I only moved yesterday to take the diva lab Pauli outside for her walk. Otherwise, I didn’t move except to infuse myself with some food and liquids to keep me going through the epic doubleheader. This may very well have been the best day of NFL football I’ve witnessed in my life. Maybe it has something to do with the voices which came to me at the end of the Thunder-Sixers game. Maybe my time is near and the Big Dipper is being especially nice to me.
For starters, I loved Jimmy Buffet singing the anthem. I have no take on the microphone drop, but I thought he sang the anthem
very nicely.
There were so many huge plays on this day, but the one which will linger for me the most is when Rams coach Sean McVeigh fake punted down 13-0 in the first half on his side of the field. I thought it was the biggest play of the day minus the blown interference call and then the coin toss in overtime of Game 2. The Rams looked ready to be knocked out before halftime, but instead fed off that play and in reality I thought played the best football on both sides of the ball for the remainder of the game. Fitting that the game ended with a game winning 57 yard field goal in overtime to put the Rams in the Super Bowl. As far as the blown call which allowed the Rams to have that last game tying field goal — obviously the refs blew it. It was clearly pass interference. The NFL needs some tweaking to their replay rule as well as their overtime format.
In the nightcap it even got better. It was epic. Brady versus Mahomes on Mahomes’ home field and in the end it will go down as one of the greatest games or at least second halves I’ve been blessed enough to see. Add to the fact…Tony Romo in the booth was incredible in giving the audience insights to play calling and pre-snap sets which you would think should make him the obvious choice to be Andy Reid’s next defensive coordinator. He knew exactly what the Pats were going to do on most of the plays excluding the one fourth down play where Burkhardt got stuffed on fourth and one.
What a game! But the overtime format has to be changed. We ‘needed’ to see Mahomes with a chance to answer in overtime. As much as we treasure Tom Brady as a national icon…I at least wanted to see Mahomes with the ball and Andy Reid I’m to assume going for two if the Chiefs had scored.
Great, great, great games!
So we now have the Rams vs. the Patriots in Atlanta for another New England Super Bowl. This doesn’t grate on me like watching the Warriors repeat year after year simply because the Pats have never stacked their teams. What they’ve done over the years is ride the massive shoulders of the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time to continue the longest dynasty in the collective bargaining era. Plus, Belichik manages his roster year in and year out with more smarts and nuance than anyone else ever has in the history of sport. It is breathtaking to observe. If only our government were run as well as the Patriots. Trump couldn’t even run a USFL team, business, or a government as he has showed, but seeing the Patriots running the government might be interesting. Belichik would be tough on Putin. Brady would be the Golden Child Vice President in await while Gronk would be a Secretary of Defense who’d really kick Isis’s ass. Given what the GOP gave us in 2016–tell me how that wouldn’t be an upgrade.
CBS has the call in Atlanta. Tony Romo will have an encore performance. My wife loves Tony Romo. This will be the first Super Bowl without the Dallas Cowboys she might actually watch. It will be hard for that game to measure up to what we witnessed yesterday. Young Jared Goff who played like a seasoned veteran himself in the second half versus Tom Brady and his Pats.
How can you pick against Tommy Brady?