Seek and ye shall find.
This football season I’d been searching for a sign from above, something to sustain me through broadcasts and changes in the game that have made football indistinguishable from do-it-yourself lunar module assembly instructions.
And then last week, while on the road, that sign from above appeared. High over what looked like a windowless gated community, the sign read, “SELF-STORAGE.”
Of course! If we lock ourselves in and away, September through January, we’ll find sanctuary, if not salvation! It’s the old come in and stay out solution!
Thursday night’s Dolphins at Bills on NFL Network stopped cold — in the cold — for five minutes and 35 seconds for an “instant” replay review of a Miami fumble. That fumble, recovered by Buffalo, would not have, in the decades before replay, caused a we-wuz-robbed gripe from either team or their fans. First down, the other way, play ball.
And five minutes and 35 seconds later, that was the appellate ruling — fumble, Buffalo ball.
Yesterday, as seen on CBS, the replay rule turned overtime of the Browns-Cowboys game into a repetitive bad joke. Two stoppages to review nothing that inspired the introduction of the rule!
If this wasn’t what anyone had in mind when advocating then adopting the replay rule, why do such things exist and persist? Why does the NFL continue to commit lunacide?
Also, Thursday, NFL Network placed us in the hands of analyst Mike Mayock, who again attempted to break his own record for the use of “I,” “me,” and “my.” Most plays brought a lecture — no matter that none of us signed up for a lecture series; we just tuned in to watch the game.
After a 96-yard kickoff return by the Dolphins’ Marcus Thigpen, Mayock, over a replay, asked what he might have thought was a rhetorical question: “How many times do you hear the term, ‘lane integrity’?”
Lane integrity? Er, far as I recall, never.
But the telecast was shellacked in Mayockian, including “eye discipline” (apparently the ability to see what one is looking for) and “two-level routes,” which I surmised is when two guys go out for a pass, one deeper than the other.
Saturday’s ABC/ESPN telecast of the Ohio State-Wisconsin game should have led to vandalism charges against Matt Millen.
After Ohio State defensive end John Simon jumped (“elevated” in Mayockian) to knock down a pass near the line of scrimmage, Millen saw something else: “Just good awareness on the outside, to be able to have the wherewithal to get in that throwing lane, up higher, which is what he does.”
There are “throwing lanes”? Simon jumped to knock down a pass headed his way; that’s all. Why would he have chosen not to?
A flag for holding against Wisconsin center Travis Frederick — thrown by an official no more than five feet from the play — by Millen’s account, and based on videotape shot from a CIA drone, “Didn’t look like holding to me.” Of course, it didn’t; from there it didn’t even look like Wisconsin.
And after a short touchdown pass to Wisconsin’s Jacob Pedersen, who sprinted into the end zone, cut two steps to his right, turned and caught the pass, Millen three times declared was the result of Pedersen “leveraging the coverage.”
Play-by-play man Joe Tessitore repeatedly claimed the reason anyone should be interested in this game is to see if Wisconsin running back Montee Ball broke a TD record — “potentially.” With the game headed to overtime, Tessitore said,“What a story on a day when everyone came here to see Montee Ball potentially break the record.”
Not that I conducted a survey, but if Ball hadn’t been playing, I’m guessing that a few hundred of the 80,000 would have shown up for Ohio State versus Wisconsin anyway.
On Fox, all day and night, the crawl provided redundant, screen-shrinking, distracting but essential info, including the number of passes caught and yardage gained by Colorado’s tight end in a 38-3 loss to Washington. It’s all on a need-to-know basis!
On CBS’s pregame show for the Mississippi-LSU game, Spencer Tillman’s graphic-aided “keys” to an LSU win included, “Keep penalty count low.”
Good grief!
On SNY, the Big East Network’s sideline man, Paul Carcaterra, had an early fourth-quarter report from the Rutgers-Cincinnati game noted that Cincy, down 7-0, needs to stop Rutgers’ running game. He then added, “The Bearcats want to force Rutgers into passing situations.”
Nurse!
And of Rutgers nose tackle Scott Vallone, analyst David Diaz-Infante said, “He has the ability to play at the next level.” Gee, what level comes after college? Oh, pro football!
We’ll leave the rest to reader Mike Caputo of Nashville, Tenn., who, while watching ABC/ESPN’s Stanford-Oregon game on Saturday night, was confused: “Why does Oregon’s defense get to play ‘downhill’?”
Who says Mike is nasty?
The funniest bit of the week was provided by — who else? — that comic genius of the airwaves, Mike Francesa.
On Friday, a caller slipped the screen long enough to ask Francesa why he’s so “rude” and “nasty” to callers.
Francesa was shocked. He had no idea what the fellow was getting at. He claimed that he invites and allows dissenting opinions, that he’s never impolite, that he enjoys the give and take, and that his show is predicated on mutual respect.
Seriously.
* Florida State — school colors garnet and gold — Saturday was unable to wear its black uniforms on ESPN because the home team, Maryland — school colors red and white — was wearing its black uniforms (with yellow numerals).
Yep, football and basketball coaches agree: Recruits love the black uniforms, especially those who would select a college based on uniform colors.
* CBS’s Dan Fouts, early in the Jets-Rams game, noted, “There are a lot of empty seats.” No way he’ll ever work a Yankees home game.
Also remarkable was that CBS was able to get through the Jets-Rams game without a sideline reporter. The poor head coaches had no one with whom to discuss “halftime adjustments.”
Considering the Rams had two totally uncovered receivers, side-by-side in the end zone, when one, Brandon Gibson, caught a pass to make it 6-0, wasn’t such an event worth a CBS tape to show how or why? Apparently not.
Just to remind us that it has a strong sense of what football’s all about, Fox yesterday showed Saints tight end Jimmy Graham’s excessive, post-touchdown catch celebration of himself in an isolated, super slo-mo close-up. Fox later showed a Saints two-man excessive post-interception celebration in a slo-mo close-up — but that play was penalized.