1.
Talk about stirring up bad memories.
Joe Flacco looms larger than life in Denver, and not just because he engineered the stunning upset of the Broncos in the playoffs that propelled Baltimore to the Super Bowl.
The league’s marketing campaign for next week’s kickoff game features several large banners of Flacco fluttering from lamp posts and a huge banner of him on Sports Authority Field.
That has drawn an angry public reaction from Broncos fans who have taken to Twitter and to the streets to vent their frustration.
2.
Here’s a bet for Vegas: How many times this evening will ESPN show Jadeveon Clowney’s helmet-removing hit against Michigan on Jan. 1?
We put the over-under at 10.5.
Sick of football highlights? So are we. That’s whyTalking Points cheers the arrival of the college football season today.
It all starts at 3 p.m. with North Carolina against South Carolina and that man Clowney — an early favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the 2014 NFL draft. Grab some snacks and a beverage. It’s time to watch tomorrow’s highlights today.
3.
Another reason Talking Points is glad to start football season: it brings Johnny Manziel’s offseason mercifully to an end.
The Texas A&M quarterback will sit out the first half of Saturday’s game against Rice as punishment for an “inadvertent” violation of NCAA rules.
This should bring an end to the issue of Manziel allegedly being paid to sign autographs.
But on a larger scale, it shows how utterly impossible the NCAA’s enforcement job is when signing autographs is enough to raise suspicion.
