Topic: American Sports

@Elfuggingjefe I wasn't too fussed who won. Despite The Eagles beating my favourite team in the Superbowl and their cheeky 'Tush Push' move I don't have any bad feelings towards them and quite like Jalen.
Being what I would consider a 'casual' fan from the UK, I adopted a team I most enjoyed watching several years ago and stuck with them without really having any teams I dislike. Funnily enough my second favourite team are their big AFC rivals The Bills. Always seems to be a quality, tense and tight game when they play each other.

Yeah the International break is quite convenient this weekend.

@Elfuggingjefe I'm probably similar to yourself by the sounds of things. Enjoy a lot of sports and have my favourites without being hardcore. It definitely helps to have some sort of preference in the outcome of games to enjoy it more. Watching the tennis now but skipped a lot of games after the Brits went out.

The NFL is the only one of the big US sports I watch. I've randomly seen a few baseball games at random on Sky but never got into it enough to follow. I've never found a hook with basketball for some reason, even at the Olympics when I get into lots of unusual sports I skip it.
I take it the fourth is Ice-Hockey. It's probably good that this isn't shown on Sky in the UK because I could see myself getting hooked on that. I used to watch a local team for a brief spell when I was young as my Dad knew the couch. The 'Medway Marauders'. Not sure they still exist. I love it in the Winter Olympics though.

@BearsEatBeets
Morning. My own cup of tea is brewing as I type this. 👍
Picture quality on YouTube on my TV is excellent by the way.
I've tried picking a team over the years but am still not particularly sure, I do like the Bills myself but they are too good for me to support. I did root for the Chiefs for a while but that was mainly because I wanted Mahomes to win a bunch of Superbowls because I thought he was such an excellent talent. Now that he has done I don't like them anymore so will be happy to see ethe game to either way. Think my favourite team last year was the Lions but that may have been due to Ben Johnson's offensive schemes but he's now gone. Also like the Jets and the Colts but that's more of a support the underdog type of thing.

There are also a whole bunch of teams that I don't like but I won't get into that yet!

@Elfuggingjefe
Well don't know if you've heard but Channel 5 have now got two games every Sunday in what I read was a multi-year deal which I think is great to get more UK eyes on the product 👍👍 The only drawback was that the 6pm game sounds like it has some garbage quiz, entertainment format thing going on in the studio between the action hosted by Dermot O'Leary. Though I could be wrong, I imagine it will be awful and be canned in a couple of months for a more traditional game highlights focus.
You should maybe support the Chargers just due to the similarity of the Logos! Good a reason as any.

Edit: Sorry assumed you were also UK based hence the Channel 5 sruff. Have now caught up on the above posts though my eyes are still a bit blurry from just woken up.... Need that vitamin T(ea) I think.

@sorteddan Morning. I didn’t have a nap so hopefully it’s a good game to help keep me awake.

Why did they have to involve Mr Beast though?

Pretty one-sided first quarter and not in a way I would like. Hopefully just a bit of first game rustiness.

Fingers crossed Worthy isn’t too badly injured.

Yeah Chiefs looking a bit rusty and not entirely connecting but have learned you should never write them off. Good to see Herbert and McConkey connecting again. I think the AFC West could be more competitive this season with Harbaugh and Peyton now having had more time to implement their systems and the introduction of Carroll and Geno at LV. Hope too see some more involvement from Najee Harris in this game though, loved him at Pittsburgh.

Getting that field goal done was the sharpest thing that they have done all game. Really need to improve to get something from the game though.

Was a good game, enjoyed it. Glad the Chargers prevailed. Looking forward to Sunday. Now going back to bed.

@sorteddan @Elfuggingjefe I just about stayed awake until the end but the 'zen' screensavers after some of the ads weren't helping.
Chargers were the better team and the score reflected it. Some great plays in there from the chiefs but plenty of sloppy one too. Despite all their success the last few years I always been tense in most of their games as they very rarely had dominate wins. 90% of their games seem to be one score games that go to the wire. I've read that a lot of experts are predicting they will slump this season and I find it easy to believe these narrow wins could turn to narrow defeats quite quickly.
Still, it's only one game. I've seen no definitive news about Worthy's injury yet. I really hope it's not as bad as it looked because it sounds like The Chiefs were expecting him to play a pivotal role this season.

Man, I put on the Youtube game for like one play, a player got injured and it went to adverts and I just noped right out of there 😂

I might try and watch a bit of RedZone tonight and flick on any of the main games if they are interesting. But I also might have to seriously think about my tried and tested golf and NBA routine of delaying when I watch 'as live' so I can fast forward through all the downtime if I am to stand any chance of getting in to the NFL this year!

Although, to be fair, Sky will have their studio show for the games they show (I hope) and that really helps fill that downtime and make it a more palatable watch.

What will be the best games tonight, do we think?

