for that game. This was not always the case in the past.

The 2008 Pro Bowl included a unique example of several players from the same team wearing the same number in a Pro Bowl. For the game, Washington Redskins players T Chris Samuels, TE Chris Cooley, and LS Ethan Albright all wore the number 21 (a number normally inappropriate for their positions) in memory of their teammate Sean Taylor who had been murdered during the 2007 season.

The Pro Bowl even has the best of the best cheerleaders cheering on the sides of the fields!


27 January 2012

My AFC Team for 2012: The Miami Dolphins

I love the placement of the uniform stripe on the Miami Dolphins' uniforms. I think the future of the uniform stripe is right there at the end of the sleeve with the trend of sleeves getting shorter and shorter every year.

The Miami Dolphins just took the Green Bay Packers' Offensive Coordinator and made him their head coach. Matt Flynn will either be franchised by the NFC's Green Bay Packers and traded or become the hottest free agent in the NFL. Either way, logic says he goes to the AFC's Miami Dolphins.

The Dolphins already have a number 10, so the question is, will Matt Flynn take over #10 as a 'Fin, or will he change numbers?

Either way, Matt Flynn will join the ranks of my favorite non-Packers players in the NFL: Troy Polamalu and Rob Gronkowski. I just will have more love for the Miami Dolphins than either the Pittsburgh Steelers or the New England Patriots! Hey, we could maybe even have a Green Bay Packer vs. Miami Dolphins Super Bowl next year! I'd love it!


26 January 2012

PIPA & SOPA: Response From Senator John Cornyn

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Stanosheck: 
Thank you for contacting me about the PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (S. 968). I share your concerns regarding this legislation, and I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this important issue. 
The PROTECT IP Act of 2011 was introduced in the Senate on May 26, 2011, in an effort to counter the increasing number of websites, often foreign, dedicated to selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals, pirated copies of movies, music and other stolen property. While I appreciate the intent of this legislation, and believe that Congress should exercise its constitutional authority to protect Americans' property rights online, I have concerns that certain provisions of the PROTECT IP Act could lead to unintended consequences, including breaches in cybersecurity, damage to the integrity of the Internet, burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights. 
In response, on January 13, 2012, I along with several of my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Majority Leader Harry Reid expressing our concern that the PROTECT IP Act was moving too quickly. We argued that it was necessary to hear from experts and build consensus before moving forward with this legislation. On January 20, 2012, Majority Leader Reid complied with our request and announced the indefinite postponement of scheduled votes on the PROTECT IP Act. 
I appreciate having the opportunity to represent Texans in the United States Senate and you may be certain that I will oppose any legislation that will censor the Internet or otherwise infringe upon an individual’s First Amendment rights. Thank you for taking the time to contact me. 
Sincerely,
JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator
517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-2934
Fax: (202) 228-2856
http://www.cornyn.senate.gov

24 January 2012

PIPA & SOPA: Constituent Response From Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

Dear Friend: 
Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (the PROTECT IP Act, or PIPA). The parallel, but not identical, legislation in the House of Representatives is H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I welcome your thoughts and comments. 
I did not cosponsor this legislation. By letter, e-mail, and telephone call, thousands of constituents like you have highlighted the potential pitfalls in the bill. 
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who was a strong supporter of PIPA, has withdrawn the bill from Senate floor consideration. I agree with this decision. Although there are legitimate issues to be addressed regarding so-called internet piracy, I believe that several provisions of the current legislation need to be clarified or revised. 
Protecting intellectual property is more challenging than ever before. For example, high speed broadband enables access to the entire catalog of movies, music, books, television, and technology. These protections should not censor free speech, nor should they hinder innovation.
Online promotion of counterfeit goods by foreign entities is also a growing concern. Assessing how to protect copyright, patent, and intellectual property rights — and doing so without infringing on consumers’ legitimate interests — requires dealing with a complex series of problems. 
Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind should this bill or related legislation be reported to the floor for action by the full Senate. I appreciate hearing from you, and I hope that you will not hesitate to contact me on any issue that is important to you. 
Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator
284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5922 (tel)
202-224-0776 (fax)
http://hutchison.senate.gov 

If you would like more information about issues pending before the Senate, please visit the Senator's website at http://hutchison.senate.gov. You will find articles, floor statements, press releases, and weekly columns on current events. 
Thank you.


16 January 2012

If you could add any 2 players from the Packers' lineup who would they be?

Even though it is our defense that is bleeding, for me, there is no question, my 2 favorite professional American Football players that are not currently Green Bay Packers:
  1. Troy Polamalu
  2. Rob Gronkowski
Who would you choose and why?


06 January 2012

My 2012 NFL Playoffs & Super Bowl Brackets

ROUND ONE
NFC

  • New York Giants vs. Atlanta Falcons: Falcons Win
  • New Orleans Saints vs. Detroit Lions: Lions Win

AFC

  • Denver Broncos vs. Pittsburgh Steelers: Broncos Win
  • Houston Texans vs. Cincinnati Bengals: Texans Win

ROUND TWO
NFC

  • Green Bay Packers vs. Detroit Lions: Packers Win
  • San Francisco 49ers vs. Atlanta Falcons: Falcons Win

AFC

  • New England Patriots vs. Denver Broncos: Patriots Win
  • Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans: Texans Win

ROUND THREE
NFC

  • Green Bay Packers vs. Atlanta Falcons: Packers Win

AFC

  • New England Patriots vs. Houston Texans: Texans Win

FINAL ROUND: SUPER BOWL

  • Green Bay Packers vs. Houston Texans: Packers Win



02 January 2012

Too Lazy to Research a Candidate? (I'm so lazy that I just re-blogged this same post 4 years later!)

Just tell the computer what's important to you. This is a really simple way to find out which candidates share your views....

My Results:

ScoreCandidateDisagreements, Unknowns, Other
45PaulDisagreements: (7)
Unknowns/Other: (1)
27KucinichDisagreements: (9)
Unknowns/Other: (0)
22BidenDisagreements: (9)
Unknowns/Other: (4)
20GravelDisagreements: (7)
Unknowns/Other: (6)
17ObamaDisagreements: (9)
Unknowns/Other: (4)
17ClintonDisagreements: (11)
Unknowns/Other: (0)
16BrownbackDisagreements: (9)
Unknowns/Other: (3)
14EdwardsDisagreements: (11)
Unknowns/Other: (2)
13DoddDisagreements: (10)
Unknowns/Other: (3)
10RichardsonDisagreements: (10)
Unknowns/Other: (3)
2CoxDisagreements: (9)
Unknowns/Other: (9)
-4Huckabee9/5
-14Tancredo13/2
-20T. Thompson9/14
-23McCain17/1
-25Romney14/3
-26Hunter14/3
-52Giuliani19/3


The Orthodox Scouter Allows Sharing Only with Attribution