Football Season is Over

That was an awful game- I never expected the Colts to lose. And while I have to give credit to San Diego's defense, that was mostly a crappy effort by the Colts all around. All the bizarre tipped passes that went right into the Charger's hands didn't help matters, either. That one-handed catch by the Charger's lineman was pretty sweet, though.

The thing that stunned me this morning while watching Sportscenter was Mark Schlereth's (who I usually agree with) comments. He kept saying things like "It was a big win for the Chargers, considering everything was against them" and he continued to talk about how the referees were picking on them. He showed a few plays in particular- one was what he called a "phantom interference" penalty, called on the Chargers. This was one of those technicality penalties, where they did it, but it wasn't that bad, you know? Plus, during the game the showed two replay angles- one where you couldn't see the penalty, and a second one where you could (which made the announcers say "Oh, there it is"). But this morning, they only showed the angle where you couldn't see it over and over while calling it a bogus call. Why do that? Why pick a penalty that was a good call, then try to make it look bad and only show the inconclusive evidence? It felt like a political ad.

The other one was when San Diego returned an interception 80-some yards for a touchdown, then it was called back due to a holding penalty on the Chargers. All the replays showed it. He did it, it was wrong, end of story, right? But Schlereth said it was a bad call, not because the refs called it incorrectly, but because it was a big play. I believe the quote was "C'mon, you just can't call that on a big play like this!" He added "I got away with way worse than that when I played." So let me get this straight: the penalty shouldn't have been called because it enabled San Diego to make a devastating play? Isn't that the best reason to call a penalty? I don't get it. All in all, I thought the officiating was pretty fair.

The fun part of the game for me was that it was the first Colts game I've watched with Ramya (some others had been on in the background). She doesn't watch football, but she's really been a trooper about it! She made a few comments like "This is hard!" and "My pulse is going up." After the Colts lost she was like "Man, I'm all bummed out, and I don't even care about this game!" I told her that's the life of a football fan- the lows are worth it because of the highs.

Since we're talking about Ramya and football, it's also worth mentioning that she did come to the Motor City Bowl over Christmas, and she cheered her heart out for the Boilermakers. And one point I said something footbally to her, like "See that gain? The keep pulling in the linebackers then throwing to the tight end in the slot." She responded with "Look at the cheerleaders: the first cheer girl and cheer man are in love and nobody knows." She added "Watch: he always drops her then catches her and they hold on to each other a little too long and smile." I'll be danged, she was right.

So back to the NFL, who do I root for now? The short answer is "Whoever is playing the Patriots." I've had it with them.

Totally unrelated:

Today I checked my sitemeter (which tells me about visitors to this site) and someone in Pune, Maharashtra, India found my blog by searching for "Cool ans sex." What the heck is that, and why did it lead them to this page?

Someone also got to this page by searching for "what is brown sauce." Now that someone has found their way here by searching for actual information and found it, I feel this puts me in league with Wikipedia.