beo

Madden has been in a bad state for well over a decade now but the best recent change they've made was making the rating distrubition harsher IMO. Whenever I try to play a MyLeague in the newer games pretty much every single one of your starters will be 85+ if you want to win a championship and you need probably 3 90+ guys. There's not very much seperation between the players on the court it seems like, someone ranked 85/99 should be a great player going off the percentage but instead that's essentially an average starter. Having a larger rating gap between the superstars and the JAGs highlights the difference in skill a lot better. Whereas in 2K some team's 4th best defender can square up your 96 overall superstar thus causing the gameplay to feel rather homogenous.

fug yeah! 16-3, 2nd greatest playoff run in NHL history per the W-L numbers.

ITS OVER

0 shots on goal in 15 minutes and 43 seconds for Vegas. Wow.

Exorcising those 2nd period demons!

Jordan Staal wants another!

That was one miserable PP.

Absolutely schizophrenic game. First period no goals, second period four Vegas goals, third period four Canes goals, OT no goals.

How do they keep getting shooters wide open? First goal there's just a guy chilling in front of the net, 3rd one Freddie makes a nice stop on a Marner breakaway and then somehow there's another guy sitting there wide open seconds later. Team is just melting down, wtf?

LETS fuging GO SETH!!!!!!!

Being Panther fans is the shared traumatic experience that keeps this forum together

Luke on the siren! Hell yeah!

Really it seems like the only thing that kept those last 2 games close was Dobes going off. Now that he's letting stuff in I don't think the Habs are going to fare well going forward.

Please don't be moving to Discourse, I don't know if I can handle seeing another forum I like with that disgusting interface.

I will never get over how much of Cam's prime was wasted by Mike Shula. People say that he should've doubled Von but that's pretty much what he tried to do, the Broncos sent more guys in response to it as LG's post pointed out and then he just never adjusted. Turtling up in max protect actually played into Denver's hands because it gave Cam less places to go with the ball. We had Philly Brown and Ted Ginn Jr trying to beat Chris Harris and Aqib Talib on long-developing routes against the best pass rush arguably of the decade, it was just downright comedic. What he should have done was chip Von with a TE and putting more WRs on the field, running quick plays designed to get the ball out as fast as possible. But Shula's passing scheme was woefully out of date, designed around taking long-developing deep shots rather than efficient chain-moving plays. We asked Cam to attempt passes harder than probably any other QB in the league at that time on a play to play basis outside of Rodgers under late stage McCarthy. The instant that Cam got something resembling a competent offensive coordinator in Norv Turner his completion percentage and accuracy in the short game skyrocketed, and if not for injury the false narrative about him being an inaccurate thrower would have likely died out. Shula went 15-1 with the #1 ranked offense in the league and didn't get a single head coach interview. Literally everyone in the league knew he was riding Cam's coattails except for Ron and JR, it's sickening.

I don't really follow the team anymore due to a variety of reasons and consequently have largely stopped posting but I agree that this is a lovely website and community. This forum probably kept me around for years longer than I would've stuck otherwise because of how difficult it was to stop checking multiple times a day. Especially appreciate how lax the moderation tends to be compared to a lot of places, the crew here does a great job. Out of curiousity I decided to try making a new account (solely for testing purposes) to see what exactly is wrong with the sign up process. The issue seems to be that it never sends you an account verification email, thus making it impossible to complete registration. This is likely something to do with the email server upstream, hope it gets fixed. Also, lol

So tired of these soft roughing the passer calls.

I hear you and I can imagine it's frustrating as a fan, but UNC-CH leaving the ACC would be throwing away over a century of history. It would really suck if y'all, or Clemson, or any of the other remaining charter members leave. I still think it sucks that Maryland left as well. Feels so wrong not having that rivalry anymore. Maryland fuging hated us and I loved it. Who's Maryland's rival now in the big 10? Rutgers? lol. Also, I think that the Heels are more likely to be Kentucky 2.0 than you are to get serious about football upon joining the SEC. Both UNC (and also Duke's) administrations seem very stuck in their ways with sticking to their ways and remaining basketball powerhouses. I do wish we could see NC teams actually competing in my favorite sport sometimes but alas. I personally value keeping our history intact over trying to become top flight CFB programs because nowadays it's just a pay to win sport anyways. Even if UNC-CH got serious I doubt they could compete with that Texas oil money, or that Oregon nike money, or that USC rich kid money. That's all top level college football really is anymore. You're either an established blue blood or you're willing to waste tons of money that could be spent on education rather than football.

Meh, fug those greedy TV executives. I'd prefer the ACC to stay together with the NC schools even if it means we all fall behind in a sport that's increasingly coming down to "who has rich boosters willing to waste more money?". I love a good rivalry game, that Duke-Wake rain game last year when Wake sucked and we were on a 3rd stringer was very fun to me even if the quality of the play was lacking. Regional bickering is the essence of college sports. I'd hate to see a day when UNC-CH or any of the other charter member ACC schools are in a different conference.

