NFL International Series – London 2008 photos

Bit late with this post seeing as we’ve just entered 2009 and the regular NFL season is now over but I thought I’d post it anyway! Here are my photos from the NFL International Series 2008 game between the San Diego Chargers & New Orleans Saints at Wembley, my first ever life NFL game.

I was very happy with the result of the game (in case you didn’t watch it the Saints won!) it was a great game to watch overall, plenty of high powered offense on show although it was a shame Reggie Bush couldn’t make the game due to injury. The atmosphere at the game was excellent, I was bit worried about this but I was proved wrong in the end. The view from our seats was better than I expected too, I wasn’t too sure whether we’d be able to follow the game but we could make everything out very well. It’s a completely different experience as you get to see how every part of the play develops rather than just following what the TV cameras choose. Having said that I still watched the game again when I got home in case I missed anything!

Apart from it being my first ever live NFL game It was also my first time to Wembley, although it took bloody ages to build it is a fantastic venue! Roll on 2009 and the Patriots v Buccaneers!

49ers off-season review

Time for my review of the San Francisco 49ers off-season. I suppose I’ve got to start with the fact that we’ve still got Mike Nolan at the helm AND Alex Smith at QB, at the end of last season I didn’t expect to be able to say that. I thought one or even both of them would have been moved on. With Nolan declaring an open QB competition this year it worries me that Alex Smith is no longer the QB of the future for the 49ers and we don’t seem to have a backup plan. Apart from a few glimpses when Norv Turner was the OC I’m yet to see Alex Smith play like the No. 1 overall pick he is.

However this brings me nicely onto possibly the most interesting acquisition during the off-season…. Mike Martz. He’s known as an offensive genius that was partly responsible for the “Greatest Show on Turf” in St. Louis and while the Detriot Lions didn’t make much of an impact with him at OC he did improve the production of their offense. Maybe Martz can get the best out of Alex Smith who, to be fair, has now had a fair few OC’s in his short NFL career. Hopefully Martz won’t do the same as in Detriot, improve the passing game but at the expense of the running game. Our running game has been the one bright spot of the offense the past 2 years and with the addition of Deshaun Foster we have a very capable backup/alternative to Frank Gore. I’m hoping Martz will use Gore like he did with Marshall Faulk in St. Louis as a pass catching RB, Gore definitely showed this was a part of his game last year.

We also acquired Justin Smith, the DE from Cincinnati and signed him to a big contract. I’ve not seen that much of him really so I’m hoping he lives up to the contract we’ve given him. Hopefully he’ll provide an upgrade to our pass rushing ability. The most recent addition is Takeo Spikes at LB, who seems like a good fit for us. He should hopefully take some of the pressure off Patrick Willis, last years NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Last year the defense performed quite well overall, it was just the offense couldn’t produce the goods when they had the ball. I’m hoping for an an even better year from the defense with the additions we’ve made. Any improvement from the offense this year would be very welcome!

I’m not expecting a run into the playoffs this year but I’m looking for some sign the team’s moving in the right direction.

Everton pre-season review

I watched my first live game of the new season at the weekend, Everton v PSV Eindhoven. It was the last pre-season game for Everton and they played pretty well overall, I was suitably impressed with our performance considering PSV are the current Dutch champions and will be playing in the Champions League this season. It also wasn’t a full strength team we put out, there were quite a few home grown players on show. Jack Rodwell impressed me the most, he had a solid game considering his age and looks like he could be a long term replacement for Lee Carsley.

The rest of our results in pre-season have been pretty poor really but I don’t pay much attention to pre-season results as I see the games as a chance to give the whole squad a run out and to try a few different formations.

Pre-season off the pitch hasn’t exactly gone to plan though. We’ve let quite a few players go and not brought anyone new in, while I was quite happy to let AJ go for the right money it looks like we didn’t get as much for him due to a previous injury. Our CEO resigned in mysterious circumstances, David Moyes still hasn’t signed a new contract yet and our plans for a new stadium have been called-in by the government. Quite an eventful few weeks. At the moment I’m worried there is something going on behind the scenes at the club and that worries me more than anything else!

Having said that I’m still optimistic about the new season. There is still time to bring in a few new players before the transfer deadline to help us solidify our position as a top 6 six team this year and hopefully all these off the field issues sort themselves out.

Roll on another 9 months of football!

Interest in AJ

There are rumours that Wigan & Sunderland are interested in buying Andy Johnson from Everton for about £10 million. If we could get around £12 million for him then I’d be very tempted to sell him. He had a great first year with us but last year was interrupted by injuries however we didn’t really miss him with the Yak, Jimmy & Vic all playing well. I also like Timmy playing up front so I don’t think we’d miss him and £12 million seems like a good deal for a player we paid for £8.6 million for 2 years ago.

While Moyes has said he’s not interested in selling I have a feeling he won’t be with Everton by the time the season starts.

F1 British Grand Prix

NFL International Series – London 2008

I missed out on tickets for the NFL game in London last year between the Giants & Dolphins but not this year!! I received my e-mail with the ticket PIN code in and rang around to see who wanted to go. On Thursday morning I purchased 4 tickets to this year’s NFL game between the Saints & Chargers.

I went for the £55 seats as I couldn’t justify paying £100 for seats that meant we couldn’t see what was going on in the game. We’re in Level 5 at Wembley but should be able to see more of the game from there. My bro, Dave & Jay will be coming along, just need to sort out hotel & travel arrangements now.

Oh and I’ll be cheering for the Saints in the game, I’m really a 49ers fan but as a true Brit I’ll be cheering on the underdogs going on last season.

Fantasy football 2007/2008 season review

Amazingly this was my first season of playing Fantasy Football of any kind, ever! I signed up to the official Premier League version and joined the league operated in work. My team name, Bullock’s Ballbags, aptly named considering where I finished up!

I started off slowly learning the rules the hard way by completely changing my team early on in the season and taking a big transfer points deduction on the few points I had gained so far! I didn’t know what the “wildcard” was at that point! As you’d expect Everton players formed the backbone of my team throughout the season.

My team slide down the league as did my dedication to the cause. However a few changes to the side at New Year got me moving up the leagueagain . Unfortunately I was too far gone to make any kind of a difference to the top of the table. I finished 19th in the league for work and 546,674th overall. I managed to steal that 19th place from a colleague on the last day of the season!

One thing playing fantasy football did this year was make me take more of an interest in the other games shown on MoTD apart from the Everton games!

Bring on 2008/2009!