STYLE IZ IT

The latest - our hero is meeting with the omniscient Dr. James Andrews. For the right price, we're sure Dr. Jim will clear Brett to return to the field, likely after mini-camp and other bothersome off-season conditioning drills that a seasoned (broken down) 40 year old professional doesn't need to participate in.

Excited at the prospect of returning to the spotlight after his five month retirement, Brett is going all out to re-invent himself. The Brett who will be whooing fans in the one senator state is, well, not your father's Brett Favre.

RESPECT TO THE VIKINGS, CAUCASION WARRIORS

As this reporter predicted months ago, former Atlanta Falcon qb Brett Favre is not one to go quietly into that good night. Favre, pictured above with fellow Viking signal callers J.D. Booty and Sage Rosenfelds, will likely have a deal in place by the end of the month.

Jets running back Thomas Jones' comments at the end of the '08 season should temper the Viking faithful's initial buzz at this news:

"We're a team and we win together ... but at the same time, you can't turn the ball over and expect to win," Jones said in a videotaped studio interview. "The other day, the three interceptions really hurt us. I mean, that's just reality. If I were to sit here and say, 'Oh, man, it's okay,' that's not reality.

"The reality is, you throw interceptions, I'm (ticked) off, I don't like it. You know what I'm saying? I don't like it, I know everybody else on the team doesn't like it."

You Know He Ain't Done Yet

Come late June, our beloved QB will try every which way he can to land a spot on the Vikings. When that happens, I doubt the supporters on Long Island will be nearly as heartbroken as the faithful at Waupun Assembly of Brett.

Who's got lotsa history?

Spaghetti and I were arguing with T— at work tonight over whether the Spaghetti's beloved Vikes really need a new stadium. This led to an argument about what's the oldest stadium, which led to the discovery that a listing of NFL stadiums sorted by age was nowhere to be found on ye olde Internette. Since we here at the 'Noog strive to provide our readers with all kinds of important information, we figured no time like the present to rectify that little oversight. All facts and figures courtesy of Wikipedia, so grain of salt and all that.

Favregnugen: we're here for you, America.

Stadium	NFL Team(s)	Former Name(s), most recent listed first	Current Football Capacity	Year Opened
Soldier Field	Chicago Bears	Municipal Grant Park Stadium	61,500	19241
Lambeau Field	Green Bay Packers	City Stadium	72,928	1957
Candlestick Park	San Francisco 49ers	Monster Park, San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Point, 3Com Park at Candlestick Point	70,207	1960
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum	Oakland Raiders	McAfee Coliseum, Network Associates Coliseum	63,026	1966
Qualcomm Stadium	San Diego Chargers	Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego Stadium	71,294	1967
Texas Stadium	Dallas Cowboys		65,675	1971
Arrowhead Stadium	Kansas City Chiefs		79,451	1972
Ralph Wilson Stadium	Buffalo Bills	Rich Stadium	73,967	1973
Louisiana Superdome	New Orleans Saints		72,968	1975
Giants Stadium	New York Giants, New York Jets		78,741	1976
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome	Minnesota Vikings		64,111	1982
Dolphin Stadium	Miami Dolphins	Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Park, Pro Player Stadium, Dolphins Stadium	76,500	1987
Rogers Centre	Buffalo Bills (Toronto)2	SkyDome	54,000	1989
Georgia Dome	Atlanta Falcons		71,228	1992
Jacksonville Municipal Stadium	Jacksonville Jaguars	Alltel Stadium	67,164	1995
Edward Jones Dome	St. Louis Rams	Dome at America's Center, Trans World Dome	66,965	1995
Bank of America Stadium	Carolina Panthers	Ericsson Stadium, Carolinas Stadium	73,778	1996
FedExField	Washington Redskins	Jack Kent Cooke Stadium	91,704	1997
M&T Bank Stadium	Baltimore Ravens	PSINet Stadium, Ravens Stadium at Camden Yards	71,008	1998
Raymond James Stadium	Tampa Bay Buccaneers		65,857	1998
Cleveland Browns Stadium	Cleveland Browns		73,200	1999
LP Field3	Tennessee Titans	The Coliseum, Adelphia Coliseum	68,798	1999
Paul Brown Stadium	Cincinnati Bengals		65,790	2000
Heinz Field	Pittsburgh Steelers		65,050	2001
Invesco Field at Mile High	Denver Broncos		76,125	2001
Gillette Stadium	New England Patriots	CMGI Field	68,756	2002
Reliant Stadium	Houston Texans		71,500	2002
Ford Field4	Detroit Lions		65,000	2002
Qwest Field	Seattle Seahawks	Seahawks Stadium	67,000	2002
Lincoln Financial Field	Philadelphia Eagles		68,532	2003
Soldier Field II	Chicago Bears		61,500	20031
University of Phoenix Stadium5	Arizona Cardinals	Cardinals Stadium	63,400	2006
Lucas Oil Stadium	Indianapolis Colts		63,000	2008
Dallas Cowboys New Stadium	Dallas Cowboys	Seriously? That's the name? We all know it's gonna be Jerry Jones Stadium, right?	80,0006	20096
Meadowlands Stadium	New York Giants, New York Jets		82,5006	20106

