Hope we do get to play it. Between that 10-7 Buccs/Lions game and the 16-0 Chiefs/Bills it sounds like Lions/Chiefs is going to be a grind-out punch-in-the-face sort of affair. Although the Lions DO give me some serious matchup problems. Does the Lions D-Line shut down Jamaal Charles? Breaston emerged as a threat in the Bills game, but the passing attack was only decent. Also had plenty of red zone trouble, getting one TD and three FGs. Thinking of switching to Thomas Jones for those short 'n dirty situations.

My front seven are iffy on defense, but if we can at least contain the run and encourage teams to pass... Berry and Flowers are constantly threatening a pick. Chiefs secondary picked off Fitz four freakin' times. Makes for a demoralizing game when they get a pick, grind out five minutes of clock, then get another pick and do it again. Quarter's over, and you've just been ground and annoyed and tired out your defense for 6-0, heh.

Stafford could light it up, could find Berry in his nightmares. Good game, in theory.

That game was interesting. JAX v NYJ

In the pouring rain, Sanchez started off hot. Santonio Holmes took a slant 25 yards, and Plaxico Burress was too good for Jacksonville to press. Shonn Greene benefited from the pass-conscious secondary and had many effective runs between the tackles. My strategy was to get Jacksonville biting inside before unleashing Joe McKnight, who I probably didn't use enough (3 carries, 66 yards, 1TD, in the third quarter). Once the defense started playing the run, my short-passing game went to shit and due to the weather and blocking (I want to murder former Seahawk Wayne Hunter, my RT, who caused Sanchez to take a safety due to poor AI) I couldn't go downfield.

Darrell Revis struggled a bit, though he did make an interception he also gave up a couple deep balls and was not the difference maker I expected. Luckily, Antonio Cromartie is the supremely overrated player I knew he'd be, and he had two picks and played great. Blaine Gabbert was dogged (and ran all over me) but not terribly dangerous, and MJD suffered the fate all running games do against the Jets... humiliation.

The Jags staged a late comeback, due to some poor coverage by Revis and a ridiculous interception when the game was won (I like running up the score), but luckily my defense held on at the end and we pulled out the victory. Good game, but if Revis doesn't play at a dominant level this is going to be a choppy season. After making trades to address my lack of safety speed, I need to try to upgrade my LG or RT position so I can really trust my protection.

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Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

Monday work's for me. Just let me know what time.

Hard to say. Kid stuff is maybe cancelled/maybe not right now. What's your window?

Anytime tonight, also I just found out that I'll be available all day tomorrow.

Well, I'm looking at sorta-late tonight (Maybe 11 local, what's that... 9 est?). I'm going to be working tomorrow.

I think you meant 9 pst, right? If so that definitely works for me.

Yeah, PST. I'm Central, and should be able to get on around 11pm local, give or take a bit.

So, feel free to trade away some DTs at this point.

Week's Advanced, expect the next one around Thursday or Friday, unless anyone has any objections. Keep recruiting!

Dude, that was a high-stress game. I spent about 90% of the game wondering why I couldn't catch a break, then the last minute or two wondering how I was catching so many. *heh* Bowe finished the game with 4 receptions for 160 yards. The VAST majority of that came within the last minute and a half of the game, as did two touchdowns.

Before that, I was pulling my hair out due to dropped passes, a false start, blown assignments, and half-hearted arm tackles. Oh, and a freakin' special teams TD.

Bonus points to the Lions for shutting down Charles. After the first drive, I was thinking he'd be able to run amok on them, but good adjustments to keep him a non-factor. Cassel is not the best QB in the world to have when playing from behind, but Bowe and tons of luck in the last couple minutes made the game appear closer than it was. Best gashed us for over 200 yards (Chiefs don't technically HAVE a d-line. Shut Stafford the hell down, at least... but, if you've got a guy running for 200 yards, who cares?)

Forgot to add, Spounge broke my TE. Broken collarbone. Dude!

Chiefs fall to 1-2 after a game far uglier than the score might indicate. Chargers stepped on our faces, 18-6. Cassell threw five picks, three of which were bizarrely flukey, the other two on deep 'What the hell?' routes. One bounced off a lineman's head and was caught by a linebacker that seemed surprised to see the ball in his hands.

Cass couldn't even get decent protection against a 3-man rush in the late going. Totally absurd to be mass protect against a deep dime zone and not have more than a few seconds to get a pass off.

Advancing soon, play 'em if you got 'em.

Gonna try and get my game on in the next hour or so. If not then sim without me as needed.

