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Season Predictions

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The 2021 NFL season is about to begin!
Can you feel those excitement butterflies swimming around in your stomach?

To honour the start of the 2021 NFL season, Wade and Ryan once again are back with their picks on how this one plays out.
The guys break it all down in one Seasons Predictions podcast.

After a whoop-ass season delivered by the Tampa Bay Bucs, the Chiefs and the AFC will be looking for vengeance this year.
With so many great teams, who are the teams that actually have a shot at winning it all?

Luckily Wade and Ryan are armed with their predictions for all the teams and their records this year.
The guys also made their pretty early Super Bowl picks, a punt in the dark as to who they think will be the two teams making it to the big show.

AFC

Being a Bills fan, Ryan is prone to favouring the AFC at every moment.  Fortunately he has some pause in this podcast to appreciate that the Bills might struggle to dominate the whole division this year.

Wade on the other hand sees the AFC as Chiefs Kingdom, and think it’s going to be pretty tough for anyone to take the divisional throne from the heir apparent.

In the AFC East Ryan likes his Bills to smack around the Patriots, Dolphins and Jets. He has them capturing the division with a 13-4 record, and moving their way to a Super Bowl appearance.
Wade also has the Bills taking the division, but has the plucky play of the Fins taking them just ahead of the Pats for second place and a potential wild card spot.

It’s Browns for both guys in the AFC North, as they both like Cleveland to punch their tickets to the playoffs ahead of their rivals.
Ryan likes the Ravens to post a 10-7 record, behind the leading Browns at 11-6, and ahed of both the losing Steelers (8-9) and woeful Bengals (5-12).
Wade has the Steelers pipping a 10-7 record, behind the Browns and ahead of the Ravens and Bengals. He’s not big on this division, and has them beating the crap out of each other first.

The AFC South will not rise again, as a tepid division looks to crown its champion.
The Titans are tops for Wade and Ryan, who both have them taking the division ahead of their rivals.
Both guys have the Colts at 8-9, followed by the losing season of both the Jaguars and Texans.
Houston will most definitely have a problem this season, and like a NASA craft, will have to figure this out on their own.

The AFC West is best when looking at which teams have the ability to go all the way.
KC is favoured by both guys to crush it this year, as Wade & Ryan like them to go 14-3.
Both guys are hot on the LA Chargers and Justin Herbert, pegging them at 10-7, and a chance for a playoff spot as well.
Las Vegas has promise now that they can finally fill that shiny new stadium, and the guys expect some surprising things from them.
As far as the Broncos, it’s another lonely season out to pasture.

NFC

What bright spots does the NFC hold?
Will the Packers suit up for the Last Dance, or leave the dance floor early?

The NFC East has been a total joke for the past few years.
Too ugly to turn away from watching, the division has failed to be competitive outside of their own teams, often getting blown out by real teams.
This year should be different, with the Cowboys looking to post a healthy season under Dak.
Wade likes them to win this division, whereas Ryan has sipped some Fitzmagic, seeing the WFT taking top honours.
Ryan thinks that the Giants have a chance over the Eagles, who will finish bottom of the heap.
Wade is more bullish on Philly, and thinks that they will cause divisional problems for everyone this year.

Aaron Rodgers is pretty confident that he and the Packers will cruise to a Superbowl just like Jordan did. Let’s see if his arrogance and attitude make him look like a visionary, or a cheesehead.
Wade and Ryan both think that Green Bay will win the NFC North, but that they won’t be able to make it all the way.
Wade likes his Bears to run to 9-8, atop the Vikings and Lions, who will both struggle.
Ryan thinks the Vikes will take second, followed by the Bears and Lions.

Hitting the road to the champions in the NFC South, the Bucs are heavily favoured to repeat.
Ryan & Wade both like Tommy Boy to repeat his stint as champions, although they differ as to how the other teams will end up.
Ryan thinks Jameis can lead the Saints t0 10-7, with the Falcons able to jump atop the Panthers for third.
Wade thinks Carolina will surprise some folks this year, and has them going 11-6, to take second place in the division.
Ryan thinks that Matty Ice and the Falcons will be back and ready to attack.

Lastly, but definitely not least, is the tough as nails NFC West division.
Matt Stafford has made the Rams the big head of the group, and both guys think that they will go 11-6 to lift the title.
Ryan likes Seattle to chase the heels of the Rams, followed by a struggling 49ers squad, and lastly the Cards.
Wade has San Fran punching a wild card ticket, with the Seahawks ending up as the low face on the totem pole in this one.

Super Bowl

So who is going all the way to the big show?
Depends on who you ask.

Ryan Cull believes that his Buffalo Bills will face the Los Angeles Rams in February, but he won’t say who he thinks wins it. (pssst Bills!)

