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I'm going to Buster Olney it up and just link a few stories that I don't have the energy to lay into. Setting a bad precedent? Absolutely. But: easier.
Here's a little ditty entitled "Attitude Can't Just Be a Platitude for Sox," by legendary comic actor Dave van Dyck (The Dave van Dyck Show, Diagnosis: Murder.) The thesis is that what the 2007 Chicago White Sox lacked was not "hitting" or "pitching" or any of those other pesky "tangibles," but rather: a certain je ne sais quoi.
It has been called "swagger" and "a chip on your shoulder," a sort of no-respect, us-against-the-world motivational mentality.
Of course, [Paul] Konerko was around when the White Sox had that intangible benefit of swagger. And he was there when it vanished, perhaps through complacency caused by lack of competition, which led to losing and a lack of confidence.
For those of you keeping your own Intangible Scorecard at home, that was:
Lack of competition ----> Complacency ----> Vanishing of Intangible Benefit of Swagger ----> Losing ----> Lack of Confidence.
Here's another flow chart: Team ERA of 3.61 in 2005 ----> Team ERA of 4.61 in 2006 ----> Team ERA of 4.77 in 2007 ----> Worse Team in 2007 Than in 2005
"The younger guys are hungry, and that adds energy," [Buehrle] said. "And it takes some of the older guys who have been around here to refocus and get that little edge back, knowing that it's more than going out and putting up numbers, that you have to have a purpose on how you're doing it. We have to try to get back to that."
It might be more than going out and putting up numbers. But I would highly recommend: going out and putting up numbers, as like a starting point.
The question is whether swagger comes naturally or takes some team meetings for everyone to believe they should have it.
That's the question? Not: "How do we improve our AL-low .318 team OBP?"
Next up, we have this useless article about how Tom Brady really isn't that good at football, and how Johnny Unitas was better. Take it away, Plaschke.
The first thing you notice about Tom Brady is, well, nothing.
Really? I notice that he is the world's most handsome man. I might also notice his league MVP award, his 3 Super Bowl rings, his 2 Super Bowl MVPs, or the fact that his smoldering eyes and dimpled chin have forced me to take a long hard look at my own sexuality and conclude in like 5 seconds that although I love Mrs. Tremendous with all my heart, I would trade her and our unborn child and everything I own to kiss Tom Brady on the mouth for fifteen seconds, because then I would know what it feels like to melt into perfection.
He doesn't have a nick on his face because today's referees won't allow it.
Also, his offensive line is quite good.
He doesn't have a growl to his voice because today's huddles don't require it.
I just looked at the HTML coding for this sentence, and it reads like this:
{PlaschkeStyle ="nonsense-level: total; meaning: none; point? no; faux-poetry: yes; garbage garbage garbage"}He doesn't have a growl to his voice because today's huddles don't require it.{/Plaschke}
He doesn't have fire in his eyes because today's teams don't need it.
What claptrap. Ugh. You've killed the mood. I don't even want to kiss Brady on the mouth anymore. You ruined it.
Tom Brady is fantastic, but he's formula. He's a champion, but he's a creation. And to anoint him as the best quarterback ever would be to forget that his position was invented, inspired and made famous by those who were neither.
He's a creation who had 50 TD passes this year. He completed 26 of 28 passes in a playoff game. He has led game-winning scoring drives late in the 4th quarter of like 9 Super Bowls. He is 14-2 in the postseason. So, yes, he is a creation...of Football Jesus.
If Brady leads the New England Patriots to a Super Bowl win over the New York Giants next Sunday, everyone will celebrate his four world championships.
They will forget that Otto Graham won seven league championships.
Graham was an incredible athlete and a great winner. But when he played, there were like 12 teams and the average LB was 4'8", 120 and played his college ball at Yale. It's a different game. There are now 32 teams, and the average placekicker can curl 900 lbs. Players sprinkle steroids into their protein shakes, which they pour over bowls of steroids. Free agency, scouting, PhD.-level offensive and defensive coordination schemes, illegal videotaping of other teams' signals...it's a very different game. A harder-to-succeed-in game.
