Monday, January 21, 2008

It's Settled

It will be the New York Giants and the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. That the Patriots beat the Chargers comes as no surprise to anyone, especially with LaDanian Tomlinson out injured for most of the game. Philip Rivers played the entire game, but played with both knees bummed. He had a strained MCL in one and a torn ACL in the other. Now, I don't know what a MCL is, but I do know what an ACL is. That is what sensei tore a few years back and I had to teach for two months while he recovered, both from the tear and from the surgery to repair it. Mr. Rivers played a tough game, considering, but his knees definitely affected his mobility, and they just couldn't find the end zone. His valiant effort was admirable, but it wasn't enough to pull the game out--even with all of Tom Brady's mistakes.

The big surprise came in Green Bay, where the Giants upset the Packers, winning 23-20 in overtime. This was the more exciting game of the day. The Giants won, once again, not on their own merits, but on the mistakes of their opponents. The way I see it, the Packers made some key mistakes; the first one being that they had Al Harris one-on-one with Plaxico Burras. You just can't do that. Burras is too good a wide receiver not to double cover him. Even after Burras beat Harris time and time again, Green Bay still wouldn't give him any help.

The second big mistake was not bringing pressure against Eli Manning. He had all day long to stand back there and find open receivers. You have to pressure Eli Manning. He is too good of a quarterback for a defense to just think he will make big mistakes. However, when he has had his face planted into the dirt a few times, when he's got big bodies coming at him every play, he gets flustered and crumples like a sand castle.

The third big mistake Green Bay made, and I'm actually kind of surprised that Brett Favre would do this, is that they tried too hard to make big plays. Instead of trying to go 10 yards for a first down, he was trying to go 90 yards for a touchdown, and it cost them.

And then there were the penalties. The Pack penalized themselves 5 times on a single Giants drive. Five times! Heck, they moved the ball better on that drive than the Giants did.

You know, one thing that strikes me as odd is the disparity in the amount of penalties between the Giants and their opponents. Last night, for example. The Packers had something like 11 penalties to the Giants 3. They had 5 on a single drive--a drive that would have stalled twice were it not for penalties against the Packers. It was the same last week in Dallas. The Boys were penalized 7 times for 85 yards, while the Giants were penalized 3 times for 25 yards. It's enough to make you go, "Hmmm."

Did you know that the officials review each football game, same as the coaches and players? I didn't until this year. They do. Each week, the officiating teams sit down with whoever is over them and review the game film. Play by play.

Calls that should have been made, but weren't. Calls that shouldn't have been made, but were. Good calls--and why they are good. Bad calls, and why they are bad. When they find a bad call, they discuss it, and what to do to prevent the same bad call in the future. But they do not change the results of the game.

A single bad call is seldom going to affect the eventual outcome of the game. A bunch of them might.

Tony Romo was penalized in the second half for intentional grounding. The penalty turned a second and short into a third and long. They failed to convert. The drive stalled and they were forced to punt. When the officiating team reviewed the play on Monday, they discovered that Tony was in a position in which he could legally throw the ball away. There was no intentional grounding. They'd made a bad call.

On the very first drive of the game, DeMarcus Ware was flagged for being offsides. The penalty turned a Giants fourth down into a first down, and eventually a touchdown. Review of the game film revealed that the ball was moving before he was, and he was not offsides. They'd made a bad call.

On the final drive of the first half, the Giants marched all the way down the field in 46 seconds and scored a touchdown. The drive would have stalled were it not for a personal foul against the Boys. The call was a late hit. However, further review of the tape revealed that the whistle had not blown, and the play was still live when the Cowboy player blocked the Giant. One could argue that the ball was already past him, so the Boy should have let up, but that's not what they are trained to do. They are trained to play until the whistle blows. This one was not declared to be a bad call, but it could have been.

Normally, I think of those who whine about bad calls as just being sore losers, but when half of the penalties against a team are either bad or questionable, well, it's enough to make you go, "Hmmm."

But it still doesn't erase the big red L in the won-loss column.

4 comments:

Sus said...

Yeah, I was a little afraid to go out today -- it's pretty somber in here.

It's certainly frustrating, but I generally agree with the sentiment that the officials are part of the game and they will make mistakes just like the players make mistakes and, sometimes, those mistakes can turn the tide of a game. As long as no bias can be found, I'll mostly let the officials be human. But sometimes they do bring out the uglier side of my own human nature, too. Arg!

Becky G said...

Me, too. I know officials make mistakes, and I generally cut them some slack, but when the penalty calling is sooooo lopsided, well it makes you wonder.

Opal said...

Yeah, the penalties pretty much had me gnashing my teeth in frustration. That and the turnover in OT. *sigh*

Becky G said...

Wasn't that a shocker? I wouldn't have expected something like that from Brett Favre.