Turnover Tony

It reads like a film script. An unheralded kid from a small college goes undrafted, signs as an afterthought free agent. Through his talent and tenacity, he earns the starting position. He goes on from there to make millions of dollars, date pop stars and marry beauty pageant queens, playing QB for one of football’s iconic franchises. Sounds like the stuff of dreams, doesn’t it?

Tony Romo probably wants to wake up right about now.

Let's go back to last Sunday. The Dallas Cowboys are holding a 36-31 lead over the Green Bay Packers with 2:58 remaining in the 4th Quarter. The Cowboys have struggled in the second half, having led the game 26-3 at the intermission, but they are still in position to win. Green Bay’s swiss cheese defense hasn’t been able to stop the run – RB DeMarco Murray is averaging almost 7 yds. a carry – and even with the Pack crowding the line of scrimmage, running the football and killing some seconds on the clock is the right play in this situation. Indeed, on 2nd-and-7 from their own 35-yd. line, the play call from the sidelines is for a sweep to the right behind two pulling guards.

But on every play, the QB has options to deviate from the script. Playing QB in the NFL is probably the toughest position in sports. Every situation has a myriad of options, dependent upon the situation and what the defense provides. You have to read the defense, you have to see all the options. You also have to have a feel for what’s working and what isn’t – this WR has a good matchup on the outside, this lineman is struggling on the blocks, etc. If the play call presents bad matchups, you audible and shift to something else, and you have to figure all of this out in a matter of seconds. It’s a position that requires extreme confidence, strong leadership skills, and also the ability to improvise. Oh yeah, and then you have to execute the play while the defense is trying to clobber you.

Dallas QB Tony Romo surveys the field, and this is what he sees:

Aha! Look at that! 40 North Texas acres of space behind that one DB on the outside. The Packers are obviously going all in to stop the run. If the WR gets by the DB, it’s a touchdown, a kill shot. Game over baby. And Tony Romo can make all the throws. Statistics show that he is one of the highest-rated QBs in the history of the game. But as we all know, there are three sorts of untruths: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Roll tape …

The play is a disaster. The Cowboys are still run blocking and guys are running all over the place. Tony Romo has his life flash before his eyes as he’s nearly planted by an oncoming freight train that is LB Clay Matthews. Indeed, the WR has a step on the DB, but Romo has happy feet and doesn’t set himself. He hurries the throw, chucks up a flailing pigeon of a pass, and it’s intercepted. It’s the WORST possible outcome. In the abstract, the play made sense, of course, but the situation dictates a more conservative approach. And sure, if he gets that throw up a bit, the WR catches it and is running all the way to Fort Worth. Woulda coulda shoulda. It’s the wrong play at the wrong time. A big mistake squarely on the shoulders of the Dallas QB.

Granted new life and thanking the lucky stars painted on the side of their opposition’s helmets, the Packers take advantage, driving in for a TD to take a 37-36 lead with little more than a minute to play, and Dallas’ last gasp drive also results in an interception, giving the Packers an implausible victory. The Cowboys have managed to blow a 23-pt. lead, and the Dallas faithful in the stands and in the press then speak to the fact that they cannot remember a Dallas collapse of such epic proportions.

Evidently, they have short memories. Read that box score from 2011 – a game in which the Cowboys blew a 24-pt. lead in second half – and notice how the Lions got back into it: two pick sixes. Romo’s third interception of the game, with under 4:00 to play in the 4th Quarter, set up the winning score for the Lions.

I’m hard pressed to think of a more confounding athlete than Tony Romo. Few players, in any sport, have logged such a record of making the big mistake at the critical juncture. Mistakes happen all the time, of course. In most games, the competitor who makes the fewest mistakes is the one who succeeds. When errors happen, you simply have to adjust and atone for it in the flow of the game. Make the next play available to you and go from there. But often times, failure is ultimately determined by who makes the last mistake, that error in judgment or performance from which it is impossible to recover. And for all of his skills and strengths – and there are many – no one makes the last mistake more often than Tony Romo.

Who would’ve thought that, in the NFL playoffs back on Jan. 6, 2007, what seemed an aberration would turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg, and the absurd late-game error would become the norm? Tony Romo had ascended to the starting QB position that season and guided the Cowboys to the playoffs. The Cowboys were primed to pull the upset on the road in Seattle, trailing 21-20 but deep in Seahawks territory in the final minutes. Having been a scrub at the beginning of the year, one of Romo’s responsibilities had been to hold for placekicks, a role he still maintained even as he had become the starter. A chip shot FG would give Dallas the lead …

A play like that, in a situation like that, can define your career, fair or unfair. Anyone who watched that game back in 2007 can’t hear the name Tony Romo without giggling a little. I mean, c’mon here. That kick is the length of an extra point. The extra point is so close to an automatic that there has occasionally been talk of eliminating the extra point entirely, because what’s the good in having a play with an inevitable conclusion. Kickers miss maybe one kick from that distance in a season, if not once every two seasons. How could you possibly screw this up?

Words fail.

But it seems that the greater the stage, the more clumsy Tony Romo’s exit stage left will turn out to be. The Cowboys best season under his helm – 13-3 in 2007 – ended with a 21:17 playoff loss to Giants finished off by an interception of Romo in the endzone. The Cowboys had a chance to win the NFC East again last season with a win in D.C. They had withstood the bruising Washington running game, and trailed the Redskin Potatoes by only 21-18 late in the 4th Quarter, with the ball on their own 28 yd. line. Some late game heroics are in order …

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?!

Now, pinning all of the Cowboys failings over the past eight seasons on the starting QB would be decidedly unjust. More often than not, the Cowboys have put a flawed product out on the field during Romo’s tenure. The offensive line, in particular, seems to always be problematic. And since one of the primary jobs of an offensive line is to keep the QB standing upright, it's not surprising that Romo’s been banged around like a piñata for most of his career. He’s a tough guy, and he’s played hurt – really hurt, like broken ribs hurt.

The knock on him is that he’s a gambler and a gunslinger, someone who is risky with the ball. Even when he’s bad, he can be really good. He makes ill-advised decisions, in part, because he believes that he can make all the plays, and his confidence gets the better of his judgment. But that supreme confidence is something you want in a QB, particularly when you are trailing. You need a guy under center who can take charge, make plays and lead a rally. Indeed, Tony Romo has led 4th Quarter comebacks over 20 times during his career, some of which being in games that the Cowboys screwed up anyway. (In 2011, they lost twice when Romo led late drives, only to see the always humourous Dallas kicking game allow FGs to be blocked.) He’s sometimes had to singlehandedly compensate for his team’s lack of a running game or a poor performance by the defense, and do it all while scrambling about the pocket and running for his life. If anything, the argument could be made that he has won more games for them over the years than he has lost for them.

The problem is, ultimately, that he hasn’t won that many. The Cowboys are basically a .500 team in his career. And when a football team loses, the first person who takes the blame is the QB. Cowboys Nation are a particularly self-entitled bunch, and a QB who seems to always find a way to make critical errors at critical times is fertile ground for pillory. Everything he does is ludicrously overscrutinized, both on and off the field. This boneheaded move on the eve of the playoffs didn’t help his public standing, and Jessica Simpson soon found herself reviled by Cowboys fans everywhere after another of Romo’s on-field meltdowns, the broadcast of which included countless camera shots of her standing and cheering him on while wearing a pink #9 Cowboys jersey.

Like I say, everyone makes mistakes, but it’s the sheer number of late game blunders by Tony Romo which boggles the mind. Scroll back up and examine those gifs again: whereas the fumbled FG snap (giggle giggle) was something of an anomaly, the plays vs. Green Bay and Washington are both fundamentally bad decisions. Playing QB is inherently about managing the game. Smart decision-making is crucial. Failing to do so is often disastrous. Not only is Tony Romo making bad decisions, but he is apparently not learning from his mistakes. And as good as he has been in his career, Tony Romo’s not going to change the perception of him until he stops making those mistakes when the game is on the line.

Will you STOP DOING THAT?

That particular blunder occurred near the end of one of the best games of this season, when the Cowboys went toe-to-toe with Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. Tony Romo threw for 506 yards in this game, a franchise record and one of the better games in NFL history. But all of his heroic work was undermined on one single play, an interception which came with the score tied in the final minutes. The Broncos then ran the clock down to near zero and kicked a FG to win 51:48 …

Wait a minute, what? 51:48? Where’s the defense? Oh, that’s right, Dallas doesn’t have one of those. The Cowboys are the worst defense in the NFL this year statistically, and bordering on being one of the worst of all time, but don’t just trust the stats. Trust your eyes as well. Just look at the way the Cowboys defended this quick slant pass, a fairly basic play in contemporary football:

Uh, guys, you might want to cover #81.

Uh, so what part of “you might want to cover #81” did you not understand? I guess by saying ‘might,’ you thought it was somehow optional or something. My bad.

That was Calvin Johnson of the Lions picking up some of the 329 receiving yards he gained against the Cowboys earlier this season. Now, granted, Calvin Johnson is arguably one of the greatest receivers in the history of the game, but still ... 329 yards? By one guy? This was a game in which the Lions amassed over 600 yards, scored 24 pts. in the 4th Quarter, and drove 80 yards in the final minute with no timeouts left to score a TD and win 31:30. Against the Dallas defense, anything is possible. They also allowed the Saints to pick up 40 first downs earlier this year, which is an NFL record. And while Romo gets fitted with the dunce cap for the Green Bay loss, the defense should join him in standing in the corner, as the Cowboys managed to blow a 23-pt. lead to a team led by Matt Flynn, the Packers 4th QB of the season whom they had signed off the streets. Needless to say, the defense doesn’t give Tony Romo any help. He would probably give his team more opportunities to win this year if he knew how to tackle.