Everyone will marvel at Brady's 15-2 postseason record.
They will forget that Bart Starr was 9-1 in the postseason with a record 104.8 passer rating.
I like that he italicizes 9-1, as if (a) Brady didn't start his postseason career 10-0, and (b) 9-1 is so much more impressive than a theoretical 15-2.
Everyone will wax about how, in two Super Bowls, Brady led his team on late fourth-quarter game-winning field-goal drives.
They will forget that, in one of his four Super Bowl championships, Joe Montana drove his San Francisco team 92 yards for a last-second, game-winning touchdown.
No one will forget that. It's like the most famous thing that has ever happened in football history. Also, Montana needed a TD. Brady did not. Apples and oranges. Or, apples and different-but-equally-delicious apples.
Everyone will applaud Brady for his tough defender's mentality.
They will forget that Slingin' Sammy Baugh actually played defense, picking off 31 passes in his career, which is more than he threw in his last three seasons combined.
Different game, man. You really can't penalize Brady for not playing both ways, a thing that has not happened in decades. And speaking of Brady playing both ways, I would like to kiss him on the mouth.
Yeah, everyone will forget Johnny Unitas.
No, we won't. Swear.
[Unitas] was football's Babe Ruth, and Bart Starr was its Lou Gehrig, and Sammy Baugh was its Ty Cobb, and Joe Montana was its Joe DiMaggio.
Dan Fouts was its George Sisler. Rich Gannon was its Paul Molitor. Rob Johnson was its George Kendrick. Jim Zorn was its Mark Loretta. Al Toon was its Wil Cordero. Marc Edwards was its La Marr Hoyt. Joe DeLamielleure was its Rick Rhoden. And, most obviously of all, Billy Joe DuPree was its Kevin Tapani. That's just a no-brainer.
Tom Brady is football's, well, um, Alex Rodriguez.
...right. He's the best player in the game. Except that Alex Rodriguez, as boneheads like you are fond of pointing out, has never won a championship. So defend this statement, please.
"I hear all these people talking about Tom Brady and I just sort of smirk," said John Unitas Jr., the late quarterback's son. "It's an entirely different game. I'm biased, but what my father did, you can't compare it to anything today."
Tell that to Plaschke. He's devoting an entire column to doing just that.
While Brady is famous for his "decision making," many of those decisions have actually been made for him by his offensive coordinators.
The Patriots' game plan is more homework than instinct, more science than scrabble.
Late in the season finale against the Giants, Brady threw deep to Moss on second down, underthrew him, and Moss dropped the ball. On the next play, 3rd and long, with the Pats losing, their perfect regular season in jeopardy, they ran a play designed to check down to Welker to try to get the first. But Brady, in the 0.8 seconds a QB has to make a decision, saw that the Giants had not rotated safety help over to Moss (perhaps expecting the check-down?), meaning Moss would be single-covered by a CB. So Brady said, calmly, handsomely, to himself: "Fuck this noise," and uncorked a 60-yard pass that dropped into Moss's hands like a day-old helium balloon. Two records fell, the Pats went ahead for good, and all was right with the world.
Please don't say that Tom Brady -- or any modern QB -- doesn't employ "instinct." That's all they have out there, really. Watch how the man preternaturally senses and avoids blind-side pass rushes, and then write Whitman-style poetry about his instinct. Because that's the only logical response to how good his instincts are.
Here's my favorite part:
Brady is playing in an era when the following scenario would never happen:
Playing in overtime for the league championship, having driven his team to his opponent's eight-yard line, a quarterback decides to pass.
That was Unitas, 50 years ago. His Colts were in position to kick a field goal to beat the Giants for the title. Yet he saw a hole in the defense and threw a seven-yard pass to Jim Mutscheller to set up Alan Ameche's one-yard touchdown run.
