Tuesday's Reflections on the NFL - Sage Rosenfels is a Jackass

I am a fan of futility.

So, with that in mind, you would could only imagine my joy at Sage Rosenfels' 4th quarter debacle in last Sunday's game. A performance so amazingly poor, it HAS to be viewed as one of the worst in the NFL's history.

Going into Week 5 in the NFL with an 0-3 record is bad enough. In the Huston Texans case, it only got worse. The Saturday night before the game, starting QB Matt Schaub went into hospital with an intestinal infection and was deemed unable to play Sunday's game. Back-up Rosenfels was called upon to make his first start of the 2008 season.

With 4:45 left on the clock in the 4th quarter, the Texans had a 27-10 lead, seemingly insurmountable. Although, as a good friend of mine will most likely tell me, again, is that if anyone can make a 4th quarter comeback, it's Peyton Manning and the Colts, as they did in 2003 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

On that fateful day, the Buccaneers had a 35-14 lead, with just over 5 minutes remaining in the game. Manning, managed to take his team down the field, on 3 consecutive drives, after 2 successful onside kicks, and tie the game with a little over 30 seconds to play. The game went to overtime, in which the Colts managed to win the game on a sudden-death field goal. To make this particular comeback all the more improbable, was that the Bucs were the raining Super Bowl champions, and had the leagues number 1 ranked Defense.

In the case of the Bucs-Colts game, it was an amazing effort by Manning to amount the comeback. On Sunday, in the Texans-Colts game, it wasn't any Manning Magic that won the game, it was more like Rosenfels' Jack-Assery that lost it.

The Colts drove the field and scored a touchdown with 4:04 to play, making the score 27-17 Huston. An onside kick by Indianapolis was recovered by Huston, which meant all they had to do was run down the clock and finish the game, to earn their first victory of the season. Instead, on a 3rd & 8 play, with 3:50 left in the game, Rosenfels runs a naked bootleg and launches himself into the air to attempt to reach a first down. The logical play would be to slide, take some more time off the clock, punt the ball deep to pin the Colts in their own end, and force them to drive the length of the field to score. Clearly, though, logic is not something Rosenfels has ever learned. The ensuing play lead to a fumble recovery for a touchdown by the Colts, to trim the lead to 27-24.

Sage Rosenfels Goes For a Helicopter Ride

After the fumble recovery for TD, the Colts kicked the ball deep and the Texans again had the chance to run out the clock and finish the game, now with a slim 3 point lead. With just 2:45 left, Rosenfels rolls out of the pocket again, this time to pass. While looking downfield, he neglects his backside completely, and loses another fumble, this time, it's recovered on the 20 yard line by the Colts D. Manning takes over again and throws for a touchdown, which proves to be the game winner in a 31-27 Colts victory.

Of all the jackass plays in NFL history, Rosenfels' Helicopter fumble, has to rank among the top 10. But it got me to researching some of the other plays that were questionable to the mental state of several NFLers.

Here are some of the best:





September 15, 2008. Eagles vs. Cowboys. DeSean Jackson thinks he's in the endzone but drops the ball on the 1-yard line, fumbling the ball. Luckily, no one recovers the ball, and the Eagles score 1 play later.






January 6, 2007. Cowboys vs. Seahawks NFC Playoffs. Tony Romo accepts a snap to hold for the a potential game-winning field goal with 1:19 left to play, but fumbles the ball. Seahawks hold on to win 21-20.







December 21, 2003. Saints vs. Jaguars. With a chance to capture a playoff spot, the Saints needed a last second touchdown to tie the game and send it to overtime. A win would have clinched a place in the NFC playoffs. With :07 seconds on the clock, the Saints manage the unthinkable with a 75-yard hook & ladder TD. All Carney has to do is hit the extra point to go to overtime. He misses, losing the game, and eliminating the Saints from the post-season.



January 4, 2004. Seahawks vs. Packers NFC Playoffs. In overtime, QB Matt Hasselback takes the field for the coin toss. He wins the toss and famously says "We want the ball, and we're gonna score". He then throws an interception to Al Harris, which is returned for a touchdown, ending the game.

I Fear John Might be Too Old for the Job - I don't mean McCain, I'm talkin' about Madden

In a year where many of our neighbours south of the border are concerned with the age of their possible next President, I’m more concerned about the aging Sunday Night Football commentator.


Since the beginning of the 2008 NFL season, there has been a noticeable slippery slide into old age dementia by the world’s foremost expert on foot fungus remedies.