It would be easier to feel some sympathy for the guy were it not for the fact that he plays for the Dallas Cowboys, an organization whose achievements on the field – eight trips to the Super Bowl, and winning five of those – is only surpassed by its opinion of itself. Having done things like anointed itself America’s Team and declared that the roof was open on Texas Stadium so God could watch his favourite team on Sundays, the Cowboys are one of the most loathed franchises in all of sports, if not the most loathed. They are a bastion of largesse and excess, and their new stadium is an homage to bombast, right down to the scoreboard that ate the ceiling. (But is it a nice facility? I don’t know, ask the fans whose Super Bowl seats were condemned by the fire marshal in 2011. I’m sure they enjoyed spending at least $900 a pop for the privilege of ultimately watching the Steelers and the Packers at the in-house sports bar.) In the past, however, the Cowboys have certainly walked the walk to back up their ample volume of talk. Five Super Bowl titles does buy you some cred. For a while, anyway.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones likes to think of himself as something of a football man. He and Head Coach Jimmy Johnson were the braintrust of an operation that amassed so much talent in the early 1990s that Johnson coached two Super Bowl champions. (The Cowboys were aided greatly, of course, by the worst trade in NFL history.) The Cowboys were so good that they won a third Super Bowl basically flying on autopilot, with empty suit Barry Switzer masquerading as head coach after Jimmy Johnson had resigned.

But once Jimmy Johnson was gone, it was clear where the brains were in the braintrust. The Cowboys have dwindled in the direction of mediocrity ever since. No, they are even worse than mediocre, in that they are constantly underachieving. Jerry Jones spends early, spends often, but rarely spends wisely. The Cowboys always have their share of fancy, talented players, but rarely do they have the depth required to get through a season, and every offseason is a tangle of drastic contract renegotiations to get the club under the cap. (Or not under the cap – like the Redskin Potatoes, the Cowboys are still paying fines to the league for violating the cap.) They've changed coaches five times in 15 years. Regardless of who is patrolling the sideline, the Cowboys have shown a penchant for making mental errors, committing turnovers, and all-around stupid play.

So, in that sense, maybe Tony Romo is the ideal QB.

You would think that they'd be tired of this in Jerry World by now. The Cowboys gave Tony Romo a 6-year, $67.5 million contract in 2007. Along with this, they’ve had to factor in enormous sums for Tums, Maalox, Pepto Bismol and Excedrin to deal with all of Romo’s assorted foibles. But after seven seasons of generally untimely incompetence, the Cowboys promptly gave Romo a 6-year contract extension worth $108 million, $80 million of which is guaranteed. I’m serious. It is an astoundingly bad contract added to a team already chock-full of bad contracts. I think it was weasly White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf who once complained that free agency in sports demands paying rates set by your dumbest competitors. He has a point. If Turnover Tony gets $108 mil to throw ill-advised passes and blow games with 3:00 left, just imagine what a real franchise QB will be worth in the future.

I mean, I do feel somewhat bad for the guy. He can pretty damn good sometimes. Most of the time, actually. But I must confess that I am among the throngs of un-Americans who think that America’s Team should go suck it. And so long as you keep the game close, and #9 is taking snaps for the opposition, you had best be on your toes, because you never know when a gift is going to come your way, and it will likely be handed to you on a silver platter emblazoned with a blue star.

From First to Worst

In 2012, the Houston Texans won the AFC South. The Atlanta Falcons hosted the NFC Championship Game. And the Washington Redskins rallied from a slow start and won the NFC East. In the case of the first two, it would’ve been reasonable to prognosticate back in July and see them being contenders for the Super Bowl. The Redskins were a little more dicey, as it was dependent QB Robert Griffin III’s return from a terrible injury in the NFC playoffs. But given that they play in the tough-as-pudding NFC (L)East, it was logical to think they would have a decent shot at repeating.

What a difference a season makes.

The Texans are 2-12, having lost 12 straight (including two games against the truly terrible Jacksonville Jaguars), and are currently leading the NFL Dead Pool race for the #1 draft pick. The Redskins are right there nipping at their heals at 3-11, and the Falcons are right there with them at 4-10. Houston has already fired their head coach, Gary Kubiak, and you wonder if Mike Shanahan and Mike Smith may suffer the same fate in D.C. and ATL as well. It's rare to see three playoff teams flop so badly simultaneously, and the failings of these three clubs provides a cautionary tale for those of us who have teams to root for which are actually good to enjoy the moment, since the moment can pass really fast. (You could also throw into this discussion the New York Giants, who won a Super Bowl two seasons ago and are now 4-10, and looked about as lifeless as any team I can remember in being shut out at home this past Sunday, but the Giants weren't really any good last year, either.)

(Administrative note: there are many media outlets which have chosen to no longer print the nickname of the Washington D.C. football team. The LOSE will continue using the name Redskins, but only in the following context:

Go potatoes! And with that, on with the opera and enough will all of these parentheticals ...)

Most professional sports leagues pay lip service to the idea of parody parity, but the NFL actively seeks it. They've built it into their schedule matrix that the best teams from the year before will meet in the following season and knock each other around a little bit, while the weaklings get to do the same. This naturally tends to draw teams W-L records closer together over time and make dominance difficult. (This was an even more pronounced factor in the past, when the divisions were unbalanced and the schedule more fluid on a yearly basis.) All three of these teams were therefore looking at some stiff competition this season, and both the Falcons and Texans had the scheduling misfortune of playing four games this season against the NFC West, a usually poor quartet of teams which suddenly has 3½ good teams this year. (I saw 3½ on account of the schizophrenic St. Louis Rams, who either win by 20 or lose by 20, depending on the week.)

And it goes without saying that the injury bug has hit these teams hard. Injuries are the great unknown in football – you know they're going to happen, but you don't know just how severe they will be. Championship teams in most sports typically suffer fewer than average numbers of injuries over the course of a season, and bad teams will often suffer more, at which point their lack in depth of talent is exposed. And the Falcons' woes this season have quite a bit to do with injuries, as they've missed their top two WRs for most of the year, and their offensive line is completely trashed. Atlanta's explosive offense from last season, with great talent at all the skill positions, has disintegrated about as badly as the offensive line disintegrated on this play vs. the Washington Redskins last weekend. Matt Ryan does well to avoid a jailbreak by the Skins defensive line, but his follow through on the shovel pass leaves a little to be desired:

That may be one of the worst plays I've seen all season. It sort of sums up the Falcons year.

The Falcons rode their dynamic offense all the way to the best record in the NFC last year, and they had to, because their defense wasn't very good. The defense blew a 20-point halftime lead vs. the Seahawks in the playoffs, only to be saved by Matt Ryan's late game heroics, and then the Falcons blew a 17-point lead the following week in losing to the 49ers in the NFC Championship. And to address this in the offseason, the Falcons did ... well, not much of anything, really. Their defense is just as lousy as last season, or maybe it's worse:

Yeah, it's worse. I have no idea what the DBs are doing on that play. The cornerback gets abused and the free safety misses the ball by a good four yards. They made Redskins backup QB Kirk Cousins look like Peyton Manning on Sunday. (That Cousins is playing at all is something we'll get to in a few minutes.)

Now, I've never believed the mantra that 'defense wins championships.' Most coaches preach defense because they were bad at offense when they used to play, but at least they could be the smart guy who played defense and were thus somewhat useful. Defense is, in fact, easier. It's easier to teach and easier to coach, particularly by small control freaks patrolling the sidelines. That said, you have to at least play it somewhat competently to give your team a chance to be successful regularly. And when injuries ravage your offensive weapons and you can't stop anybody, you're 4-10 in December and there are likely to be job openings.

The Houston Texans, actually, have a statistically good defense – 4th in the league in yards allowed. The problem in Houston has been that the offense keeps scoring on itself. I referenced the following play in a post earlier this year about luck, in which the Texans inexplicably snatch defeat from the jaws of victory:

Forget what I said before about the worst play of the season. THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE. The Texans haven't won a game since they handed the Seahawks this game on a silver platter. The Texans have a solid running game with two good backs, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year in J.J. Watt, and one of the game's great receivers in Andre Johnson, but bad QB play just kills your football team, as it destroys your whole team's collective rhythm and confidence. And few have played the position worse this season than Texans QB Matt Schaub did, as he threw a "pick six" in four consecutive games. So after Schaub got hurt in a game vs. the Rams (which was rather unfortunately met with cheers from the Houston fans), the Texans switched to backup T.J. Yates ...

Egads.

Houston then blew a 21-3 halftime lead on Sunday Night Football, losing to the Colts 27:24 at home, and everyone involved seemed to give up after that. Despite being stingy allowing yards, the Texans are 25th in points allowed, in part because the team is -15 in turnovers and gives up short fields all the time when they aren't scoring on themselves. Injuries have shelved some of their top players, and they've gone through 3 QBs and two head coaches. But this may be a similar case to last year's Kansas City Chiefs, in that there is still a good collection of talent which will recover from an awful season pretty quickly if they can get a coach who knows what he's doing and a QB who can throw the ball to a guy in the same coloured jersey.

