Vontaze Burfict should be banned, Harden-Melo ‘train wreck’ on D
Harden-Anthony pairing would be defensive ‘train wreck’
“All season long, Mike D’Antoni is going to have to make sure ‘Melo and James Harden don’t share the floor all that often, because defensively that’s basically a train wreck.”
Sam Amick, Senior NBA Writer, The Athletic, interviewed on the Jim Rome Show.
NBA season opens with Ben Simmons passing muster
“Ben Simmons ran a diagonal route through the paint, toward the baseline, looked backward very briefly, as though checking to see if all the lights were off before he locked the door – and then shovelled the ball over his head into the arms of his teammate Markelle Fultz for an easy layup. Maybe a minute later, Simmons sprinted downcourt on the break, then slipped a pass backward, through his legs, to Joel Embiid for a dunk. Simmons passes as if that transfer, from teammate to teammate, is the highest end of the game and the bucket that follows just an arbitrary flourish.”
Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker
Big Ben cites Vontaze Burfict for more unnecessary violence
“He hits AB (Antonio Brown) and knocks AB and his own guy out. Everyone sees AB leave the game; he knows he knocked AB out. And on that very next play, he’s standing there as I’m coming to the line of scrimmage, he points to Ju Ju (Smith-Schuster) and says, ‘You’re next.’ To me, when you’re threatening to take someone out of the game, that’s crossing the line. That’s when the league needs to do something, for sure.”
Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers QB, on 93.7 The Fan
“I don’t know why this guy keeps getting extra chances. And I don’t know why he wasn’t suspended coming out of this game. I think there are times when the NFL just doesn’t want controversy. Everything’s going well, people are watching. . . . You bring too much attention to the bad guy if you discipline him. I think on some level the NFL likes that sense of extra drama and conflict. Vontaze Burfict should not be in the NFL. He’s eventually going to hurt somebody seriously if the NFL doesn’t do something about it.”
Mike Florio, NBCS Pro Football Talk
Gase cast shade on his quarterback, Ryan Tannehill
“The implication is that he’s upset that Tannehill didn’t play or maybe he thought he should have played. I know if that were me and the head coach was saying that about my inury, I would go right into his office and say, ‘What are you doing? There’s a sense that you’re questioning my toughness as if I should have been out on the field.”
Boomer Esiason, retired NFL QB, now a commentator for Monday QB, after Dolphins coach Adam Gase hedged on Tannehill’s injury
John Mara has heard too much from Odell Beckham Jr.
“I wish he would create the headlines by his play on the field instead of what he says off the field. I’d like to see a little more playing and a little less talking.”
John Mara, co-owner and CEO of the New York Giants
Packers’ backup receivers were prodded by Rodgers
“The Green Bay Packers . . . have been incredibly beat-up at the wide receiver position. But what a catch the guy I can’t pronounce – Equanemious St. Brown – made on the sideline. It was a beautiful catch at a crucial time. You gotta give it to Brian Gutekunst and the new front office of this team who drafted some receivers late. I go back to the day in the summer when Aaron Rodgers ripped his young receivers. Those guys got the message.”
Peter King, NBCS Pro Football Talk
Forgetting the dark side of Hill
“Tyreek Hill is the fastest player I’ve ever seen on a football field. He lasted until Round 5 because of a horrible off-the-field incident. Some think he shouldn’t have gotten into the NFL at all. He assaulted a pregnant girlfriend he got engaged to in recent weeks. Someone with one of the other teams told me, ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to be touching guys like this anymore.’”
Mike Florio, NBCS Pro Football Talk
Eli Manning is a gift to defenses
“Just going against Eli is a blessing, a big opportunity to be able to make plays on him.”
Nigel Bradham, Philadelphia Eagles linebacker
Bye Week is overrated
“The Bears missed tackles. That’s what happens after bye week. Everyone thinks bye weeks are great. I found more times than not after the bye weeks we were the team that was sloppy on the field. You lose attention to detail, especially if you go into bye week when you’ve been winning. . . . And going down to South Beach is a bit of a trap. You feel like you’re on vacation.”
Chris Simms, Pro football Talk
