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I’ll miss Andrew Siciliano most of all

ballsofsteelandfury

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I did it.  I finally did it.  I called Directv up and told them not to renew my NFL Sunday Ticket subscription.

This was the last holdout.  The last bit of money that I was contributing to the NFL’s coffers is now no more.  And you know why I held out so long?

Andrew MFing Siciliano

Before you all say anything, Andrew eats Scott Hanson for breakfast, shits him out, and feeds Poopy Hanson back to what’s left of Scott Hanson.  He is the original and the best.  If somehow someway someone sends a link to Andrew Siciliano and he somehow reads this, please know that you made this decision very difficult for me.  I greatly appreciate the great work you have done and continue to do. If I ever run into you here in LA, I will buy you a beer.

Now, on to the reasons why I did this.  The tag should be self-evident, but allow me to expound on all the ways Roger Goodell is Stalin to Gary Bettman’s Hitler and sports fans are Ukraine.

You know what?  I’m not going to do that.  I’ve never been the type to break up with someone and go off talking about how crazy she was and talking bad about her.  I’ve always been the type that feels it’s her loss and wishes her good luck.

Besides, I’ve already got a new flame.  She keeps me up at night and it’s a hell of a ride.  I don’t mind spending money on her because I get so much in return.  That’s the way it should be.

Goodbye Sweet Prince

Never forget:  Roger Goodell is a National Disgrace.

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Buddy Cole's Halftime Show

I don’t play fantasy football but I just don’t like the overload of information you get during a sports broadcast now a days. During game threads I usually watch one game and prefer the night threads for that reason.

Buddy is a luddite, deal! I collect manual-crank vibrators for the record!

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litre_cola

I opted out 5 years ago, couldn’t invest 17 weeks for the price as I didn’t want to be nailed to my couch. Redzone is 49.99 up here and I believe that to be a fair price to take care of my ADD.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Plus the dude has handles.

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Horatio Cornblower

A couple of seasons ago I got the MLB At Bat app, which allows you to check in on any game, get the score, that status of the at bat, game situation etc. It was pretty cool.

All 7 times I used it during the entire season.

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Senor Weaselo

Hey, it’s worth the zero money you pay for it. Unless you also bought MLB.TV, in which case, that’s a lot more than zero money.

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Redshirt

You made the right call. Spending all that money just to watch any NFL game is just too much. When its my team playing, that game has my undivided attention. When its someone else playing, if its on TV and there’s nothing else on, I’ll start to watch it, but eventually I’ll tune out because I don’t really care about it (my apologies to you and the rest of Steelers Nation because I know you team is the most important team in existence and sooner of later all the non-believers will see the light or be forever be damned to Thursday Night Football Games of the Bengals and Browns playing).

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Duchess

I bought it last year so I could watch bears games… streaming through my ps4… i watched it maybe like 3 times.

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blaxabbath

3 times sounds about right.

Half the league is effectively out of the playoffs by week 6. How I feel (in theory) for the Colts fan on assignment in San Diego last year who got to the Finest City, set up his package…and was probably at the beach all day every Sunday by October 1.

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Low Commander of the Super Soldiers

Colts fan at a San Diego beach, pictured:

http://www.factzoo.com/sites/all/img/mammals/whales/beluga-whale-head.jpg

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Sill Bimmons

The solution to all these problems?

http://cdn.exstreamist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Watch-NFL-RedZone-Online.jpg

Get a new cable subscription in September with RedZone. You’ll get the new subscriber rate so it shouldn’t be that expensive, certainly no more than DirectTV. Mainline Redzone every Sunday until January then cancel your sub. The bonus is that you’ll get all the other games too! Add up the two or three trips to the bar that you would have taken just to watch a game every month and it’s paid for.

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Kungjitsu

The Redzone killed my love for football, and I will never be able to thank it enough.

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Low Commander of the Super Soldiers

It’s 40 bucks a year for Redzone on ATT U-Verse for me. Worth every god damn penny.

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blaxabbath

What if you had called to cancel your subscription? Do you think you could have inoffensive phrase to just giving you Sunday Ticket for free to stay?