This is incredibly dumb. Kick the field goal. It's overtime. (Unless NFL rules were different back then and it wasn't sudden-death. Anyone weigh in on this?)
I said I was just going to sample some articles to save time and energy, and now here we are, like two hours later. Oh well. Here's one more, about a man you might have heard of, Eric Walker, who thinks steroids don't really help people that much.
“If power were up, we’d see it in the statistics,” Walker said. “But the boost just isn’t there.” [...]
Apparently, he hasn't noted the extreme end-of-the-bell-curve-probability rise in 50- and 60-HR seasons since the "Steroid Era" began. Smaller parks, maybe. Expansion, maybe. Steroids probably helped, too, though, considering McGwire, Sosa, and a bunch of other Congressionally-invited dudes are on that 50+ list.
Regarding Bonds, for example, they note that, yes, his peak home run rates came at 36 through 39 years old, when most players are in decline. Then again, another slugger three decades before enjoyed almost the same late-30s surge: a fellow named Hank Aaron.
That doesn't seem like a huge "surge." (Though he did play in fewer games at 37-40 than in the previous years, so his HR/AB rate was higher.)
“I’m tired of people saying, ‘This is what happened because I see more home runs,’ ” Walker said. “If you disagree with me, deconstruct the argument; tell me where it’s wrong. If you can, more power to you.”
The argument has already been "deconstructed" [sic], at least w/r/t Bonds. It's here, and it's telling. Basically, it sets the odds of a 37 year-old hitting 73 HR at one in 53 million. That season was so many standard deviations from the mean, the author had to like go searching for a chart that would even calculate it.
And before any of you make fun of me for wanting to make out with Tom Brady...I got nothing. Go ahead. I want to make out with Tom Brady. Do your worst.
I'm pretty sure it was the first game in NFL history that required sudden-death (regular season games just ended in a tie with no OT, I believe).
As far as throwing the ball from the 8 in sudden death, that does seem like pretty horrible strategy, especially when you consider that was before the goal posts were moved to the back of the end zone. I suppose one could argue that place kicking was so brutal back then (pre-soccer style of course) that a field goal from any distance was a risk. (Come to think of it, maybe the 8 was even too close to kick because of the goal post thing.) Also, their kicker Steve Myhra was just 4 of 10 in FGs that year according to Pro Football Reference.
Thanks, Vinnie. Although, I'm pretty sure I could hit a 15-yard FG more than 40% of the time.
before Pete Gogolak popularized soccer-style field goal kicking in the 1960s (that is to say, well after Unitas' and the Colts' victory over the Giants in the 1958 NFL Championship Game, known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played"), field goal kicking was much more of a crapshoot than it is today, to the extent that successfully executing a field goal try from the 8 yard line (or even from the 1 yard line) wasn't really the given that it would be today. (As an illustration, per Wikipedia, Lou Groza, NFL Hall of Famer and namesake of the NCAA's annual award for the best DI-A kicker, made just 58% of his kicks, well below what even an average kicker accomplishes today.)
Additionally, while I can't find any specific information on point, we're talking about a game that was played on natural grass in New York in the winter. Heck, even today field goals at Giants Stadium on FieldTurf can be an adventure. One article I've read says the game featured numerous turnovers and missed field goals. I'm guessing weather probably would've added to the difficulty of a game-winning field goal attempt.
Those things being the case, I'd imagine that continuing to drive for a touchdown was netiher as "incredibly dumb" as you might have thought, nor as heroic as Plaschke portrays it as being.
I will officially back off from the position that going for it was dumb because they should've kicked, though I still think a 15-yarder was makable. However, as Joshua notes, Unitas maybe shouldn't be given a ton of credit for passing, since they kind of had to try to score a TD, and who knows what defensive alignment he was facing (10 in the box?).