@Ravix
If you mean Sundays games then I will prob watch RedZone for the early games and then be tuning in to see the Packers Lions match at 9ish. Interested to see if the Packers can live up to their newly found favourites status or if the Lions can remain the dominant force in the NFC North. Will Parsons steal the show and stomp all over Goff, or do Detroit still have the weapons, and the plan to cause problems. I do enjoy the RB rotation of Gibbs and Montgomery and passing options of St Brown and Williams. Also be good to seen it Aidan Hutchinson is back fit this year.

Oh and then the late game is the Bills versus the Ravens which could well be two of the top AFC seeds this year so I may be in for another late night...

@sorteddan of course 🤦‍♂️ I did a bit of weekend time travel there, haha.

Red Zone tomorrow, and of course the Sunday games are usually going to be on Sunday, no idea where my head was 😅

It is a shame Sunday Night Football is a cracker, SNF is a tougher watch with no studio show and a guarantee I will fall asleep during one of the many ad breaks, even if the game is a good'un.

I don't have a big preference over which of the 6pm games to watch this evening so might try the Channel 5 game just to see what their coverage is like. I'm indifferent about Dermot O'Leary as a presenter but I like Sam Quek so that helps. I can't see me preferring them to Sky's team though. I think they have found a really good combo with Neil, Jason and Phoebe. Intelligent analysis but with very good chemistry that is fun.
Ultimately the fixture will decide what I watch this season but it's great there is a lot more choice. Going with the Green Bay v Detroit for the later game. It's just typical the game I want to see most is the 1am game. I'm guessing that's the Prime Time slot for the US. I don't think I can stay up again so will make do with the hour highlight show tomorrow.

Tired and demoralised after watching the Lions get shut down I couldn't face an hour for the next kick off so went to bed instead. Having just watched the highlights on YouTube I think I absolutely missed one of the best games of the season... Typical!
If there are many more entertaining games than that then we are in for a treat.
Enjoyed the head scrambling carnage that is RedZone and was happy to see Jones and Fields impressing in their debuts for their new teams.

Hmm. Maybe i'll try next week. I had a bit of redzone on, but was doing other things, and then was too tired to bother even starting the late game.

@sorteddan s***. It sounds like I missed the chance to watch an exciting one, too 😅 it might have drawn me in for the season, too.

@BearsEatBeets how was the C5 production? I am not on the fence about Dermot, I think he is a massive tool, most likely homogenised by years of sh** gigs presenting for the braindead majority, and moulded in to "presenter type a" archetype, like countless others. And thus any semblance of original wit has left him. He might as well be "insert most other hosts of magazine shows, talent shows and quizes" and usually when they put those types back in to a sports show environment it is cringe city. I can imagine Osi secretly hating every moment spent with him within weeks, and I didn't even see it 😅

Or was it okay?

I much prefer "bad" presenters who have a bit of personality, who can later become good presenters. Or proper pros like Neil, on sky, who knows how to make the guest presenters the real focus, and keep everything running smoothly, and with good knowledge to bring along newbies, asking the right questions, whilst also still having his own personality seep in to the charm of the show.

I'm now sad I didn't watch any of the actual sky show this week 😅 It is a good set up, usually, and my comment has made me long for that type of sports show.

@Ravix In the end I watched the Steelers v Jets game on Sky instead. I did switch to C5 a couple of times in the build up to the game to check it out. It had them chat on briefly on a sofa with an audience (for some reason) and then Dermot brought on a group of fans for some gimmicky reasons which I didn't stick around to fully find out. The next time I checked they had another brief chat before jumping up to play some kind of game and I thought I saw hotdogs before I immediately switched it back over.
Suffice to say it seemed like it was trying to hard to be 'fun' and heavily fan involvement. Not the kind of thing I'm looking for when tuning in for sport.
It just made me appreciate the Sky team even more.

The thought the Steelers game was a good high scoring game that massively swung on the turnover. The Lions v Green Bay was also a good game I thought with much more emphasis on defence.

I recorded the Bills v Ravens game but haven't got around to watching it yet. Going by what @sorteddan said I'm looking forward to it.

@BearsEatBeets
Then I'm glad I didn't give any indication of what happened. Enjoy.

@sorteddan I foolishly went on the BBC sports website on my phone (like most days) forgetting I had recorded the game. I quickly shut it down when I caught a glimpse of a thumbnail but think I've already spoiled who won. I'm convincing myself I could be wrong and at least have no clue of the final score.
Planning on watching it tonight and then probably record the Vikings game after.

@BearsEatBeets regardless, you won't expect the moment where they unleashed a flock of real Ravens and a couple of blokes called Bill riding Buffalos onto the pitch to decide it!

Monumental stuff!

I did get around to watching the Ravens v Bills game the other night and it didn't disappoint. To be honest it couldn't have gone better to make me doubt if what I thought was the outcome was correct. The one handed touchdown catch was amazing. Yet another game that displayed how pivotal turnovers are.
I've mentioned that the Bills are my second favourite team and the Ravens are probably my third. I feel it's always an entertaining game between any of those 3. I seem to be heavily AFC leaning in the teams I enjoy to watch.