Notes:

Corporate names in italics.

1. Soldier Field was mostly torn down in 2001; da Bearce played at U of I's stadium in Champaign while a new structure was built on the site of the old one, retaining a few of the details on the outside, but that's about it. The stadium is listed twice so you can make up your own mind as to whether or not it's still really the oldest stadium in the league.

2. The Bills played their first game in Toronto in 2008, with plans to play more in the coming seasons. If you're a doom-and-gloom Bills fan, you assume it's just a matter of time before the team makes it their permanent home.

3. For some reason, this stadium's nickname is not "the Album" or "the Record". How unfortunate.

4. I suppose it could be debated that this isn't really a corporate name because the Ford family owns the team. Whatever, fuck the Lions.

5. Yeah, really, that's a corporate name. U of Phoenix is a for-profit continuing ed school that pays for the name and has no sports teams. Also, Shaquille O'Neal got his business degree from there. Seriously.

6. Projected.

The grand totals

Well, with another NFL season mercifully consigned to the history books, it's time to revisit the bloodbath that was my preseason predictions. I haven't looked over the whole thing yet, but based on the first one it won't be pretty. Let's get this over with.

NOTE: I don't really know html coding that well, so I have no idea why there's all that blank space before each table. I copied the table code from some other site, and it looked fine when I opened the file in Explorer, and I was chuffed, but now it looks like this in Blogger. If anyone knows why, leave a comment.

NFC West

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
Glendale	8	4 (under)	9	Loss
Saint Louis	61/2	5 (under)	2	Win
San Francisco	6	3 (under)	7	Loss
Seattle	81/2	11 (over)	4	Loss

Total: 1-3

Pretty ignominious start here. With the Hawks out of the way and no good teams remaining, the Cards finally won with nothing more than a strong passing game. They went 6-0 in the division. If Seattle has any healthy receivers, do the Cards still hit that over? If they had to play the Niners late, after Singletary took over, do they still hit it?

I could make excuses all day, I suppose. Bottom line is I didn't see much changing from last season, a tendency which I believe will become apparent as the root cause of several of the more disasterous results as we peruse these things. Moving on.

NFC South

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
Atlanta	41/2	5 (over)	11	Win
Charlotte	71/2	9 (over)	12	Win
New Orleans	81/2	8 (under)	8	Win
Tampa	8	7 (under)	9	Loss

Total: 3-1

Not bad. I was close on some of these. Interesting to note that I hit New Orleans total exactly. On the other hand, I was way off about Atlanta, but a win's a win.

