So you've ranked the Eagles as the best side in NFC East :rolleyes:

For once I actually agree with you there Thomas.

If in a few weeks time the Chiefs are still going strong then bump them up inside the top 20 maybe even 15 but for now they haven't had a real test. The Cowgirls haven't looked great but there is no way you can drop them in a rankings list and I'd still say they are worthy of a top 10 slot. Once Bryant gets 100% fit and learns the playbook as well as the O-line getting back to full fitness they'll start pulling their weight a bit more.

It would appear that you have let the first two games of the season sway your decision on a lot of these picks Ben? How can you have an 0-2 Vikings at 15 and then an 0-2 Cowboys at 20? Cowboys look far better than the Vikings do, Favre has no one to throw to (and has admitted that), Favre himself looks a shadow of the player he was last year. Then you have a 1-1 Ravens who, let's face it, haven't looked amazing themselves at 8, and the Patriots at 6 but the Redskins who have a mean ass D and finally a half decent QB at 18, us being the best team in the NFC East when we have an unproven QB who has only played one half of football in 2 games a terrible D who coughed up way to many points against the LIONS and a head coach who still hasn't quite got to grips with when to spend a timeout.

Cleveland>Buffalo in my books as well.

Here's my view then:

1. New Orleans (2-0)
2. Indianapolis (1-1)
3. Green Bay (2-0)
4. Baltimore (1-1)
5. Houston (2-0)
6. New England (1-1)
7. San Diego (1-1)
8. New York Jets (1-1)
9. Pittsburgh (2-0)
10. Dallas (0-2)
11. Atlanta (1-1)
12. Cincinatti (1-1)
13. Miami (2-0)
14. Chicago (2-0)
15. Minnesota (0-2)
16. New York Giants (1-1)
17. Tennessee (1-1)
18. Washington (1-1)
19. San Francisco (0-2)
20. Philadelphia (1-1)
21. Kansas City (2-0)
22. Denver (1-1)
23. Seattle (1-1)
24. Tampa Bay (2-0)
25. Detroit (0-2)
26. Jacksonville (1-1)
27. Oakland (1-1)
28. Arizona (1-1)
29. Carolina (0-2)
30. Buffalo (0-2)
31. St Louis (0-2)
32. Cleveland (0-2)

:lux: :lux:

Some of you lot have far too much time on your hands ... ;)

My take on the rankings

1. New Orleans (2-0)
2. Indianapolis (1-1)
3. Green Bay (2-0)
4. Houston (2-0)
5. Pittsburgh (2-0)
6. Baltimore (1-1)
7. New England (1-1)
8. New York Jets (1-1)
9. Miami (2-0)
10. San Diego (1-1)
11. Dallas (0-2)
12. Cincinatti (1-1)
13. Chicago (2-0)
14. Atlanta (1-1)
15. Minnesota (0-2)
16. Washington (1-1)
17. New York Giants (1-1)
18. Philadelphia (1-1)
19. Tennessee (1-1)
20. San Francisco (0-2)
21. Kansas City (2-0)
22. Denver (1-1)
23. Seattle (1-1)
24. Tampa Bay (2-0)
25. Jacksonville (1-1)
26. Arizona (1-1)
27. Detroit (0-2)
28. Oakland (1-1)
29. Carolina (0-2)
30. St Louis (0-2)
31. Cleveland (0-2)
32. Buffalo (0-2)

So a quick run down of our trip.....

You guys know how the games went, on the Sunday we went to the Linc for Packers @ Eagles, we got battered in the first half, picked up 3 nasty injuries which seemed to pick the team up, Vick came in and we dominated the second half, had it not been for Andy Reid wasting 2 ridiculous time outs at the end I really fancied our chances of getting down the field and scoring to tie the game, alas, as per usual he called a time out right before they were bringing out the chain gang, the Packers got the first down which kind of screwed us.

Anyway, the stadium itself is a sight to behold, it's situated in a huge development with 22,000 car parking spaces, the Phillies stadium "Citizen Bank Stadium" and the Wachovia Centre where the Flyers and 76ers play their games, so all in all for someone who likes their stadia and sport, it's pretty much heaven, providing you like your Philly teams, otherwise I can imagine it's probably your idea of hell! Traffic getting into and out of the place wasn't terrible although we did fart around in the pro shop for quite a while so I guess we didn't see how bad it could have been. I liked the big sign on the way in that said "No Tailgating".......yeah right! Although we didn't tailgate ourselves as the journey took a bit longer than expected, almost every other car was tailgating.

