Seattle Seahawks - Titans Ever On

Around the League: The Titans Ever On Game of the Week Preview

Seattle Seahawks @ San Francisco 49ers

Two Tales of One City (The NFL on REO)

Updated Power Rankings a look at sports in Nashville. (1,505 words)

Power Rankings

I got some help this week for the NFL Power Rankings from fellow REO contributors Gowdy Cannon and Mike Lytle. I asked them to rank their top 15 teams. We then assigned a point value to each team based on where they were ranked and then added those points together to get the final product – The NFL on REO Top Ten. (Example for the ranking: A 1st place vote receives 15 points, a 2nd place vote receives 14 points, and a 15th place vote receives 1 point.) I’ve listed the total point value for each team so you can see how this all came together. For the tie-breakers, I listed the rationale for why one team was placed above the other.

1. New England – 45

Back when the Patriots were 2-2 with what was by far the last place team in defensive points given up, it looked like the rest of the league may have had a prayer of not having to deal with this constant playoff juggernaut this year. It was a testimony to how incredible the offense is that they were 2-2 since most teams would have been 0-4 giving up 38 points every week.

Who Watches the Watchmen? (The NFL on REO)

Catches, media incompetence, and bad wins. We cover it all this week. (1,687 words)

In Watchmen, the genre-defining masterpiece by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, there is a slogan that can be seen throughout the graphic novel, spray-painted on walls, “Who watches the Watchmen?” It’s a message about keeping those in power accountable and if that is even possible. While the things I examine this week are much less important in the grand scheme, I believe they belong in the conversation. It’s too often that we find incompetence or worse coming from those that are in a place of power in the sports’ world – whether it be the leagues, the teams, or the media that covers it all. So here is my attempt to watch the watchmen.

The NFL Needs To Change (The NFL on REO)

The NFL has a lot of problems. What are they and how do we fix them? (1,569 words)

The NFL is in trouble. That’s the bad news. The good news is that most of the problems with the league can be corrected, as long as the NFL acts decisively and quickly.

The NFL is best seen as a giant battleship. It’s enormous and built to last, yet its size makes it unwieldy and difficult to change course quickly. Right now, it is the biggest and baddest ship on the water, but it is headed in the wrong direction. To make matters worse, it has dozens of small cracks along its hull that are slowly taking in water. Not one of those cracks is enough to sink it, but collectively, those cracks will eventually bring it down.

The NFL on REO: Game Time!

The Regular Season is here! We rank all 16 games and we give our staff predictions for the Tennessee Titans’ record. (947 words)

It’s game time baby!

The NFL season kicks off tomorrow with the defending Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots, facing off against the Kansas City Chiefs. I am so excited, even if this first game includes my most hated team in the history of all sports – the Patriots. It’s real NFL football for the first time in over half a year! What is better than that?

To commemorate this momentous occasion, here is my interest level for each game this week. We’ll start at the bottom.

The NFL on REO: Dominance

This week’s column contains more Gowdy Cannon zaniness and our first Power Rankings of the season. Number 3 will blow your mind! (1,741 words)

The Insane Ramblings of Gowdy Cannon

On to 2017…

Yes, I’m the guy who wrote a 2500-hundred word counseling session on how Tom Brady is the most overrated quarterback of all-time. But don’t let that keep you from reading what I’m about to write. You should appreciate it primarily because I wrote the Brady article.

While players can be overrated or underrated to team success I do not think there is any way to get around claiming team superiority in an objective way. For example, we could argue all day whether Brady, Aaron Rodgers or Matt Ryan was the best QB in the NFL last year, but we cannot argue that New England was the best team. That was objectively settled on the field.

Titans Tuesday: A Call To Arms

Can the Titans build a home field advantage again?

I am sitting here in one of my favorite places to eat in Nashville, Thai Phooket, right next to Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans. In the past few years, eating here has provided many more great memories than watching the Titans play. I find that to be almost unspeakably sad.

The first Titans’ game I ever attended was in 2003.

A good friend invited me to go to the season opener against the defending AFC champion Oakland Raiders. A Sunday night game, which meant it was a nationally televised affair. It was my first exposure to the sights, the sounds, and the buzz of a real life NFL game.

It was amazing.