Of Blackouts, Bullies, and How the 9ers Became the Whiners

Joe Flacco holds the Lombardi, and a ref with lights still out in New Orleans. This blackout was inexcusable!

After Super Bowl halftime, I had just come back with my beer, plate full of brats, polish sausage, fries and hot wings to see Jacoby Jones of the Ravens race 108 yards for a runback touchdown to make the score 28-6 Baltimore. No sooner had I remarked to wifey – delirious at her team’s success: "We're about to see a blowout!" when half the lights in the Superdome went dim. At that point, the game stopped for a full 34 minutes and we both feared this unconscionable event would suck ‘mo’ - as in momentum-from the Ravens. I mean, they had the %#&*@# Niners on the ropes, down 22 points when the place went dim.
Sure enough, when play finally resumed the Ravens’ O and D looked flat, almost as if they were in a trance or spectators at a game they were supposed to be playing. (Highlighted by 2 missed tackles by the secondary letting Frank Gore in for a TD).

Meanwhile, wifey was going into a meltdown mode – tears streaming from her eyes and onto her 'Ed Reed' No. 20 jersey: “THIS IS NOT RIGHT!”  she screamed. Indeed. And both of us knew the Niners would use the unexpected free time to gather themselves and re-plan their game and regroup. Sure enough this is what occurred though many pundits said it was “just the Niners coming back again”. Bull pockey! As Tight end Dennis Pitta put it: "By the time play resumed all our energy was sucked out and we lost our momentum".


The Niner sonsabitches escaped what looked like a sure blowout. Was a Niners’ fan responsible for going into the innards of the stadium and shutting down a fuse box? Ravens’ fans are exploring that possibility while Roger Goodell and the NFL promises an investigation of the cause. Meanwhile, Entergy of Louisiana noted transmission records showing the power was never cut to the stadium. Thus, the cause had to be in the stadium itself.

New Orleanians, as typical for denizens of “the City that care forgot” just shrugged it off, but it’s not that easy. The bottom line is such travesties are not supposed to occur on the stage of the biggest sporting event on Earth, and in a putatively premier stadium in the U.S.. Rather we expect such events to hobble stadia in Santo Domingo, Port- au Prince or Kingston. It is a shameful breakdown that never ought to have transpired, and the league needs to spare no effort to uncover the source – whether human, natural or electrical fault. (This is the first Superbowl in N.O. since Katrina).


In the meantime, Forbes.com has correctly observed there should be no more SBs in the Crescent City until the 38-year old Superdome is replaced. See, e.g.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/prishe/2013/02/03/superdome-shutdown-super-bowl-xlvii-blackout-hurts-new-orleans-future-super-bowl-bids/

Fortunately, Joe Flacco and the Ravens did manage to regroup and he led a 4 minute plus drive near the end that put the game away.

The Niners did get their shots at the end – four of them into the end zone -  but couldn’t deliver. As the game ended with an intelligent ‘no call’ you could almost hear all the Niners turning into whiners. At the post-game interviews it really erupted with the likes of Ahmad Brooks and Vernon Davis implying the refs “gave the game away” and that on the best right corner end zone Kaepernick pass, to Michael Crabtree, there was defensive holding. Of course, this is horse shit and had the Refs called a penalty, as Trent Dilfer noted on ESPN, “it would have rewarded a BAD PLAY with a BAD CALL”. It would have handed a SB win to a team that didn’t deserve it, and who THEMSELVES got away with bloody murder during the game – repetitively mugging Ravens’ receivers with holds and punches (Torrey Smith being the primary "beneficiary"). Trent Dilfer also noted a vicious 49er hit on Flacco out of bounds never called. Had it been, the Ravens would have benefited from a 15-yard penalty  that could have put the Ravens further ahead in the 3rd Quarter. Did you see the Ravens pissing and moaning? NOooooooooo.....

