On 6/27/2026 at 1:39 PM, Mike030270 said:

That's not the impression I've got over the years since he's been traded. He's been bashed a lot for wanting to be traded after everything that happened to him

Myvl impression, which draws from more the 35 regulars in here is completely different. We loved 2017 and thought we struck gold, completely bummed after the Rams game the hope of a return to glory before it fell apart. Outside of this site, that is the sentiment of the vast majority of fans.

On 6/26/2026 at 4:32 PM, NCiggles said:

I think she comes off as more sympathetic especially when compared to Vrabel. It looks like her relationship with Vrabel wasn't some scheme or pattern of behavior. It was an affair. He has as much culpability in it as she does. She lost her career over it. Vrabel has faced no consequences professionally. She has been far more villianized than he has been. Sure, it's distasteful to try to get out of a ticket but I don't think it's unusual or that she went about it in a mean spirited way. It's not like she went down the road of do you know who I am. Despite her faults as a person, she did a good job reporting news to the extent an NFL insider is anything like a reporter.

Funny how we perceive things. For me, Russini came off as arrogant, aloof and suffering from massive golden child syndrome- level skipping when it came out is a prime example of someone not respecting the way to do things. Zero accountability or awareness.

Now, I do agree that Russini has been punished more harshly (but in part because she was less than honest up front) and Vrabel deserves more punishment than he got because he kept their fling going over 2 teams. and as a HC, should have known better, etc. A better run org would perhaps suspend him for 1 game just to so the players can see everyone is accountable. But listening to how Russini talked about her husband says all you need to know about who she is.

17 hours ago, mattwill said:

The 2022 World Cup started with 32 teams. Today’s game is the first one in this Cup’s round of 32. The whittling down to 32 four years ago was done off the field rather than on the field as has been done in this Cup. That is a huge improvement in process IMO.

This World Cup has TNF syndrome. The filtering of poor teams should be done in qualifying so the tournament is the best of the best at kick off. 24-28 teams perhaps is the sweet spot between having enough games, but removing people that just don't deserve to be there (cough, Scotland, cough). If a team has 47 seconds of possession in the opposition's half over 45 mins, then why are they there?

Now that smaller tournament doesn't generate FIFA money, but asking me to invest time vs other things in a 40 team tournament will mean filtering out less than enticing matches.

Metlife is wining rave reviews at the World Cup

The pitch sucks

As does the stadium

This is from a prominent Football journalist over here

37 minutes ago, UK Eagle said:

This World Cup has TNF syndrome. The filtering of poor teams should be done in qualifying so the tournament is the best of the best at kick off. 24-28 teams perhaps is the sweet spot between having enough games, but removing people that just don't deserve to be there (cough, Scotland, cough). If a team has 47 seconds of possession in the opposition's half over 45 mins, then why are they there?

Now that smaller tournament doesn't generate FIFA money, but asking me to invest time vs other things in a 40 team tournament will mean filtering out less than enticing matches.

I mean England and Scotland aren't really separate countries. They should not get 2 teams.

53 minutes ago, UK Eagle said:

Funny how we perceive things. For me, Russini came off as arrogant, aloof and suffering from massive golden child syndrome- level skipping when it came out is a prime example of someone not respecting the way to do things. Zero accountability or awareness.

Now, I do agree that Russini has been punished more harshly (but in part because she was less than honest up front) and Vrabel deserves more punishment than he got because he kept their fling going over 2 teams. and as a HC, should have known better, etc. A better run org would perhaps suspend him for 1 game just to so the players can see everyone is accountable. But listening to how Russini talked about her husband says all you need to know about who she is.

I don't know that there is a way to do things. She was a local TV sports reporter that went on to ESPN in her early 30s. Rich Eisen was younger when he got his ESPN gig. She was a part of ESPN for nearly 10 years before she moved to The Athletic. She is in a competitive industry where "journalists" tout their connections to GMs and coaches. I am not defending her personal decisions. She betrayed her spouse and has treated him terribly. Vrabel has done the same thing. No one is writing articles to expose his role, which is arguably more problematic, in the AJ Brown trade or other news stories. From the article, it sounded like he used Russini as a messenger for him about where he wanted to coach.