The Redskins imploded almost immediately this year, as the Philadelphia Eagles ran all over them in the first week of the season, and they've been behind the 8-ball ever since. RG3 rushed back from his knee injury, just as Minnesota Vikings RB/freak of nature Adrian Petersen had done the year before. What Petersen did was unprecedented, coming off a major knee surgery and playing at an MVP level the following year. It was completely unrealistic for anyone in Washington to expect RG3 – or anyone else, for that matter – to do that. Without his speed and running ability, RG3 hasn't been nearly as effective this year – and, since the QBs are always the scapegoats, this has led to him shouldering much of the blame for the Redskins atrocious season.

Which is preposterous.

He has receivers who drop passes, a defense which can't tackle, and he's become a pawn in an absurd power struggle between megalomaniacal owner Dan Snyder and head coach Mike Shanahan, who has parlayed having John Elway there to win two Super Bowls for him in Denver into a rather curious image as an elite coach. The Redskins have been a dysfunctional organization ever since Snyder bought them, and he's run through six coaches in 11 years. But Snyder loves RG3, and understandably so, as he is a potentially transcendent talent and one of the games great young personalities. Shanahan has now decided to 'shut down' RG3 for the season, supposedly because he isn't healthy enough to continue to play, but he probably wasn't healthy enough to play the first 13 games then, either.

The mismanaged organization, meanwhile, has been hamstrung by fines and penalties for flagrantly violating the salary cap, which is good in that it momentarily stymied Dan Snyder's penchant for grossly overpaying past-their-prime free agents. They'll get some relief from that next year, but this team is one hell of a mess. The Redskins haven't won a Super Bowl in over 20 years and have rarely been relevant during that time other than provide some curiosity to ambulance chasers interested in seeing a wreck. Shanahan is owed something like $7 million after this year, even though he's feuded with his QB and his owner. Snyder will likely have to bite the bullet and get rid of him, and hire his 7th coach in 12 years, but who would want this job at this point? When you are hired by the tyrannical head of the Potatoes (and humorless at that, as he's gone so far as to try to squelch radio broadcasts parodying his team), you're libel to be easily mashed.

Now there is some hope for all of this clubs for next season, of course. All three possess players who, when healthy, are elite-level talents. That's a good place to start. And while the NFL Draft is no guarantee of success when it comes to talent acquisition, they'll all get the pick of the litter. The Texans in particular have built their franchise slowly and steadily through the draft over time, preaching patience to their fan bases as the club blossomed into a budding powerhouse – which is why their sudden fall from grace has been somewhat shocking. But losing is the default option in competition. You have to do everything you possibly can to avoid it. And success is never guaranteed, which is what makes long streaks of success, such as that of the Patriots, somewhat remarkable. Enjoy it while it lasts. It's while I'm enjoying this Seahawks season greatly, and hoping they don't revert to their usual form any time soon.

The Weird Cup

The World Cup draw occurred on Friday in Brazil, an event which used to be somewhat overshadowed but has become a spectacle all to itself. It is of vital import to the 32 teams who have qualified for next year's event. The draw is usually a source of a fair amount of consternation, along with accusations of the host nation rigging the draw, and is fertile ground for punditry of all sorts. And since I am prone to punditry, and had some time to kill at McCarron and SFO aeroports over the weekend, I figured that I may as well join in the fun.

These are my quick thoughts I jotted down off the top of my head about each Group, divided into four categories: those who are looking strong (beast), those who are on the rise (yeast), those who appear to be regressing or don't impress me (least), and the turkeys waiting to be carved (feast). Some of these groups are brutal, some suck, and some are just weird.

This is probably the deepest field in the history of the World Cup. There weren't many surprises at all in qualifying, in the end, as a few stragglers righted the ship just in time to qualify, and there is only one dilettante – the Bosnians – making their debut at this particular beaux arts ball. Lots of seasoned vets in the field. If the tourney weren't being held in Brazil, it would be a wide open race.

Even so, assuming that Seleção are going to run away with it is risky. Sure, they looked pretty dominant at the Confed Cup in June – but this ain't the Confed Cup. And Brazil has long memories when it comes to football – recollections of 1950 will rear their ugly heads between now and June. Seleção may be the overwhelming favourite, and deservedly so, but they also face overwhelming pressure.

Group A
Beast: Having drawn the weakest of the African sides, and two talented sides who didn't play worth a damn this year, Brazil has a nice warm up here for the games that matter later in the tournament.
Yeast: It's not clear to me whether Mexico's 9:3 aggregate over New Zealand means that El Tri have righted the ship, or if the All-Whites really are that bad. Maybe some of both. Mexico's flavor of the month is coach Miguel Herrera, who did the audacious and left his European stars off the playoff roster, loading it up with guys who'd played for his Club América team which was sitting top of the MX table. Not making it to Brazil would've been a disaster, and maybe the Mexicans are moving in the right direction, or maybe they're the Yeast in this group only because ...
Least: ... the Croatians are a mess. They started the year ranked #9 in FIFA (pfft, whatever, but we'll get to that in a minute), lost twice to the Scots, got manhandled by the Belgians in Zagreb, barely qualified for the playoff, got their coach fired, and did a lot of fancy passing in their playoff with Iceland but rarely looked all that menacing. They have a lot of talent and some time to turn it around, but I don't think Seleção are going to be all that worried on opening day in São Paulo.
Feast: Samuel Eto-ó claimed there was a plot not to pass him the ball during the World Cup playoff between Cameroon and Tunisia. The Indomitable Lions always put the fun in dysfunctional. Given Eto-ó's claim, It's ironic they're drawn with Croatia in this group, since it's been surmised many times that the Croats and Serbs wouldn't pass the ball to each other on Yugoslavia's 1990 World Cup team which lost in the quarterfinals, a super-talented team that wasted a golden opportunity.

Group B
Beast: Whomever wins the game on June 13 in Salvador between Spain and The Netherlands. That the two finalists from 2010 are meeting in their first match of the tournament and are grouped together can be attributed to FIFA's dumb decision to seed the pots for this tourney using the FIFA rankings, a fatally flawed system which does a fine job of comparing apples to oranges. The Dutch and the Italians, both international football royalty, both wound up being #2 seeds, whereas Belgium, Colombia and Switzerland were #1s even though none of them have ever done much of anything on the world stage. Both sides have reason to feel like they got jobbed with this draw.
Yeast: Chile also reason to think they've gotten screwed over here by the ping pong balls. A good team, and a dangerous one, but maybe the odd one out here.
Least: Brazil. Clearly, whomever was in charge of rigging the draw did a shitty job, since Seleção will have to play whomever finishes 2nd in Group B. There are maybe only 4-5 teams capable of beating Seleção, and Spain and the Dutch are two of them.
Feast: Goal difference may be crucial in this group, particularly if the Spain-Netherlands game turns cautious and winds up a draw. As such, Australia is likely to get scored upon a lot. But given that they lost back-to-back 6:0 friendlies this year to Brazil and France, the Socceroos are obviously well-practiced in that.

Group C
Beast: If Côte d'Ivoire can't advance out of this group, they may never advance. In terms of talent, they've probably got more than anyone else in what is a pretty lousy group.
Yeast: Another beneficiary of the strange FIFA ranking system is Colombia, who have snuck all the way up to #5 without anyone figuring out quite how they've done it. This is a good team but one which may be lacking in experience. I'm fundamentally a fan of any team called Los Cafeteros, as I am a coffee junkie, and the Colombians should be fun to watch.
Least: I believe the success of Japan in reaching the 16s in 2010 had as much to do with their mediocre group as anything. Great technicians, the Japanese, and you certainly don't want to give them too many opportunities from set pieces, but they lack pace and athleticism.
Feast: If there is one team which always seems to benefit from fortuitous draws, it's Greece, who always seem to land in cushy groups full of dead weight and overrated sides, and then promptly bore all their opponents into submission. Even though they showed a bit more attacking flair in their playoff win over Romania, this is still a plodding team that tries to win every game 1:0. But the World Cup embodies the Peter Principle – you rise to the level of your own incompetence. The Greeks have never won a World Cup match, and I don't imagine that's going to happen here, either.

Group D
Beast: I think that if you're the Italians, you're feeling not that bad about this group. Two tough games, to be sure, but the Italians usually thrive in such tough games, and Mario Balotelli gives them a game-changer up front like they've never had before.
Yeast: Uruguay did what they usually do in qualifying – coast and do just enough to make it into the field. La Celeste flirted without disaster for a bit in CONMEBOL before going on a win streak, snagging a playoff spot and whacking the Jordanians around. Uruguay's 4th place finish in 2010 was a Jekyll and Hyde routine, with the yin of the stylish and popular Diego Forlán counterbalanced by enfant terrible Luis Suárez, who has since managed to provide even more reason to dislike him, and then even more reason still, since when he played goalkeeper in 2010. (And in his defense, anyone who says they wouldn't have done what he did in that situation in 2010, with all that was on the line, is a damn liar.) He's also fucking brilliant on the pitch, which is why anyone puts up with his shit. Now that Forlán is a supporting character, this is Suárez' team and they'll go as far as he can get them.
Least: It is always impossible for England to meet their fanbase's expectation. They got a tough draw here, being grouped with Italy and Uruguay, and it's especially going to be a challenge playing the Italians in Manaus. Nothing in Europe could prepare you to play a game in 85% humidity in the middle of a tropical rain forest. England's a middling side at the moment, but the draw is something else for Fleet St. to bitch about. Yeah, it's a tough draw, but having an E.A.S.Y. draw didn't help them much in 2010, now did it?
Feast: I have no doubt that Costa Rica will play hard, but the Ticos are outmanned in this group and definitely caught a bad break.