But THIS IS HOW THE GAME WAS CALLED according to commentator Marshall Faulk. So for the refs to suddenly alter the play -calling template to benefit one team at the very end would definitely have raised eyebrows on a possible fix. 

Getting back to the Crabtree pass play, Kaepernick would have done better – instead of using a pass into the end zone that the Ravens' DBs were waiting for- to go for a read option run on the left side. There is a good chance he could have just faked a handoff to Gore, then scampered into the end zone with Ed Reed and Bernard Pollard (who we now know played with 6 broken ribs)  huffing and puffing behind him. So why didn’t Jim Harbaugh make that call instead of fruitless passes into the end zone? According to one pundit, he “overthought the strategy”. Harbaugh himself declared there was a run option on one of the plays. But it wasn't used. Why not? (And please let's not have lunk heads and paranoid delusionals saying "the last call was fixed" by the "mob" in Vegas. The infantilism of certain commentators has to stop someplace! Clue one, Sherlock, the "mob" no longer runs Vegas, it's the Corporations!)


So puh-leeze don’t blame the ‘refs for a ”bad call”, when in reality they called consistently throughout the game – ignoring obvious penalty holds, blows etc. on BOTH sides! To therefore have awarded the Niners with a special (exception)  penalty call at the very end would have been obscene as well as inconsistent. (See also : http://www.denverpost.com/renck/ci_22519807/troy-e-renck-super-time-no-call-biggest )


Thus, when assorted knotheads, punks and whiners cry that the “refs gave the game to the Ravens” they want their asses kicked, or maybe more gently – their glasses replaced! Of course, the Niners’ bullying behavior has been noted all year especially by teams they’ve played in the NFC, including my team, the Green Bay Packers. In the season opener the Niners DBs mugged Packer receivers relentlessly as they did in the playoff game, also using vicious punches (never called as penalties) to throw WRs off their timing routes. Often this whacking was done way past the 5-yard limit.

The problem for the 49ers is that in the SuperBowl, as Shannon Sharpe of CBS put it: “The Niners met Bigger Bullies than they were!” Indeed. You see the Ravens’ are built to be the biggest, toughest bunch on the block and they take no shit, especially from any Niner punks . You could see in the first half several skirmishes and punches thrown because this team is designed to BULLY, not be bullied. Their O-line alone has more ‘beef’ than five Texas Longhorns. Their defensive backs are trained to hit wide receivers so hard on receptions that on every future play they’re skittish and often drop passes. That is the way Baltimore plays and why they earned the nickname “The Baltimore Bullies” after blistering Denver a number of times over several years during the pre-Manning era. (The monicker was invented by DPost sport columnists.)


ON a final footnote, some peeved Denver fans still haven’t gotten over their playoff beating to Baltimore. Some on the Denver Post forums last night – after a story on Baltimore fans’ celebration in the streets-  asserted bollocks like “Just wait until they start burning the cars and property!” But these morons have their cities mixed up. It has actually been SAN FRANCISCO (like after their Giants’ World Series’ win) that have burned cars and rioted. See also: http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-fans-wild-ride-ends-quietly-in-SF-4247858.php  Another wrote: "If they do burn it down there's no great loss!" Well, moron, hate to break it to you, but Baltimore has more culture in one square mile than cowtown Denver has in its whole 200- odd square miles.


Maybe all losing teams and their football fans need to reclaim their lives ASAP after their team goes down, and stop making stupid excuses as well as insulting the victors!

About Obama's Pro Football Comments...

Tim Tebow dumped on his ass by a Lions' defender in October, 2011. Football is a rough game and too many weakening changes (on defense) will transform it into something else - and not what most fans came to watch.

Much of the football world last week was hyper-cautious about President Obama's opinions of the sport when he opined that: "I would have to seriously consider letting any sons play football."

Well, now that is HIS opinion, and he is entitled to it! I am not going to portray him as a "communist" or "sissy" or "Pansie" (sic, sp.) as some nutwhack bloggers have done who never played a down of football in their lives....but know how to flap their gums if it's anything about Obama. (And, btw, this is the thanks he gets for ensuring they can collect their VA or S.S. disability benefits!)

