Texans Sign A.J. McCarron To Back Up Watson
 

The deal is one year and $3 million. I had no problem with Brandon Weeden who seemed to step up at times like that win at Indy two years ago. But McCarron has played well in limited situations and is well-suited as a "game manager".

And, according to Brent Musberger, his wife is hot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnSe0b75vt8

As long as that motherscratcher ain't left handed I'm down with it. At least you know you can trust him in pressure situations.

Does that idiot Musberger still call games? He's half the reason I quit watching college football altogether. The other half is that for some reason college games now last as long as a cricket match. Does anyone know when that started? The rise of the six hour college football game?

Christ, I'm turning into my grandfather. If you goons ever catch me in the garage sitting in a lawn chair drinking warm beer, just go ahead and call the nursing home.

Musberger seems to have been transitioned to a studio role doing occasional commentary. That doesn't mean he can't be back in the booth at some point but I think his lusting after Ms. Webb was one of the last straws. Remember ESPN fired Ron Franklin for calling a sideline reporter "honey" about 20 years ago for which she took offense.

IIRC, McCarron is righthanded which is fine by me.

It happened when running the ball stopped.

100 passes means 40 incompletions to stop the clock. That's 20 more incompletions and you just added 15 minutes right there. Then score 10 more points per team and you are up 4 extra commercial breaks for another 15 minutes. More plays run means more penalties and more time wasted.
Then throw in 5 video reviews for another 15 minutes and a few video reviews for targeting and the game just got at least an hour longer.

It's funny that baseball is trying to shorten the game to appeal to viewers while football gets constantly longer as ratings rise. Maybe the problem isn't the length of the baseball game.

But I know I can't watch football live anymore. I need the ability to skip ahead. I can watch the entirety of the 4 hour game in under 2 hours.

That makes a lot of sense. Well, I mean, it answers the question. How much actual sense it makes is a different issue.

Yes, major league baseball's dicking around with foundational elements of the game in order to speed things up in a bizarrely incremental manner makes no fn sense to me whatsoever.

I was going to go off on a lengthy rant but I think I'd rather go check on the chicken I have on the grill. But I do hope that this baseball thing is one cause we can all of us rally around together, kum-ba-yah and all that.

I have no problem with the actual changes they're making. I just think it's funny they think the length of game is why people prefer other sports. The people who like baseball will watch a 3 hour game and the people that don't have no interest in watching a 2.5 hour game.

Baseball can be very tedious.

Part of the problem in baseball and football is the greater demand for video replay to examine questionable calls. Too much time is spent getting the replay crew to look at and rule on the call, which even then isn't always called right.

The AAF seems faster-paced but some of that is fewer commercials and I like the on-site replay official seems to be live-and-miked so we get to see how quickly he gets in and out of the call. The NFL ones seem to have time for a sandwich. I don't like the way either the NFL or the AAF does extra points. I think they should just give the scoring team 7 points and then give them the option to take one point off the board and go for two. The must-go-for-two AAF makes this a forced decision.

Baseball has to check with a bunch of Yankee fans in NYC to determine if the call is correct which I think is a horrible system. Move the replay set-up to Fargo or Butte where there is less bias since there's no local team.

My solution to speeding up baseball is to revert the game to what it was the past two years but start every count at 1-1. That will shave 30 minutes or more off the time of game and force hitters and pitchers to be more aggressive. At bats will take less time and the game sails along faster without changing any other rules. That preserves the integrity of the game but keeps the fans more engaged.

I should have known. No kum-ba-yah. You guys are crazy AF.

That preserves none of the integrity of the game. All of the new rules don't change the game 1/10 as much as what you suggest. If you want to start with a 1-1 count you might as well just play this as the MLB

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131857/

No worries. I expected the hate. People hate the designated hitter (I still do) but now it's almost universally adopted (talk about altering the integrity of the game). People use to scoff at soccer matches ending in penalty kicks or golf matches replaying just the final holes in sudden death. Now, they're accepted without the slightest complaint.

Most of those changes were made for television on the premise that the game needed to be busy to hold an audience and Americans, in particular, did not like sports games that ended in a tie.

Next thing Buford will let slip is that he LOVES Canadian football because you have to punt on third down. Talk about speeding up the pace of the game!

I bet those boys send replay decisions to Moose Jaw to make sure no one involved has a sentimental attachment to the teams competing.

The advent of penalty shoot-outs in soccer has nothing to do with the US American's aversion to a tie. In fact, in league games a tie gives each team an often valuable point and is often an excellent and exciting result for a visiting side. The idea was hatched in the 60's, in Europe, and also has nothing to do with television broadcasts. Previously they would either play a rematch or flip a coin. (This happened to my team once a couple of years ago. The geniuses at the league decided to start our game an hour later than normal, the game went into extra time and then to penalties. We had no lights at that field, which is one strong reason why we'd start games as early as we did. Anyway, it was decided after ten or twelve penalty kicks that it was simply too dark to continue and the outcome was decided on a coin toss. We lost.)

I've used the ItB twitter account to express my dismay at the MLB rule changes. Maybe it means that lawn chair and warm beer aren't too far behind, but shaving a few minutes will do nothing to help the ultimate goal, which is to appeal to the non-die hard fans.

The 3-batter minimum for relief pitchers is about the worst. Major strategy change. I get that MLB is primarily for entertainment, and the potential of three pitcher changes in the sixth inning is a buzzkill, but is this why the perception of MLB fandom is stagnant? A better idea would be to start games earlier so kids can actually make it to the sixth inning.I have a little bias on this as the parent of a young LHP, but the 3-batter minimum could kill the LOOGY (lefty only guy).

THE WORST.

My kid's a lefty, too, but thus far he has (wisely?) shown no interest in sports of any kind.

Joe Webb was re-signed at 1/yr, $1 million so it looks like our QB stable is full, except we'll add a UDFA for training camp.

Okay let me attempt an end run here and go back to the original post, Brent was correct, Mrs AJ McCarron is hot. But I'm not saying that on TV nor am I 70 years old yet. Many would find my agreement as to her looks as creepy, but I don't care because I am creepy.

I know when I heard of the signing the first thing that went thru my head was "was he the one that married that hot former Miss Alabama?"

I am creepy as charged.