I don’t have cable but I’ve heard there is plenty they can do for you if you threaten to walk. I remember calling Century Link when my GF’s mother passed to just give them the heads up of the situation. I gave them the account number, name, address and the rep was like, “well, what can we offer you to stay?” I’m like, she’s dead and I’m just letting you know. Then the guy gets all hard with me and tells me I need to send them an obituary or death certificate. I’m like, you guys can do whatever the hell you want because there is no one to pay you and my girlfriend just wants you informed. Man they are fuckwits over there. Plus they were gouging the shit out of the old lady.

[Unrelated to the post completely but a not on CenturyLink] Not talking about money, in my opinion, is one of the biggest shames in our culture. It’s a complete divide-and-conquer scenario where you’re supposed to think, “oh this sales rep says it’s a good deal” so you think it is. I’m on the cheap side of the scale but I’ll pay a fair price and not bitch if I agree to it (part of the reason I don’t have cable) but, as above, poor old lady doesn’t know any better and doesn’t ask questions because talking about money is taboo — and so she just gets gouged and CenturyLink wins. Hell, even when people do talk money, it seems to be about minor shit. I work around a bunch of morons and they’ll be like, “I really negotiated this killer price on these used rims!” while their slumlord is refusing to fix their A/C correctly and they’re cashing their checks every Friday at the Check in the Cash down the street.

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Sill Bimmons

“Deleted by editors phrase” is totally unacceptable language.

I still can’t believe I just read that.

If I were running things I’d ban your sorry ass right now.

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Kungjitsu

https://youtu.be/9Yh7TVDXH8Y

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Duchess

I another Adam here…

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The Right Reverend Electric Mayhem

Sorry mate- I love your stuff but that’s pretty damn offensive.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Did something get deleted?

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ballsofsteelandfury

Yes, I deleted an offensive phrase.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

OK, I read it a few times and went “WUT?”

Mystery solved; thank you Mr. Balls.

P.S. I had an order of buffalo balls; tastes like bull balls, less tangy than goat balls, but I imagine it depends on how they are cooked.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Also I have; deleted by a memory loss.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Century-fucking-Link did the same thing when I was canceling my mom’s LAN line; great sales policy; I will now avoid them at all costs.

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ThePirateSloth

WOOO 1 more person joins me in the “how the fuck am I going to watch my game today?!?!” Sunday Funday Game, which involves the following:

– You’ll try some illegal streams, hate the shitty audio quality, hate the shitty pixelated video quality, get annoyed at the random ass commercials from Spain or Uzbekistan where it is being streamed from, rage when your [insert virus protection and/or popup blocker] goes batshit crazy at all the shit trying to infect your comp from the illegal stream, then go full on Hulk when the stream is shut down by the NFL.

– You’ll say fuck it, I’m going to the bar… only to get annoyed that a) no one is even at your bar to watch foosball, so it’s just you and the bartender or b) [insert most hated team] fans have descended upon the bar and taken it over to watch their game or c) you sit next to someone who does not understand NFL and tries to engage you in some other conversation during the fucking game or d) you’re the only fan of your team in the bar and have to deal with all sorts of bullshit

– You’ll then go back home and beg, cajole, promise to sleep with, agree to kill someone, etc for a friend/family member in order to secure their DirectTV login, only to find out that the local games won’t be available for streaming

– You’ll then repeat this cycle indefinitely until you cave and purchase Sunday Ticket again.

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

I don’t mind the foreign language advertisements so much. Sure, it’s meaningless drivel, but being in a different language makes it much easier to tune out than the other meaningless drivel that accompanies a football broadcast (looking at you, Joe and Troy).

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blaxabbath

I get a kick out of the ESPN armed forces (I think that’s what it is) feeds where you get all their Bet365 ads and the such. But nothing beats getting a feed from central Indiana or whatever and seeing their local mattress king commercial and thinking, “What a bunch of weirdos they have in central Indiana” before realizing our local mattress royalty produces ads that are just as crappy.

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Low Commander of the Super Soldiers

“Our mattresses are now 80% more gravy-stain resistant, and we’ve upgraded the box springs with Kevlar to support extra weight!”

