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NFL Draft 2012: Where to Watch and Where to go Online for Information

April 25, 2012 by

The phenomenon that is the NFL Draft starts this Thursday, a prime time extravaganza that makes experts out of casual fans and stars or bums out of the legions of ‘experts’ that not only predict teams picks but also how well that player will fit in and perform for his new employer.

Who will be this year’s great picks, the Peyton Manning and Wes Welker of the draft and who will be this year’s Ryan Leaf and Charles Rogers? Hard to say but just about everybody with a keyboard and an Internet connection seems to have an opinion.

It is probably impossible to list all of the options available to fans to gather information prior to the draft and then assess it after, but we here at Mobile Sports Report thought we would put out a list of some of the more popular and/or interesting places to go for your viewing and information pleasure. We will try and only mention each site or app once, since most cover the gamut of activities that will be occurring this week.

The Usual Suspects
Of course first and foremost is the NFL Network– which since the NFL owns it, will have a solid show on the draft and has been talking about the event for some time. The web site for the network features a counter until the draft starts, a Mock Draft page, Mike Mayock’s predictions, a draft tracker and a contest to predict the picks with the possibility of going to the Super Bowl, and that is just naming some of the information available.

Of course rivaling the NFL Network is ESPN, which is almost All-NFL all the time these days. Aside from broadcasting the draft as well a wide assortment of pages dedicated to the draft on its web site including Mel Kiper’s latest, Todd McShay’s latest and a number of other tidbits. It should be noted that a number of ESPN’s offerings are for subscribers to its Insider service only.

Fox, one of the NFL’s broadcasting partners does not have a national show for the draft, at least one I could find, and its web page is significantly more subdued in its coverage of the draft, although it does provide a good deal of information, just not to the level of ESPN or NFL Network.

The Focused Few
As most any but the most casual fan knows, there is an increasingly large body of sites that follow the NFL full time. The fall everywhere from sites run by major organizations such as Yahoo! to very well done amateur sites. We will cover a few in both areas.

Might as well start with Yahoo! Sports, one of the most popular sports sites on the Internet, if not the most popular. In all areas it has been poaching top talent, but has always had a solid football footing. It allows customization by users so that you can follow your team and has a section on the draft, as well as recent transactions so you can see who is retiring or traded.

Another up and comer is USA Today Sports Media Group, an amalgamation of a number of properties. The USA Today site of course has long been one of the best day after game sections for important stats, both print and online. One of its properties, The Big Lead is worthwhile both for Jason Lisk’s football coverage and analysis but also for the very spirited, and usually informed, conversations that accompany its articles.

The National Football Post strength in my opinion has been its columns, but it has strong NFL connections and follows the sport quite well. To fill out the rest of the top online players there is NBC Sports and as part of it the popular Pro Football Talk site. Other good sites include CBS Sports and SB Nation.

Alternative sources
One area that it makes sense to remember is sites that specialize in Fantasy Football. They need to know how valuable the players available for the draft are expected to be, so that they can (hopefully) make informed recommendations to users of their sites. Head over to someplace such as The Huddle where they have already broken down the draft by position

Over at Fantasy Knuckleheads the site has full mock drafts teams as well as projected round drafts. An interesting feature was a piece on breaking down ESPN’s Mel Kiper’s mock draft. I think that I may revisit it after the draft and so see how both Kiper and the author did in the draft.

How can you not want to look at a site called NFL Draft Geek? Breakdowns on the top skill positions are already up and more are slated to be posted prior to the draft. They obviously have strong opinions on issues and have Baylor’s Robert Griffin III as the #4 best player in the draft, for instance.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/nfl-draft/2012/2006-draft-six-years-later

I enjoy a good retrospective piece on past season’s drafts. The trouble is often that they often just focus on the past year and it often takes several before you can really get a feel for how a draft works out. Over at Football Outsiders they look back six years, and as always from this site the piece are fact driven.

As a bonus you can see its breakdown on a variety of last year’s statistics and so get a solid feel for what teams need, or what appeared to be weaknesses last year. Another of the more cerebral sites is SmartFootball, and while its impact in following the draft is minimal in some senses, its focus on trends in the NFL helps put drafted players into a larger perspective.

If you end the draft just wondering what ever happened to some player that you liked in school but lost track of in the pros, head over to Pre-Football Reference site to look them up. Among its features are areas that cover teams, years and individual starts.

