Random Thoughts from Week 3

Here are some Random Thoughts from Week 3 of the NFL season:

• The talk of the NFL seems to be Bill Belichick's postgame grabbing of an official after the classic Patriots-Ravens thriller on Sunday night. Many are calling for Belichick to be fined or even suspended. Personally, after watching the supposed "grabbing", I see no reason for everyone to get upset. Belichick simply wanted a word with the official after a very close game winning field goal call. It's not like he wanted to fight the guy, after all. However, it would have been smart for Belichick to simply do nothing at all, since a) field goals cannot be challenged, and b) apparently it's a fine to touch an official. Frankly, it's in the best interest of the officials, but this type of over-reaction is just a sad excuse to berate coaches for simply berating themselves.
• What a Sunday, huh? There were at least 4 games this Sunday that went into overtime, most notably the frantic Lions-Titans interconference thriller. Unfortunately for many of us, we couldn't watch the end of it. I think the NFL and television networks should try to establish something more than it's current format to allow viewers to watch the conclusions of exciting games. If ESPN can do it with perfect games in baseball (ie. live look-ins), why can't something similar be done in the NFL? Is there nothing in the NFL that compares to a perfect game in baseball? We'll leave that discussion for another day.
• The replacements need to go. Now. After watching the scary hit that Darrius Heyward-Bey took in the Steelers-Raiders contest, it's become evident that the refs don't know when to protect players, and thus the NFL doesn't really care about player protection. That's too bad, because the NFLPA really got ripped off in negotiating a new CBA that ensured player benefits. The refs have allowed too much pushing and shoving, too many uncalled penalties, and seem to lack knowledge of the rulebook in some cases. Sometimes they have to be reminded by fans and sideline personnel to call a certain penalty. It's really quite a travesty. Maybe I'm only knocking on a few refs here, some look competent. But for the most part, we NEED the regular officials back. They keep order in the NFL's business, the game. Owners and administrators may adhere to the rules and formats, but they do nothing for the casual fan on gameday. So they might as well do something right to grab our attention.

That's all for tonight, although I may add more throughout the week. Until then, enjoy the defensive slugfest going on in Seattle.

UPDATE: Just finished watching the Green Bay-Seattle game on MNF. Watched a whole lot of postgame coverage. Please note that these are my immediate reactions, but I'm sure my view may change as this story develops into tomorrow. In what may be the most controversial call in football history since the Immaculate Reception, the Green Bay Packers were narrowly defeated by a highly questionable call. I'll stop short of saying they were robbed and only say that they were handed a loss by the scabs on the sidelines. This wasn't a football game. It was a theatre controlled by the replacement officiating crew. Every call, every play, everything was essentially decided by a ho-hum group of random pop warner zebras who essentially cost the game for the Packers. The Seahawks could have just as easily had the game stolen from them, but the fact remains that the officials cost a team a win. This game will be put under a far larger microscope since it came on a last second game-winning Hail Mary play on football's biggest stage. But it comes at a time when certain things shall pass. And they should, for the NFL has reached a point where it has become a mockery and embarrassment of itself. Man, I sure wish the early 2000s NFL. Because what we have here is a struggling shell of former glory.

Random Thoughts from Week 2

Here is the first Random Thoughts article on UTTQ. This will be a semi weekly feature on UTTQ, depending on how many thoughts I have on the previous week's games. I will just give out a few thoughts on a variety of things from the previous week or so that I feel need to be said but yet I don't want to write a long article about it. So please debate, critique, and enjoy.

