As with the conclusion of one week in the NFL season and the beginning of another, it’s important to look back at what we’ve learned before we rank the powers and pick the games. Here’s the key bullet points from Week 15.
YES, WE DO KNOW WHAT A CATCH IS
Listen, I’ve seen your angry Twitter and Facebook posts. I’ve watched Pittsburgh Dad tear up his man cave. None of that makes a difference. In no universe that I have lived in would that Jesse James bobble and turf scrape ever be called a catch.
The videos on Youtube are abundant. It’s a play that’s been gone over like the Zapruder film over the last few days. I’ve watched a few to try to pick out a solid replay just to post here and the people putting these together, showing what would look to any non-biased observer a very commonly-called incompletion, is instead presented as proof of not only a horrible ref reversal, but some kind of New England Patriots-centered conspiracy.
For instance:
There’s no question that James doesn’t complete the catch and the ball not only touches the ground, but actually skids on the turf. This play is called incomplete in the NFL 100 percent of the time. They happen on the sidelines constantly. Maybe 100 times a year. This is an easy reversal by the league officiating office in New York.
The only reason, and I mean ONLY reason, to believe anything other than what your eyes actually see during this play is that you hate the New England Patriots and desperately wanted them to lose. Trust me. I get that.
I’ve written here for Get More Sports for four years and if you’ve followed my work here or even before then, you know one thing about me; I hate the Patriots. As I said earlier in the week, when it comes to pure, unadulterated Patriots hate, I am your king. I would fistfight the entire organization. I think Roger Goodell and the NFL covered up the extent of SpyGate (even to the extent of destroying evidence), the league should have stripped the Patriots of their first three Super Bowl titles and Bill Belichick should have been banned from the NFL for life.
I have three favorite Super Bowls and two of them are Patriots losses.
So trust me when I tell you that this James play wasn’t a catch and it’s never been a catch.
Much like other so-called “season-defining” plays, people rarely talk about what happened afterward. When Bill Buckner let a ball roll between his legs back in 1986, it didn’t cost the Boston Red Sox the 1986 World Series. All it did was force a Game Seven. A game seven that saw Boston surrender a 3-0 lead in the sixth.
It’s the same deal with the supposed “Steve Bartman Incident” with the Chicago Cubs. He tried to catch a foul ball like every baseball fan in history and when there was a slight (very slight) chance left fielder Moises Alou could have caught the ball for the out. At the time the Cubs held a 3-0 lead and there was one out already on the board in the top of the eighth.
Chicago then surrendered eight runs in that very same inning. Somehow that became Bartman’s fault, but even if you bought that, there was still a Game Seven. A game that, again, the Cubs led halfway-through, 5-3.
What people will forget about this game is the play that really screwed the pooch for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger’s decision to call a fake spike inside the seven. Two plays after the James drop, Roethlisberger had 17 seconds on the clock and a third and goal. He could have spiked the ball or ran a real play. Instead, he called the fake. The Pats didn’t bite and instead of just eating the play and setting up a game-tying field goal to take the game into overtime, Roethlisberger throws a shitty, late pass over the middle with four Patriots defenders in the area. The ball was batted up and picked.
That’s why the Steelers lost. Not an obvious drop and proper call from the replay officials, but because Roethlisberger ran a third down play with his head firmly planted up his ass.
Pittsburgh still has the two seed and if the Patriots get upset in the divisional round (they won’t), they could still host the AFC Championship game. The only way to fix this stupid loss is to win the whole damn thing.
So stop crying and go do it.
IT’S A BAD TIME TO BE A CREEPER
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for men who allegedly like to pretend they’re on an episode of Mad Men. First up, one of my all-time favorite NFL players got nailed when the NFL Network suspended former Rams running back Marshall Faulk along with former Patriots fullback Heath Evans and Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor after a former NFL Network employee, Jami Cantor, sued the organization for age and sex discrimination, a hostile work environment and, of course, sexual harassment.
https://twitter.com/DianaMoskovitz/status/940463813941379078
She also claimed that former NFL Network analysts Donovan McNabb and Warren Sapp harassed her too. McNabb is currently out of work after getting a DUI while working for Fox Sports. Sapp, of course, lost his job after being arrested for threatening a hooker. So, you know, there’s not a lot of reason to skeptical about the claims.
Still, there’s no reason not to let the whole court thing play out.
The biggest fish caught in the NFL’s version of the Post-Weinstein/Spacey dragnet was none other than Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson. His team may be in the playoff and Super Bowl hunt, but Richardson was too busy doing his Donald Trump in the Miss USA dressing room impersonation to care.
The Panthers have apparently paid off at least four former staffers who Richardson sexually harassed and, at least once, racially slurred. After all that became public, the Panthers as an organization, did what every other company does when busted in public for something they should have handled long ago, they acted like they gave a shit. Richardson will now sell the team.
Jerry Richardson getting up outta here like…. pic.twitter.com/uNaQQM2xog
— Damien Woody (@damienwoody) December 18, 2017
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