Either way, I am definitely sure that I could have been the league's best FG kicker in the 1950s. Maybe even a good RB.
So I will make fun of this Don Banks article about the upcoming AFC Championship game between the New England Perfects and the San Jose Somethings. This falls under the umbrella statement: "Every time a critic tells you how Team X could beat Team Y in a 'Keys to the Game' type of deal, shit gets stupid."
[H]ere are five things the Chargers need to pull one of biggest upsets ever:
1. LaDainian Tomlinson must be a difference-maker.
The #1 offensive weapon the Chargers have must have a good game. That seems crazy to me, but keep going. 2. A surprising contribution from an unsung player.
He's talking about Billy Volek, if Rivers can't play. So, so far we have:
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Keep those turnovers coming.
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Chargers force turnovers. 4. Harrison and Seau play more like old Patriots rather than ex-Chargers.
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Chargers force turnovers. 4. Some members of Patriots' defense do not play well. 5. History to repeat itself.
He's talking about Week 4 of the 2005 regular season, when the Bolts beat the Pats and broke their streak of home wins. So, to conclude, here are the things the Chargers need, in order to win the game:
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Chargers force turnovers. 4. Patriots' defense does not play well. 5. Chargers [make? cause?] history [to] repeat[s] itself.
or
5. Chargers win game, thereby winning game.
Who needed this article to be written? This article is a waste of time. This article is the "liberal use of the 'food metaphors' label" label of "Keys to the Game"-style articles.
Lest You Turn To Slate To Be Your One-Stop Shop For Sports Analysis
It turns out they're not perfect. Robert Weintraub suggests some ways to defeat the Patriots:
Eliminate mistakes: This Patriots dynasty is reminiscent of the 1996-2000 Yankees. Like those Yankees, the Patriots lack a bunch of guys with gaudy numbers...
Tom Brady: 12 games, 41 TD, 5 INT, 70.2% of passes completed, 308 yards per game, QB rating of 123.4 Randy Moss: 12 games, 17 TD, 75 receptions, 94.1 yards per game
Plus Wes Welker is third in the NFL with 84 receptions. If you look up gaudy in the dictionary, you'll find an animated GIF of Robert Weintraub shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head sadly, with the caption "I don't know what this word means."
These are motherfucking record-setting paces, Rob. Graphics comparing these guys to Manning and Rice show up every game they play.
There’s another reason for the Patriots to win them all, one that will loom larger with each passing Sunday. That one has conspiracy types beginning to look under every rock to see if the fix could possibly be in.
Some members of the Baltimore Ravens think so. Hard to fault them after a bizarre series of plays turned what looked like certain victory into defeat and left them fuming at both the calls and the attitude of the referees.
"Hard to fault them?" Hard to fault them. Really. It's hard to fault them for thinking that the fix was in, that the refs got together and decided: "Listen. The NFL wants the Pats to win. And since we are a collection of fatuous corrupt toadies who deny our own free will and responsibility, and seeing as we have no moral center or ethical compass by which we navigate, we will do anything in our power to ensure a safe passage for New England."
Really.
Attention, fucking morons:
The Ravens' coach called the time out.
The Ravens' coach. Not the Patriots' coach. The Ravens' coach.
There is nothing about the action of the referee that could in any way, shape, or form, insinuate that there was a pro-Patriots bias. Because the Ravens' coach called the time-out, and it was granted to him. Because that's how fucking football works.
If the Ravens' coach had called a time-out and it had not been granted to him, and the Patriots had scored a touchdown, then you could jump up and down and put on tinfoil hats and yell about the NFL conspiracy to help New England all you wanted. But that did not happen. What did happen was: a Ravens' coach asked for a time-out and it was granted to him.
Point the second: the penalty call on the next play was "false start." And indeed, if you understand football and watched the play, the Patriots' guard was guilty of a false start. This play, as all adults who watch football know, nullifies the play. There is no play. It is a "no-play" type scenario. The Patriots are penalized 5 yards.