AFC West

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
Denver	71/2	9 (over)	8	Win
Kansas City	51/2	5 (under)	2	Win
Oakland	6	4 (under)	5	Win
San Diego	101/2	12 (over)	8	Loss

Total: 3-1

Okay, feelin' pretty good here. The only one I really blew was San Diego, and I was within a game on two of 'em. I actually wrote that I couldn't decide between 4 or 5 for Oakland, but that I was picking the under either way, so I almost hit that one right on. How long will the magic last?

AFC South

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
Houston	71/2	8 (over)	8	Win
Indianapolis	11	12 (over)	12	Win
Jacksonville	10	13 (over)	5	Loss
Nashville	8	10 (over)	13	Win

Total: 3-1

Wow. 3 hits, and two of them I picked the exact number. Still, the most glaring feature here is that I called the Jags going over the safest bet of the preseason. What do I know? I also said Houston was good enough to win as many as 10. But again, a win's a win.

AFC North

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
Baltimore	6	6 (push)	11	No bet
Cincinnati	7	6 (under)	4	Win
Cleveland	8	9 (over)	4	Loss
Pittsburgh	9	10 (over)	12	Win

Total: 2-1

I know I'm not the only person who blew that Cleveland pick. I had a big argument with M— at work the other night about whether or not the Browns had way too many prime time games this year. My argument was that in hindsight, well yeah, obviously. But before the season this was a team coming off a 10-win season that was expected to contend for the division title this year. Well, whatever, so it didn't work out. Better luck next coaching staff.

I was also way off about Baltimore, but since I came up with the same number of wins as the line, I escaped unscathed. I think I got pretty lucky this year. I'm doing okay so far.

NFC North

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
Chicago	71/2	6 (under)	9	Loss
Detroit	61/2	6 (under)	0	Win
Green Bay	81/2	10 (over)	6	Loss
Minneapolis	81/2	9 (over)	10	Win

Total: 2-2

It's funny, that Pack pick looked spot on by the end of September. What a difference a whole season makes. Also, even though I got the Detroit pick right I feel like I should count it as a loss for picking them to win that many.

AFC East

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
East Rutherford	8	7 (under)	9	Loss
Foxborough	12	14 (over)	11	Loss
Miami Gardens	51/2	4 (under)	11	Loss
Orchard Park	71/2	7 (under)	7	Win

Total: 1-3

Man, took a bath on this one. Hit the Bills spot on, though. Let's just keep going.

NFC East

Team	Line	Pick	Wins	Result
East Rutherford	81/2	10 (over)	12	Win
Irving	101/2	12 (over)	9	Loss
Landover	71/2	9 (over)	8	Win
Philadelphia	81/2	11 (over)	91/2	Win

Total: 3-1

And we finish on a strong note. Does a tie count as a half in Vegas? I doubt it, but they still hit the over. Man, I sure overrated that Cowboys team, didn't I? Me an' everybody else out there.

Final total: 18-13

That's actually pretty respectable, and I think my best year yet. Now I'm feelin' good. Bring on next year's lines.

On the down side, I only picked three division winners, and two of them had sub-1 odds. The only good one I picked was Carolina at 11-4, and I wrote that I didn't feel confident enough to bet it. Had I bet all eight of my picks they would have paid out 513-1120, good for a loss of about half my money. Good thing I don't bet. Much.

Like any good QB, the big fella "spreads the ball around"

Brett-boy led the Jets to a thrilling victory this past Sunday with two TDs in the fourth quarter, one to Kansas City DB Brendan Flowers, the second to Jets WR Laveranues Coles. Let no man say the Brettster no longer wields the power to keep the game interesting! All these lead changes are more than my feeble heart can take!

And to all those who might claim Brett-o-la's skills are in decline, take note: our boy has thus far racked up more interceptions this season than Aaron Rodgers and Chad Pennington combined. Viva la Favre!

DESERT SESSIONS

The hapless Jets welcome Arizona to New Jersey this weekend. Look for Brett to tearfully announce his re-retirement if this game is anything like the debacle at San Diego.

After Monday night's embarrasment, Jets management has threatened to put "heads on sticks" if things don't change. Brenda Warner, as usual, is one step ahead.