God's Own Crunk

No shit.

Good – and I mean seriously, seriously good – sports commentary is getting harder to come by. It is rare to find the lucid combination of pitch-perfect observation and excellent writing aimed at a contemporary, relevant subject, but Bill Plaschke nails what I know, what every other serious NFL fan knows – there is no other day like the Sunday of the NFC and AFC championship games. Read the whole thing – this is probably the best piece of writing I’ve encountered regarding the NFL this year:

Sunday is the greatest single day of the NFL season. Sunday is the real Super Bowl, only twice as much and twice as good.

The two conference championship games played Sunday will be more compelling than the one game played two weeks later, and it won’t even be close.

Sunday is the Super Bowl minus the capital letters, Roman numerals and incessant glitz. Sunday is real football, played in real weather, in front of real fans, for real stakes.

I’ve never seen a Super Bowl winner cry. I’ve seen New Orleans Saints players weeping when they beat the Minnesota Vikings to qualify for their first Super Bowl.

via NFL playoffs: These postseason games are far superior – latimes.com.

During hte six hours of pregame I watched on NFLNet, there was some talk about the weather and who it will affect more in the NY-SF game. Per PFT:

It was supposed to rain all weekend in San Francisco, but Saturday turned out to be beautiful. That isn’t the case Sunday.

via It’s as rainy as expected in San Francisco | ProFootballTalk.

As I was telling a friend, this is the NFL and the weather doesn’t really affect anyone enough to make a difference. Both teams play in outdoor stadiums, and both have dealt with wind and rain.

Both teams are hot right now, too, which is the biggest factor that this game is taking place as opposed to, say, NO-GB – I suspect the team that wins will be the team that keeps its momentum and limits the mistakes, but that’s the kind of onesizefitsall analysis you can find anywhere.

So there’s that. GO GIANTS!

A practical observation regarding the long, boring spells in any installment of z’beautiful game:

Soccer is, in other words, both romantic and tragic, and the soft agony of a bad game is an inescapable part of this. You spend all your time hoping something will happen, and it never does. You get a surge of adrenaline every time the ball flies anywhere near the goal,7 and you’re always disappointed. But then, every once in a while, James McFadden will score from 30 yards at the Parc des Princes to give Scotland an impossible 1-0 lead over France, and a ponderous game will go all kinds of nervous-breakdown crazy. And for fans it’s practically an out-of-body experience — not just because it was a great play, but because it was so unlikely that this match could have been graced with a great play to begin with.

via Brian Phillips on soccer and boredom – Grantland.

First, the rule and some commentary from PFT:

“Rule 7, Section 2, Article 1 of the NFL Rule Book (page 35) states: ‘An official shall declare the ball dead and the down ended: (a) when a runner is contacted by a defensive player and touches the ground with any part of his body other than his hands or feet,’” the league said in a statement emailed to PFT by NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.  “So by rule, if Jennings’ calf was on the ground prior to the ball coming loose, he is down by contact.  Contrary to what was suggested during the game, there is no need for the runner’s knee to be on the ground.”

That’s a not-so-subtle slap at FOX, whose broadcasters (including rules analyst and former NFL V.P. of officiating Mike Pereira) believed that Leavy had committed a pretty big blunder.  In the end, Leavy’s decision apparently flowed from uncertainty based on the video as to whether Jennings’ calf was on the ground before he lost possession of the ball.

via League explains Leavy’s replay ruling | ProFootballTalk.

==

Like most in the PFT commentariat, I call bullshit. Putting everything else aside, the runner’s calf never hit the ground, nor did his shin, thigh, ass, knee stomach, spinal cord or appendix – it was a fumble. Added to that was the intrigue/infuriation of the official with the best view of the play allowing the fumble to continue and the Giants to continue the play, only to be overruled by an official out of position saying that it wasn’t a fumble, that Jennings was down. WTF?

If that were the only curious call, it would be bad enough, but then there was the mid-field spot that was at least four feet short of where the ball was when the Giants RB was done (and no replay by Fox, and no question about it – Rich Eisen of NFLNet Tweeted later in the game that Fox’s Mike Pereira said that it was closer than the spot, but still not a first down, lost in that being the fact that Fox never showed a bloody replay).

And then, late in the fourth quarter, the phantom Roughing the Passer call against the Giants, stated by officials as being for “head to head” contact, also easily viewable and provably false. Penalties aren’t subject to review, but it was a phantom call, on top of two other crucial mistakes. That call, on a third-and-long, gave Green Bay a fresh set of downs, with which the matriculated the ball up the field (/Stramm’d) and scored a touchdown, narrowing the score to 30-20.

Look, the Giants ended up winning – they were the better team on Sunday by a longshot. I’m not the fan that cries “REFBALL!” at every mistake, and the Giants are a bigger draw than the Packers, though the Packers are the “better story” this year. I don’t know what the hell was going on, but the NFL does itself no favors by circling the wagons and acting as though the refs didn’t err in the Jennings fumble-ruled-not-a-fumble – they screwed up, and if they’re going to issue a statement, should admit as much.

The crew last night was a disgrace, and luckily for the League, said disgrace didn’t ultimately affect the outcome of the game.

Also, GO GIANTS!

Tebow is a fraud. Elijah was the profit all along!

–nohopeleft

via Giants punch ticket to San Francisco | ProFootballTalk.

Well, Yates just threw an INT so that should do it for HOU. Now, it’s time for the adults to play.

GOGIANTS!!

I hate the Saints for the most trivial of reasons, but so profound is this hate that yesterday was the first time in 37 years of drawing breath that I rooted for the 49ers, who typify to me what my father used to say about the Boston Celtics: If they were playing the Commies, I’d root for the Commies.

That being said, I thought the Saints were by a large degree of error playing the best football of any team heading into the postseason, and were I a betting man I’d have put $100 on them winning the Super Bowl – frankly, I didn’t think their offense could be stopped, especially with Darren Sproles, until very recently the most underrated player in the NFL, having the kind of year he was having.

And even when they turned the ball over four times in the first half yet were within one score of the lead, I still thought they would win. Hell, even with 9 seconds left to play and the NFL-viewing world stunned that the 49ers were doing what they were doing, I still thought that they would pull it out, even if pulling it out has changed the nature of more than a few love affairs. To wit, the best team in the Playoffs is now New England, followed by whoever wins the Giants-Packers game. In my heart of hearts, I cannot fathom or stomach San Francisco in the Super Bowl – bring on the fuggin Commies, Dixie!

“It stings right now because of the expectation level we had coming into this,” Drew Brees said after the game via the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “A tough pill to swallow.”

Ultimately, the 49ers did the little things better. They tackled better. They avoided unforced errors. They put pressure on Brees well until late in the game.

“I never felt so good about a team ever,” tackle Jermon Bushrod said. “So yeah, it felt like ’09. It felt like we had everything going for us. And to have our season end the way that it did. The way we were able to go out there and put our better foot forward (late in the game), it just hurts. It hurts, man.”

via Saints stunned season ended so soon | ProFootballTalk.