Group E
Beast: The French were a disgrace in South Africa in 2010, as they quarreled amongst themselves, mutinied against their coach, staged a 1-day strike, had a player sent home, and brought the entirety of their federation into disrepute on their way to a last-place finish. Some of the same bad actors from four years ago are back, and this team still seems to have some bad Karma about it. That being said, they rose from the dead to beat Ukraine in the playoff, and getting drawn in this group was an absolute gift. They can't possibly mess this up, can they?
Yeast: I like Ecuador, but I would like them more if they could prove that they could win more consistently when away from the 9,000 ft. altitude of Quito. And for god's sake, don't do this again!
Least: The Swiss have become the poster child for hating on FIFA, as the goofy FIFA rankings somehow placed this team in the Top 8 at the expense of clubs like the Dutch and the Italians. In truth, there has never been a good way to seed teams for the World Cup, and it's always been as much about reputation as anything else. But the ranking system still needs some refinement. It's a flawed system, much like the BCS. I'm not sure how the Swiss got to be in the Top 8 other than to beat up on what was a pretty bad qualifying group. That said, sleep on the Swiss at your peril – their young talent which won a Juniors World Championship seems to be maturing nicely.
Feast: I read a quote recently that read, "if you don't see Honduras in your group, then you're probably your group's Honduras." C'mon, be nice to the big H! They've got some nice skill players, and the H showed they could win a tough game by beating El Tri at Azteca in The Hex. I'm down with the H and I hope they steal some points here and there.

Group F
Beast: Most of this year's talk about the draw being rigged seems to be coming out of Argentina. Why Brazil would ever do a favour for their fiercest rival is beyond me, but this draw is just stupid easy for them, as they have pretty much a cake walk all the way to 8s. The great concern for La Albiceleste, of course, is the health of Lionel Messi. They can win this group without the greatest player in the world, but I don't think they can win the World Cup without him.
Yeast: The most fun team in Brazil to watch will almost certainly be the newcomers. Bosnia have been knocking on the door for a few years but kept just missing out. They believe that the best defense is to score a lot of goals, and they just keep throwing guys forward all the time. They have some depth issues, however, and playing no defense tends to lead to quick exits.
Least: For his tireless and outstanding efforts in guiding his team to an African Cup of Nations victory this year, Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi was rewarded by not being paid for several months. Such is the nature of the Super Eagles, who are constantly beset by financial problems and political in-fighting. They continue to be their own worst enemies. After crashing out in comically awful fashion in 2010, and enduring all sorts of internal turmoil and strife, the Super Eagles may finally be getting it together here – which is why you should, oh, PAY THE DAMN COACH!
Feast: Speaking of politics and strife, you can usually count on both to hold back the progress of the team from the football-mad nation of Iran, which really should dominate the Asian game but fails to do so.

Group G
Beast: Germany, Portugal, Ghana, the U.S. Any of these four teams can win the group.
Yeast: Germany, Portugal, Ghana, the U.S. Any of these four teams can finish second.
Least: Germany, Portugal, Ghana, the U.S. Any of these four teams can finish third.
Feast: Germany, Portugal, Ghana, the U.S. Any of these four teams can finish last.
Obligatory home(r) country notes: this is probably the toughest group in the history of the World Cup, not only because of the quality of the four teams, but also because of the travel. The U.S. got the dreaded G4 draw slot, which means they have games in Natal, Manaus and Recife – basically spanning the sprawling width of the South American continent. The U.S. got screwed in the draw ... but they were the most likely to get screwed, since they were the best team in a pot full of CONCACAF and Asian sides. It's precisely because teams like the U.S. exist that a 'Group of Death' can happen. And I was serious before when I said the U.S. can, in fact, win this group. For all the flair and snazz and talent and likability of the 'new' Germans, they still haven't won anything. I think the U.S. can get points from Portugal, who have Ronaldo, of course, but who also have some pretty ordinary players and who looked a bit uneven in qualifying. The Ghana game is a problem, because Ghana has attacking talent but also plays great defense. The U.S. should approach all of this from the standpoint of figuring out how to win the group. Forget 'survive and advance.' Go out and win the damn thing. If you do that, the path – 2nd place in group H in the 16s, then someone from the E/F quadrant in the 8s – really isn't all that bad. The venues aren't ideal, but the U.S. is probably better equipped to handle the humidity than their European foes. I do think they have a shot here. Obviously, I'd prefer they were paired with the Swiss, but this isn't as impossible as it first seems. It's hard, but unless you're Argentina, this tourney is gonna be hard.

Group H
Beast: They seem to be growing great young players on trees in Belgium all of a sudden. When this team's starting XI is healthy, they are an absolute terror. These ain't your slow, stiff, tight, defensive-minded Belgians of yesteryear. And they got a nice draw here, although they're probably not crazy about playing whomever stumbles out alive from Group G in the 16s.
Yeast: The Russians host the 2018 World Cup, of course, which will be fascinating in that they are traditionally a dominant home side and will thus immediately be considered a threat to win it, but their performance leading up to, and during, major tournaments has always been generally uneven and rather perplexing. Russia showed some consistency this time around in winning their European group, and they always have guys that can score.
Least: Algeria seems to have an Italian sort of knack for getting results. They aren't the most flashy team, but they found their way through African qualifying, and then capitalized on some moments of sloppy Burkinabe defending to win their playoff on away goals when Burkina Faso seemed to have more talent on the pitch. I don't expect the Fennec Foxes to advance, but they won't be embarrassed, either.
Feast: South Korea made the 16s four years ago, and are usually good for some fast-paced, high energy football. But they didn't play very well in Asian qualifying at all, and they need to turn it around here soon.

So who lost? Well, the U.S., of course. Group G is insane. Mexico can't be too happy. The trios of good teams in B and D aren't thrilled – and neither are the bottom feeders in B and D, who risk getting run over.

I managed to pick a Spain-Netherlands final, 3/4 of the semifinalists and 7/8 of the quarterfinalists right four years ago – but doing so meant picking stuff that was completely nuts, like Paraguay winning their group and the Brazilians crashing out in the quarters. My immediate thought here in 2014 is semis of Brazil v. Germany and Italy v. Argentina. But that's too obvious. Usually something weird happens along the way. If it didn't, it wouldn't be any fun.

Grounded Eagles

There is losing and then there is LOSING. This week, our guest commentator is international scrabbler, Jeopardy champion, and long-suffering Eastern Michigan University alum Jason Idalski. The Emus Eagles have taken failure on the gridiron to jaw-dropping, migraine-inducing depths, and Jason has been there to witness the train wreck with his very disbelieving eyes. The poor guy deserves some combat pay at this point, and possibly some therapy and strong drink. Lots of strong drink.

The LOSE maintains Eastern Michigan University should change their nickname to the Emus. The flightless bird is an appropriate mascot for a football program that cannot get off the ground.

Unlike the NFL, in which parity reigns, college football is a game of the haves and have-nots. However, if you like the parity of the NFL and the pageantry of college football, small conferences like the MAC are the way to go.

Sure, Bowling Green was great under Urban Meyer, but save for this season, what have they done since he left? It's unlikely Northern Illinois will be a BCS-caliber team when Jordan Lynch is gone. When those teams fall, everybody has their chance to be good ... even Buffalo, 12-79 in its first eight seasons in I-A, won the MAC Championship Game two seasons after the end of that run. It's logical; over a dozen years there's one you get hot, win some close games, maybe the schedule's in your favor and you make a bowl game. Anybody should be able to make at least one bowl game a decade.

Except Eastern Michigan.

Since 2000, every team in the MAC (save for Temple, which was only in the MAC briefly, and Massachusetts, which just joined) has been to the MAC Championship Game ... except Eastern. The "Eagles" (more on that later) haven't had a winning record since 1995. They've been to two bowl games in history, (1971 and 1987), and there seems to be no end in sight to the wait after a demoralizing 2-10 season this year.

I helped cover the Eagles in 2006 for the student newspaper in a season that was actually one of their high-water marks in the past decade. Eastern started 3-2 that season (with a near-win against Cincinnati) and was 3-4 when a post-Roethlisberger Miami (Ohio) team came to Ypsilanti. It was 7-7, 10-10, then 17-17 when Miami scored a touchdown with 1:10 left to take the lead. Improbably, Eastern answered with :13 left.

I remember thinking "Wow. Maybe this season will be the one that ends the drought and turns it all around" ... as the extra point clanged off the upright because a bad snap and mediocre hold forced an abbreviated kicking motion. I've never heard the air go out of a buzzing stadium (well, as much as about 5,000 people in a 30,000 seat stadium can buzz) that fast. That's the thing about Eastern football: Every time you get your hopes up, it makes sure they don't stay there for long.

A few weeks later, a Brady Hoke-coached Ball State team came in, and I was to column-ize the game, which looked to be a boring slurp job when EMU kicked a field goal to lead 25-7 with 7:52 left. Ball State's offense had done nothing; their points were off of an interception return. But when they took 22 seconds to score a touchdown to make it 25-14, I saw the potential for something beautiful.

EMU's coach complied by taking the air out of the ball, removing our quarterback who'd thrown for 286 yards in the first half (yes, he voluntarily took out a quarterback with 286 passing yards in the first half) and replacing him with a running quarterback.

After the 22-yard punt, two-play touchdown drive combo made it 25-20 with 4:38 left, I would've bet everything I owned (which at the time was not much, I concede) that Ball State would win. I started grinning during the ensuing three-and-out and my faith was unshaken even after a Ball State lost fumble.

