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The Dallas Cowboys are settling into their new $1.15 billion dollar home stadium, but much of the talk in the NFL preseason has been about the massive video screen hanging directly over the field of play. In the opening game in the facility, Tennessee Titans punters hit the screen several time in practice and once during the game. That set off a bit of a controversy about the height of the video screen, with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones rebuffing suggestions that the board was hung too low.

On Friday, the NFL Rules Committee sided with Cowboys owner Jones, indicating that the board was of adequate height. It also clarified the procedure for kicks that hit the board during play, and will revisit the issue in the off-season based on what happens during the 2009 campaign.

Jones has maintained that much of the concern is due to the sheer size of the board, which was hung 90 feet off the field of play”5 feet higher than NFL mandated guidelines.

The NFL has ruled that if a ball hit the display during play, the clock will be reset and down will be replayed. The replay official will have the authority to review plays to determine if the board came into play during the last two minutes of a half, and the coaches will be able to challenge a play involving the video screen at other times during the game by throwing the red flag. This is similar to rules that already exist for live balls that hit skycams or scoreboard components.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell commented on the situation:

“We will continue to address the particular circumstances in Dallas, giving full consideration to the competitive, safety and fan experience issues involved. The Cowboys have been fully cooperative as we have addressed this subject, and we will continue to work closely with the club on a longer term resolution.”

On his weekly radio show, Cowboys owner Jones gave his take on the NFLs ruling:

“I don’t see it as ultimately an issue. You can anticipate the ball hitting the board from time to time. There’s no reason why this can’t be something for punters to deal with very similar to the way you’d deal with the wind in your face or with elements; rain, sleet or snow.”

Jones is hesitant to move the screen for, among other reasons, the huge cost of the engineering project”estimates suggest that it could cost as much as $40 million dollars to raise the screen. Former Cowboys coach Jimmie Johnson also weighed in on the video board issue:

“If there’s anything wrong, it’s that people are going to watch the video board and not the game. It is so dominating, but I think it’s so cool. I think it’s great.”

The Cowboys play their final preseason game at the new stadium this Saturday as they host the San Francisco 49ers.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer who covers travel, poker and sports handicapping. He is a consulting handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and deep sea diving. He lives in Southern Nevada with four dogs and a pet coyote.

Kyle Orton’s debut as the Denver Broncos starting QB didn’t go quite as planned. Orton, who was acquired from Chicago in the off-season, threw interceptions on each of his first three offensive series. San Francisco’s offense did just enough to eke out a 17-16 NFL preseason victory before their home fans.

Despite his three interceptions and a solid backup performance by Chris Simms. Broncos coach Josh McDaniels has been steadfast in his support of Orton. Orton appeared thankful of this fact in his postgame comments:

“That’s great. That’s certainly what you need in this league is the support of your coach. I’m not worried about it. I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself. I think my team has a lot of confidence in me. … I don’t want to make those decisions and throw three interceptions.”

Orton was acquired after McDaniels relationship with NFL pro bowler Jay Cutler soured due to his effort”and subsequent denial”that he was trying to move the quarterback. Its been a rough start to Ortons tenure in Denver”he was even booed during a public scrimmage after throwing an interception.

McDaniels, to his credit, put the fact that it was only the first preseason game into perspective:

“I feel very confident in where we’re at. There’s no reason to start tailspinning into this and that when we’ve only had one preseason game.”

San Franciscos rapidly improving defense made life miserable for Orton all afternoon. Even when he got decent pass protection, they were able to disrupt the passing lanes. Niners’ cornerback Nate Clemens in particular was a huge factor, hauling in one of Ortons three miscues. After the game he commented on the play:

“I saw the route and played my responsibility and he threw it. I like seeing all of our defensive backs get interceptions and just making plays because we’re game breakers.”

The Niners have yet to name a starting quarterback and both Shaun Hill and Alex Smith played solid, if unspectacular, football. Hill spoke of his first preseason action:

“We were able to move the ball and we had a big conversion on third down. That last sack kind of hurt us. That was completely on me. The offensive line did a great job out there. So I’d like to have that play back and I feel like we could have gotten seven out of that.”

