NFL - Are You Ready For Some Football?!! - Week 16

[Ming]

Originally posted by snoopy369
And maybe lose enough games to get a high draft pick?

I have NO problem with that now

[Lord Avalon]

If you guys don't think that the Bears draft well in the first round, then aren't you setting yourselves up for a bigger disappointment by wanting a higher draft pick?

[Jaguar]

Woodson is smart and he makes good throws but he is a bit fumbly.

[snoopy369]

I think the theory is that screwing up #7 vs screwing up #14 might feel worse, but it's still probably a better player...

[SlowwHand]

NFL player turned astronaut blasts off Saturday

10:14 AM CST on Friday, December 7, 2007

By Jason Whitely / KHOU-TV





JOHNSON SPACE CENTER – The journey to the launch pad took an unusual path for one astronaut aboard Atlantis.

“Let’s go! Strap on!,” Leland Melvin, Mission Specialist for STS-122, said smiling. “You know, before a football game you’re in the tunnel. You’re walking out. Some people have butterflies. Some people say let’s get it going. We’ve been training for a long time. Let’s get it going.”

Leland Melvin never planned on being an astronaut. He wanted to play football and began in kindergarten.

“My dad was the coach,” he said. “He showed me how to catch a ball. Thumbs above the waste. Pinkies below,” he reminisced laughing.

It’s no joke, though: Melvin ended up going pro.

“I was drafted in 1986,” he explained, “and was in training camps with both the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys for a year and a half. Pulled a hamstring and that was pretty much the end of my professional career.”

Perhaps for sports, but not science.

He became an astronaut nine years ago, and the Atlantis launch scheduled for Saturday will be his first flight.

Melvin is the first former NFL player to ever go to space.

Melvin will operate the shuttle’s robotic arm on this mission. He is tasked with lifting the $2 billion dollar Columbus laboratory out of the shuttle’s payload bay and sticking it on the space station. With its addition to the station, Columbus marks the start of manned space flight for Europeans.

Attaching it is what he’s looking most forward to, Melvin said.

Before training for this mission, he sold space to school children across the country, lessons he still teaches today.

“A lot of kids want to be ball players and rappers,” Melvin said. “I say ‘Hey go for it! Do it! But have a backup plan.’ In my case I was trying to play football. I got injured. Now I’m an astronaut. You can do the same thing.”

Melvin has kayaked in Alaska and taken his dog Jake hiking in Colorado. But now he’s off to space carrying a quilt for underprivileged children in Houston’s Third Ward and, naturally, a football from his alma mater, the University of Richmond. They are among the personal items each astronaut is allowed to take on missions.

“He’s hopefully going to be able to take us to a football game or something afterwards,” said Rex Walheim, a fellow Mission Specialist on this flight. “We’ve been making him live up to it. But he’s got a few months after flight before we start really pounding on him.”

We found Melvin to be optimistic and approachable, the kind of traits which have clearly helped him accomplish two dream jobs in one lifetime.

Leland Melvin

[Theben]

Originally posted by Ming
I have NO problem with that now

QFT

[Grandpa Troll]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/football/nfl/12/07/bc.fbn.saints.bushinjured.ap/index.html

maybe reggie bush out rest of year?

[SlowwHand]

Miami Dolphins, out for the rest of the year?

[snoopy369]

Nah, they still have a purpose in life: Get their first win vs New England

[-Jrabbit]

Last week of the regular season in fantasy football, and I need some help to make the playoffs over Berz. So for today, I'm a big fan of the Deviations, hoping they get a huge day from Peyton Manning.

Oh well, at least I don't have to watch the Bears today. Good luck to all.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?!?!

[YYYH]

Steelers v Patriots coincides with Jets v Browns. Considering the overlap in markets, how does CBS handle this?

I'm torn between wanting to see the Jets win and wanting to see the Patriots lose.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by YYYH
Steelers v Patriots coincides with Jets v Browns. Considering the overlap in markets, how does CBS handle this?

I'm torn between wanting to see the Jets win and wanting to see the Patriots lose.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by YYYH
Steelers v Patriots coincides with Jets v Browns. Considering the overlap in markets, how does CBS handle this?

I'm torn between wanting to see the Jets win and wanting to see the Patriots lose.

Maybe this will help you: NFL TV Distribution Maps.

[YYYH]

Mercifully, I get CBS from both New York and Connecticut.

[Grandpa Troll]

Im getting a Butt Wax courtesy of Tennessee playing Rivers and dont see anything better when Brady plays Pittsburg, but, ya never know