–Indiana Mattress King

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Doktor Zymm

The only time I’ve ever been purposely, offensively, rude to someone it was exactly because they would not stop trying to talk to me when I was clearly trying to watch football. I made the mistake of exchanging a civil word with them during a commercial, and apparently saying “excuse me, I’m watching the game now” and then proceeding not to make eye contact or talk wasn’t a clear enough signal. I still feel bad about being mean, but dude, take a damn hint.

I wonder if that bar still has an entertaining collection of sad Eagles fans?

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Sill Bimmons

The persistence of some men in the face of overwhelmingly negative feedback from a woman is just astonishing.

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nomonkeyfun

I blame stupid “rom-coms” and this guy.
http://www.glamour.com/images/entertainment/2013/06/say-anything-main.jpg

Also, too many of us men are assholes naturally.

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blaxabbath

“If she’s been more focused on the commercial presentations of the National Football League and our National Football League Partners, she’d have not exchanged a civil word during the advertising break and all would be well.

Also, our studies show commercials do not lengthen the broadcast of the typical NFL game.”

–
comment image

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Duchess

If its a bar with Eagle fans and it is not August/September than I am pretty sure they are all sad.

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ThePirateSloth

You might be surprised if I tell you that this exact thing happens to me every. single. week. when I try to watch the Seahawks game at my dive bar. Either I’m the ONLY person in there for almost the entire game, or there’ll be 1-2 other people who have zero interest in football and try talking to me about things other than the game I am clearly watching while wearing my Seahawks jersey, hat, and serape, then get offended when I ignore them or tell them to stop asking me stupid non football related questions.

While yea, they’re just trying to be friendly and make small talk and what not (or hitting on you as a woman) and I get that… I’m clearly not interested in anything other than the game that is on TV. Get a hint.

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ThePirateSloth

Yup. I have a Seahawks serape that I wear to every home game and the occasional away game when I watch them at the bar. Best thing is, a 49ers fan bought it for me during a visit to Tijauana after the 49ers lost to the Seahawks.

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blaxabbath

That’s an awesome piece of (unlicensed, I assume — which would then make it even awesomer) fan gear.

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Unsurprised

Is this the bar in Beaverton?

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ThePirateSloth

No, Lake Oswego.

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Duchess

Watching the streams from England was interesting. Extrem has beens running the pre-games etc.

well from what I heard I totally never did that…

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

We shut our cable connection down midway through the season. I was watching mostly via streams anyway, since for some reason they served the L.A. market meaningless Chargers games instead of Raiders ones with potential playoff implications. I don’t regret it, but I *do* miss RedZone.

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Low Commander of the Super Soldiers

“Meaningless? MEANINGLESS?! Tell that to our fan up there!”

–Dean Spanos

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jjfozz

Years ago, before my spawn walked the earth leaving a trail of destruction and candy wrappers behind them, I was going to get dish so I could get the NFL Fuck All Bonanza.

So the guy comes out. Super nice, super positive. He says, “Well, I’m going up on your roof.” A word about my roof: the home inspector wsaid to me, “Never, ever, EVER go up on that roof. That is the steepest pitched roof I have EVER been on.” I noticed he was pale and sweating.

So the dish guy scampers up on the roof, and realizes that the dish can’t go on the back of the roof. I’m watching him and pissing my pants. So he climbs over the roof to the front of the house AND STARTS SLIDING DOWN THE ROOF. I almost left a shit the size of a grapefruit in my pants.

“This isn’t worth dieing over,” I yelled, “please come down.” (I may have been doing some kind of prancing panic dance at this point in time.) He managed to grab hold of something – a pigeon, gargoyle, whatever – and got down on the ground.

“Wow! That was tricky!” He was gray. Yes, a distinct shade of grey. I gave him a cup of coffee and he left.

I’ll stick with cable.

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

He was gray. Yes, a distinct shade of grey.

And that, folks, is jjfozz’s story of the time he met Ben Roethlisberger.

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blaxabbath

A distinct shade of grey.

We call that a Baltimore Sunburn.

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montythisseemsstrangetome

I get the NFL Wednesday Ticket. You don’t get as many games, but the price is a lot more reasonable.

