Dave’s Football Blog

Meet Nyrel Sevilla. He’s six years old, and he’s here to knock your sorry ass into next week, bitch. And unlike Ben Roethlisberger, he’ll never have any trouble playing with a concussion.

Here’s a quick glance at some other stories worth reading:

• The Saskatchewan Roughriders lost the Grey Cup when Montreal’s missed field goal was negated by Calgary having too many men on the field. Montreal made their second field goal attempt, and the quest is on to scapegoat the 13th man. [Canada.com]
• Hines Ward’s comments on concussions makes the Steelers look far worse than they’ve looked on the field lately. [The Sporting Blog]
• Merrill Hoge has a slightly different take on concussions. [NFL FanHouse]
• Premier League CEO Richard Scudamore wants to kick your filthy pirate ass off the Internet for using Justin.TV to watch Stoke v. Burnley. Don’t expect him to offer a legal alternative anytime soon. [Techdirt]
• Can legal gambling and football co-exist in the wake of match-fixing scandals? [Pitch Invasion]
• Grahame Jones lays into the FIFA executive committee, calls them “rogues and villains,” tells us nothing we didn’t already know and can’t really change. [L.A. Times]
• Lionel Messi wins the Ballon d’Or. Predicting the sunrise was tougher than predicting that. [The Offside]
• MLS will give commissioner Don Garber a sweet contract extension on one condition: he gets the new collective bargaining agreement done during the offseason. Any more grenades y’all wanna toss on that powderkeg, MLS owners? [WVHooligan]
• The Rochester Rhinos have bolted USL for the new NASL. This is rather big, and I will write more about it very soon. [Triangle Offense]

And since this site still has extensive links that cover football’s origins and evolution, here are a couple of interesting pieces about that.

• Aston Villa pays tribute to William McGregor, the Scotsman who came up with the idea of a “football league” back in 1886. I’d say that idea was a success. [BBC]
• Here’s another look back at the gridiron game a century ago, when nobody wore any padding and players were killed regularly. Hines Ward would have loved it. [Every Day Should Be Saturday]

In lieu of actual posting today, I’m just going to direct you to these sites…

The Calgary Stampeders won the Grey Cup yesterday. That’s about all I can tell you about that, as I was too depressed to watch any more football after seeing the Carolina Panthers stink up the join in Atlanta. (Moron that later.)

The Columbus Crew beat the New York Red Bulls, 3-1, to win the double. Click here for video highlights. The Red Bulls still have as many MLS Cups as the Carolina Railhawks. Ha ha.

The Arizona Cardinals attempted a free kick field goal yesterday. Apparently, Donovan McNabb’s lack of awareness about tie games in the NFL made everyone rule book anoraks last week.

British police seem to have it in for Stoke City fans. Perhaps they’re scared that everyone from Stoke can throw projectiles with the scary accuracy of Rory Delap.

Cesc Fabregas is the new captain of Arsenal. They’re saved!

NCAA Division II power West Texas A&M scored more points than Oklahoma on Saturday — and lost by 25. Yikes and away!

Soccer by Ives is reporting that Montreal has exited the Major League Soccer expansion race. Joey Saputo, co-owner of the USL-1 Montreal Impact, tabled the bid yesterday, citing concerns over getting Saputo Stadium re-financed to get the necessary cash for the expansion bid.

That seems pretty likely. The Canadian dollar, which was equal to the U.S. dollar not too long ago, has been losing a fair amount of value lately, and that affects how much Saputo and George Gillett, the Montreal Canadiens owner who’s having his own financial troubles at Liverpool, will end up spending on the expansion fee.

I wonder, though, if something else is afoot here. After all, the Impact beat Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps to win the Voyagers Cup, and they made it through to the knockout stage of the CONCACAF Champions League. Perhaps Saputo decided that this was slightly more awesome than spending almost CAD$51 million (as of today) to join a league that would cap its salary and force it to care less about the continental championship. Why not be free to spend as much as you make on players that can beat TFC every year?

Either way, this is a win for USL, as this move will keep one of its best clubs in the fold. That leaves Atlanta, Miami, Ottowa, Portland, St. Louis and Vancouver up for two MLS expansion franchises in 2011. What I want to know is this — if Portland or Vancouver make the cut, but not both, does that doom the USL franchise that doesn’t move to MLS? The Timbers seem like they could sell enough tickets to afford the travel and survive the relative isolation they have from other USL-1 clubs, but what about the Whitecaps?

UPDATE: This report emerged today:

Following MLS Commissioner Don Garber’s statements regarding Montreal’s bid, the Montreal partnership group would like to bring one important rectification: Montreal did not withdraw its bid from Major League Soccer but was informed that the league did not retain its bid.

Out of respect for the Grey Cup festivities, the partnership group will not make any additional statements over the weekend.

The Montreal Alouettes face the Calgary Stampeders in the Grey Cup Final tomorrow in Montreal. So it looks like we’ll have to wait until next week before this story gets really fun…

Remember when people were comparing and contrasting the touchdown celebrations of Chad Johnson and Steve Smith? Remember how Roger Goodell did everything in his power to drop the hammer on both of them to end future celebrations? Imagine if Goodell saw this in an NFL game:

Tell me those guys wouldn’t get Pacmanned on general principle. Seriously, CFL, the Red Patch Boys run circles around you.

(Spotted on Larry Brown Sports.)