Filed Under: CBS Sports, ESPN, Football Outsiders, Fox Sports, NFL, NFL Draft, NFL Network, The Big Lead, USA Today, Yahoo Tagged With: ,

Denver Broncos the latest to jump onto iPad Playbook

April 24, 2012 by

The Denver Broncos have jettisoned its old time playbooks in favor of the bright new shiny iPad; 120 tablets in all which will feature Verizon Wireless 4G access and with most of the iPads top end models with 64GB, according to the Denver Post.

The team plans to load the iPads not only with the playbook but also with each weeks game plan, scouting reports on upcoming teams and video clips among other digital data. The system will be set up so that as new plays are developed they will be ‘pushed’ onto each tablet.

In the past the team had printed a 500 pound playbook each week of the season that contained much of the information, but the sheer mass made it very difficult to quickly locate different pieces of information.

The program was co designed by the Broncos and a developer named PlayerLync and among the program’s features is the ability to allow players and coaches to annotate and highlight plays as well as provide the team with playbook security by enabling it to erase the entire iPad remotely.

The team will provide the iPads to coaches, players, scouts and other team personnel. It should be noted that while the players and coaches can use the iPads for practice and training purposes the NFL does not allow electronic devices of this type to be on the field during games.

The league has relented somewhat in that in the past these notebooks and tablets had to be off in the locker room 90 minutes prior to kickoff, now that rule has been rescinded.

This is part of a growing trend in the NFL and elsewhere; teams have found that instead of cumbersome paper notebooks, sleek iPads or tablets can not only easily replace them but enhance the value of the digital playbooks by allowing for remote upgrades and player feedback.

At least nine NFL teams now use the iPad, with five, the Dallas Cowboys, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Indianapolis Colts, and Detroit Lions, signing on with Global Apptitude last month. MLB has also been increasingly active in this area as well.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, iPad, Live sports via mobile, NFL, PlayerLync, Tablets Tagged With: , ,

NFL Schedule Released Tonight at 7 p.m. ET

April 17, 2012 by

The National Football League will be unveiling the schedule for the 2012 season in a prime time event tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET in a move that also launches the unofficial start of the annual complaining how your team was treated by the league season.

So far the only game that has been given a firm date is the leagues opening game, which will be played on Wednesday, September 5 with the Cowboys playing divisional rival the Giants and that the game in London will show the Rams vs. the Patriots in London’s Wembley Stadium on October28. The Rams will play a home game in London the following two years as well.

I have to admire the NFL’s ability to raise everything it does to a must see event. The league has already the preseason schedule as well as the regular season match-ups, so it is only the dates that are in question at this point. Still that will be enough to draw a sizable viewing crowd.

Hopefully you get the NFL Network but if not I imagine that ESPN will have its full NFL team primed and ready to discuss the pros and cons of each teams hopeful route to the Super Bowl.

What follows is my actual favorite part. Fans complaining that rivals have a better schedule because of any number of reasons including more home games at the end of the season or having a patsy or two to end the season. Other top complaints are lack of Sunday and Monday night games, or having them to close to each other.

From here it is just a leap to the NFL draft, an event in which we all become experts after reading two paragraphs on a player our team surprisingly drafted in the second round out of Duke.

Filed Under: Monday Night Football, NFL, NFL Draft, NFL Network Tagged With:

Has the United States Football League Returned?

April 2, 2012 by

Since I saw the original story on April 1, I was, an am, skeptical that it is the real deal, yet several news sources have reported that the league that played its last game in 1987 is back and this time it is taking a different approach.

The rights to the league have apparently been purchased by Jamie Cuadra, a San Diego businessman, according to a piece in the U-T San Diego, and according to the article he plans on having an eight team league that will play 14 games and then playoffs.

The goal is to place teams in towns like Akron, San Jose, Portland, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Austin, Memphis, Raleigh-Durham, Birmingham, Omaha, Neb., and Baton Rouge. He envisions it as sort of a minor league for the NFL, so that there will be no direct competition.

Caudra said that the issue with the USFL and the XFL was that they were not fiscally responsible and the current league will set caps on player pay. This is very similar to how the MLS currently operates. According to ProFootballTalk players will receive $3,000 to $3,500 per game. The season is tentatively slated to start in Spring 2013.

For those old enough to remember the league had a brief five year history where it positioned itself as a Spring alternative to the National Football League and was eventually driven out of business by its better accepted rival. It sued for anti-monopoly violations and won, exactly one dollar, although that might have then been tripled to three. The XFL’s short career started and ended in 2001.

As of the writing of this article a number of football sites have not yet mentioned this event. ESPN, with its huge NFL coverage machine came up a blank on its search engine as well. However there does appear to be a shiny new web site for the USFL. So is it real or is it fake? After all of the other interesting things I saw on the web yesterday I am voting fake for the time being.

