THIS AND THAT..........THURSDAY
The city of Santa Clara California unveiled the proposed stadium the San Francisco Forty Niners intend to build in partnership with the city. The Niners have for over a decade planned a stadium in San Francisco on Candlestick Point, but it never came together & now it appears they will be playing on the south end of San Francisco Bay in Santa Clara. The new stadium is being billed as the "most green" stadium on earth. All that means to me is that it will probably exceed the estimated $937 million building cost by at least 20%. It will have solar panels, recycled local building materials(including toilets...hmmm) & a totally "green roof". Whatever that means. The new facility will have a seating capacity of 68,500, but could seat as many as 75,000 for a Super Bowl. How does that work, do they shrink the field to allow added seating? The entire article was pretty vague, especially for such a big announcement, even the mock up didn't have a "green roof". In fact there was no roof at all. Confused? I was, but then I remembered we're talking about the Bay Area after all & since there was no mention of 2,800 flat screen TV's, Jerry Jones had to know, green or not, this is an inferior design.
I told you this week of NFL teams having trouble selling all of their seats for the coming seasons. Today, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced they too are offering half season tickets. This is surprising to me compared to Jacksonville's slow ticket sales in that the Bucs have only 7 home dates, they got the London game this year. Jax has a bigger seating capacity, a smaller market & a much older stadium.
One thing that Buc fans should feel good about is wide receiver Michael Clayton, who really hasn't lived up to his 15th pick of the 1st round & his off-season training regimen with all-time great Jerry Rice. Rice was known thruout his career as the most in shape receiver in the game. He used to run up a brutal hill in the Bay Area 6 times a week. In the "No Big Surprise" department, Cardinal wide receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, has been running this hill too.
As I go from website to website, desperately looking for something to write about in the off season, 2 particular sites reduce me to a angry, cursing maniac. Both sites deal with the Raiders, one is their official web site, the other, from the Conta Costa Times, is about all things Oakland Raiders. Both take forever to load & the newspaper blog often results in all kinds of error messages, lockouts & crashes. But I persevere in an effort to get you the latest news from my favorite dysfunctional franchise. I told you about them waiving a draft pick before they even signed him, 6th rounder, Stryker Sulak. Tuesday, the Raiders waived undrafted free agent OLB, Frantz Joseph, just weeks after they signed him. But Joseph fared better than Sulak as he was signed & received a signing bonus. Sulak wasn't signed before being cut, so zero bucks. The Raiders also signed WR Will Frankiln, cut twice this spring by K.C. & Detroit. You know, when you get cut by two teams who's combined '08 record was 2-30, one has to wonder about their future in the league.
Now I'm not a fantasy football fan, I actually hate it, but I know there are plenty of you out there who play every year, so occasionally, if I have a fantasy projection that might help, I'll spit it out right here. I think a TE that might be flying under the radar right now is Greg Olsen, of the Chicago Bears. I'd make him the 3rd or 4th best fantasy TE for '09. I doubt Winslow will have huge numbers at Tampa since the starting QB isn't close to being resolved. I don't like Shockey for a lot of reasons, but for fantasy purposes, I question just how much coach Sean Payton or QB Drew Brees trust him. I doubt Tony Gonzalez will get close to his 92 reception, 10 TD season he had in K.C. playing with Atlanta. Antonio Gates has been injured the last two seasons. Dallas Clark, Jason Witten & maybe Chris Cooley will catch more passes in '09 than Olsen. Mark it down.
I told you this week of NFL teams having trouble selling all of their seats for the coming seasons. Today, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced they too are offering half season tickets. This is surprising to me compared to Jacksonville's slow ticket sales in that the Bucs have only 7 home dates, they got the London game this year. Jax has a bigger seating capacity, a smaller market & a much older stadium.
One thing that Buc fans should feel good about is wide receiver Michael Clayton, who really hasn't lived up to his 15th pick of the 1st round & his off-season training regimen with all-time great Jerry Rice. Rice was known thruout his career as the most in shape receiver in the game. He used to run up a brutal hill in the Bay Area 6 times a week. In the "No Big Surprise" department, Cardinal wide receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, has been running this hill too.
As I go from website to website, desperately looking for something to write about in the off season, 2 particular sites reduce me to a angry, cursing maniac. Both sites deal with the Raiders, one is their official web site, the other, from the Conta Costa Times, is about all things Oakland Raiders. Both take forever to load & the newspaper blog often results in all kinds of error messages, lockouts & crashes. But I persevere in an effort to get you the latest news from my favorite dysfunctional franchise. I told you about them waiving a draft pick before they even signed him, 6th rounder, Stryker Sulak. Tuesday, the Raiders waived undrafted free agent OLB, Frantz Joseph, just weeks after they signed him. But Joseph fared better than Sulak as he was signed & received a signing bonus. Sulak wasn't signed before being cut, so zero bucks. The Raiders also signed WR Will Frankiln, cut twice this spring by K.C. & Detroit. You know, when you get cut by two teams who's combined '08 record was 2-30, one has to wonder about their future in the league.
Now I'm not a fantasy football fan, I actually hate it, but I know there are plenty of you out there who play every year, so occasionally, if I have a fantasy projection that might help, I'll spit it out right here. I think a TE that might be flying under the radar right now is Greg Olsen, of the Chicago Bears. I'd make him the 3rd or 4th best fantasy TE for '09. I doubt Winslow will have huge numbers at Tampa since the starting QB isn't close to being resolved. I don't like Shockey for a lot of reasons, but for fantasy purposes, I question just how much coach Sean Payton or QB Drew Brees trust him. I doubt Tony Gonzalez will get close to his 92 reception, 10 TD season he had in K.C. playing with Atlanta. Antonio Gates has been injured the last two seasons. Dallas Clark, Jason Witten & maybe Chris Cooley will catch more passes in '09 than Olsen. Mark it down.
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