NFL and YouTube

I love what the people of A Bad Lip Reading YouTube channel do with their videos.  They take real life scenes from actual games and put their own funny dialogue in place of what the people actually say.  Its pretty hilarious I believe.  If you like this one, they have many other videos featuring The Hunger Games, Twilight, The Walking Dead and even the political debates from last year.

If you also want to watch more NFL related videos, you can search the NFL on YouTube and you'll get many different videos.  These videos range from huge hits, sound tracks from the sidelines and many exciting plays that happen during the course of a NFL season.

Meme Mania!

As we all know, sports players and events create a lot of buzz.  You don't have to look very hard to find some breaking news on something that just happened featuring athletes, good or bad.  These events are often the inspiration for many parody accounts on social media, especially on Twitter.  Today, I'll focus on the football inspired memes.

NFL MEMES:

NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes): This account focuses only on NFL stories and it often tries to create a joke out of a serious matter, which all of these parody accounts do.  The Aaron Hernandez scandal this past summer was the most popular story for this particular meme.

Tom Brady's Ego (@TomBradysEgo): Tom Brady is great and he knows it.  Also makes fun of many other players as stories pop up.

Peyton's Head (@PeytonsHead): Peyton Manning's head is so big that it gets it's own meme!

There are many more but they're all basically the same: making fun of sports and pop culture in their own unique way.
College Football Memes:
Famous memes aren't limited to just the pro players.  They also come from the college ranks.

not Johnny Manziel (@JohnnyFootball): This is probably the most popular college football meme.  It came to existence after the Johnny Football autograph scandal this past summer.  This account likes to tweet about how unstoppable he is on the football field and a lot of drinking and partying tweets.  Is a pretty funny account to follow for a few good laughs.

not Jameis Winston (@ItsFamousJameis): This kid is only a freshman but he burst onto the scene and is leading a very potent offense this year.  He's so good that people call him "Famous Jameis" since famous rhymes with his name.  That is the inspiration behind this account.

not Mark Weisman (@NotMarkWeisman): If you're an Iowa fan, you know who Weisman is.  He had a lot of success for Iowa last year and generated a lot of #WeismanforHeisman tweets last year.  This account likes to make fun of former Iowa quarterback James Vandenberg and also tweets about partying and drinking.

Again, many more parody accounts out there and they have basically the same mission.  Tweet about partying and how good these guys are on the football field.

NFL Midseason Report: Playoff Picture

 Well, Jim Mora, I will start talking about the playoffs.  Week 8 of the NFL season is in the books and marks the halfway point of the season.  This is the time of the season where people really start to see the playoff picture start to manifest itself.  I will look at who would be in the playoffs if the season ended today, give my prediction on who will make it and give some dark horse candidates who could surprise some people and make it to the playoffs.

If the season ended today, this is what the playoff picture would look like:
AFC: 1. Kansas City Chiefs (8-0), 2. Cincinnati Bengals (6-2), 3. New England Patriots (6-2), 4. Indianapolis Colts (5-2), 5. Denver Broncos (7-1), 6. San Diego Chargers (4-3)

NFC: 1. Seattle Seahawks (7-1), 2. New Orleans Saints (6-1), 3. Green Bay Packers (5-2), 4. Dallas Cowboys (4-4), 5. San Francisco 49ers (6-2), Detroit Lions (5-3)

The teams ranked 1-4 in both conferences are the division winners and the teams ranked 5-6 are the Wild Card teams, or the best of the rest.

Dark Horse Candidates:
AFC: New York Jets (4-4): This team has been a little inconsistent this year, hence the record, but this team could surprise some people.  They did split two games with the Patriots this year.  They are 2-1 in their division right now and if they take care of business there, they could see themselves surpassing the Chargers for the final Wild Card spot.

NFC: Carolina Panthers (4-3): This has been one of the most surprising teams in the NFL so far this year being that many people picked them to be near the bottom of the standings this year.  They aren't there though because of their defense.  They have allowed the least amount of points this year so their offense doesn't have to score a whole lot for these guys to be successful.

Prediction:
Based on watching the games this year and my knowledge of the different teams, here is my prediction on who will make it to the playoffs this year.

AFC: 1. Denver Broncos, 2. Indianapolis Colts, 3. Cincinnati Bengals, 4. New England Patriots, 5. Kansas City Chiefs, 6. New York Jets

NFC: 1. Seattle Seahawks, 2. New Orleans Saints, 3. Green Bay Packers, 4. Dallas Cowboys, 5. San Francisco 49ers, 6. Detroit Lions

And for the heck of it, I'm going to predict the Super Bowl too.  Playing in the Super Bowl, I have the New Orleans Saints playing the Kansas City Chiefs.  The final score will be KC 20, NO 17.  You heard it here first.