We walked up to the stadium and Tom was wearing his brown leather jacket, one guy we passed tailgating had a megaphone and proceeded to abuse tom and his lovely jacket (seriously, you should have been there, it was hilarious)

Random bloke: "Wo, a brown leather jacket, dude, that's kinda gay"
Tom: "What's gay about that"
Random bloke: Something along the lines of "Well it's brown and it's leather, who wears them these days"
Tom continues to walk
Random bloke: "No dude, come back, I like it really!"

After a bit of messing around eventually found the "Pepsi gate", unfortunately there was also about 5000 people trying to get in as well so we had to rush to our seats once we got in and just made it for the national anthem, unfortunately we missed the players coming out though which was a shame.

Stadium was as impressive and as special as I thought it would be, good amount of leg room at your seat, great atmosphere, the fans were friendly around us and I loved high fiving random people when we scored as well as finally singing the fight song live. Food and beer were expensive as hell but the concourses were simply huge, unlike anything you see at football stadiums in this country, a few developers could really learn something from the Linc. Loads of merchandise stands, a mini pro shop and from what I saw, very little queuing for food and drink although that could be because everyone was drunk enough already or using the guy who walks around with beers and pretzels.

The pro shop I was expecting to be a lot larger than it was although I suppose in comparison to what I'm used to at Selhurst it was pretty big, I'd say it was probably 8 or 9 times the size of the Palace shop. Good selection of gear in there but pricey, I paid $60 for a polo shirt! And ended up spending about $250 in there, could easily have been more but they were closing.

All in all, an incredible stadium, everything I expected and more, can't wait to go back!!

Now on to the New Meadowlands Stadium. We went straight there from Philadelphia on the Monday afternoon and trust me when I say this, it's huge! and because its on a vast area of flat land you can see it from miles away. They have loads of parking signs saying "Green badge holders this way" or "Orange badge holders that way" but the signs for paid, general parking just disappeared so we pulled up to the closest car park to the stadium, the steward asked us what colour badge we had to which we responded "we don't", he must have had a lot of people getting lost and coming up to him so he said, "You know what, I'm in a good mood, go on in" top bloke because as it turned out the heavens opened and had we been any further from the stadium we'd have gotten absolutely drenched rather than just soaked! It was a lot quicker getting into the stadium than the Linc and we proceeded to take 5 or 6 escalators to the top tier.

No roof on the stadium and no roof on the freaking concourse meant that our only option of staying dry was to buy Jets poncho's at $10 a pop. Tom put his on (to which I instantly pulled out my camera) but as we had found an area with some cover I decided to wait and not put mine on in the hope that it would stop. The game was delayed 25 minutes because of the huge thunder storm which had bolt lightening striking the ground only a few miles away so as a safety precaution we weren't allowed to our seats. The thunder storm passed, the rain stopped and the clear night sky came out, meaning no jets poncho for me! Wooohooo! It's now going on eBay!

The game was defensive, was always going to be but we were amazed at how crap Sanchez was and how many damn penalties Cromartie wanted to give away, at one point a guy behind us shouted "You've given more penalties away than you have kids" which got a chuckle from a few people amidst their complete and utter disappointment with him. In general though, the Jets fans are by far the worst sports fans I have seen for some time, slating the team, slating Rex Ryan for not throwing a challenge flag (which he probably should have done in hindsight), girls fighting with girls, guys fighting with guys, guys fighting with girls, it was all kicking off in our section towards the end of the game. Everyone was really tanked, the guy next to me must have spent at least $100 on beer, half of which ended up over my arm ($8.75 a beer) he was inviting me to Vegas with him at one point. I started a mini rant at why the Jets got rid of Thomas Jones and saying that he was better than Greene and that they should have gotten rid of Greene instead, after which he was convinced that I was a fake Englishman because I "knew too much".

The end of the game rolled around eventually, the Jets sucked, and a few of their fans decided to take it out on each other and had a fight in the concourse with one of the guys throwing a punch, missing and hitting concrete wall.......it MUST have broken his hand/wrist or at least a few fingers. The rest of the fans just seemed to want to moan about anything and everything including how long it was taking to get out of the stadium shouting "Did a damn Giants fan design this ******* stadium", but honestly, it took ages, it must have been a good half an hour from the time we left our seat to getting back to the car.