Just now, NCiggles said:

I don't know that there is a way to do things. She was a local TV sports reporter that went on to ESPN in her early 30s. Rich Eisen was younger when he got his ESPN gig. She was a part of ESPN for nearly 10 years before she moved to The Athletic. She is in a competitive industry where "journalists" tout their connections to GMs and coaches. I am not defending her personal decisions. She betrayed her spouse and has treated him terribly. Vrabel has done the same thing. No one is writing articles to expose his role, which is arguably more problematic, in the AJ Brown trade or other news stories. From the article, it sounded like he used Russini as a messenger for him about where he wanted to coach.

It's a typical sequence: affair exposed, women is conniving vixen, boy just being a boy. Sh.t hits fan boy has flock of protection, women is abandoned and vilified. People make excuses for why it's OK and just the way of the world.

Vrabel is a lying, cheating, distepctful dope professionally and in his private life in the same vain as Russinni. Both should be on the rack, so to speak, but Vrabel will skate, be protected, professionally anyway.

11 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

I don't know that there is a way to do things. She was a local TV sports reporter that went on to ESPN in her early 30s. Rich Eisen was younger when he got his ESPN gig. She was a part of ESPN for nearly 10 years before she moved to The Athletic. She is in a competitive industry where "journalists" tout their connections to GMs and coaches. I am not defending her personal decisions. She betrayed her spouse and has treated him terribly. Vrabel has done the same thing. No one is writing articles to expose his role, which is arguably more problematic, in the AJ Brown trade or other news stories. From the article, it sounded like he used Russini as a messenger for him about where he wanted to coach.

Yeah I mean Jay Glazer’s whole deal is hanging out with football people, so there seems to be some hypocrisy there. Though I think Russini purported herself more a real journalist than Glazer does

On 6/26/2026 at 10:27 PM, DEagle7 said:

Cape Verde fans losing their damn minds around here. Love to see it. Screw the purists I like these tiny weird teams making it in and surprising people

I had to look up where that country was a few weeks back. Basically looks like Hawaii but off the west coast of Africa. Crazy

1 hour ago, UK Eagle said:

This World Cup has TNF syndrome. The filtering of poor teams should be done in qualifying so the tournament is the best of the best at kick off. 24-28 teams perhaps is the sweet spot between having enough games, but removing people that just don't deserve to be there (cough, Scotland, cough). If a team has 47 seconds of possession in the opposition's half over 45 mins, then why are they there?

Now that smaller tournament doesn't generate FIFA money, but asking me to invest time vs other things in a 40 team tournament will mean filtering out less than enticing matches.

It’ll just keep expanding. By 2038 (probably 2034) it’ll be 64 teams. Then they’ll got to 68 and have play in games like the NCAA Tournament. I know they already do technically have play in games but they’ll just highlight them closer to the tournament.

When a team like Canada wins a game 6-0 then wins in the knockout round and is clearly the better team… you know the overall quality of the teams is not great.

@HazletonEagle

That's just awful and way too young. He was such a fun player to watch.

ALS is a truly horrifying disease - wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy

1 hour ago, NCiggles said:

I mean England and Scotland aren't really separate countries. They should not get 2 teams.

You have no idea of the debates that happened with the 2012 Olympics for Team GB and if having one unified team would mean one team going forward in UEFA and FIFA tournaments. Anyone not English was not happy with that.

The real reason is largely how international football was started, IFAB, etc - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Football_Association_Board.

1 hour ago, EaglePhan1986 said:

It’ll just keep expanding. By 2038 (probably 2034) it’ll be 64 teams. Then they’ll got to 68 and have play in games like the NCAA Tournament. I know they already do technically have play in games but they’ll just highlight them closer to the tournament.

When a team like Canada wins a game 6-0 then wins in the knockout round and is clearly the better team… you know the overall quality of the teams is not great.

They will do that because FIFA gonna FIFA. The real question is if European countries reach a nah bro point and try and nudge FIFA the other way because they can't fit more games into the players schedules - Erling Haaland has been playing football for pretty much 12 months straight now and the player unions are starting to push back.

