What? No, I meant he’s coming back from a dystopian future.

I don’t blame them. It’s hard to find copies of the New York Post overseas.

“local referee governing body”

That’s the saddest bear I’ve seen since Andrew Sullivan quit blogging.

Fuckin’ magnet-assisted sport of hover-football! How does it work?

Here at least
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in the NFL:

While it is pretty clear that Hardy is a bad person that did bad things....he should sue the NFL for all of their money AND the state of North Carolina for the their entire coast line (or at least an entire state park of his choice).

Gout is a solidly odd closer. Agree.

The last time something got burned that badly, the Chancellor was given everything he wanted.

Well, Peyton and Eli have too many ancestral protections and charms of their own for such an attack to work, so you pretty much attack the target you can hit.

...is there a single coach in the league you can more easily imagine bedecked in red and black robes chanting eldritch incantations from a dusty leather book the size of a car while holding a photograph of an opposing quarterback before a demonic pentagram surrounded by candles, than Belichick?

Watching the refs would be great TV if some player throws chicken blood on the opposing team and mubles a curse at them.

Richard Scobee was disappointed that no one stood up to be a Challenger on the play.

He’s a friar.

Some good responses so far, but I’ll just add that if the D all filtered through one person to run the whole thing, and half the plays hinged entirely on that one player reading, reacting and then executing properly, defenses would have a similar problem.

There are probably a couple of reasons. One is that, being essentially reactive players, defenders are used to adapting to new or different tactics - watch tape, learn how a given offense operates, find weaknesses you can exploit. That’s why they say defense wins championships: come playoff time, you’ve got a season’s…

It takes time to learn on both offense and defense, but the thing iss your rookie defender is given the time to learn the entire fan base is not pressuring the coaches to start him right away and the entire future of hte franchise is not on his shoulders so in two or three yeares he is a deveolped to his potential,…

Its largely a selection bias issue. A disproportionate number of the better athletes are on the offensive side of the ball in HS and in college. So there’s a bigger gap between offensive athleticism and defensive athleticism, and this allows a spread offense designed around speed to thrive at these levels. But in the…

I'll build on what others have said by saying that defense is also more about pure individual talent and one-on-one performance. If you're a CB, your job is just cover the guy across from you or cover anyone coming into your zone. DE/DL is pretty much just cover your gap. LB and safeties have a little more read/react…

Defense is a lot more reactionary, and much more about having the athletic ability to react to their guy, or rush the offense.