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"Go for Broke" - 442nd Japanese-American Battalion

Shaun Alexander #37 for the HoF - 119 Games 2176 Att 9429 Yards 4.3 YPC 100 TDs (112 TDs total) 2005 MVP

"YOU POST...TO WIN...thethread." JesterHawk

I got my game in... Lost 27-24 against the Rams and now sit at 1-2 on the season. I really need some help in the secondary as I get picked apart and I still can't complete a pass across the middle to save my life. LB's are on homing mode for me.

Flacco is leading the league in passing yards and INTs with 8 through 3 games played... I think about 7 of them are games I've played.

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"Go for Broke" - 442nd Japanese-American Battalion

Shaun Alexander #37 for the HoF - 119 Games 2176 Att 9429 Yards 4.3 YPC 100 TDs (112 TDs total) 2005 MVP

"YOU POST...TO WIN...thethread." JesterHawk

Hell, are we ALL 1-2?

Suck for Luck, Madden Online Franchise Edition. No worries on hurrying. When I give a warning, it usually means, "Maybe sometime tomorrow or the next day so long as I don't get to dicking about and forget about it."

Still no successful recruiting by anyone? We're all socially retarded AND bad at Madden?

I'm 2-1. Was going for 3-0 today but lost horribly to the Raiders. One of the most disheartening games of Madden I've ever played. First mistake was using the Steelers playbook. I can't think of a worse playbook for my style of play. A big hit made Shonn Greene fumble, and after the fumble he refused to break any tackles. The speed of the Oakland corners neutralized Santonio Holmes downfield, and Sanchez threw two picks attempting to get the ball to Holmes downfield (whooops). The defense was very good, but missed a TON of opportunities to make big plays and I ended up having to play MLB all game (normally I play safety) because the LBs were getting wrecked up the middle. I played like crap, and my team didn't help at all.

Trav, if you could reject the trade I made that's fine. I was only trying to get Spiller OR Byrd, I honestly didn't expect the computer to say yes but instinct always makes me propose the ridiculous offer before the sane one. I guess the Bills REALLY wanted Barton.

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Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

Apparently I can't. I have a pending trades screen, but can't seem to do anything about them... Other than seeing my own request sit there not doing anything. Everyone else's, I see after the fact. I'm an Online Franchise virgin, so I really don't even know if the trade logic works with OF.

Well frick me.

Judging from a quick research of the interwebs, they didn't do jack squat to the Online Franchise from Madden 11. This means, along with no FA period or salary caps or stuff that might be implied by the term 'Franchise', no trade logic.

Seems like a pain in the ass to try and houserule for a four-person franchise. I am jaded. So, what's the vote? Seems like trades is a workaround for the lack of FA, but when you can trade Johnny McSuckster for Peyton Manning it's tough to regulate.

I have one vaguely questionable one in process, myself, from this week -- Like Kyle said, I try to angle for a slight rip-off in my favor before the negotiating really gets down to it. Was trying to dump Thomas Jones (83 Ovr) to a RB-desperate team for some improvement on the D-Line.

Thinkin' I'll turn it off, since even if it's not fun with no player movement, it's also not fun when you can just do whatever the hell you want. *shakes fist at Madden Dev team* Ah well, offline franchise is improved.

Oh shit. No wonder they took that trade.

I'll be trading Byrd for a bag of chips in the interest of league balance.

That makes no sense, though. Offline franchise took huge strides... I just sort of assumed they'd do the same thing for Online franchise.

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Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

Advanced.

Pulled an ass-ugly win off against the Vikings. Comeback from being down 21-3, thanks to a pick-6 followed immediately by a fumble returned for a TD on the ensuing kickoff. Charles had a decent game, but Cassell looked horrible. Not entirely his fault, thanks to some free pass sacks and a couple times his wide-open #1 receiver dropped passes off the hands.

It's randomly occurred to me that we need to house-rule in-season free agent pickups. Now, this is just a hypothetical for-instance and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone or anything, but we should probably agree upon a rule that would prevent anyone from, say, dropping 9 scrubs at once and replacing them with Madden-Overrated free agents like T.O. and Lofa Tatupu out of nowhere for no realistic reason.

Just a thought. Suggestions?

I was a little bitter that my team played like ass and lost to the Rams.

I haven't played with them yet so I will drop them as soon as I can log back in this evening.

What should be the rules? No picking up FAs over 80 unless they're injury replacements? And only trading for players within 3-5 points of each other?

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"Go for Broke" - 442nd Japanese-American Battalion

Shaun Alexander #37 for the HoF - 119 Games 2176 Att 9429 Yards 4.3 YPC 100 TDs (112 TDs total) 2005 MVP

"YOU POST...TO WIN...thethread." JesterHawk