Sure enough, my Eagles came through, going three-and-out and getting a punt blocked (I started laughing maniacally) so Ball State only had to go 30 yards in the last 55 seconds with no timeouts instead of 70. A fourth-down incompletion was nullified by defensive pass interference. On the ensuing play, a 15-yard pass called a touchdown was overturned to incomplete via review and the crowd cheered.

"It doesn't matter," I said to my co-worker writing the gamer. "They're just delaying the inevitable." The inevitable happened two plays later. Ball State 26, Eastern Michigan 25 ... and I thanked the patron saint of sports columnists (whoever he is) for it. Those two games were the difference between 4-7 and 6-5, between a bowl game and being an also-ran.

In 2009, I had the "opportunity" to again cover the football team, for a magazine a friend of mine was starting. That 0-12 season was "highlighted" by a 29-27 loss to Ball State where:

• Eastern blew a 27-13 second-half lead

• Ball State had a 300-yard rusher and a 200-yard rusher, believed to be the first time in NCAA history that happened

• Ball State's coach ended his 34-game winless streak, which led to one of my favorite press conferences to cover as a writer

As luck would have it, said 34-game-winless-streak coach (Stan Parrish) became our interim head coach after current coach Ron English was recorded using both kinds of f-words in talking to the team. (Note to Ron: If the kids you have suck this bad that you have to chew them out like this ... who recruited them?)

I actually had hope for the English era when he went from 0-12 to 2-10 to 6-6 (no bowl because of two I-AA/FCS opponents). But, like I said before, EMU football makes sure that when your hopes get up, they don't stay there long. 2-10 last year, and the disaster this year. Not just on the field, but the murder of a wide receiver as well.

I went to the final home game this season (vs. Bowling Green), which may be the worst performance ever by a team that led at one point. A first-quarter pick-six made it 7-3 but the final was 58-7. EMU had four first downs and three turnovers. Their quarterbacks were 1-for-18 with two interceptions and they were outgained 560-65, numbers usually reserved for guarantee games against Michigan and not an in-conference opponent.

Not much had changed in a decade ... empty seats (I'd guess about 1,000 were there on a sub-freezing, windy day that also featured snow), defenders who couldn't tackle (gosh, were our DBs undersized ... now I see why we gave up an average of 49 points in the last nine games), a student holding up a sign saying "THANK GOODNESS THIS IS FREE FOR STUDENTS."

How has this happened and why? Well, there are many reasons. One notable one is facilities. When I was in school, we were one of the few I-A (sorry, NCAA, I refuse to call it the "Football Bowl Subdivision") schools, especially in the North, to not have an indoor practice facility. We now have a dome (called "the bubble") but still no football building like just about every other school.

Contrast that with similarly struggling in-state rival Western Michigan, responsible for half our four total wins the past two seasons and coming off a 1-11 season. I'm not a big fan of Tony Robbins knockoff P.J. Fleck, especially as a tactician, but he's young, energetic and has brought in a great recruiting class thanks to an upgrade of facilities that is making players and coaches of good MAC teams take notice. They're positioned far better than Eastern is for the future. Similarly, at least Central Michigan can say it's had a No. 1 NFL draft pick in its program.

There's also the issue of the big Maize and Blue shadow seven miles down the road. MAC schools are located in places like DeKalb, Illinois; Athens, Ohio; and Muncie, Indiana. They're the only game in town. At Eastern (more of a commuter school than most in the MAC, especially CMU and WMU), students would rather go seven miles and sit in the Big House than one and watch Eastern. Or sit in the dorm and flip channels.

Another why is an opinion held by me (and probably only me) that our school is the victim of an Indian curse. While it may not be on an Indian burial ground (that I know about), Eastern was one of many schools to change its name from an Indian mascot (Huron) to a generic one (sadly, not to the Emu, which a few of my friends agree would've been perfect).

One of my columns for the student paper was noticing that bad things seemed to happen to teams that schedule EMU in the non-conference, or even guest speakers/performers (Michael Moore, Bill Maher) – more than could be explained (to me, anyway) as confirmation bias.

This theory was later strengthened by Jerry Sandusky (broke about a month after EMU played Penn State's football team) and Bernie Fine (that broke at such a point that Jim Boeheim devoted his postgame press conference after the EMU game to defending Fine). Even at Eastern athletics' highest point (the NCAA basketball tournament Sweet Sixteen in 1991), the Huron controversy came to a head that week and internal politics, etc., led to Brent Musberger referring to us as the "Eastern Michigan No-Names." (And with the Sioux controversy, North Dakota could do worse than the "North Dakota No-Names.")

This season, all three I-A non-conference opponents (Penn State, Rutgers, Army) underachieved as a whole. I'm telling you, the EMU jinx is a thing.

We have reached the point where many think EMU should go down to I-AA (NCAA, take your "Football Championship Subdivision" and stick it where the sun don't shine) or drop the program altogether, an opinion held by my journalistic mentor, who I respectfully disagree with on this.

A year ago, Gregg Doyel (who I like, mostly) said that anybody offered the Auburn job would be a fool to take it. Seems to have worked out OK for Gus Malzahn, though. Similarly, John Feinstein (of whom I'm a huge fan) said Duke should get out of the ACC as recently as a couple years ago, that they could never be competitive, especially with their current facilities. Now David Cutcliffe has them playing in the ACC Championship game. There's numerous examples throughout the history of college sports. When John Thompson was hired at Georgetown, the program was so bad they told him if he could get them to the NIT occasionally, that was fine.

CMU was searching for a coach at the same time we were a few years ago, similarly moribund. They got now-Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly, we didn't ... and the impact of that is still being felt today.

As former Georgia Tech basketball coach Bobby Cremins said, everything about college sports comes back to the coach. If you have the talent and can't win (cough, cough, Roy Williams), then that's obviously on the coach. And if the talent you have isn't good, then, as I said above, who recruited them? I still believe that Eastern's one good hire away from being decent – if the bumblers in charge can get it right for a change.

Their last three hires have been Jeff Woodruff (who?), Jeff Genyk (who?) and Ron English, who was a good defensive coordinator at Michigan except that his teams couldn't stop the new "spread" offense ... that about half the MAC ran at the time. That hire was a done deal when Lloyd Carr was brought in for the search ... probably so above bumblers could rub elbows with him. We need a young up-and-comer with the energy needed to take this massive rebuild on. (I wanted Bob Sutton if interested each time (was underappreciated at Army), and while he may also be a retread he was considered a hot coach when his Kansas City defense went out to a 9-0 start and at least had some ties to the school.)

So, the for the 20-somethingth straight year, bowl season is about to begin without EMU being a part of it.

But, there is some hope for Eagles fans. At least our wait is not the 50-something years of New Mexico State. Sports Illustrated chronicled the Aggies' ineptitude more than 20 years ago, and the situation has not improved in Las Cruces.

Clear as Mud

Saturday featured two of the wildest, craziest, and ultimately best football games that I have ever seen. They involved two of the sports most intense rivalries – Ohio State v. Michigan, and Alabama v. Auburn. Both games had ‘national championship’ implications and were witnessed by over 200,000 spectators. Both games came down to one play, and one decision almost certain to be second-guessed.

First, Ohio State v. Michigan in Ann Arbor. This was like a videogame, with huge plays throughout and both teams running up and down the field, with tempers flaring and the pot bubbling over. Ohio State, winners of 23 games in a row, held a 42-35 lead in the final minute when the Wolverines scored a TD to cut the lead to a single point. Michigan coach Brady Hoke had a choice at this point – be conservative and kick the extra point, a rubber stamp move which would send the game to OT, or go for the 2-point conversion and win the game in regulation.

So put yourself in Brady Hoke’s position for a moment and think through the variables at play.

First of all, your defense sucks. Ohio State has rushed for 395 yards. It is obvious that your defense simply cannot stop them. Going for the 2-pt. conversion would be an admission of a lack of belief in your team's ability – the longer the game goes, the more likely Michigan would be to lose. And sometimes, as a coach, you have to accept that your team is flawed. It’s a terrible thing to have to admit, of course, but your #1 job as a coach is to make decisions that give your team the best chance to win.

I’m reminded, after saying that, of an NFL game in 2004 where the Tennessee Titans were playing the Indianapolis Colts and the Titans onside kicked three times in the 1st Quarter. They also tried a fake punt later in the game for good measure. Tennessee’s coach, Jeff Fischer, said after the game that his defense had no chance to stop Peyton Manning and the high voltage Colts offense, and that their best shot to win was to try to prevent the Colts from ever having the ball at all, or give them a short field so they score quickly and give the ball back to the Titans. It was a rare admission from a coach that his team wasn’t good enough. The strategy didn’t work, of course, but playing the game straight up wasn’t going to work. You have to be inventive sometimes and try something different. And no sport has as much room for that as football.

So back to Ann Arbor here: Brady Hoke knows his defense stinks. They’re not going to win the game for him. Furthermore, his team’s kicking game also stinks. In OT, a possession-for-possession duel, the kicking game becomes huge, and the Wolverines are at a decided disadvantage. But on the other hand, it’s not like Ohio St. has exactly been stout on defense. Michigan has gained 600 yards in the game. Their stellar, stylish, #98 wearing QB Devin Gardner has thrown for 451 yards and done so while limping badly. The Buckeyes can’t stop a one-legged QB, for goodness sakes, and their DBs look hopelessly outmatched by the Michigan receivers. Sending the game to OT, therefore, would be a statement of trust in your offense to win the game for you.