Picking up on the Prez' theme, Baltimore safety Bernard Pollard noted in New Orleans (Media Day) that he could "foresee the end of the game within thirty years".. By that he didn't mean the absolute end but - if things keep going as they are now - the end of a violent game which features hard defensive hits, such as the one Pollard made on Pats RB Steven Ridley (and got fined for in the AFC Playoff game).  Already, the defenses of assorted teams have been neutered with assorted new rules since the 90s that have sought to emphasize high octane passing offenses at the expense of defense. Thus, we've seen rules such as you can't whack a guy off his route beyond 5 yards (Deacon Jones and Ray Nitschke would have laughed at that one) nor can you hit a QB in a certain way ("roughing the QB") or make too much contact down the field fighting for the football ("pass interference"). The effect has been to turn the game into an almost entirely passing exercise for guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees.

Add to that now the new impetus to control "head hits" - i.e. leading with the helmet- and you can make the case that Pollard may not be very far off in his forecasts. (I kidded to wifey, a rabid Ravens' fan two days ago, he probably meant we will have tag football instead of tackle in 30 years.)  Now, according to a CBS News spot last night, the Commissioner (Roger Goodell) plans to have the zebras look for any sign of head hits in tomorrow's game. NO using the helmet to stop a guy no matter how high powered or large, or long legged. So wait? No helmet to Colin Kaepernick's solar plexus? That's the best way to stop a guy!

But no, the Commish, according to a CBS TV host, insists all the tackles be made "using the shoulders". I suppose that Ray Lewis heard the warning, as well as Terrell Suggs, and of course, the Niners' Patrick Willis and Justin Smith! In any case it will be quite interesting to watch and see what transpires and how many flags get tossed. Oh, also how many fines are assessed on Monday!

Look, I sympathize with Obama but football is a rough sport, probably best compared to the game of rugby or 'ruggers' from which much of its structure, plays were copied. (Though in rugby there are no forward passes). Also, contrary to myth, football can be violent even in its tag or flag variation. When I attended Monsignor Pace High (1962-64) there was no varsity or other tackle football team yet - but we did have intramural tag teams. I played inside LB for "the USC Trojans" - the name of one such intramural team - and my job was to sack the quarterback. I loved it. And be aware that on every down that meant crashing through blocks of the O-line using arms, elbows. That meant you sported bruises after each game, though maybe not concussions.

Yes, people like Obama are now fretting, especially after the news of five Pop Warner players suffering concussions in one pee wee game, and missing so many players that the opposing team romped 55-0. In that case, I can certainly see grounds for some caution, because we can't have a whole slew of 10-13 years olds turned into brain -damaged zombies before they reach the age of 18. But in the case of the NFL, it's a different kettle of fish, because these guys know what they're being paid millions each year for.  Yes, it's sad Dave Duerson and Junior Seau committed suicide, but they knew what the game was all about and what was expected of them.

Alas, those deaths, as well as others - and numerous lawsuits- now threaten to see the league wussify and dilute the game so much that it may well become boring within five years or less, paving the way for Pollard's prediction. This is sad, because it means the only way many of us will enjoy those tough hits anymore will be via the old NFL video releases such as "NFL's Greatest Hits".

It may then be the best thing Ray Lewis is retiring this year. There seems to be no more room in the league for dedicated, heavy hitters whose only objective is to prevent the opponent's QB, RB or WR from gaining a yard.

As for Obama, he's lucky he has no sons, so he isn't faced with the decision to allow them to play or not. For the rest of us, we hope the game will at least continue with some semblance of allowing rough tackles, and at least some use of helmets. After all, would YOU want to try to take down Frank Gore using your shoulders?

SB Players: Try to keep 'God' Out of Football This Week!

