NFL – ready for the kick-off

The training camp and pre-season matches are over and the new season is finally here. Thursday, September 10th the new season begins with Tennessee Titans meeting last season’s champions, Pittsburgh Steelers. This season the defending champions are the favorites, but they will have a hard time with New England Patriots that want to regain their dominance.

Patriots can count again on quarterback Tom Brady, who is back in the game after injury. Besides New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers, best chances to a run to the Super Bowl as Bet US considers, have San Diego Chargers, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants along with Indianapolis Colts.

This season starts with some important absences but the most considerable is Tony Dungy, the Indianapolis Colts coach who has retired. On the other hand this season brings back few familiar faces: Michael Vick, Green Bay, Tom Brady and many more.

Michael Vick is back in the League after serving jail time for dogfighting implication and will play second fiddle at the Philadelphia Eagles.

Former Green Bay quarterback, Brett Favre, changed his mind about retirement and will play another year at Minnesota Vikings.

Patriots can count again on Tom Brady who recovered after serious knee injury from the last season. With the quarterback return, coach Bill Belichick will want to bring the team in very good form and maybe to go 16-0 in Regular Season like two years ago.

After implementing Fan Code of Conduct on the last season, this year the League will make recommendations to all teams about maximum serving sizes for beer, wine and spirits sold at games and about the number of alcoholic drinks that a customer can purchase at one time.

The league wants that all fans to be limited at two 20-ounce beers, two 6-ounce servings of wine or two 1½-ounce servings of liquor on every transaction made at the stadium.

NFL recommends that all 31 stadiums limit tailgating to three hours and a half before games and to better monitor and enforce rules against excessive drinking in stadium parking lots.

To promote responsible drinking, the League will print on nearly every beer cup the message "Fans don't let fans drive drunk".

Teams will try to sign up a total of 200,000 designated-driver fans this season. Last year 140,000 fans signed up and received free soft drinks and some even won Super Bowl tickets.

Those responsible drinking measures have more support after Cleveland Browns wide receiver, Donte' Stallworth, pleaded guilty to killing a pedestrian in Florida while driving under the influence.