Wade McElwain throws his tomahawk at the Chiefs bandwagon to return as AFC champs, to face the Super Bowl hosts the LA Rams.

Los Angeles Rams will make the Super Bowl!
Of course that’s just our way too early picks.

Who do you have?

Have a listen to the podcast!

Meme Marchness

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What a wild week this was in the NFL!
Does anyone else have the cold sweats?
To celebrate, we have compiled a collection of some of the greatest memes from the week in what we call Meme Marchness.

We will of course go into bigger discussion about some of these topics in our podcast, and throughout the week. Some of the hot topics we will be touching on include:

DeShaun Watson

It’s all starting to crumble for Watson, as his exploits at massage parlours makes him the perfect Patriot. The reports that are starting to emerge are troubling, and could potentially spell the end of a career for DeShaun.
Like anything in life, you can rush to hasty decisions without all of the facts-something we don’t have yet.
A truly unfortunate situation for everyone.

Patriots

Speaking of blowing the wad, New England has splashed some cash this week unlike any other time in their history. Bill Belichick got Cam for a nifty deal, then splashed out on enough tight ends to last him 5 years. New England is in a tough division, and we shall see if Belichick still has a magic touch, or if he is truly out of touch.

Trubisky

Ding dong, Mitch is dead. Well, not really. But Mitchell Trubisky is no longer a Bear, as he has shuffled off to Buffalo. After being flogged by Chicago relentlessly since being selected, Mitch should look forward to going to Western New York where the fans are recognised as the nicest in the league.
These good feels might even help Mitch get his confidence back.

Here are a selection of memes for you to giggle yourself over.

49ers vs Saints-TB

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With the SuperBowl less than a week a way, it’s time to take a hit of nostalgia as we take a look back at one of our NFL in London events. It’s time for some NFC playoffs throwback as we look at the 49ers vs Saints game from the 2012 playoffs.

For those of you who might remember some of our NFL in London early locations, we use to host NFL viewing parties in the basement of the Sports Bar & Grill in Marylebone station.
Back then the SB&G wasn’t a Stonegate chain just yet, so the owner liked to have a lot of fun, ad wasn’t swayed by things like ‘late licenses’ and all that.
We would gather to watch the games until the wee hours of the basement, and those who needed to pop out to have a smoke, made sure not to draw attention to themselves.

Who could forget the loveable staff, amazing wings, funky smelling backroom, and next door Travelodge-where you could get a room for £25 a night, and a hooker knocking on your door a few hours offering company and a continental something-something.

Comedy was also a big part of these NFL nights, as we tapped into some of the biggest comedy acts on the circuit to entertain at halftime to a generally non responsive audience. Comedians like Scott Capurro, Dave Hill, Tom Rhodes and Reggie Watts all performed at the Sports Bar basement for a few beers and the chance to watch the NFL from home. Good times.

The date in question of this video is January 14th, 2012..although given that we are in the early hours here, it’s most likely already the 15th.
New Orleans had built up a pretty solid lead on the 49ers, until they were unable to withstand the comeback momentum of Alex Smith.
All of the fans in attendance had a great night, and the beers were flowing.

Have a little watch of the video and reminisce to the good old days. If you were there that night, please feel free to reach out and say hello.

We miss being able to host all of you guys during these trying times, but hopefully we will all be back soon again.

Stay safe, stay sane and we will all be back together again soon.

If you would like to see the epic final drive of the 49ers as they went on to munch on the Saints in an incredible game, here is the link.

New Predictions

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Week 4 of the NFL is here, and there are some new predictions based on Covid, injuries and other NFL news.
I have adjusted my picks due to injury reports that have been released on Sunday.
Fortunately, the Saints vs Lions game is still on, and the Patriots and Chiefs will either be played on Monday or Tuesday.

Here are some of the new scores that I have updated based on the new information.

Saints vs Lions

Detroit has some of their key defensive players back, and the Saints are lacking some of their top receivers.
The Lions are at home and are ready to rumble. I like the Lions to cover, or even win.
Detroit 31 Saints 28

Cardinals vs Panthers

The Cardinals injury report takes out 3 of their secondary. This will allow Teddy and Robbie Anderson to deep ball some damage to the Cards who have struggled against veteran receivers. The original line in this game was -3.5, but the Panthers at home are just too much to pass up.
Cardinals 30 Panthers 28

Seahawks vs Dolphins

The Seahawks are traveling across the country to a sweaty and hot stadium with no a lot of rest. Miami has been stellar at home, and have also had 10 days off after a Thursday night game. Russell Wilson is awesome, but his injury report is ghastly. The Seahawks will win, but the Dolphins have a chance to really cause some damage with a rested team.
Seahawks 33 Dolphins 26