In the first few weeks of the season, Madden has been ripe with his pointless, less than helpful idiocies to each Sunday nights game, and his exceedingly angering tidbits “I don’t know why he didn’t just get that first down” (hard to do while being tackled).

In 4 games he has done his best not only to annoy viewers, but to misname players, as well as spend a large part of a game talking about the dinner he ate the night before. In the season opener between Chicago and Indianapolis he referred to Colts’ Pro Bowl Tight End Dallas Clark, as Dallas Ward. I know this seems like a minor slip of the tongue, but to mistake the name of an all-star with the name of (as best as I can figure) the 1948 coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, is quite an error.

He also spent the better part of the 1st quarter of the Eagles/Bears game discussing the meal that Donovan McNabb’s mother had made for them the night before. Now this description went on for quite some time and was complete with video footage of the “five different types of potatoes” she had made. The entire time there was a penetrating voice from inside my head screaming “GET BACK TO THE GAME!!!” We’ve all heard the numerous conversations he’s had about the Turducken, but those were special circumstances, it was Thanksgiving, so I’ll have some leeway for the holidays.


Frank Caliendo's John Madden Impression

I can’t say that I have ever been a big John Madden fan; in fact I have watched many a game with the sound off, just so I could enjoy the play, without the painful commentary. His input is never amazingly valuable and generally leads to hair-tearing proportions of fury. But now, at the age of 72, I fear that it isn't just stupidity anymore, it's the first steps towards dementia. Which has caused conflict in my mind, because, although the man is a moron, he's old, so you have to feel for him just a bit.

Here I will leave you with a couple of the most mind-numbingly stupid:

“If you have a speed lineman, going up against a speed quarterback. That's what you need to catch him. A slow lineman won't catch a speed quarterback.”

And then, with a team down by 10 in the 4th quarter, Madden came up with this mathematical gem:


“What they need right now is a 3 & 7, or a 7 & 3”.


Touche Madden.

Touche.

From when Men were Men

It seems to me, that in the last few years, precautions in pro sport have gone too far.


I say this in the light of the suspension and fine handed out to the New York Jets' Eric Smith after a helmet-to-helmet hit on the Arizona Cardinals' Anquan Boldin . Now, of course, the hit was horrendous and the aftermath was terrifying, and no one wants to see an NFL star, like Boldin, get injured so badly. However, my problem lies within the rule itself, and the massive rule changes in the past few years. It used to be that helmet-to-helmet hits were only illegal and penalized if on a quarterback, which was one of many rules the NFL has used to reduce injury at the position. Undoubtedly, it's a dangerous sport and the padding themselves are almost more useful as weapons. However, the penalties and fines and suspensions, really can't be the solution in many of the circumstances.



Smith's Hit on Boldin


Smith's hit on Boldin was by no means malicious, nor was it intentional. It was a case of a Safety ranging across the field to do his job. Also, just before the point of impact, Boldin was hit from behind by the cornerback covering him, thus pushing him into the oncoming Smith. The problem with the rule is that it's almost like the overprotective-mother-of-bubble-child syndrome. If a hit is as unintentional as this one, judgement should be used when issuing the fines & suspensions. Especially in a circumstance like this, where Smith himself was rendered unconscious after the hit. I can not blame Roger Goodell for the punishment he handed down to Smith, as he is following the regulations, set up by the NFL to ensure player safety. I'm not hatin' the commish, I'm hatin' the guidelines he has to follow.



It seems that perhaps the rules themselves need to be amended, maybe at the beginning of the '09 season, to institute a lesser punishment for "accidental helmet-to-helmet contact".



It's not only the new NFL rules that have changed in the past few years that bother me, but also those of the NHL.


The amount of stick-infraction penalties, that were set up in order to "speed the game up" have actually just created more whistles, and slowed the game down.


Understandably some of these rules came as a result of the major infractions we've seen in the NHL lately, as there have been way too many uses of the stick as a weapon in recent memory (McSorley, Simon, Boulerice). But the infractions have become to intricate for the game. The Obstruction based penalties are exactly that...an obstruction of the game.


It used to be that if you were playing a game, and you were wearing a different colour jersey than me, you were fair game. Sure the basic penalties were the same, but it's all these new regulations that are there to "improve play" and "increasing viewer enjoyment".


What sparked my interest in the rule changes, were some comments from the "Secretary of Defense" former Rams Defensive End, Deacon Jones. His comments were about the NFL rule changes and he had this to say "You used to be able to hit the body, from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet". He goes on to say, " The game is vicious. It must always remain that way. Everybody shouldn't have the appetite to play this game".


This is a call from a time when the game was played in brutality, and from when Men were Men.