Filed Under: ESPN, NFL, USFL Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag — Come for the Red Sox Game, Stay for the Bootmobile

March 30, 2012 by

For Red Sox Fans & L.L Bean Aficionados: Two venerable institutions are celebrating their 100th Anniversaries this year and what could be more natural than L.L. Bean teaming up with Fenway Park to celebrate that event? A lot you say, well quiet down.

Of the most interest to the average fan I believe will be the display of a large and unique collection of baseball artifacts that were collected by the founder of L.L. Bean, including letters between Leon Leonwood Bean and Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.

The L.L Bean Bootmobile will kick off the festivities when it drops by Fenway for the 2012 Season Opener, prior to the Bootmobile leaving on the 2012 Bootmobile Tour. It will be your chance to get your photo taken with the iconic vehicle, I kid thee not. There will also be ticket giveaways and a variety of other events centered on the joint anniversary.

Want to develop for the Windows Phone? There is AppCampus!
Of course it might help to speak Finnish. Microsoft has teamed with its partner Nokia and to continue their strong push of the Windows Phone platform with the creation of AppCampus, a venture that is designed to fuel development of apps for the platform.

The effort will be managed by a third partner, Aalto University School of Science and Technology, which was formed in 2010 in Helsinki with the merging of The Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology and The University of Art and Design Helsinki.

The three year venture, which will see Nokia and Microsoft invest approximately $24 million, seeks to garner thousands of applicants developing along a range of mobile apps. Aside from Windows development the effort will also encompass development for Nokia’s Symbian operating system.

Miss your Android apps on your PC? Look for that to end
BlueStacks, a developer of technology that is designed to allow Android apps to play on a PC has released the beta-1 version of its technology that should enable that feature. Called the App Player, the release is the second from the company.

A quick visit to its site confounded me on more information since it had a hot button to download the app but none to give me general information about the program, such as minimum system requirements etc… Maybe I just looked in the wrong place, would not be the first time.

According to PCWorld the app emulator runs on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 and enables you to use apps from a variety of Android app sites and run them on your PC, which would be cool, and lead to an even greater loss of productivity on my part. In the future the company is reportedly aiming at also allowing Macintosh users to play Android games. I wonder what Apple will try and do about that?

The Patent Wars
TiVo sues Time Warner & Motorola Mobility
TiVo, not wanting to be left on the sidelines in all of the lawsuit fun after ending a suit against Microsoft that apparently ended in a draw has filed a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility and Time Warner Cable, Venture Beat has reported.

The company is an experienced hand at this game, and a successful one, winning or resolving cases against several foes in the past including a deal that called for AT&T to pay the company at least $215 million. It also has a suit pending against Verizon.

In the most recent case TiVo is claiming that the two companies are violating three of its patents including ones that cover “multimedia time warping system,” and “system for time shifting multimedia content streams.” I do not envy the judge or jury in these cases.

Dell kills smartphone development — for now
Dell is once again rethinking its mobile strategy and this time I is its smartphone effort that is on the chopping block. It has already killed its tablet offerings, although the company is expected to return with a Windows-based offering by year end.

The company is killing in the United States its Venue Pro which runs a Microsoft OS and its Venue line that runs Android operating systems. It said that it will continue to sell the phones in Europe. The company did indicate that it intends to return to the U.S. market with new products at some point in the future.

FTC looking at establishing a “Do Not Track” option for consumers
The Federal Trade Commission has said that it is developing a “Do Not Track” option for consumer data and that the agency will seek to encourage the industry to adopt this as a standard feature that companies will be encouraged to adopt across the board.

At the same time it has indicated that it would like Congress to enact a law that would allow consumers access to the data that has been collected on them, much the way that you can access your financial standings.

Will this kill Facebook and Google? I am being facetious but they are top data harvesters, but I imagine they will simply provide an option to opt out and many, possibly most will not. Of more real interest to me is when I start hearing from sites I did not know where tracking me. I wonder what this will mean for the cookies market, if anything- any ideas?

NFL passes new rule changes
I sort of tune out the NFL right after the Super Bowl hype dies down. Sure there is free agency signings but it takes a while for the dust to settle and you can get a feel for how your team was helped or harmed. Possible aside from the Jets this year.

So while I knew that the NFL had changed some rules I did not realize that they changed 5 and that at least one more may be altered before all is said and done. Some of the changes were no-brainers like making the overtime rules the same in regular and post season and making the 12th man n the field penalty a dead ball foul.