But can the offense overcome a bad kicker and a bad defense? And while Ohio St. has won 23 in a row, Michigan has had a bad season. (A 7-4 record constitutes a bad season at the winningest school in the history of the sport.) Here’s the chance to salvage the season in one play. Your team is at home, in front of 113,000 fans, your team has overachieved just to get to this situation, and you have one play in which you can win the game outright.

Oh yeah, and think through all of that in about 30 seconds. What do you do?

Michigan went for two and the win. Unfortunately, the play they called sucked:

Hoke was praised by the pundits for the decision to go for two, although he cheapened it, in my opinion, by saying that he’d asked the seniors on Michigan’s squad what they wanted to do and that they’d wanted to go for two. This is a sly way of shifting blame from yourself, which most high-profile coaches are good at doing. Players always want to go for it, because they believe they can make it. Your job as a coach is to make rational decisions.

That being said, The LOSE applauds the boldness of the move. I would’ve done the same thing, and I wish that more coaches would have the cojones to do the same thing as well. Football is a series of set pieces, 150 or more of them, during which any number of things can go wrong. And better teams can find more ways to win. As I said earlier, the longer the game goes, the more the advantage tilts to the favourite – and Ohio St. was clearly the favourite. So take the risk and go for the win.

So the final score was Ohio State 42:41 Michigan in the best game of the year … or it was the best game of the year for about 3 hours, because then Alabama played Auburn at Jordan-Hare in Auburn.

The Crimson Tide of Alabama were undefeated coming into the game, and looking for a third straight ‘national championship,’ while 2010’s ‘champion’ Auburn has revived themselves after a miserable 3-9 season in 2012 to reach a record of 10-1. The War Eagles have also taken on that ‘team of destiny’ aura, of which I am extremely skeptical, but they’ve found improbable ways to win games, including these late game dramatics and then this miracle two weeks ago against Georgia which has already taken on a nickname, “the prayer at Jordan-Hare.”

So the narrative of the game from the get go was Team of Destiny vs. Team of Dynasty. Adding some spice to the affair is the fact that Alabama-Auburn is probably the single nastiest rivalry in all of American sports. It’s the closest we come in this country to some of the fierce, volatile derbies you see in European soccer. And 'the prayer at Jordan-Hare' looked pretty meek by comparison by the time this one was over. This game was so nuts that the play which put Alabama ahead was an afterthought by the end:

Just your run-of-the-mill 99 yd. TD pass. Whatevs.

In keeping with their tenacious and rescourceful nature, Auburn ties the score at 28 with this nifty bit of improv from their QB in the final minute. Three more plays by the Crimson Tide then bring the ball up to Auburn's 39 yd. line as time expires – except, upon review, there is :01 put back on the clock. And at this point, the onus is on Alabama coach Nick Saban to make a decision of what to do: he can run the clock out and go to OT; he can let his QB A.J. McCarron throw a 'Hail Mary' pass into the end zone; or he can try a very long 57-yd FG.

So let's pretend we're coaching Alabama at this point, shall we?

The defense has been pretty bad – Auburn has racked up 300 yds. on the ground, and Bama's defense offered almost no resistance as Auburn sliced them up during the tying TD drive. The running game takes a lot out of a defense due to the physicality, and Alabama's D seems out of gas.

Alabama's trademark, steely efficiency has been lacking in this game, as they've made all sorts of mistakes during the course of the action. The kicking game, meanwhile, has been an absolute disaster: Alabama's kicker missing three FGs, one of which was blocked. Alabama seems to be in the same boat as Michigan, at this point, where in two of the three phases of the game, they seem to be at a disadvantage. And as nonsensical as the whole 'team of destiny' idea is, success spawns belief. Momentum and Belief seemed to be dressed in blue and orange at the end of this game.

There are really no good options here. The best bad option seems to be to throw a Hail Mary and hope for the best. McCarron is your best player, and he's already produced a 99-yard TD pass, so why not give him a chance? At worst, you'll be going to OT, and maybe your defense will get it together. Hell, this group of players has won two 'national championships' in a row. They know a thing or two about winning close games by now. So the last-gasp, Hail Mary, unlikely as it is to work, seems like the best bet.

Which is precisely what Alabama didn't do.

Insetad, they went for the 57-yard FG, using their other kicker, the guy who didn't miss 3 FGs already in the game. The long FG is extremely low percentage, and carries some risks: it's more likely to be blocked, as it is a low kick that has to be driven hard. There is also the scenario that, if the kick is short of the backline of the endzone, it can be returned by the defense, but that's unlikely to amount to much. Extremely unlikely. You wouldn't really think of that as a possibility, would you?

Yes, that happened.

That's the first time in the history of the game that it has ended in that way. This game immediately vaults into Cal v. Stanford 1982 territory for greatest ending in the history of not only football, but of any sport. It's a seemingly impossible play.

Improbable, yes, but not impossible. There have only been four such occurrences in the history of college football. In the NFL, however, this has happened three times in the last 15 years or so. And remember Pasteur's adage, "chance favors the prepared mind." Auburn took a timeout before the FG attempt and placed Chris Davis, their punt return specialist, at the back of the end zone. On kickoffs and punt returns, teams usually have equal athletes on the field – linebackers, tight ends, and so-called "hands team" guys like DBs who are used to handling the football. On a FG, however, the kicking team forms a wall consisting mostly of offensive linemen to block, and if the play breaks down, the defense has the advantage. Once this became a transition play, the hands team – Auburn – had all the advantages. The Georgia win was all about luck. In this game, however, luck had nothing much to do with it.

Of course it's easy to second-guess, in light of what happened, but the FG attempt just didn't make a whole lot of sense. And had that happened to some team other than Alabama, people would be less inclined to revel in the schadenfreude of the moment. As it is, there are few figures as unsympathetic in sports as Nick Saban, who has the reputation of being the ultimate opportunist as he has jumped from one job to the next. That being said, he's won 3 'national championships' in his tenures at Alabama and LSU before that, so you have to begrudgingly acknowledge his genius as a coach. Even the best coaches make some bad decisions from time to time. It's tough to see an unbeaten season go up in smoke.

Alabama and Michigan both lost, but the game itself ultimately won. It's stuff like this that makes us play games, makes us watch, and keeps people coming back. Games are improvisational theatre at its best, unscripted and unpredictable. You never what you're going to see. Most of the time, they follow fairly predictable storylines: Team A is better than Team B and they win by a score of blah blah blah. But we don't care about those games, in the end. We care about it when it all goes mad.

And losing in those moments, of course, hurts far more is the norm. Raising the stakes simply raises the disappointment. Sometimes it's what you come to be known for as a player or a coach – that one spectacular afternoon which people remember for a lifetime. Tough ways to lose. The 'next game' can't come soon enough, but the next game won't really matter much, in the end. In the random world of college football, beating your rival is usually far more important than winning any other game. The 2013 senior class at Alabama will be reminded forever about Chris Davis' 109-yd return, likely far more than the two championship games in which they prevailed. (And Auburn folk will certainly do the crowing, of that you can be sure.) And no Michigan alum will care, 20 years from now, about how Michigan did/didn't beat some other team in some irrelevant bowl game in late December. They will ask, however, "why didn't Hoke kick the extra point against the Buckeyes?" Hindsight is always 20/20, and it's always as clear as mud.

Plenty of Space Under the Thinking Cap

Plenty of good seats available in Phoenix

You can always tell what a prospective class of rookies and free agents is going to be like in the NBA by the number of teams which are deliberately tanking the season before. Judging by this year, it must be a bumper crop. I would point the finger at three teams – the Philadelphia 76ers, Boston Celtics, and Phoenix Suns – who flat-out wrote off this season before it even began, and have chosen to engage the time-honoured NBA tradition of getting rid of every asset on the roster in the hopes of striking it rich in the 2014 offseason. I could also point the finger at the Utah Jazz as well, a once proud and savvy club who’ve disintegrated over time and now have the worst record in the NBA. I’m not sure what to make of Sacramento, Milwaukee, or the Washington Buzzards. The LOSE suspects they stink simply due to incompetence, which is another time-honoured NBA tradition.

There are more truly bad franchises in the NBA than in any other sport. The NHL has quite a few bad ideas for franchises, primary among them being the comical Phoenix Coyotes, but even some of the bad idea clubs are at least well-run given their seemingly hopeless positions. NBA clubs, meanwhile, are simply run in some of the stupidest ways imaginable. The main reason teams are terrible is due to their own incompetence. With a small number of players comes small room for error. Talent assessment is everything in the NBA, both in terms of drafting players and managing that talent when it comes time for reupping it, or not, to new contracts. And the latter issue seems to dominate the bulk of the business in the NBA. Our favourite players may be wearing numbers like 6 and 23 and 35 on their jerseys, but to the GM of an NBA franchise, those numbers may as well be $5 million and $10 million and $15 million, as the bulk of the league brass seems entirely fixated on the voodoo economics which surround the salary cap.

The NBA salary cap is the greatest example in sports of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. It was put in place in the 1980s, at a time that the league was awash in red ink, in the efforts of controlling costs, since limiting the expenditure on player salaries to a certain percentage of gross revenues would, theoretically, prevent franchises from going broke. The players went along with it at the time, and continue to do so, and there is a very good reason for that – since the salary cap is tied to the players receiving a certain percentage of the gross, any growth is the league is fundamentally growth in their bi-weekly paycheques. Indeed, the average salary in the league has grown from $330,000 in 1984 to $5.2 million in 2008, as the league soared in popularity. This has been the base model for similar systems put in place in the NHL and NFL as well, which have ultimately seen similar growths in player salaries over time.