Tim  Tebow walks away with head down after the 45-10 thrashing by the NE Patriots last year. Why didn't he hold his god responsible for that debacle? If you're going to praise your deity for winning, ought you not critique it for losses? Especially of the blowout variety?

Today is SuperBowl Media Day in New Orleans, and if previous Media Days are any example – players on both teams will spend more time blowing hot air than talking about serious football. Already a number of bollocks story lines have emerged in the media (newspapers, and NFL Channel) to do with which scriptural verses tattooed on Colin Kaepernick he will kiss after each TD, and whether Kaepernick’s God will lead him to a SB win over Ray Lewis’ God.

Football fan blog readers may recall after the Ravens beat New England in the AFC championship, Ray – beside himself with emotion- pounded his chest and with tears streaming in his eyes, blurted: “This shows God is GREAT! He can do ANYTHING! When we put our trust and faith in Him great things happen! And He said, 'no enemy can stand against thee!'”


Maybe, but I seriously doubt any “God” worth his salt is interested in a game created by mammalian bipeds and played by more massive male bipeds for a lot of money. I believe it was Tim Tebow who first learned that lesson a year ago when his ‘God’ couldn’t save him or his then team (Denver Broncos) no matter how many times he wore John 3:16 on his eye-blackener or Tebowed. Where is Timmy now? Well, in a kind of limbo after a so-so season with the NY Jets.


Many of us who blistered Tim, the inveterate god monger, feel tremendous vindication now a year later. This despite certain clueless pundits like Michael Medved, who penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed : 'The Secrets of Tebow Hatred', castigating all churlish imps who would dare rain on the Great One's parade while a league "stocked with millionaire wife beaters and dog killers" received little or no opprobrium. Medved ultimately asked: "So why should Tim Tebow draw more resentment than other religious athletes?" and concludes "he's too apparently flawless to draw much sympathy from the uninitiated."


Actually, no. It was because he never let up nor was he consistent. While he attributed each Bronco TD, win or minor success, gain to his god, he never also acknowledged his god when he was brutally sacked or the Broncs were lashed with a loss, like their 45-10 thrashing at the hands of New England in last year’s AFC playoffs. So what then? The Devil was responsible for the losses? Oh wait, no…Tim blamed himself. Yet he was too myopic to see it was his making plays at the right time that led to wins, not any interference by some external supernatural hobgoblin.


Was the land then filled with godless, cynical "Tebow haters"? Not really. The fact is most of us didn't "hate" Tim Tebow. Hell, we hardly knew him personally. What we hated was the media hype and schmaltz surrounding him and the unthinking nature of his fans and groupies who appeared to conflate occasional luck on the football field with some type of divine intervention or "miracle" - when a small dose of critical thought ought to lead them to ask 'Why this time and not next time?' Why praise the ‘Lawd’ for wins, but not blame him for defeats?

We also detested how the evangelical whackos in the country exploited Tebow to their own ends to push their agendas. Such as Colorado Springs -based 'Focus on the Family' which featured a "John 3:16" ad in the midst of one game.

The fact is, even IF a powerful supernatural force or Being did exist, by its very nature it would have no more interest in human football games or their outcomes than any normal human would have in two packs of hyenas having a pissing contest (to see who can mark the most territory) in the middle of the Mala Mala Game preserve in S Africa (as featured on a recent NatGEO ‘Wild’ documentary.

Let us hope that Ray Lewis, Colin Kaepernick and all the other would-be god mongers on the two SuperBowl teams process that as opposed to filling the airwaves with god talk or other baloney today.

And, if the Ravens do win on Sunday - against a tough 49er team-  let's hope Ray Lewis in his excitement (given this is his last game) gives at least as much credit to his team mates for making critical plays as his imaginary friend in the sky!