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King Hippo

Sports bar = time spent around other people. FOR REALS people, not the fine imaginary kind.

FUCK THAT.

Fortunately, Time Warner Cable (in NC) means that Red Zone Channel and NFL Network are standard with my $9/month “Sports Tier” that I would clearly buy anyway.

If I were ABLE to buy Sunday Ticket without getting a satellite dish (weather WAY too stormy here for me to lose reception every goddamned time it rains), I probably would though.

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blaxabbath

I thought you were in Denver.

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King Hippo

Neigh

Born in Cheyenne, WY (Dad was in Air Force), but have lived in NC my entire sentient life (since around 20 months). But I’ve liked the Donks constantly since age 2, as both parents attested. They have no idea why.

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Low Commander of the Super Soldiers

Well, I hope you like commercials, cause I sure as hell don’t.

http://s16.postimg.org/lmrjmvjf9/images_q_tbn_ANd9_Gc_Sl_Uc_CJ0_AIu_N_f2_C_E0_AOs_Nkis_ABXH.jpg

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BrettFavresColonoscopy

I look forward to your contributions during the NFL liveblogs without knowing what’s going on, just like Trent Green, Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Phill Simms…

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blaxabbath

You basically just listed the congregational heads in the Church of BLEERRGHHH

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montythisseemsstrangetome

…Mike Carey…

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laserguru

But Balls you may have forgotten that the Rams are back in town which means fewer games, ALL Rams coverage and less out of town options.

No Andrew, don’t go! I didn’t mean it you little jug eared sonofabitch!

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The Right Reverend Electric Mayhem

As someone who tried to make it through a season with only broadcast TV and the Rams: our lives are short enough as it is.

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laserguru

Amen to that.

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

“Did somebody say ‘short enough’?”

http://static.foxsports.com//fe/images/NFL/Headshots/140×170/9560.jpg

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montythisseemsstrangetome

“Seriously, did somebody say that? I have no idea, I’m so high right now.”

http://static.foxsports.com//fe/images/NFL/Headshots/140×170/9560.jpg

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Enrico Pallazzo

Hanson inspired a legendary trio of fantastic musicians/artists.

Siciliano inspired what? A cartoon elephant?

Checkmate.

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nomonkeyfun

And that trio inspired this man.

http://i.imgur.com/VZlHS6B.gif

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nomonkeyfun

Damn imgur strikes again.
Just make sure you don’t checkmate the wrong person or else…

comment image

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blaxabbath

I like how, even in the Sunday Ticket ad, Sherman has his hands around the receiver before the ball is caught.

re comic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAMgT8LuZaw

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Don T

Sigh. As a Titans fan and nonresident of Oregon, Sunday Ticket is The Only Way I Can Follow My Team©. Relying on Red Zone channel would just force me to watch the defense and miss the nuances of 2 yard runs, OLs helping Mariota to get up again and again, and classic gems like a delay of game penalty right after a time out.

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Doktor Zymm

While I agree with the principle, I do not have the strength to do this. It would mean watching nothing but Bears games. While I like the Bears, constant exposure to the fans and local sports media means they also annoy the shit out of me after about 2 games.

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ballsofsteelandfury

Two words: Sports. Bar.

Alternatively, you can get a Redskin-loving boyfriend, but that has its risks…

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blaxabbath

Redskin Loving Boyfriend?

http://img.lum.dolimg.com/v1/images/image_d94afd87.jpeg

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The Right Reverend Electric Mayhem

But the NFL is still getting their cut if you go to a sports bar- the licensing fees are astoundingly high. Also, given that the deal is already locked in through 2023, NFL is going to get their money no matter what.

I used to do the sports-bar thing, until my wife noted I was spending more there than the cost of the package. So now I just get into bourble at home

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BrettFavresColonoscopy

I split my time between a Bears bar in DC that sucks, following along on gamecast at home while I liveblog with you guys, or leeching off a friend who has DirecTV and multiple screens so I don’t have to watch his evil team while I’m there. I’m minimizing my NFL in kind donations, but that’s like being a “social” heroin user.

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