The ball has dropped, the confetti's been swept, the games have been played and as "Dandy Don" Meredith was known to say, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”
While this is true for 20 of the 32 NFL teams, the rest of us still have a month of football left. YEA!
As the end of the 2011 regular season came to an end, I wondered, as I always do at this time every year, what I have to look forward to for the rest of the winter. Since I outgrew wanting it to snow, I’ve been of the opinion that, much like the only reason for cake is to hold up the frosting, the only reason for winter is the NFL. There are just 12 games left. Football season goes by way too fast—
It seems like just yesterday that, here in Michigan, everyone was talking about the Lions’ shocking 4-0 pre-season. The radio buzz was filled with speculations about the probability of a playoff bound Lions team, and the Motor City went to bed with visions of Super Bowl Rings dancing in their heads. I remember my brother scoffing at all the premature talk of a winning season and a playoff berth. He just wanted a return to what he calls the “Glory days of mediocrity”.
Well my brother must have been on Santa’s nice list because he got more than he wished for. The formally hapless Lions guaranteed themselves a playoff berth in Week 16 with an uber-impressive 38-10 win over the San Diego Chargers on Christmas Eve. Now they are on their way to New Orleans for their first playoff game in 12 years. Go Lions!
In Week 15, those same San Diego Chargers upset the Baltimore Ravens 34-14 which opened the door for Pittsburgh to jump ahead of the Ravens and virtually guarantee the Steelers the AFC North division title and a number 2 seed—if they beat the 49ers in the December 19 Monday Night match-up, or what I like to call ¯…the night that the lights went out in Candlestick…¯
An aerial view of the stadium and surrounding city showed a great blue flash (later reported to be a transformer exploding) followed immediately by a black hole where Candlestick Park had been aglow with lights and filled with anticipatory fans. This occurred 10-12 minutes prior to the start of the game. Thankfully everyone remained calm and well behaved and, after a bare 30 minute delay, they were able to begin play. All was well until barely 3 minutes into the second quarter when, what, to the nations dismay, should appear? Yes, you guessed it. Black-out. Again!
This time, however, not everyone conducted themselves in a well behaved manner.
Yes, the lure of the ‘dark’ side proved too much for one overzealous fan who decided the second black-out was a good time for idiocy to reign supreme. Out onto the field he ran, Candlestick’s on-the-ball security hot on his heels.
Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger watched from the sidelines and lamented the absence of LB James Harrison. Forget about Waldo. Ben’s question? “Where’s James Harrison when you need him?” The answer? Suspended from the game for a hit during the game against the Browns in week 14…sigh… just when you need someone to head-butt a rogue fool.
After another short delay, the game progressed steadily onward. Big Ben tried valiantly (and sometimes comically) to protect his injured ankle (and, no, I’m not making light of his injury. My brother, with whom I watched the game, commiserated greatly with Ben as my brother was himself recovering from his own ankle injury received during the Unfortunate Hunting Camp Incident of 2011).
James Harrison tweeted from places unknown. When the last whistle blew, the 49ers, Candlestick’s pre-historic lighting system nothing new to them, ended the night triumphant, and the Steelers remained a game behind those pesky birds.
Playoff Picture
I’m not going to try to analyze the playoff picture. I know who had to do what to make it, but if I had to explain it, I’m afraid my brain would short circuit. I have enough problems with headaches, thank you very much. But while I’m on the subject… I think the NFL should revamp the determination of playoff seeds and who gets home-field advantage. To me there is something wrong when an 8-8 and 9-7 team gets the number 4 seed and home field advantage over 12-4 and 10-6 teams. I understand why it works out this way, but it makes better sense if seed order and HFA are determined by overall win/loss record. Just sayin’.
The playoff picture ended (or begins, depending on your point of view) this way:
AFC 1-New England 2-Baltimore 3-Houston 4-Denver 5-Pittsburgh 6-Cincinnati
NFC 1-Green Bay 2-San Francisco 3-New Orleans 4-NY Giants 5-Atlanta 6-Detroit
x-tra point HAPPY & DOPEY Awards
Mary Lou Retton HAPPY to Jerome Simpson of the Cincinnati Bengals for his impressive gymnastic forward half-tuck summersault touchdown during the Christmas Eve game against of the Arizona Cardinals. My Score: 9.8 (.2 deduction for the hand touching down). J
Atta Boy HAPPYs to Detroit’s Matthew Stafford and Green Bay’s Matt Flynn for being the 1st QBs to throw for over 400 yards and 5 TDs each in the same game. Both QBs set franchise records in that game as well, including Matt Flynn’s 6 TD passes. J J
Control Freak DOPEY to the rule makers. I hate to keep harping about NFL rules, but some of them are beginning to dampen the fun of the game. Today, I’m talking about the one that makes it illegal for players to celebrate a TD. Baring actual in-your-face taunting of opponents and their fans, I don’t have a problem with players doing a little celebrating after a touchdown (Lord knows I’m out of my chair and hopping around like the Energizer Bunny on speed when my team scores). Let the players take a second and be happy for a job well done! L
Double DOPEY to all those sexist commercials that assume women don’t like football and men should hide the fact that they do just to appease their wife and/or girlfriend. So what if the man wants to check out the game on his phone while he’s at dinner? Maybe his woman should have known better than to drag the poor man out of the house on game day, eh? And guess what? Sundays are just for watching football. And Monday nights. And sometimes Thursdays and Saturdays. Deal with it! LL
x-tra point Fired Up!
Every scoring play is reviewed automatically. All well and good, but too many teams have been cheated of TDs due to erroneous calls on the field. And if it’s not ruled a score, it doesn’t get reviewed.
The players work hard enough to get into the end zone. That effort shouldn’t be negated just because the referees can’t be everywhere and see everything. We all know how a bad call can cost a team field position, yardage, first downs. That’s frustrating enough, but an acceptable risk of enjoying the game. Costing a team a touchdown is not an acceptable risk. In this technological age there is no reason these teams should have to sacrifice hard won points and games to referee errors.
The latest example of a team affected by referee error was Detroit in the final regular season game against Green Bay. Replay of a Matthew Stafford pass and subsequent catch by Titus Young in the end zone showed a solid catch and both feet in bounds—it was a touchdown but it was ruled out of bounds on the field, thus no touchdown. Unfortunately, the play was unreviewable. The announcers mentioned that the play was also unchallengeable—not sure if that’s correct of not, but it sounds hinky to me—but Coach Jim Schwartz was out of challenges regardless.
That touchdown would have won Detroit the game. Even though Detroit made the playoffs regardless of that game’s outcome, a win would have guaranteed them a number 5 seed in the playoffs, as opposed to the number 6 seed. It may not seem like much, but it makes a difference.
Many teams’ playoff chances are dependent on the final game of the regular season. When these games come down to “win and you’re in” or “lose and you go home”, the referees can’t afford to make the kind of mistake that was made against Detroit. This needs to be fixed.
So I say to the Powers That Be In Charge of when and/or what to review: Fix this! And don’t just make it challengeable. A coach should not have to waste a challenge for this. Review every end zone play automatically just as every scoring play is.
the
Lay-Z-boy,
Julie