Smith was just glad to be back on the field after missing the entire 2008 season due to injury:

“Obviously, I was raring to go when I got out there. It’s been a long time for me, so I was pretty amped up.”

Denver will head to the Pacific Northwest for a game against the Seattle Seahawks next Saturday night. San Francisco, meanwhile, will host their local rivals the Oakland Raiders.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and highly respected authority on World Cup betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

The UFC is of borderline relevance in “The Land of the Rising Sun”. This isn’t to disparage the UFC, which has done a great job growing MMA in North America and parts of Europe. It’s an effort to put Dana White’s claims of Zuffa’s inevitable worldwide dominance into perspective.

Here are the three essential qualities for doing business in Japan, along with an analysis of what they mean to Zuffa’s efforts to build the UFC brand there:

Group Orientation/Collaboration: Japanese businessmen are notorious for sublimating their individual talents and personalities to the greater good of the group. Furthermore, Japanese business places a great emphasis on teamwork and collaboration. For US businesses seeking to enter the market, a certain degree of partnership with existing Japanese firms is almost de rigueur. MMA fans can see the biggest problem Zuffa may face from a mile away–their reticence to enter into co-promotional agreements. While their public disdain for co-promotion was a major sticking point in their negotiations with Fedor Emelianenko, it may very well be a case that they didn’t want to do business with M-1 Global. To a certain extent, its difficult to blame them. On the other hand, the UFC worked with Germany’s largest concert promoter (MLK) to enter that market with a fair degree of success. They’d be well advised to seek some sort of a partnership similar to their German initiative to help smooth their way into the Japanese market.

Hierarchy: Japanese culture, including business, is almost ridiculously hierarchical. The societal reverence for age, experience and accomplishment in Japan is well known, and that’s often a difficult concept for American companies and businessmen to grasp. US businesses love mavericks and Horatio Alger stories. That accounts for much of the business medias fascination with Dana White and they’re quick to celebrate how a former aerobics instructor is now the most powerful man in MMA and the driving force of a billion dollar company. That storyline doesn’t play as well in Japan, however. One approach would be for White to take a back seat in UFC efforts to promote in Japan in favor of Zuffa co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta and perhaps the widely respected former Nevada Athletic Commission director Marc Ratner.

Respect: Even among seedy elements like fight promoters–and even the underworld–respect in business dealings is essential in Japan. In a typical Japanese business deal, the first few meetings aren’t intended for any substantive decision making to take place. Instead, they’re used for evaluation of your professionalism or, as the Japanese like to put it, “to determine your suitability for conducting business with”. Considering that Dana Whites first introduction to the PRIDE staff and to the Japanese fight public was a press conference where he made the statement–more in reference to the proposed bouts between UFC and PRIDE fighters than anything else–”We’re going to kick your ass”. At that moment, PRIDE as a promotion died. The people that worked for PRIDE had no interest in helping White profit from the promotion. More significantly, he became little more than a clown to the Japanese public–like “Money From Government Grants” shill Mathew Lesko without the funny suit. To succeed in Japan, the UFC must realize that they’re not considered a major fight promotion in that country. They must understand that they’ve got to win over a skeptical public, but before that they have to win over a skeptical Japanese business community. They might be able to run their company like Tony Soprano ran the garbage collection business in the US, but that approach applied to Japan will leave them exactly where they are now–on the outside looking in at the huge, fight crazy economy.

Dana White’s fanciful stories about Yakzua gangsters out of Quentin Tarantino movies might amuse his sycophants in the MMA media, but countless US companies including fight promotions have done business successfully and profitably in Japan. Properly promoting stars like Yoshihiro Akiyama will help, but the only way that Zuffa will be able to become a factor in the worlds #2 MMA market is to do what every other company has done to be successful there–learn how to understand the Japanese approach to doing business, and play by their rules.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and respected authority on World Cup betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

Even when the games don’t count and the starters play little, if at all, the Baltimore Ravens hate to lose. Despite the Atlanta Falcons starting QB Matt Ryan playing only one series and with the Ravens third string signal caller John Beck playing the entire game it was apparent that Baltimore wanted the victory more. The former BYU standout threw for 232 yards and a pair of touchdown passes as the Ravens easily beat the Atlanta Falcons 20-3 at the Georgia Dome. The victory gave the Ravens an undefeated NFL preseason mark at 4-0, while the Falcons finished the exhibition campaign with a 2-2 record.