• The replacement officials were pretty good in Week 1, or at least reasonably competent. However, Week 2 was a much different story. Maybe it's just the fact that I watched two of the most poorly officiated and controversial games of the weekend (the WAS@STL game and the Monday night DEN@ATL game), but I have seen and heard about bad calls in other games as well. The officials mismanaged the games, made many simple mistakes that I have NEVER seen the regular locked-out officials make, and generally allowed games to get out of hand. The chippiness in both the WAS@STL and DEN@ATL games were enough to cause the officials to get flustered and make (or not make) accurate calls. The NFL must understand that the regular officials not only have a better understanding of most obscure rules, but that they also have the respect of the players. Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't see Ray Lewis hugging Walt Anderson after a defensive pass interference call, but the players generally know and respect the regular officials for their details and regulation of the game. There is little delay during penalties, fewer replays that are reversed, and the flow of the game is generally smoother. Sure, the regular refs make mistakes sometimes. But they hardly make such easy mistakes as not knowing the penalty yardage or failing to flag a flagrant jab or punch. They respect the game too much to do that. And, in that regard, the mistakes they do make are often judgement call mistakes that could go either way.
• The Bucs-Giants game ending is the talk of the league. Was Greg Schiano right to rush his defense at New York quarterback Eli Manning during a victory formation? Or was Tom Coughlin right in asserting that those actions had no place in the National Football League? To be honest, I sided with Coughlin early on, but then switched to Schiano's perspective. Now, after careful considerations on both fronts, I have come to realize that no one was right or wrong. First off, think about the formation. The victory formation was established to secure a win by having the quarterback kneel down to run out the clock. Many times both teams accept the outcome of the game by then and simply play like it's a Pro Bowl field goal attempt. But sometimes, the quarterback may back up and delay the kneel to force more time off the clock. Even rarer, a team may actually run a play during a kneeldown formation (although it's illegal to simulate the kneel and then run the play, as evidenced by this NCAA game). In that regard, the defense shouldn't merely give the quarterback the benefit of the doubt and should try to get him down if he does delay kneeling. So Schiano was right in that aspect. However, with 5 seconds left, the Giants had no reason to ask Eli Manning to back up for 5 yards before taking a knee, so the Buccaneers had little reason to actually force him to kneel as quickly as possible, thus making the bull rush on the final play highly unnecessary. So Coughlin had some right to be mad. But could there still be some merit to the Bucs' actions? Very rarely, a defense may get lucky and have the quarterback fumble the snap, or even force a fumble via the extremely rare "swatting of the center's ball hand immediately after he hikes the ball but before the ball reaches the quarterbacks hands" maneuver, but both are, like I said, rare. Schiano may have been employing such a tactic, since a last minute penalty would've been meaningless, but a fumble and recovery by the defense could have set up a last second game-tying touchdown attempt. In the end, though, I believe both coaches had their faults: Schiano didn't need to employ the tactic, but Coughlin didn't need to call him out for doing it. It should be reasonable for the Bucs to play to the final gun in a desperation attempt to get the ball back, but it certainly was not necessary in such circumstances.
• Already being dubbed "Swooshgate" (I used to hate scandals being called "---gate", but now I've come to accept it as an unavoidable part of "professional journalism" these days), Robert Griffin III's wardrobe has attracted quite the attention. Griffin, who is sponsored by Adidas, plays for a league that is universally sponsored by Nike. As such, the league asks players to wear Nike uniforms, gear, and even shoes (although there is some leniency in this department). Griffin, who is and should be wary of his public image, wore a shirt last week that had the Nike swoosh marked over with a crudely written "HEART" wordmark. The league talked to Griffin about defacing/hiding the Nike logo and that he should not do it, and that was that. However, this week Griffin appeared during warmups with a plain gray shirt over his presumably Nike-branded undershirt. Apparently this has caused a minor controversy as well, with people shaming RGII for not listening to the NFL's wishes. Seriously? Cut the man some slack. He shouldn't be forced to wear gear that someone has sanctioned to him. If anything, he should just warmup without a shirt on from this point forward. I kid, but the NFL shouldn't have complete authority over the way a player dresses. Sure, it's good for RGIII to show face in something by the NFL's official supplier of gear, but he does that every friggin' week. Just look for the mark of the beast above his TV numbers on Sundays, and you'll see that he does represent Nike quite well on the football field. On the practice field he doesn't, but who cares! In 10 years his football career photo album will include pics of him on the field of play, in full Nike uniform. So to all the mediaheads trying to make much ado about nothing, try to focus on something more important. Like the fact that his Adidas shoes were taped over to conceal the three stripes.

UTTQ Preseason Predictions

With a slightly muted buzz and a snap, crackle, and pop or two, UTTQ has returned just in time for the 2012 NFL season! But before I get into some NFL predictions, I must make notice of several unfortunate circumstances that are about to befall all of you loyal readers. UTTQ will be scaling back it's content a lot this year. I probably won't have time to do week-by-week game predictions like last year. That's probably for the best, since most of the content may end up being editorials and the like, which is more interesting anyway. Second, these editorials may be few and far between, like once a month or so, unless I have free time and have nothing better to do. Third, we probably won't finish the "list"articles (Greatest Teams, #1 Draft Picks, etc.) in the foreseeable future. However, they aren't fully closed content, so I may be interested in doing them again later.

So without further ado, here are UTTQ's Preseason NFL Predictions (due to time constraints, I'm just gonna make this short and sweet):

AFC NORTH

1. Pittsburgh Steelers (2)

2. Baltimore Ravens (WC)

3. Cincinnati Bengals

4. Cleveland Browns

AFC SOUTH

1. Houston Texans (3)

2. Indianapolis Colts

3. Jacksonville Jaguars

4. Tennessee Titans

AFC EAST

1. New England Patriots (1)

2. Buffalo Bills (WC)

3. New York Jets

4. Miami Dolphins

AFC WEST

1. Denver Broncos (4)

2. San Diego Chargers

3. Oakland Raiders

4. Kansas City Chiefs

NFC NORTH

1. Green Bay Packers (1)

2. Chicago Bears (WC)

3. Detroit Lions

4. Minnesota Vikings

NFC SOUTH

1. Atlanta Falcons (4)

2. New Orleans Saints

3. Carolina Panthers

4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NFC EAST

1. New York Giants (3)

2. Dallas Cowboys (WC)

3. Philadelphia Eagles

4. Washington Redskins

NFC WEST

1. San Francisco 49ers (2)

2. Seattle Seahawks

3. St. Louis Rams

4. Arizona Cardinals

WILD CARD ROUND

Bills over Texans

Ravens over Broncos

Giants over Cowboys

Bears over Falcons

DIVISIONAL ROUND

New England over Buffalo

Pittsburgh over Baltimore

Green Bay over Chicago

San Francisco over New York

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Pittsburgh over New England

Green Bay over San Francisco

SUPER BOWL XLVII

Pittsburgh over Green Bay