|
OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
 |
|
The Action is Hot and Heavy on the TV Couch
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
Ruminations and ramblings of a couch potato watching one of the games during the Super Bowl tournament:
The pre-game shows
Saturday, Jan. 13 feature the usual gaggle of cackling, preening,
ungrammatical and too-often incomprehensible jocks who seem to
be having a good time at the expense of the innocents who bother
to watch them. It’s a joke that these peacocks huff and
puff over predictions that don’t consider the point spreads.
Pro football is a bettor’s game, so any meaningful picks
should be based on the point spread. These bozos are followed
by the in-game analysts providing more fodder, beating to death
any and all angles already covered to a faretheewell in the newspapers.
Would that they would forsake this stuff and nonsense for a more
leisurely look at the line-ups of the teams. The line-ups usually
are rushed onto screen willy-nilly during the early moments’
action. It takes a speed-reader/viewer to digest the names and
faces put on screen in a flash.
|
|
The arm-flailing, chest-pounding of some of the players when they come out onto the field (is Baltimore’s Ray Lewis a man or beast?) makes you wonder if they wouldn’t be taken off to the booby hatch if they behaved that way on the street….Interior linemen act out the same way after a sack or tackle because they know this will get them TV time…Ditto the exhibitionists in the stands who dress up for and gyrate when a TV camera comes by, no doubt taping the game so that they can look at themselves behaving like fools for eternity…Nor we should forget the ever-present shots of the Bouncing Boobs Brigade, the cheerleaders, angling for their own TV moments.
|
|
The most memorable shot to me is the close-up in replay of the football wobbling on its way to a 51-yard field goal by Indianapolis’ Adam Vinatieri that makes it by bouncing on and over the crossbar. Vinatieri’s five field goals of 23, 42, 51, 48 and 35 yards provide the margin of Indy’s 15-6 victory. A thought: field goals are frequently so easy to make, might it not be time to narrow the distance between the uprights? Not that it would make much difference because most of the time these kickers split the uprights down the middle.
|
|
Indy and Baltimore sport the obligatory American flags on their helmets. This wasn’t always so; it traces to a would-be patriotic identification with our efforts in the Gulf Wars. President Bush’s Iraq war has been such a disaster, would it not be a revelation if some team had the guts to show its disaffection with this administration and its war by removing those flag decals, not as a slap to the troops, but as a statement against the war policy. Some college basketball teams no longer sport the flag.
|
|
The defenders in both the Indy-Baltimore and Philadelphia-New Orleans games suffer a case of the dropsies, dropping potential interceptions. As a wise man once said, “If they could catch balls, they would be receivers not defensive backs.”…TV voice Moose Johnson uses the euphemism “hats” for “helmets.” What a soft word for a hard object; helmets are offensive weapons as much as defensive protection. Oh, for the return of the leather helmets we see in the pictures of the old-time gridiron warriors.
|
|
In several situations where teams have a third-down and need huge yardage for a first down, it makes me wonder anew if it isn’t time for a tactic that has gone the way of the dodo: a quick kick. The teams rarely make first downs on such third-down tries so they then punt on fourth down when the opposition is in place for a run-back. I still recall the glorious days of the 1940s when Glen Dobbs of the embattled Brooklyn Dodgers football team of that era used to quick-kick and get his name in the record books for 92-yard punts.
|
|
Reggie Bush of New Orleans is the most exciting player on the field. He is ever a threat to break off long runs. It is mindful of such as Jackie Robinson at UCLA, Buddy Young and Gale Sayers who sometimes would run side to side for 40 yards and gain only a few yards, but who dazzled the populace as they eluded tacklers.
|
|
Coaches are by nature fraidy cats. Post-game TV analyst Jimmy Johnson, an ex-coach himself, started a refrain seized upon by savvy Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Phil Sheridan the next day and which will forever reverberate among Philadelphia Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday Etc Morning Quarterbacks. With less than two minutes remaining in the game, the Eagles behind, 27-24, and having a fourth down and 15 yards to go for a desperately-needed needed first down, coach Andy Reid chose to punt rather than try for the first down. The Eagles never had another chance because the Saints ran out the clock
|
|
There is much said about the boost victories by the Saints provide to the embattled citizens of New Orleans. Maybe so, but more money from the government to the citizens of the destroyed sections of the city might be more meaningful.
©2007 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs
caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustrations are
from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E.,
San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Jan.
15, 2007.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Stan Isaacs. To send an
email, click here and don't forget to mention Stan's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|