Sports enthusiasts who bet on NFL preseason action were rewarded for their investment in the Ravens, as Baltimore won outright as +3 road underdogs. Baltimore also finished the NFL preseason with a perfect 4-0 mark against the spread, while Atlanta finished 2-1-1 against the number. The 23 combined points went UNDER the posted total of 35. It was the Ravens third UNDER in four preseason games, while the Falcons split their O/U results at 2-2.

Ravens QB Beck hasnt had much playing time in the NFL since his ill fated rookie year in Miami in 2007. After the game, he expressed how pleased he was to showcase his skills for the entire game:

“He (coach John Harbaugh) told me a few days ago that I would play the whole game. It was very exciting to get to play the whole game.”

Beck made the most of his opportunity, finishing with 232 yards on 16 of 28 passing and a pair of touchdowns with no interceptions. The Ravens defensive reserves did their part by holding the Falcons to just 175 yards of total offense.

Despite the loss, Falcons coach Mike Smith was nonplussed:

“You’ve got to understand in these games, you’re going to call things defensively and offensively to put players in certain situations to evaluate them. You’re not game-planning in a game like this. You’re going to put players in certain situations to see how they handle certain techniques and coverages.”

Falcon cornerback Chris Houston was a little more concerned:

“We’ve got to work on everybody getting to the ball. We’ve got to try to be more aggressive in our techniques. We made some plays tonight, but other than that, we still have a lot to work on as a defense.”

The Ravens will get the 2009 NFL regular season underway at home, hosting the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, September 13th. The Falcons, meanwhile, will welcome the Miami Dolphins to the Georgia Dome to get their campaign started. Baltimore will head west to San Diego for a game against the Chargers in week 2, while Atlanta will remain at home for a key NFC South matchup against the Carolina Panthers.

Ross Everett is a freelance writer and highly respected authority on World Cup betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Southern Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former energy secretary Donald Hodell.

Behind a career day for quarterback Matt Schaub, the Houston Texans erased a 17-14 halftime deficit to score– points in the second half and defeat the host Cincinnati Bengals 28-17. Schaub threw for 342 yards and 4 touchdowns against one interception in the solid road victory. Against a team that had won three straight games in the final seconds, Houston never gave Cincinnati the chance to create any late drama. Cincinnati dropped to 4-2 with the loss while Houston evened their record at 3-3.

Houston took the money as +3′ road underdogs with the outright win, and both teams are now 3-3 on the season against the NFL pointspread. The 45 points just managed to stay UNDER the posted total of 46. The Texans have gone UNDER in 4 of 6 this season while the Bengals evened their NFL totals record at 3-3.

After the victory, Schaub said that his team knew of Houston’s penchant for late game comebacks and that ‘putting them away’ would be a priority:

“Every game went down to the wire for them. Credit goes to them because they were able to find ways to win those games. So it was a matter of putting the game away.”

The Texans’ low key head coach Gary Kubiak would only offer that:

“Matt continues to put up exceptional numbers on the road.”

The defense did a stellar job as well, shutting out the Bengals in the second half. In the third quarter, Houston only allowed six yards on nine plays for a franchise record. Cornerback Dunta Robininson talked about the defensive corps mindset:

“It was swarm tackling. Everybody has a job to do, and today we made this team a one-dimensional team. Overall as a defense, we played well.”

In the losing locker room, wide receiver Chad Ochocinco admitted that his team knew that they couldn’t rely on last minute heroics to win games:

“That’s our fault. We’ve been saying that we can’t keep winning with the way we’ve been playing. We’ve got to be consistent for all four quarters.”

The Bengals will play their next two games at home, starting with a contest against the Chicago Bears this Sunday. Cincinnati is a -1 home favorite with the total set at 42. They’ll host the Baltimore Ravens the following Sunday before traveling to Pittsburgh for a game against the Steelers on November 15. The Texans host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, with Houston a -3 home favorite and the total set at 44.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and highly respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and an emu. He is currently working on an autobiography of former energy secretary Donald Hodell.