But the spinmeisters in the league offices have also tried to sell the salary cap as a way to foster competitive balance, which is complete rubbish and always has been. The argument goes that, were a cap not in place, the larger clubs with more access to revenues would just spend endlessly to acquire the top talent at the expense of smaller clubs, to which I say “so what?” The LOSE is a curious hybrid of economic philosophies when it comes to sports, in that I’m both simultaneously a Marxist in my belief that the players should get pretty much all the money – I don’t go to a game to watch an owner – and a free market capitalist in favour of letting the marketplace sort itself out. And with a salary cap comes minimal amounts which have to be spent and which apply to every team – but not every team generates the same revenue. It works out to a certain percentage across the board, but that still leaves some franchises with inherent economic advantages – the percentage cost of the salary cap for the Lakers is far less of a burden a small-market club like the Sacramento Kings. This is what leads to the predatory, extortive practices of clubs to demand municipalities pony up taxpayer money to finance new arenas, which has nothing to do with the ability to compete and everything to do with the ability to maximize profit margins.

It also leads to some ridiculous revenue sharing ideas with the league, like the so-called “luxury tax” which penalizes teams for going far over the salary cap in their spending. The absurdity of such rules is best illustrated by this year’s Brooklyn Nets, who have a wage bill totaling $100 million. The threshold for taxation is $71.75 million, and the tax is steep – in the Nets case, it’s $3.25 for every dollar they go over the threshold – which means they are on the hook for an additional $86 million in taxes. But again, so what? The Brooklyn Nets are owned by a bazillionaire and play in a hip new building smack in the middle of the nouveau riche capital of the free world. They can afford it. It’s a hypercompetitive, ego-driven business. If you want to win a championship, and you are making bank, what’s a few million extra on the top? (Of course, the former New Jersey Swamp Dragons are in last place at the moment. Having a larger chequebook hasn’t apparently made them any more competent when it comes to assembling a team.)

But in an effort to do more than just pay lip service to the idea that the salary cap fosters competitive balance, the NBA has created all sorts of exemptions over the years, beginning with the so-called Larry Bird exemption of the 1980s, which states that a team can go over the salary cap as much as necessary to resign their own free agents. And every time you create an exemption, of course, you also create a loophole which then has to be addressed down the line with another clause or another exemption, because the skillful NBA GM will invariably look to find all sorts of ways to game the system. The endless tweaking and rerigging of the salary cap system over 30 years has resulted in something more gerrymandered than a Texas congressional district. You need advance degrees in economics and accounting, and preferrably some work experience at Arthur Andersen, to figure out how the whole thing works. And having such a system in place also creates one of the most ideal of ready-made excuses to address your franchise’s own foibles. You can blame poor performance as being due to “salary cap constraints,” which prevent you from acquiring new talent – never mind that such constraints come from the fact that you’ve signed so many players to bad contracts in the first place.

Conversely, the argument is often made that a midseason trade is done to “free up cap space.” Acquiring top talent in the NBA is an expensive business, after all, with the top players making in excess of $20 million a year. And since basketball is such a small game, with only five players on the court at one time, the acquisition of one great player can make a huge difference. Since acquiring that top talent will eat up huge portions of your available wage bill under the salary cap, the best way to prepare for it is to clear out large amounts of space ahead of time. This has led to the lure of the expiring contract. The most sought-after players at the trade deadline every year are not guys who could actually help your team win a championship. No, in fact, usually they’re old guys with bad knees who can’t play anymore and are in the last year of whatever bad contract they signed years ago. If my team sucks, and I have three guys making $5 million, and you have a guy making $15 million in the last year of his deal, I’ll trade my three guys worth $15 million for your one worth $15 million and let the old guy with bad knees sit on the bench for the rest of the year. Then he’s gone and I’ve got $15 million a year to spend on a superstar come time for free agency, and then I’ll just sign a couple of rookies at the league minimum to sit on the bench and make up for the three players I had to trade. Sounds perfect! Everyone wins, right?

But why wait until the middle of the season, when it’s apparent that your team sucks, to throw in the towel? Why not just admit your team sucks from the very beginning? Throw in the towel, throw up your hands, suck for a year and hope it will get better next year. And if you’re a fringe team, on the cusp of making the playoffs perhaps but really not very good, is it worth it to qualify as the #8 seed and get blown out by the Miami Heat in the 1st round of the playoffs, or are you better off if you trade a bunch of dead weight you don’t want for some other dead weight you don’t want, and get rid of it at the end of the season so that you can sign someone better? And if you don’t make the playoffs, you’re in the lottery – the ‘random’ draw which establishing the order for the draft – where you might get lucky and get the #1 pick. Then your team will get a whole lot better in a hurry, right? And do so somewhat cheaply, at first, since rookies make far less than stiff vets with bad knees who sit on the bench and take up salary cap space.

Welcome to the idiocy of the NBA, where seemingly every decision most of the teams seem to make involve next year. Or the year beyond, for that matter – teams like the Knicks were making moves designed to clear out cap space two years in advance in the hope that the free agent ferries would come and sprinkle magic LeBron James dust on them somehow. And it’s all a gamble, of course, one which often doesn’t come true – seen any LeBron Knicks jerseys lately?

The draft is always somewhat of a crapshoot to begin with – for every Tim Duncan or LeBron or transcendent talent available with the top pick in the draft, there are far more Joe Smiths and Kwame Browns and Michael Olowokandis out there. And even seemingly sure things turn into draft busts sometimes. It doesn’t keep a bunch of teams from giving up entirely and hoping to hit the lottery every year – which, of course, runs antithetical to the original intent of the lottery in the first place, as it was designed in the 1980s to keep perennially woful and incompetent franchises like the Clippers and Cleveland Cavaliers from deliberately trying to get the worst record in the league so as to get the #1 pick. By including every non-playoff team in the lottery, all the league did was give more franchises incentive to try and suck.

Notice how I’ve said nothing about the actual game of basketball in this post? That’s because it doesn’t matter very much. It seems like the only thing many NBA GMs do is trade a bunch of guys they don’t want for other guys they don’t want. Making the argument that you’re trying to “clear cap space” is laughable to begin with – just because you have money to spend doesn’t mean anyone wants to buy. I’ve mentioned this phenomenon of Edmonton Disease in a previous post: if everyone clears out massive amounts of cap space so as to offer players big contracts, the actual amount clubs can offer in such a controlled system is basically about equal, which means that other factors will come into play, such as quality of life, or if the team is perceived to be a viable championship contender. The LOSE couldn’t help but giggle at a few naïve op-eds in the Sacramento Bee during the whole Kings mess which spoke of how new ownership and a new arena would have the finances to bring in some high-priced free agents to the Kings. Sorry, Sac, no player of any worth is EVER signing with that sorry organization. Ever. Why would you play in Sacramento when you could play in Chicago or L.A. or New York? Why would you sign with a perpetual vagabond fanchise that hasn't won a championship since three or four cities ago?

The 76ers this year have set themselves up for failure. They’re not only below the salary cap, having rid themselves of every big contract they had in the offseason, they’re actually under the salary floor. They’ve not even spent the minimum required by the league. Their roster of flawed and inexperienced players got off to an inspired 3-0 start – these guys are playing hard, of course, since a lot of them might not have jobs in a year – but are slowly sinking back to earth. They’re hoping to land one of the top picks in the draft, and also be able to spend big in free agency in the offseason, which is a nice idea, but here’s the thing: most teams get to be that bad in the first place because they are run badly. You may give up and decide to be terrible, but usually only after it's all gotten bad to begin with. Another prime tanker this year, the Phoenix Suns, are owned by Robert Sarver, regarded by many to be the worst owner in the league. (And anytime you can trump Donald Sterling on that front, it’s saying something.) Sarver has run the franchise into the ground since he bought it, so why would anyone expect Sarver to suddenly know what he’s doing come June?

And in the meantime, who wants to watch that crap? Does anyone, like, care about, you know, basketball or anything? If you’re a fan in PHX or Philly, why would you go to a game when it’s abundantly clear from the moves your team is making that they have ZERO interest in winning in the here and now. They have SUBZERO interest in fact – they’re actually trying to be terrible! At least in Boston, there’s a track record of not screwing up to give you some hope, but what’s gone well for the Buzzards or the Bucks anytime in recent memory, or for the Charlotte Bobcats, like, ever?

The LOSE inherently frowns upon tanking in principle. It’s easy enough to lose already without trying to do so. And being a former Sonics season ticket holder, I have a very good reason to hate the NBA. That being said, the LOSE loves the game and has been coaxed back to the league thanks to the Golden State Warriors, a group of terrific young talent which combines some of the game’s greatest shooters (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson) and a collection of good passers at every position to create the league’s most interesting and most watchable team. They’re fun to watch and they possess enormous potential as they build off a solid season a year ago. But prior to last season, this was the Warriors. 30+ years of buffoonery. Whole seasons that were bad ideas to began with, others which were abandoned.

(And by the way, I have to credit that Bill Simmons piece on the Warriors as inspiration for this whole blog, because it’s the greatest single LOSE blog ever written by someone other than me.)