Trent Richardson Trade

Now I know this is a little late getting out but I figured I would get a better grasp of this big trade after a little time has passed.  The trade was the Cleveland Browns traded Trent Richardson to the Indianapolis Colts for a couple of future 1st round draft picks.  When it happened, it was all that the NFL analysts were talking about.  You couldn't turn on ESPN without hearing about this trade.  I will give my take on both sides of the trade and see how it benefits both the Colts and the Browns.  I will also look for potential pitfalls of this trade, if there are any.

Cleveland Browns Side:

"Running back Trent Richardson was traded from the Browns to the Colts."  When I heard this on Sportscenter on September 18, I had to do a double take.  This was a guy who was drafted as the third overall pick in the previous year.  The Browns lost their first two games and looked as if they were giving up on their season.  I was thinking why would anyone trade a guy who is only 18 games into his young career.  He has a lot of potential and can be a future pro bowler in this league.  I was thinking the Browns were well on their way to a premium draft pick again thanks to a dismal record.  After they made the trade though, the Browns have gone 3-0 without Richardson in the backfield.  Let's take a little look at some stats from these games.

• With Richardson, the Browns were averaging 52 yards rushing and 8 points a game.
• Without Richardson, the Browns are averaging 96 yards rushing and 28 points a game!

Now, if you had watched any games and not look too far into the stats, you would see that Richardson was running against defenses that had 8 man fronts constantly.  The 8 man front means the defense had 8 guys up at the line of scrimmage.  Defenses do this to stop the run and make the opposing team throw against them. Now with Richardson gone, the Browns have do definite star for a defense to stop and they aren't using the 8 man front.  So far, this looks to be a good move by the Browns ownership, but they definitely could have gotten more out of this trade.  Only time will tell if this success can be sustained by the talent they have there.

Indianapolis Colts Side:

At the time of the trade, the Colts had just put one of their key running backs on the injured reserve list, which means that he is done for the season.  So they were looking for a running back.  The Browns noticed this and contacted the Colts to see if they wanted Richardson.  The Colts jumped all over this and didn't give up a whole lot to get him.  This was a playoff team last year and looks to be even stronger this year.  After the trade, the Colts now have the top overall pick and the third overall pick of the previous year's draft.  They have a lot of talent now both in the passing game and now in the running game.  Richardson will benefit greatly from this trade in my opinion.  With a great quarterback like Andrew Luck under center, Richardson will rarely see those pesky 8 man fronts again because Luck will tear that apart by throwing the ball.

Prediction:
I predict that the Browns will be the ultimate winner of this trade.  They unloaded a guy that didn't fit their system and got some value back for him.  There's also no telling whether Richardson will be able to produce over in Indy, but his career is still young so he will have plenty of opportunities to make an impact.

Iowa: #Hawkeyestate or #Cyclonestate?

About 3 weeks ago, we had the big game of the season that many college football fans in Iowa were waiting to see.  Iowa vs. Iowa State.  The battle for the Cy-Hawk trophy.  Every year leading up to the game, I hear from each team's fans that "Iowa is a Hawkeye State," or "Iowa is a Cyclone State."  So this year I decided to do a little research about this to see which team is the more popular one in Iowa through social media.
Twitter
Iowa Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball)
Tweets: 2268
Following: 252
Followers: 36,404

Hawkeye Captains with the Cy-HAWK trophy! #GoHawks #Swarm2013 pic.twitter.com/tWGmJwWgXn
— Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball) September 15, 2013

Iowa State Cyclone Football (@CycloneFB)
Tweets: 4588
Following: 23
Followers: 20,777
Looking at the data here, the Iowa State account is far more active with twice as many tweets but the Iowa account is more popular.  The edge goes to Iowa Football.
Klout
Iowa has a Klout score of 90 while Iowa State has a Klout score of 88, but the thing I looked for was whether each school was influential in football.  Iowa was but Iowa State wasn't.  So the edge once again goes to Iowa.
The Game
As far as the game went, Iowa was pretty dominant pretty much the whole game.  They allowed a couple of scores late when the game was all but decided and ended up winning 27-21.  Edge, once again, goes to Iowa.
After compiling all this data, it shows that Iowa is a Hawkeye State.