The other moves include having Replay Officials initiate reviews on some types of turnovers, adding the recipient of a crack back block being added to the growing list of defenseless players and adding loss of down to kicking a loose ball. Was the last one really screaming to be added? There were a couple that was not approved as well, but it is still early in the offseason. Head over to SB Nation for a look at what did and did not pass.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Dell, FTC, Microsoft, NFL, PCWorld, SB Nation, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Global Signs 5 More NFL Teams to iPad Program

March 23, 2012 by


Velocomp’s iBike Coach App has won the Communication Arts Magazine’s 18th Annual Interactive Award in the Information Design category. The app enables an iPhone user to convert the phone into a multifunctional training tool.

The phone becomes a GPS-based bike computer that enables a user to not only track cycling speed, distance, and time, but also includes social media features, videos, and maps, as well as access to music and the phone capabilities of the device.

The app was only just released and was a winner in a contest that drew a total of 1,194 entries. It is available for download at the Apple iTunes store.

Apple develops new SIM — will others support it?
Apple has proposed a new SIM card technology for adoption by the mobile industry but it will be interesting to see how, if at all, the mobile industry adopts a technology that would push out their competing efforts

The new technology is called a nano-SIM and is smaller than the micro-SIMs that is common in current cell phones. This one will have increased functionality as well as the tradition job of holding a users personal information such as contacts and phone number.

That sounds great until you consider that Motorola Mobility, Nokia and Research in Motion all have rival efforts. However Apple has presented it to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to get accepted as a standard and has some carrier support. It will be interesting to watch this fight.

Toshiba provides peek at 13-inch tablet
Toshiba has provided a peak at its next generation large screen tablet, and yes it will be large with a 13.3-inch form factor. The prototype, going by the name AT330 has an Nvidia Tegra quad core processor, 32GB of storage, a full sized SIM card slot and it has an HDMI connector. It may have a high end 1920 x 1200 LCD panel but that is unsure at this time.


Facebook bolsters patent defense with IBM patent purchase
Bloomberg is reporting that Facebook has purchased 750 patents in areas such as networking from IBM as part of an effort to strengthen its position in its looming case with Yahoo. Yahoo has sued Facebook over the alleged misappropriation of Yahoo patents by the social media giant.

NFL use of iPad continues to grow
Global Apptitude has added five NFL franchises to its list of customers for its Playbook for iPad technology. The company has announced that the Dallas Cowboys, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Indianapolis Colts, and Detroit Lions for their Playbook for iPad and other related player development tools.

Global is adding content to its Playbook series which are designed to be used as player preparation tools and said it expects to sign additional teams in the near future.

The iPad has also been a hit with other major league sports teams including most recently Major League Baseball, with team executives, players and scouts all using the tablet for a variety of reasons.

Ads a threat to your data?
A report from North Carolina State University casts additional concern about the security of the data stored in your Android phone. Researchers at the school have found that adverts, those annoying in game or application apps that are often the price to pay for free apps. They found that one example, MobClix, a 3rd party ad exchange company gains access to calendaring, contacts and call logs. These programs get permission when you provide permission to their host app.

Ematic delivers sports focused MPS/Video player
Ematic has delivered the eSport Clip, a small formfactor portanble media player that is designed for the active lifestyle. The eSports Clip features a 4GB of storage and has the ability to play MP3 files ad well as play back video.

The 1.8-inch device easily clips to clothing and it can store as much as 3200 songs or 20 hours of video for playback on its color display. It includes a 5MP Digital Camera and comes with a video and voice recorder.

China delays Motorola/Google deal approval
Motorola Mobility has reported that China has extended its examination of the proposed $12.5 billion purchase of the company by Google. It reported in a regulatory filing that China’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau has expanded the second phase of its investigation.

This is one of the last regulatory approvals needed for the deal to be finalized, with it having already gained approval around the globe including in the United States and in Europe. There has been no reason given for the extension of the investigation.

Are Kindle sales falling?
Chad Bartley, an analyst with Pacific Crest has said that the company believes that sales of Amazon’s Kindle “is significantly weaker than expected” in the first quarter. He reported that Amazon has slashed component orders by 75% from levels in January.

He attributed the decline to slower adoption as well as market cannibalization caused by the Kindle Fire. The Kindle family is the second most popular tablet, after Apple’s iPad.

Apple loses Android info motion
Judge Richard Posner has denied Apple’s request to have Google and Motorola Mobility hand over information on the development of Android.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Cycling, Google, iBike, iPad, Major League Baseball, NFL, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,
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