Well we found out that Sam Darnold led Seattle is no slouch. That Defense played very good Thursday night on the Road. The Seattle O has several nice weapons and Darnold has been throwing the ball very well. Seahawks beating Steelers is not surprising, they look to be at minimum a Wild Card level team.
Glad we do not play them this year. Although, a postseason contest is possible.
Agreed. Probably a bit of seller's remorse going on in MN. And as much as I detest the Vikings, they made a risky but calculated choice elevating JJM and letting Darnold go.
One thing about JJM is he has always been a winner. I think through high school and college, he was somewhere in the vacinity of 63-3 as a starter.
No doubt about it, he's always been a winner. A point to think about. JJ was he was being recruited by colleges before he entered high school. He was recruited to play at Nazareth Academy which offered a top line football program and coaching. He did not attend a public school. Nazareth is a football machine. They began doing heavy recruiting back about 25 years ago and have one of the finest football programs in Illinois.
Didn't know that, thanks. Yeah I think JJM will be a solid starting QB in the NFL. He may not dazzle as an individual player, but already he seems to be motivated for the team to do well.
I was sure she'd be rubber.
I have not been on here for a while, thus the late response. I agree with almost all of this. I would just like to correct the Nazareth timeline. From 1900 to 1977 it was an all girls school. It has always been a top academic school. Since going co-ed in the early years they had moderate success athletically. Another Catholic school west of Naz closed down around 2009. That school was a football powerhouse with multiple State titles. Naz offered their coach the Dean of students job. His 1st class of freshmen were the 1st group to make the playoffs in 2012. They have won multiple State titles under him including one with JJ. They also finished 2nd with JJ. Next weekend they play in the semi's going for their 4th consecutive State title. Nazareth is located in LaGrange Park IL. JJ is from LaGrange IL. which is a stones throw away. IL did push their football season to the spring with a 6 game season and no playoffs JJs senior year, thus the transfer to IMG.
Was the school that closed in 2009 a 3A? A number of Catholic schools closed over the decades. The one I was thinking of was Driscoll Catholic in western DuPage County.
It's amazing the lengths that some schools will go to recruit kids. Parochial schools get away with a lot of recruiting because they aren't locked into a school district. I know about that firsthand when a parochial school wanted my son to enroll after he finished 8th grade and excelled at football. They came again when he made 2nd team all-conference as a freshman. They can offer a lot and it shows on the field. If you look at how many parochial schools make it into the football playoffs and move forward compared to their relative numbers in total schools, and you can see what they're doing.
Correct!
I can tell you this much. The recruiting for the top guys in the Chicago schools is Catholic vs. Catholic. If a family is happy with their public school they go there. No tuition. If they feel the academics are suspect or they are just plain religious enough to go Catholic no matter what and their kid is pretty good multiple private schools will come a calling. The other thing is if Catholic schools did not recruit students they could not pay the bills and keep their doors open.
The irony. I graduated from that school way back in the day when it first opened. To see them win anything in anything so many decades later was unfathomable. The school opened with barely 120 students. We played big Catholic schools like Notre Dame in Niles and St. Mel's in Chicago in both basketball and football and got destroyed. The numbers were off the chart. I was on the school newspaper and wrote an objective cover story of a 35-6 loss and the coach had it retracted because it was too critical. I wish I had gone to the public school in retrospect.
After my sophomore year the school I attended which Schultz mentioned got kicked out of the conference. One coach-teacher got fired for performance issues. To get even he reported the school because he and another coach falsified the birth date of a kid they recruited by a year so he was not too old to play.
Especially as it gets colder.
He will need the Steelers D to wreck havoc this week.I’ve got no particular love for the Steelers but it sure would be nice to see Rodgers get in one last “I still own you” with Chicago…