Point the third: on the second 4th-down conversion of the drive, Ben Watson was pretty obviously held. (So was Jabar Gaffney, coming across the middle.) He was held. Flags came in from two different officials. That's how obvious the holding was. He was being held, dummies.
Was this sequence of plays unusual? Yes. Was it the result of a corrupt officiating crew who were paid off with large amounts of cash in white envelopes by guys who look like The Judge from The Natural? You decide!!!!!! (No, turdfaces, it was not.)
“It’s hard to go out there and play the Patriots and the refs at the same time,” cornerback Chris McAlister said. “They put the crown on top of them. They want them to win. They won.”
Grow up, man. Seriously. On the 2-yard-short Hail Mary at the end of the game -- a play which is also somehow being used in these bouillabaisse-of-stupidity articles as evidence of nefarious doings, despite the fact that it was just, like, a football play -- Asante Samuel was literally grabbed by the shoulders and forced to the ground by a Raven receiver. A call should have been made, and was not. It's just football, people.
In a playoff game against the Broncos in January of 2006, Champ Bailey picked off Tom Brady in the Denver end zone, ran it back 100 yards, and just as he crossed the goal line (and started dogging it) he was stripped from behind by Ben Watson. (This led to one of my favorite athlete quotes ever, by Bailey: "It was a great play by me.") The ball looked like it went through the end zone for a touchback, but it was ruled on the field that it went out of bounds, and the Broncos kept the ball and scored. Every thinking Patriots fan in the world bit his/her tongue about this, because we knew that without the Tuck Rule Game a few years earlier there's no Rams-Pats Super Bowl. This stuff evens out. It's sports.
Whining about conspiracies and refs who love the other guy and hate you is something you get yelled at by your dad for doing when you're in little league. Writing articles for mainstream media portals and lending credence to it -- in any way -- is so painfully, stultifyingly dumb it makes my brainpan hurt.
Yes, yes, yes, I fucking know that technically an assistant coach isn't supposed to be allowed to call a timeout. I watched the same SportsCenter/NFL Live shows you all did. Tell me, though, people, did any of you know that was a rule before this game? (Please don't email me if you did.) And does anyone in the fucking universe really think that the ref did something wrong by granting the time out? And does one solitary human being on god's goddamned green goddamned earth think that if the time out had not been granted and the Pats had scored a touchdown that one single Ravens fan in the fucking universe would have said, "No no -- that's fair. Assistant coaches are not allowed to call time outs. That's the right call, there, not to grant that time out. Good work, refs." No, friends, no. They would have screamed so hard and for so long their throats would have shredded into a bloody pulpy mess.
And to the small number of wrong-brained people who have emailed me and pointed out that Bill Belichick was caught cheating earlier this year -- as if that is in some way indicative of a larger NFL-wide conspiracy involving referees in the Baltimore Ravens game -- I say to you: yes, he was. Then he was punished, and then the Pats won 12 straight games with the whole fucking NFL breathing down his neck looking for anything out of the ordinary.
You can hate the Patriots because they're good and they beat everybody and Belichick is a dick and Tom Brady is better looking than you are. But -- and listen to me very carefully here -- you cannot hate them because there is a conspiracy to help them win. Because that belief is childish and mentally deficient and wrong and stupid and reductive and you are an idiot.
In the last 200 years, California has borne or inspired many wonderful poets and other masters of the English language. Philip Levine hailed from Fresno, I believe. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and a lot of other Beats spent their formative writing years upstate. Let's not forget Charles Bukowski! Or Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel! Nor should we ignore the prose-poetry of Salinas, CA's own John Steinbeck, or any other of a thousand brilliant wordsmiths whose presence in our great state reminds us of the beauty and power of language.
