NFL International Series 2017 Review September

Hey, all I know it has been a while but it's been crazy times for me personally and I haven't had time to settle down and write a blog so I'm starting off with America's top sport invading our shores. For the last month, it's been an invasion of Wembley and Twickenham by the NFL. Since 2007 the NFL has been holding regular season games at Wembley and last year Twickenham home of England Rugby have hosted matches and next year the NFL will have a third stadium in the form of Tottenham Hotspurs new ground. What started off as an experiment to see if it was possible to host regular-season NFL games abroad has now been turned into a feeling the water situation to see if the UK is suitable to have an NFL Franchise either by means of expansion of the league or if a team wants to move to a media market that can give them more coverage than their current home. The NFL's popularity in the UK started in the 1980's when Channel 4 at the time showed matches in highlights format and the Super Bowl match being shown at full length.

The fans in the UK supported teams like the New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins and the Denver Broncos, but the one team that made the UK fans or people who may have heard of the sport want to watch, the legendary 1985 Chicago Bears(even though I'm a Packers fan that's the one bears team I have huge respect for). The NFL since that time has been trying to expand its global growth with pre-season games at the old Wembley Stadium then going to Japan. They then created NFL Europe to give fans in Europe an NFL standard game with players on NFL teams going to Europe to get some match experience rather than being on a practice squad and it worked with loads of NFL teams realising what their supposed 3rd or 4th string players, like Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner being thought of as a 3rd string quarterback to being a two time NFL MVP and a Super Bowl winner and MVP, make a name for themselves and coming back to star in their own right. However, at the end of the 2006 season, the NFL announced they were ending NFL Europe and created an international series to bring regular-season games to other countries to see if there was interest. The first game was two of the UK's most loved franchises the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins. The game wasn't as exciting as the fans were expecting but it was a close 17-10 win for the Giants and was part of their famous Super Bowl winning season. Since then the NFL has brought over a majority of it's teams to London playing at Wembley and expanded it by having games at Twickenham with the New York Giants again being one of the first teams at a new stadium, this time playing the Los Angeles Rams. They even expanded the series by taking the games to Mexico City's Azteca Stadium. Not only are the games at Wembley popular with fans but also stars from other sports like England crickets' Tammy Beaumont and Eoin Morgan and also ex-players of the teams like Baltimore Ravens legend Ray Lewis coming over to the UK.

The first game was the so-called London's team, Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens. The teams were coming in still with high hopes for the season. However, before the game began the biggest headlines were the protests of the National Anthem conducted by the players and Jacksonville owner when on the previous Friday President Trump actually challenged the owners to remove the players after they protest the National Anthem. Away from the headlines the match was dominated by the Jacksonville Jaguars as their defence dominated the former Super Bowl MVP in a thrashing 44-7 Jacksonville at the time were a confusing team winning one week then losing one week. Meanwhile, the Ravens were playing awful and Flacco looked nowhere near the standard he set in his 10-year career. The Jaguars have since been the top team in their division and are now fighting for the playoffs. Despite the result the Ravens are still in the hunt for the playoffs as one of the two wildcard teams in the AFC.

The following weekend the NFL returned to Wembley this time with 2 returning teams, the Miami Dolphins and the New Orleans Saints. The Dolphins took part in the first game back in 2007 and came back three years ago to play the Oakland Raiders. The Saints came over in 2008 and beat a shootout game against the San Diego Chargers. This year both of them are trying to take on their respective division champions, Saints over the Falcons and for the Dolphins over the Patriots. Before the match, both teams again took part in the Anthem protest. The game itself ended up being a convincing victory for the Saints as they ran through the Dolphins defence putting 30 points on the scoreboard while the Dolphins just ran into a wall or known as the Saints defence. Miami's star player Jay Ajayi ended up getting his worst ever statistical and playing performance of his whole NFL career. The game was a key game for the Saints as it kick started their season. The Dolphins traded Ajayi to the Eagles a coupleof days later and have ended up paying the price as they are struggling in the AFC East.

I'll be back with a review into October's games at Twickenham.

Until then KRO

Mark