Footnote: (1/31/13):
--------------------

It appears I may be the "outcast" in my views, since the NFL appears to actually the National FAITH League, according to the report in the latest Sports Illustrated ('In the Fields of the Lord', Feb. 4, p. 38). Evidently what was regarded as absurd 50 years ago (pro football players being "cozy" with Xtianity) is now regarded as a norm! Faith huddles and prayer services occur before each game, Chaplains are assigned to each team, and noisome bible studies abound.  According to the piece:

"At the Superbowl in New Orleans this Sunday, players on both teams will pray in small huddles on the sidelines, before every quarter."

Good grief! It's the Super GOD BOWL!

Interestingly, all these god-mongering bozos aren't able to transfer their godism into moral practice. According to the same article,  god-mongering "athletes generally score lower than the general student population in test on moral reasoning." It appears this can be extrapolated to the NFL players as well.

All of which shows me the need to clean out the peculiar American religious infection is needed even more than ever before. Atheist ball players anywhere? You need to infiltrate the NFL and get it back to normality! Ah, but then this whole ridiculous god-crazed nation needs to be brought back to sanity!

Denver Broncos & Fans Learn A Lesson in Humility

“It’s high time to send Ray Lewis into retirement as a loser!” -  Mark Kiszla, Denver Post, p. 1C, 1/6/13

“The Baltimore Ravens are about as terrifying as parakeets.” -          Mark Kiszla, Denver Post, 1/10/13

“Advice to Broncos: Take the football, give it to Peyton Manning and let Manning shove it down the throat of linebacker Ray Lewis and that over-the-hill Baltimore Defense.”- Kiszla, Denver Post, Jan. 13 column

“I feel like (the Broncos) went into this game overconfident. Did that hinder us from winning today? This is terrible for us." - Caller to KOA Radio “Gridiron Group.

“I thought we were supposed to be in the Super Bowl!” – shocked Bronco fan quoted in today’s Denver Post.


  All week long Baltimore Ravens' fans like wifey had to listen and endure the putdowns, trash talk and general disrespect to her team. Not only meted out by passersby in Bronco getup, but in the newspapers from hacks like Mark Kiszla (Denver Post) and Paul Klee (COS Gazette).  Yesterday, the Ravens came to roost at Denver's Sports Authority Field ....and took the Broncos' hopes of a Super Bowl crashing down with them.   Yet even to read today's sports pages, from the Denver Post and Colorado Springs Gazette, you'd think the Ravens didn't so much win the game as have it handed to them on a platter. To quote wifey: "Not by a damned longshot!"   Paul Klee, a sports hack on the local rag (Gazette) said before the game “Baltimore will be no hurdle” After (this morning's paper) he spouted this crap:

““Baltimore didn’t put Denver’s Super Bowl dreams on ice. The Broncos froze out themselves.”

Huh? I don’t think so, from what I saw! The Ravens’ D, (dismissed as “over the hill” by the likes of played out hacks like the Denver Post’s Mike Kiszla), held Manning to only three TDs and 21 pts., but intercepted him 3x for 17 pts. resulting in a net 4 points offensive gain. THE RAVENS DEFENSE CAME PREPARED TO PLAY! GET IT, DUMMY?   Still the Broncomaniac fans inhabit a cosseted world of their own delusions. As one was quoted after the game: “I thought we were supposed to be going to the Super Bowl”. 

No, sonny. See, your team has to play the game first, then if they win, they move on. But they needed to get through this game then the AFC Championship next W/E first! There are no guarantees! It doesn't matter what some blow-dried hack on ESPN or the NFL channel says, or that his comments are colored by a bias to see New England v. Denver in the AFC championship! All that matters is the end result on the field!  The December Ravens you beat 34-17 were a wounded, injured group also in disarray after a coach’s firing. They had four missing on D, and three playmakers on O. Yet you bought into the Denver writers’ insipid claptrap that it was the same team. How f*ckin dumb is that? That's like asking for a slapdown with iced cold water splashed on top of it.

Even some of the Broncos' moron players were living in delusion after the game. According to DT Kevin Vickerson (quoted in today's Gazette): "I didn't see nothin' different in this team from last time! They didn't do nothin! We beat ourselves"

I'd suggest you best stop use of that high (?) grade dope, dope!