With a couple of minutes left in Schottenheimer's Last Stand, high in the chilly winds and darkening skies, the scoreboard at Qualcomm Stadium showed an old video of Marty Schottenheimer screaming some inspiration.
Right away, Plaschke starts dropping some poetry o'er our ears and hearts. O Chilly winds! O Darkening Skies! O Scoreboard!
Down below, with wide eyes and blank face, the real Marty was speechless.
Up above, he was wildly gesturing in a single direction.
Down below, the real Marty wandered around as if lost.
Up above, he bowed his head and stuck out his chest.
Down below, the real Marty cringed.
In the case of People of America v. Plaschke, LA Times, et. al., I submit to the court People's Exhibit 61. If I may briefly quote from said exhibit...
Around the hotel table sat Dodgers executives discussing trades.
In the corner sat the old scout watching television.
Around the hotel table they were talking about dumping Milton Bradley and wondering whom they should demand from the Oakland A's in return.
In the corner sat the old scout who has never worked with radar gun, computer or even stopwatch.
Around the hotel room table, someone mentioned an unknown double-A outfielder named Andre Ethier.
In the corner, the old scout jumped.
Does anything seem familiar, here, your honor? Let me distill these two articles:
August 2006:
Around the hotel...
In the corner...
Around the hotel table...
In the corner...
Around the hotel room table...
In the corner...
Aaaaaaand...January, 2007:
Down below...
Up above...
Down below...
Up above...
Down below...
It was a tough code, Plaschke's writing style, but I think I've broken it:
A = (physical location) B = (different physical location)
A B A B A B A B
With the San Diego Chargers trying to hold off the New England Patriots in the final moments of the AFC divisional playoff game Sunday, the fans wildly cheered the televised Marty.
When the Chargers eventually blew a lead and lost, 24-21, on a last-minute field goal, those same fans quietly and pitifully stared at the real one.
Call me crazy, but I don't think all 68,000 fans were staring at Marty. Maybe some of them were staring at one of the WR who dropped key passes. Or perhaps they were glaring at Marlon McCree, who, had he merely knocked the ball down, or merely fallen down, or merely run out of bounds, or merely not allowed a 5'2" 50 year-old man to strip the ball from his arms, would have probably won the game for the Bolts. Or mayhap they were staring at Eric Parker, who muffed the punt, or Vincent Jackson, who didn't drag his feet, or Drayton Florence, who headbutted Daniel Graham and gave the Pats a free first down. Or whichever dunderhead got flagged for the dead-ball penalty that forced the Chargers to kick off from their own 15. I mean, you could argue that some of these mistakes were the result of poor coaching, but if this is a badly coached team, how did they have an NFL-low like 15 turnovers this season? I mean, I really don't think that everyone in the entire stadium was staring at, and blaming, Marty.
What's that? They were all staring at and blaming Marty? All this shit was his fault? Okay. You're the poet.
He had botched a fourth-down call, bungled two timeout calls and stood idly on the cold grass while watching his team disintegrate into serial stupidity that led to the surrendering of 11 points in the final five minutes.
He stood idly by. Perhaps he should have suited up? The CBS dudes did show that funny picture of him playing for the Boston Patriots back in the day...
Seriously, what should he have done? The timeouts were dumb, and the 4th-and-11 was inexplicable -- but that was in the first quarter. What should he have done?
"I don't know if I can put it into words," said Charger LaDainian Tomlinson quietly.
I can. Three words.
January. Marty. Again.
This seems shortsighted.
Twenty-one years, 18 playoff games, and just five playoff victories.
Twenty-one years, 200 overall victories and zero Super Bowl appearances.
Schottenheimer left in front of one player, tackle Shane Olivea, who was so distraught he tore off his jersey and shoulder pads and attempted to throw the entire contraption 10 feet high into the stands.
Schottenheimer also left in front of a file of Chargers cheerleaders who were loudly weeping and complaining, "This ruins our trip to Miami!" It's their Marty, and they'll cry if they want to.