This is a good point, one that I did not take into account with my previous posts. It is true that with regards to ACC play UNC-CH has been far better, even in the 2014-present timeframe there's a large gap between the two. I never meant to claim that over the past decade or so that the Heels haven't been the better program; I am more fighting back against the notion that we've been horrible. Since 2012 the series is 6-8 in UNC-CH's favor. An advantage, but not that large of one. We were legendarily terrible in the 90s and 00s, weren't even really a power 5 team in anything except name and historical ties. Since hiring Cutcliffe, Duke's program has undergone a substantial transformation and this has been followed by investment as well. But it takes time to go from one of the worst power 5 programs of all time into a winning one. It is mainly this perception of Duke that I believe to be unfair; we aren't that bad of a football program anymore and there have been results that show this improvement. It's been a long time since the 90s and 00s. At this point, that barely matters anymore than who won the ACC in 1963. Timeframes can get semantical and nitpicky. I think regardless of exact spans and all of that, it's pretty clear that the series has been much more competitive recently. Even those games UNC-CH won in 2019, 2022 and 2023 were all very competitive and came down to a few plays. It's not like y'all have just been steamrolling us. Perhaps I misinterpreted you earlier, I agree that making an ACC title run every so often with a Maye or Howell is a reasonable goal. But a great QB doesn't mean you have a great roster, player development seems to be where the Heels have struggled in recent times.

Went back and calculated for you since I knew you'd probably reply with something along these lines. From what I can see, the comparison is fairly equal. Since the 2014 season, Duke has an overall record of 68-62 (.523) while UNC-CH has a record of 71-62 (.533). In that timeframe, UNC-CH has appeared in 8 bowl games with a record of 1-7 in those games. Duke has been to 6 and has a record of 5-1 in those games. While UNC has more bowl appearances, their futility in them can't be overlooked. From most objective measures UNC-CH and Duke have been pretty equal programs over the past decade. There is one caveat, that being that UNC has 2 ACCG appearances to Duke's 0, however Duke's latest ACCG appearance was in 2013 which misses the 10 year timeframe by 1 year. So I guess you could say UNC-CH has been slightly better, but if so it's not by a very noticeable margin. That clearly wasn't the intent of bringing up the fact that Duke has won an ACC title more recently. This was to provide evidence to the notion that "UNC is competing for ACC titles every year" seems a bit silly when you haven't won one in 44 years nor do you appear in them all that frequently. I mean, you really think a team that is mainly being elevated by a star QB would have a chance against Bama or Clemson that has 5 stars and top flight coaching all over the roster? There's a reason UNC-CH barely broke into the top 10 when they had a record of 6-0 in 2023. Same story in 2022. Everyone knew it, including the pollsters. Except y'all, apparently. Of course, I never argued otherwise. Having an entire season hinge around a rivalry game is pretty pathetic, you won't find any argument from me here. Huh? A post ago, you were just saying that nothing before 2005 counted. So which is it? It seems like your timeframes are jumping around. Yeah, our record in the 90s and 00s was pretty awful. Against everyone, not just y'all. Don't think any Duke fan would argue the Ted Roof days were a golden age.

I'm not sure I'm understanding why you'd arbitrarily cut off ACC titles before 2005 even though they are identical in weight. It's not like a meaningless game makes them any less valuable, especially since that game is usually just a blowout anyways. But even working off of this metric, you disingenuously make UNC-CH sound like it's some powerhouse that goes to the ACC title game on a regular basis. UNC-CH has 2 total appearances since 2005, a whopping one more than Duke and tied with Wake (whom actually won one of theirs). The inclusion of State there is sure doing some heavy lifting. I mean, hanging your hat on two players is a bit strange, no? Everyone knows those teams were largely carried by those QBs. And two of those wins over Duke were giftwrapped by the refs, especially that joke in 2023. Two more were the result of the fallout from Cutt staying on for longer than he should've. The only reason UNC-CH football is in a state as good as it's in is because y'all live off your brand. Fans expecting a program that hasn't won an ACC title in 44 years to be focused on winning them every year is a huge reach no matter how you slice it. If UNC-CH fans sincerely think this way, then I can only conclude that Tarheel football fans are rather delusional.

I take my earlier bitching back! Lets go Devils!

Commentators hyping up Carolina's defense when in reality it's just a completely dysfunctional offense floundering against a bad defense. If this is how Mannyball is gonna look across the rest of the ACC schedule I dunno if I'll be able to bear it.

And that's game, GGs. Still can't believe administration hired Manny Diaz. Sends a somber message about how administration views the football program.