Once losing starts, it can be really hard to turn it around. You cannot simply flip a switch and write a big cheque. It usually doesn’t work that way. It could be argued that the NBA isn’t that dissimilar from the EPL, for example, in that there are teams at the start of the year which go in admitting straight up that they have no chance whatsoever. But unlike the EPL, where stinking gets you a ticket to Division Two, the NBA is a closed system. There are probably about 10 NBA franchises which deserve to be relegated to the D-League. If there was ever a league in need of a second tier, it’s this one. Perpetual awfulness doesn’t happen in the EPL. But in a league like the NBA, there are always ready-made excuses and justifications as to why your team is terrible – and why it just might continue to be terrible for a very long time. But hey, keep clearing out that cap space. Maybe it will come in handy. And try to fill some of that space under your thinking cap, while you’re at it.

Curses! Foiled Again!

The Tangerine Dream

Injuries on the offensive line may have stymied the Seattle Seahawks offense, yet they continue to win. Monday’s 14:9 win St. Louis over the Rams may have been one of the ugliest wins in history, but wins are a precious commodity worth cherishing in the NFL, and the Seahawks now stand 7-1 and atop the NFC standings. And now comes the most important game of the season. A win this coming Sunday is vital for the Seahawks and their Super Bowl aspirations. It’s the game they circled on the schedule and say amongst themselves “we simply cannot lose this game!”

Their opponent? The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 0-7 Buccaneers. Laugh at my hyperbolical opening paragraph at your own peril.

Unlike the Buccaneers of old, who wore the league’s most flamboyant jerseys and put the fun in dysfunctional, this lot of Bucs is deader than the skull on their pewter helmets. The Buccaneers actually won a Super Bowl on Jan. 27, 2003, a 48:21 over the Los Angeles Tijuana Oakland Raiders (some of whom apparently thought the game was in Tijuana and not San Diego), but have now sunk into the abyss. The biggest reason for their success was the hiring first of Tony Dungy and then Jon Gruden as Head Coaches, but the Bucs have now reverted to one of their more normal behaviour patterns from the Tangerine Dream days, which was hiring guys who have no idea what they are doing. They plucked Greg Schiano out of the cesspool that is the Rutgers athletics department, and Schiano brought along with him the typical hardass, domineering college coach attitude that goes over well with professional athletes for about 20 minutes. Schiano has hit every wrong note possible, and then simply invented new scales so as to hit even more wrong notes. If ownership in Tampa weren’t essentially absentee – The Glazer family has some bigger sports franchises to devote their attentions to – Schiano likely would’ve been fired already. As it is, the Bucs are collectively walking the plank.

Now, how is it possible, you ask, that the halpless Bucs could pose a threat to Seattle’s title hopes? The Bucs are so bad that, in saying Seattle cannot lose this game, it may actually be physically impossible for Seattle to do so. And yet the Seahawks must be careful, and must be mindful of those Floridian evildoers, because they aren’t just playing a bad football team this Sunday, but the Seahawks are tempting fate. Because every game vs. the Bucs is tempting fate, because being defeated by the Bucs will lead to the worst possible outcome.

Being laughed at.

No no no! Being laughed at is only the 2nd worst fate a loss to the Pewter Pirates inflicts! An even worse fate awaits those who succumb to the Buccaneers on any given Sunday: disappointment at season’s end! And it’s appropriate, on the eve of the day on the calendar reserved for witches and ghosts and ghouls, that we bring up one of the greatest curses in all of sports, which is the Tampa Bay Curse. Since the Buccaneers franchise began play in 1976, no team has EVER won the Super Bowl during a season in which they lost to Tampa Bay.

Superstition runs deep and rampant in sports, of course. The mental aspect of performance cannot be understated, and the margins between success and failure are so minute that any single thing which you think gives you some sort of edge will be exploited – even if they don’t make any sense. If you’re a .500 team that suddenly wins 5 in a row after your starting QB starts eating Cheerios with chocolate milk for breakfast, then by god, give him another bowl of Cheerios with chocolate milk! As was well stated in the film Bull Durham, “never fuck with a winning streak.”

The stupidest superstition in all of sports is the charade 16 NHL teams undertake every year when the players vow not to shave until they are eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs. 16 teams do this every year, and 15 of them lose, so it doesn’t seem to help much. This superstition dates to the New York Islanders of 1980, who won the first of four consecutive Stanley Cup titles while collectively going scruffy. The LOSE suspects the Isles winning four Stanley Cups had more to do with having Mike Bossy and Brian Trottier and Denis Potvin and Billy Smith on their team than how hirsute they’d become over the course of four rounds of playoff games. (The LOSE also hopes this ludicrous tradition doesn’t carry over to baseball in light of the Red Sox winning this year's World Series. Those are some damn ugly beards the Bostons have been sprouting. The Red Sox seem to have benefitted this year in the same way the Giants did last year, which was to face an opponent in the World Series who seems to have suddenly forgotten how to play baseball.)

There are lots of goofy little traditions in sports which you do so as not to bring bad luck or jinx it: in baseball, that includes axioms like “don’t talk to a pitcher throwing a no-hitter when he’s in the dugout,” and “never step on the foul lines when taking or leaving the field.” Every goalkeeper and goaltender alive makes sure to talk to his or her goalposts before the game, making sure the keeper's best friends know their help is appreciated come game time. And it’s all nonsense. What your QB eats for breakfast doesn’t have anything to do with his performance come Sunday … or does it? …

Hmm, well, the Seahawks franchise already feels somewhat cursed to begin with, so it’s best they not try to cheat the odds. Lots of team’s fan bases feel like their club is cursed, of course, when they fail to taste success. Cubs fans want to believe in the Billy Goat curse; across town, more than a few White Sox fans attributed 86 years of futility being the result of Bad Karma in the aftermath of the Black Sox scandal of 1919. The Red Sox had the Curse of the Bambino, supposedly invoked by Babe Ruth after he was traded to the Yankees. The cities of Cleveland and Buffalo have enough assorted sports curses attached to them to keep exorcists busy for decades. And I’ve even heard a few otherwise right-minded Tampans attribute their football teams woes to former star QB Doug Williams putting a voodoo curse on the franchise after he left.

The Bucs have always been a franchise with a case of the weirds. They lost the first 26 games in their existence. It took until the NFC Championship Game in Philadelphia in Jan. 2003 for the warm-weather Bucs to ever win a game when the temperature was below 32° F. It took 31 years for the Bucs to run a kickoff back for a TD. (For comparison’s sake, the New Orleans Saints – who have often been just as bad as the Bucs – ran the opening kickoff of their first game back for a TD. But after John Gilliam’s 94-yd return in 1967 vs. the Rams, the Saints proceeded to lose the game 27:13 and then continued to lose for about the next 25 years straight.)

Even when they succeed, the Bucs do it strangely:

“With four games left in the (1979) season, the Bucs needed to win only one of them to make the playoffs. In the first, STP was put all over the goal posts in Tampa to prevent the goalposts from being ripped down in the event of a celebration. Four blocked kicks later, the Bucs wasted the oily substance, falling to the Minnesota Vikings 23–22. STP was wasted again the following week as the Bucs were shut out 14–0 by the Chicago Bears, and in O. J. Simpson's final home game in San Francisco, Tampa Bay lost its third straight attempt to clinch a division title against a 49ers team which came in with a 1–13 record.”
– Wikipedia

In order to clinch a playoff spot that season, the Bucs beat the Chiefs 3:0 in the worst weather for a football game I have ever seen. The Bucs have always kept it zany, win or lose – and usually lose.

And then there is the Tampa Bay Curse, which is admittedly pretty bizarre. There is some logical explanation for the curse, of course. Given that the Buccaneers have generally been inept, so if the Bucs beat your team, it’s a good bet your team sucks. But as the Bucs’ fortunes improved, good and sometimes even great teams with visions of Super Bowl glory have seen the Curse rise up and destroy their fortunes. The 1998 Minnesota Vikings went 15-1. Guess who they lost to? And then what happened? Their kicker, Gary Anderson, who hadn’t missed a kick all season, flubbed his lines with the NFC Championship game hanging in the balance. He missed a 38 yd. FG that would’ve put the game out of reach, and the Atlanta Falcons rallied to win 30:27 in OT and go to the Super Bowl.

More recently, I recall this conversation which may or may not have happened back in Jan. 2002 between myself and Tim Williams – loyal Rams fan, Friend of the LOSE, and co-founder and senior partner of the law firm of Williams Morgan & Williams – on the eve of Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans:

Tim: I can’t believe our dumbass boss is going to the Super Bowl.
xp: Yeah, Barnes sucks. Screw him.
Tim: Rams are gonna win by 21 pts. Greatest Show on Turf, baby.
xp: Didn’t the Rams lose to Tampa Bay this season?
Tim: Uhh …
xp: You guys are screwed.
Tim: We’re so screwed.

The Patriots, of course, pulled the 20:17 upset in the Super bowl.

So listen up, Seahawks: you must not lose to Tampa Bay. YOU MUST NOT LOSE TO TAMPA BAY!! It is a DISASTER of EPIC PROPORTIONS if you lose to Tampa at-Bay …

Wait, hold on a second here. I'm being told by a member of my crack research team (emphasis on crack) here at IN PLAY LOSE World HQ that, in fact, the curse was broken four years ago. Hmm, let me check this for myself … Dec., 27, 2009, Tampa Bay 20:17 New Orleans in O.T. … Super Bowl XLIV, Feb. 7, 2010, New Orleans 31:17 Indianapolis … hmm …

Damn, this blog entry was going really well, too. Well screw it then. Tampa sucks. Just beat the hell out of them. Everyone else is doing it these days.