I'm not sure what to make of this. Metaphor? Poetic license? Or is Plaschke actually claiming that he heard this, or that this happened? The cheerleaders were weeping? Pro football cherleaders? And they were complaining, and what they were saying was: "This ruins our trip to Miami?" When they wouldn't even have been going for three weeks -- assuming they won their next game?
I really don't understand what is happening at this point in the poem. I need Helen Vendler.
"Right now," said Schottenheimer, "the only thing I'm interested in is making sure that this group of young men in that locker room and that coach staff understand that we — while it didn't go anywhere in the playoffs — had a damn good football season."
Once again, he's Marty Shot-Himself-in-the-Foot-Heimer.
This is a poetic device called: the ham-fisted joke. Plaschke is a modern master.
Because, in today's NFL climate, if you have your conference's best record and are eliminated in your first game of the playoffs, you might as well be reprobates, or the Raiders.
This is sort of true -- because in 2000, the Raiders were the #1 seed and lost at home to the Ravens. The Steelers have been the #1 seed twice in the last few years and lost at home. The #1 seeded Eagles lost to the Panthers in 2002. The Colts lost to the 6-seed Steelers last year. In fact, I believe that this is the 8th out of the last 10 years that the team with the best record in football will not win the Superbowl (the 14-2 Pats of 2003 and the 12-4 Bucs, who tied for best record, being the exceptions.)
The point being, the NFL is insane, and everybody can beat everybody else. Especially Billy Belichick, who is 5-1 against #1 seeds in the playoffs. And 13-2 overall in the playoffs. If you blame Marty, blame Dungy and Reid and Cowher and every other good coach.
"We knew going into it what we were playing for," said Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi.
But did the Chargers? Under Schottenheimer's leadership, it was difficult to tell, beginning with a fourth-and-11 play from the Patriots' 30-yard line at the end of the first quarter.
This being a scoreless game, wouldn't it be time for Pro Bowl kicker Nate Kaeding to try a 47-yard field goal?
Instead, Schottenheimer called for a Philip Rivers pass that became a sack that gave the ball to the Patriots, who then drove and kicked their field goal.
Dumb decision. Dumb dumb dumb.
Schottenheimer, renowned for being too conservative in big games, was clearly and quickly trying to change his reputation. It cost his team the lead and momentum and who knows what else?
What else could it have cost them?
"The intention was to be very aggressive," he admitted.
His players took him literally, and it cost them more.
They should have taken him figuratively? They should not actually have been aggressive, but rather...what?
In the third quarter, Eric Parker muffed a punt, then attempted to run with the loose ball, fumbling it again and giving it to the Patriots.
In the ensuing drive, the Chargers defense pushed the Patriots out of field-goal range with a third-down sack, but after the play, cornerback Drayton Florence was flagged for the needs-his-head-examined act of head-butting.
The penalty moved the Patriots right back into field-goal range, from where Stephen Gostkowski connected to close the gap to 14-13.
All of this is Marty Schottenheimer's fault.
"How do you go 14-2 and fire the coach?" asked defensive end Luis Castillo. "The responsibility for this is all on the players."
Those players kept acting more irresponsible when safety Marion McCree seemed to have the game in his hands after grabbing Tom Brady's pass on fourth down with 6:25 remaining.
But instead of batting the ball down because it was fourth down, or instead of simply falling down, McCree tried to run.
"I thought I could score," he said.
From the middle of the field deep in Chargers territory?
That is so dumb of you, Marty Schottenheimer! I mean, Marlon McCree!
Troy Brown stripped the ball --
-- from Marty Schottenheimer's arms, I assume? --
-- the Patriots regained possession, and five plays later scored a touchdown and the tying, two-point conversion.
Despite replays clearly indicating it was a good call, Schottenheimer cost himself a timeout with a challenge, then called another timeout on the ensuing drive although the players had just been standing around for several minutes while an injured Patriot was examined.