Chargers vs Bucs

With the release of the injury report, it seems the Chargers will be without 3 starting offensive lineman. This is huge given the speed of the Bucs front D. Tom Brady will be looking to torch the kid despite missing Godwin. Mike Evans and Grink look to have a beast of a game here.
Bucs 24 Chargers 14

Giants vs Rams

When the original line was set at 13, I wasn’t ready to bite on the Rams being favoured by that much. Then I rewatched some of their earlier games and I felt reality kick me in the face. The Giants suck, and Jared Goff will light them up like a Roman Candle on Sunday.
Rams 33 Giants 18

Bills vs Raiders

The Raiders are now down 2 offensive lineman and 2 wide receivers. Facing an exceptional Josh Allen will only add to their woes. Allen survived a scare last week against the Rams, so he might be looking to make a statement here. A Stefon Diggs sized statement. This could get ugly.
Bills 28 Raiders 21

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London 2020 Games

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Damn you Covid 19 for taking away the London NFL games for 2020. Imagine, we could be basking in the glow of having these four games played on our soil right now. But alas, that damn virus has other plans.

The NFL will be back. We can’t guarantee this, but with the amount that the NFL has invested in the UK, coupled with the huge appetite for NFL tickets, it seems pretty dang likely.
Tottenham literally changed its stadium to accommodate the game, and tied in sponsors and partners to make the game happen here, so all signs point to the NFL returning to London, and potentially other places in the UK.
Liverpool and Manchester have all signalled moves that they would like to adapt their stadiums to host NFL games in the future.
The only real question is when.

Earlier in 2020, when everything was rosy and had the potential for an amazing year, we took a stab at which teams would be coming to London for the 4 games split at Tottenham and Wembley equally.
We used some maths, insider tips and our own gumption to determine which teams MIGHT be coming to the UK for this year.
We have no idea if they were right or wrong, but we did use some logical inference based on previous years.
Here are the games we THOUGHT would happen.

Broncos vs Falcons
Week 3-Sept 27/ 20
Tottenham Stadium

Arthur Blank had confirmed that the Falcons were going to be hosting a home game in London, although he didn’t know who they would be facing. Given that the Jags usually host the last 2 games of the London series, we assumed that Atlanta would be one of the first games up.
London gets very busy in the autumn, and their are traditional events like Diwali that are big draws in the centre of town.
The NFLUK usually dresses Oxford Circus in NFL garb at the beginning of the season to get the UK crowd hyped for the start of the season.
We looked at other events scheduled, keeping in mind the London games signify the start of bye weeks, to give teams a chance to rest when they get home.
Given all of this information, and prospecting on the Falcons schedule, we chose an AFC/ NFC matchup between the Falcons and Denver Broncos.
Were we right? We’ll never know

Patriots vs Dolphins
Week 4-Oct 4/ 20
Tottenham Stadium

Part of what determines who comes to London is home attendance. If your team is struggling to draw home fans, then the league will move you up to chuck across the pond. The Dolphins have seen attendance dwindle in recent years, so they would be at the top of the queue to come over. Add to this the mercurial hurricane weather in Florida up til November, and Miami made sense.
You also have to look at which teams HAVEN’T been here in a while, and the Patriots are a prime candidate. The Brady-less Pats and a scorned Robert Kraft might not have the gumption to say no to the league, so this AFC East matchup would make sense.
We also had an inside tip from Boston that this was on the cards, so we went with our gut.
Again, we will never know if we were right.

Colts vs Jaguars
Week 7-Oct 25
Wembley Stadium

One of the takeaways from previous NFL in London games, is that the NFLUK generally likes to schedule games around the time change. This makes the difference between the east coast only 4 hours, as the US time changes happen on different weekends. They have also made an effort to finish the UK games before America gets hit with November holidays.
Jacksonville Jaguars were due to play 2 games at Wembley, with a division rival being one of the prime targets. Since Indy hadn’t been to the UK in ages, and Phillip Rivers was at the helm, we assumed that this would be a logical bet.
Too bad, because this would have been a heck of a game.

Lions vs Jaguars
Week 8-November 1/20
Wembley Stadium

Detroit Lions were another team we were secretly told was on the chopping block for a trip to Blighty.
Their home attendance was at Covid levels even before the virus was discovered, and they hadn’t been to London in a few years.
These dates also branch over the time change, so week 7 and week 8 were the Jaguars weeks here we assumed with a great deal of certainty.
Ending the UK games by November 1st also allowed the teams to return to the chaotic November schedule, and the start of the REALLY rainy season in the UK.
Did we get this one right? We’ll never know.

Optimism is rampant for the 2021 games, as the MLB has confirmed that their 2020 games will be moved to 2021 in London. Will the NFLUK follow suit?
Hopefully, but it’s too hard to say at this point.
This damn virus is showing no signs of weakness, and adapts more than the Terminator.

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