1 hour ago, NCiggles said:

I don't know that there is a way to do things. She was a local TV sports reporter that went on to ESPN in her early 30s. Rich Eisen was younger when he got his ESPN gig. She was a part of ESPN for nearly 10 years before she moved to The Athletic. She is in a competitive industry where "journalists" tout their connections to GMs and coaches. I am not defending her personal decisions. She betrayed her spouse and has treated him terribly. Vrabel has done the same thing. No one is writing articles to expose his role, which is arguably more problematic, in the AJ Brown trade or other news stories. From the article, it sounded like he used Russini as a messenger for him about where he wanted to coach.

Russini grew her career and fair play for the graft to get there- not an easy industry to get into and stay in. You can rightly question how she got scoops based on behaviours and I can guarantee other Insiders are not happy with her and Vrabel for showing how the sausage is made. And NFL personnel are doing the same at Vrabel for lacking any judgement and not keeping it professional. NEs lack of punishment is gonna bite them badly when a player steps out of line. Why punish me when coach can boff a journalist and get away with it?

2 hours ago, UK Eagle said:

Metlife is wining rave reviews at the World Cup

The pitch sucks

As does the stadium

This is from a prominent Football journalist over here

Idk what idiot decided MetLife was the best place for the final but they should be fired. Also FIFA's stupid rule about requiring individual seats and not using bench seating eliminated using college stadiums and robbed us of an incredible experience, imagine watching a game in the Big House, Death Valley, the Swamp, or Tuscaloosa (especially a knockout round game). The Swamp might be the only one of those who couldn't accommodate the bigger field

2 hours ago, NCiggles said:

I mean England and Scotland aren't really separate countries. They should not get 2 teams.

There 4 teams from UK. Way back, they joined FIFA as 4 different organizations. UK as a country is not a member of FIFA and not participate in World Cup.

2 hours ago, EaglePhan1986 said:

I had to look up where that country was a few weeks back. Basically looks like Hawaii but off the west coast of Africa. Crazy

Cape Verde is the area where a lot of hurricanes that affect Central and N. America originate. That exhausts my knowledge of the place.

3 hours ago, UK Eagle said:

Metlife is wining rave reviews at the World Cup

The pitch sucks

As does the stadium

This is from a prominent Football journalist over here

Doesn’t FIFA have their own field standards though when it comes to grass, condition, etc? They’re not playing on the same surface that the Giants/Jets play on. Most NFL players have been advocating for FIFA type field conditions to play football on instead of turf.

45 minutes ago, devpool said:

imagine watching a game in the Big House

Have you been there? It's one of the most uncomfortable ways to watch a sporting event. Imagine paying over $10k for world cup tickets to have your knees touch the back of the person in front of you and feeling the knees of the person behind you for the entire match. And then doing the awkward stand-up-shuffle every single time someone needs to make their way to the aisle. No thanks.

38 minutes ago, BDawk_ASamuel said:

Doesn’t FIFA have their own field standards though when it comes to grass, condition, etc? They’re not playing on the same surface that the Giants/Jets play on. Most NFL players have been advocating for FIFA type field conditions to play football on instead of turf.

Yeah, this is what I heard as well. Crazy that teams are upgrading the field for FIFA, but not for their own players.

58 minutes ago, Penn7980 said:

There 4 teams from UK. Way back, they joined FIFA as 4 different organizations. UK as a country is not a member of FIFA and not participate in World Cup.

I am just saying, Scotland and Wales should have to declare their independence to participate. Finally, 26+6 =1.

7 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

I am just saying, Scotland and Wales should have to declare their independence to participate. Finally, 26+6 =1.

Do you know how many times in history that Scotland has declared and fought for independence? Wales is likely where King Arthur is from. It’s basically where the original Celts withdrew towards with the Roman, Viking and Saxon invasions.

On 6/27/2026 at 4:05 PM, Aerolithe_Lion said:

is it bad that I love all this Aiyuk drama and hope it keeps going on and on forever?

Things got boring after AB lost all his money and stopped the looney tunes stuff

Same. I like to watch the world burn. I hope he never stops.