Despite all my bitching about the awful NFL options on Bay Area TV, there have been some decent games on today. I taped the 49ers@Washington game from 10-1, and when I got up at 1:15 I turned on the TV, just in time to see SD lose at Philly. It was on CBS, who was showing the late game, but apparently when their telecast time began at 1, they chose to show the end of an early game rather than the start of the late game.
Lucky me, the only team I sorta root for was on!
Unlucky me, since SD was down 20-17 with 2 minutes to go, and they promptly completed a pass on 3rd and 10 at about the Philly 40. The WR dodged the CB, broke another tackle, ran it down to the 19... and got stripped like the proverbial bitch by a single arm tackle. Eagles recovered, long and unnecessary replay confirmed it, and that was that.
Reading
the game wrapup now, it was even worse than that. SD's superstar running back was completely shut down, so I guess Philly was blitzing and selling out against the run all afternoon. SD still should have won, since they were ahead 17-13 with 2:20 to play, when their OT-clenching field goal was blocked (that never happens in the NFL) and then returned 60 yards for a touchdown (which also never happens in the NFL).
The Chargers' coach gets a lot of shit for always folding up in the playoffs, but hey, at least he gets there in the first place. That being said, they were 12-4 last year and they're 3-4 this year, with all 3 wins by more than 20 points, and all 4 losses by 3 or less. So are they a great team whose coach keeps choking away close games? Or have they just gotten lucky three times, or what?
After that, the late game eventually came on, and it's NYG@Denver, despite the local TV listings still claiming that the Oakland game would be on. I considered watching it, but after watching football on tape all year, I just found the live version intolerable. The first quarter was nearly over by the time they switched away from the end of the SD@Philly game, and I witnessed a sequence of 3 actual plays in about a 15 minute stretch.
Seriously. They were in commercials, came back for a Denver FG, went to more commercials, came back for the kick off (which was a touchback), went to more commercials, came back and ran one play, at which point the first quarter ended and they went to... you guessed it... more commercials. I had time to cut up a huge bowl of salad ingredients (cucumber, zuchini, carrots, red onion, black olives, broccoli, tomatoes, red and green bell pepper), tear up a bunch of lettuce, throw in some of the ingredients, sprinkle it with shredded cheese, put on dressing, put away all of the remaining ingredients, clean up the kitchen and come back into the living room... and I hadn't missed a single play.
At that point I got sick of waiting and played the taped game, which was a highly-entertaining blowout. Lots of points, and since I didn't care who won, I liked it for the scoring. The
49ers lost 52-17 to the Redskins, and if you think that's bad, consider that it was 52-7 with 6 minutes to play. At that point the Redskins' defense was all backups, and the 49ers went 40 yards, kicked a FG, got the ball back with 2 minutes to go, and on a simple dive into the middle by a backup running back, a play simply meant to run the clock and get things over with, the RB bounced off the back of his line, scrambled to the left, found a seam, and miraculously ran 72 yards for a touchdown.
So when you look at that box score and see that the total yardage was 194 to 457, remember that 72 of the 49ers woeful 194 yards came as a complete fluke, on their last play, and that another 45 or so came on their second to last possession, against backup defenders. So yeah, they actually gained something like 85 yards during the 50 minutes that the Redskins were trying.
The funny thing was that the 49ers offense didn't look that bad. Their defense was completely non-existent, letting Washington move the ball at will, by ground or air, but on offense the 49ers tried... they were just helpless. Washington seemed to have about 15 guys on the field at all times, since they rushed at least six guys on every single play, frequently more like 7 or 8, and yet whenever the 49ers rookie QB survived long enough to throw it, his receivers were always tightly-covered. I would assume it was the QB's fault, but he was under seige by a blitz of Biblical proportions all afternoon, and whenever he threw it, he never had anyone open. It was reminiscent of those college games where Florida State or Miami or whoever plays someone like Duke, or Wake Forest, and you actually feel sorry for the completely helpless small school, since it seems like they're playing with about 3 fewer players.
The 49ers had so little time to throw that it seemed like every pass was either a quick slant or an out to a smothered receiver, or a long bomb, since that's the only way their QB could stay upright long enough to throw the ball more than 10 yards downfield. They never ran any sort of delayed crossing pattern, or screen, or hook route, since they literally never had the time, with the swarm of Redskin defenders around their line of scrimmage. Washington simply attacked with 2/3 of their defense on every play, and apparently none of the 49ers receivers are good enough to require double coverage. In short, Washington made it look ridiculously easy. The final score was not deceptive at all; if they'd played a doubleheader, game two would have been another 42-7 type score. It was as one-sided a football game as I've ever seen.
And when it ended, I had the end of the
GB@Minn game on the tape, and that was unexpectedly entertaining too. Both teams suck, but GB was supposed to be 1-4 this year. Minnesota was supposed to be a playoff team, but they lost their first two games in diastrous fashion, and now half their defense is under investigation for participating in some sort of
stripper/whore boat orgy. As you'd expect from such a group of dead men walking, GB leaped out to a 17-0 lead at the half, before deciding to show that they deserve their 1-4 record too, and doing nothing for 2 quarters, allowing Minnesota to score 20 straight points. At that point GB got a clue and tied the game with a field goal with 24 seconds left. At that point, just wanting the game to end so I could see some of the early highlights on the post game show, I asked aloud, to no one in particular, "Did anyone really want to see these godawful teams play overtime?"
The football gods must have heard my plea, since GB made only a minimal effort to tackle on the kickoff, and allowed the Minn return guy to bounce around and get to his own 35. GB then expertly-deployed the prevent defense, rushing no one and covering deep, which allowed Minnesota to throw a pair of short passes and gain 25 yards in 15 seconds.
Then, with 2 seconds left the Minn kicker nailed a 56 yard kick, his career long, and mercifully we were spared overtime. And there was great exultation amongst the Minnesota faithful. "Two and four! Two and four!" Yes, and when they finish the season at 5-11, their new coach can look back on this key victory and blame it for moving them from 4th to the 9th pick in the draft, causing them to just miss the college player they most wanted.
While typing this I've been taping the late Den@NYG game, so I can watch that and then the taped NFL highlights later. (It's sad, but you've got to tape even the highlight shows now, since Chris Berman just can not shut up with his impossibly-superficial analysis.)
Apparently there's baseball on later too, but my interest in the world series is non-existent, so I'll see the score later, at most. The paraphrased quote of the post season thus far came from Malaya, when I remarked that the White Sox were in the playoffs, and she asked, "Those aren't the Red Sox? There are two teams named after their sock color? What city are they from?" Yes, the other
other Chicago baseball team, the one no one cares about. Even in Chicago. I'm sure the FOX TV execs were just overjoyed when the Yankees and Red Sox exited the post season without much of a struggle, clearing the way for national indifference in the face of an Anaheim/Chicago ALCS, and resultant World Series. Chicago's up 1-0 in the series, leading to a scene where Chicago city officials gather in a room to ask each other, "So, do we have a parade if we win, or what? What if no one turns up, and it's just a bunch of Latino guys riding down empty streets in convertibles?"
If they win three more times I guess we'll find out, eh? It probably beats a Houston win though, since that victory parade would inevitably end in a jumble of twisted metal and exultation, when the
Streetcar Named Disaster plowed into the convertible holding the universally-reviled Roger Clemons and severed both his pitching arm and penis, simultaneously preventing him from winning any more games and giving birth to any more
K-named children.