"I don't think they were material to the outcome," said Schottenheimer of the timeouts.
This is dumb. Of course they were. But was Schottenheimer to blame? Don't teams have a guy in the replay booth who watch the plays and radio down to the head coach about whether or not he should throw the flag? Maybe the Bolts do not, or maybe Marty made this call on his own, but I haven't heard anyone definitively say that Marty made that call himself. (If anyone has such evidence, email me, please.)
Oh yeah? Well, if the Chargers had two timeouts, the NFL's most powerful fourth-quarter home offense would have had time to give Kaeding better than a 54-yard field goal attempt at the end of the game.
Ahhhh, yes. The fallacy of the pre-determined outcome.
If the Chargers had two TO left, the Pats might have played their drive differently, too. They might have gone for it on 3rd and 5 from the 15, and perhaps they would have made it, and run down the clock even further. The play calls would have been different on both sides. The whole last 7 minutes might have unfolded differently. Obviously, the Bolts would rather have had TO than not, but to say that the game would have unfolded exactly the same way...it's just plain silly.
"Hopefully he'll be back," said Charger Shawne Merriman of his head coach, shrugging. "If not, well, it's a business."
A business that Marty Schottenheimer again built into a giddy fall power before running into the cold January ground.
O Giddy Fall Power! O Cold Ground! O Plaschke, my Plaschke!
I believe it was Plato, or was it Arquimedez, who said: "Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand." Perhaps that is the problem here. Plaschke is so brilliant he is just channeling God, and even if he himself is just babbling nonsense, we must trust that he is great and wise.
A few thoughts from the Mind Grapes of our readers:
Re: Marty throwing the flag himself or some other coach doing it, the aptly-named reader Read writes:
...That's one of the big (and as this incident showed, maybe fair) criticisms of Schottenheimer- he doesn't even wear a [profanity edited -- ed.] headset. Maybe if he had had a headset on, he would've heard someone shouting in his ear "DON'T THROW THE [more profanity edited; perhaps Read is a Bolts fan? --ed.] FLAG." If he wasn't the one that actually made that call then, heck, maybe it is his fault anyways for putting a complete idiot in charge of challenges.
Possibly. Although, consider this report from James:
I was watching Patriots 5th quarter after the game on one of those local channels, and one of the guys reporting said something to the effect of:
"It was Rivers' decision to throw that flag. He was looking up at the replay board, and he ran over to Schottenheimer and started yelling at him and pointing to the board, and Schottenheimer got out the flag and threw it, trusting his quarterback."
Now, this wasn't shown on TV, so I don't have any proof that it happened, but it seems unlikely that this guy, who was at the game, would make it up.
Interesting.
In any case, many of you have already written in to point out that Martin Q. Football, alias "Martyball," doesn't wear a headset -- I did see him with a good ol' Motorola around his neck at least a few times in the game, and I have to believe that before throwing that flag he either got some bad advice from a player, or else from a coach up in the replay booth.
It should be noted, as we discussed during the game itself, that although Marty himself was not wearing a headset during most of the game, that weird piece of chocolate / cold sore below his lip was wearing a tiny headset of its own.
And for the first time, I'm wondering if the whole "been there, done that" syndrome has sunk in. More than any other sport, football teams rely on emotion over anything else.
Not only are the Cardinals back at home, not only have they been handed a second life, but out of every sport, baseball hinges on emotion and momentum more than anything else.
I guess the distinction is that football teams rely on emotion more than baseball teams, but the sport of baseball hinges more on emotion (and momentum, of course) than the sport of football.
Hockey and basketball are both played by clockwork automatons.
Report: Putin pockets Patriots owner's Super Bowl ring
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin walked off with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring, but was it a generous gift or a very expensive international misunderstanding?
Following a meeting of American business executives and Putin at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg on Saturday, Kraft showed the ring to Putin -- who tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, according to Russian news reports.