But never mind, the Broncos and their fans are loaded with made-up excuses none of which offers an ounce of acknowledgement to the Baltimore Ravens.  Among the most regurgitated:

 - It was the refs fault for making too many bad calls against the poor Broncos (no word about all the poor calls the Ravens had to overcome, including a nonsense "defenseless receiver" call that ought to have one zebra up on charges for undermining the game!)  

- It was John Fox's fault for punking out and not letting Manning have the ball with 31 secs left in regulation. He'd have surely gotten the Broncs within FG distance with 2 timeouts!  

- It was Rahim Moore's fault for letting the 70 yard pass play by Flacco get completed with only a minute left and the Broncos ahead 35-28.  

These excuses would be funny if they werent' so pathetic! Then there was this remark  quoted from Broncomaniac Geoff Lydon, who said he paid $250 for his ticket, and was visibly upset afterward. "I think the team played scared, I think they were too conservative with their play calling," he said. "Maybe we just weren't as good as we thought we were."  

Uh, yeppers!  Yuh don't think? Maybe you all bought into too much bullshit all week and really thought the Ravens you blistered one month ago in Charm City were the same bunch that you faced yesterday!

Your team failed, deal with it! You all bought into the recycled baloney that you would pound the Ravens like a month ago, not realizing – despite being told over and over – that this was not the same team.   But you chose not to believe it. You accepted instead the delusion that the team you beat was a whole team as opposed to one analogous to a fighter with one arm tied behind his back.

Recall The Broncos entered the AFC divisional playoff game riding an 11-game winning streak. They were the No. 1 seed in the conference playoffs. They had home-field advantage throughout. Meanwhile, the Ravens had difficulty,  losing 4 of the last 6 games. This "swoon" was taken to mean the Ravens were spent, tapped out....but none of the hacks or pundits acknowledged the team was dealing with key missing players, also they WOULD return for the big playoff games.  This laid the foundation for the myth and point spread - awarding the Denver team 9 1/2 points over Baltimore.

  But now, after the revenge served cold to the Broncos and their delusional fans, it's the Ravens who advance to the conference championship game to play the winner of Sunday's New England-Houston divisional contest.

For Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, his magical comeback season ended with a gigantic mistake. Toward the end of the first overtime, with the Broncos driving, he rolled to his right and threw an off-target pass back across the middle toward Brandon Stokley. The misfire was intercepted by the Ravens' Corey Graham, setting up the game-winning score.
Btw, to see a Broncos' fan 'screaming Mimi' losing it over the tying Raven TD at the end of regulation, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOeL1D8vMiI

The final score didn't even show the degree to which the Ravens' D dominated Manning and the ponies, allowing only 21 pts. (The other two TDs were a result of special teams breakdowns allowing two run backs for TDs by a bantam -flyweight dwarf named Trindon Holliday.  Worse, for Denver, the Ravens got three picks against Manning for 17 pts. - the last one in the 2nd OT- finally ending his charmed  nine-W run (though I pointed out over and over to wifey those were with the Colts, with different RBs, WRs, etc.)

Sadly, Manning himself bought into the hype and the "Peyton Manning as God" meme that threaded through the CBS broadcast, see e.g.    http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/z-on-tv-blog/bal-ravens-broncos-cbs-telecast--20130112,0,2049639.story

He said afterward: "I wasn’t quite as good as I wanted to be,”

NO! You weren't as good because the Ravens D didn't want you to be!

Footnote on the Packers loss: Well, Justin Smith did play for the 49'ers so that threw my forecast of a Pack win into the dumpster. The Niners D was simply too remorseless to allow Aaron Rodgers to make the type of plays he usually does. Also, two critical turnovers didn't help. In the end, it pains me to say this, but the better team won. Also, it looks to me that this Niners team is likely going to win the Super Bowl. Unless wifey's Ravens can stop them!