If you ever happen to drive to the stadium remember one thing, New Yorkers/New Jersey people drive like complete dicks, in order for you to get anywhere you need to drive like a dick too, cut people up, barge your way through do anything and everything to make progress otherwise you will be sitting there forever. It took bloody ages getting out of the car park afterwards. After the trip to the New Meadowlands I can now safely say that the Jets are one of my most disliked NFL teams. Although the bloke who gets the J.E.T.S Jets Jets Jets chant going on the big screen is pretty cool.

Anyway, there are some pictures of the trip on my facebook, feel free to check them out, I think I have yapped long enough.

Pretty fair summation, I concur

Because I think they are the best side the the NFC East. What's wrong with that?

I've watched both our games, and trust me, we are not.

But it's nice that you think we are :p

Vikings have Peterson and a much better D.

They were dominated by Miami but still only conceded one offensive touchdown (the other came on a Favre fumble in his own end zone).

Why are even the non-Cowgirls on here so desperate to overrate Dallas? D has been poor, Garrett's playcalling has been a joke, and between he and Phillips they have no clue how to use the best trio of running backs of any NFL team.

Brilliant on paper. On the pitch, mediocre so far.

Agree, so far they have looked mediocre but you have to take into account everything else when thinking about rankings, an 0-2 start doesn't make them a bad team straight off the bat, that being said it's nice to get someone on here saying that Philly are the team to beat in the NFC East, I doubt that's going to last long though, our fixtures get pretty brutal after our bye week.

I'm also not convinced by the Ravens at the moment, I think they need to up their game on offence to stand any chance of being real contenders this year, no problems on the other side of the ball though.

Because they still have enough quality players to be a top 10-15 team, even with poor play calling, the defence not stepping up and Phillips being a doo doo head.

I think anyone who backed them to win the superbowl is mad, i don't think they can make it there let alone win it, but they are good enough to make the playoffs and win a game there. I can't say that about the Chiefs, Giants, Eagles, Titans and Skins that you've ranked above them.

Cracking write-up, Swanny.

Your experience of the Philly stadium sounds exactly like I felt at Ford Field, Fedex, Soldier Field and Dolphin Stadium.

To those of you who haven't made the trek to the States for a game yet, you gotta do it. As testified by Swanny's above post. No live event over here is anything like it.

Oh, but maybe not New Meadowlands. Who wants to visit that shit heap anyway? :o

I still like the Ravens, you'd be hard pressed to find a tougher opening to games than @ the Jets (Monday) then @ the Bengals (Sunday). They've played too of the best defences on the road, have won one and lost one. I think Boldin was a great addition and Flaccos performance against the Bungals was a blip rather than anything else. The D still hasn't conceded a touchdown as well!

Coughlin, Reid, Shanahan and Fisher are all superior coaches to Phillips, aka Jerry's lackey. I think you have to take that into account in terms of both current rankings and play-off hopes. It matters, massively.

Todd Haley and the Chiefs are a different kettle of fish entirely. Not a great side, but backed at home by the most fervent support in the NFL. As the Chargers game showed, that also matters. I see them falling away, but they're not as awful as some on here want to make out.

Exactly where I will be on Thanksgiving :hi:

In other news, Braylon has been arrested for drink driving. Stupid boy!

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...manhattan.html

Oh I do, that's why I don't think they'll get to, let alone win, the big game with him in charge. The talent is there as you agree but it's not used well enough.

I have Chiefs just one rank behind the Eagles, that's not too shabby. Think theey are solid team but need more time to really commit. Broncos started off like a train last season with some great wins, but they turned out to be a bit of a disappointment in the end and they got to 6-0!

I'd recommend going to the New Meadowlands, its something that has to be experienced but maybe go, and I can't believe I'm saying this, for a Giants game.

You're right though, you can watch the NFL on TV over here till you are blue in the face, you can go to Wembley for the International series, which is still a great day out, you can go to a million Palace games, but there is nothing like seeing your NFL team, at home in a regular season game. Although the Yanks don't have chants like we do which is something that does make "soccer" more unique. I had an absolute blast and was quite disappointed when it was over not just because of the result. The next morning there was a guy checking out of our Hotel with an Eagles shirt on and he said to the receptionist "I'll be back in 4 weeks", all I could think was, I wish I was coming back in 4 weeks.