Weekend Recap

A pretty exciting weekend in sports, but if you're from Pennsylvania, it was probably the worst football weekend of the year. Penn State lost to Iowa, and both the Steelers and Eagles lost very winable games at home. At least McNabb can say he didn't cost his team the victory unlike Darryl Clark and Ben Rothlisberger. The Eagles lost last night falls on Andy Reid and his coaching staff, who were simple outcoached in every way during that game. Reid's back to back challenges (the first one was plain stupid) were a sign of desperation and once they got the ball back only down by 5, they were out of timeouts. Even then, they had a chance to move the ball downfield but on consecutive downs - 3rd / 4th and short - they handed the ball to Westbrook (hadn't worked all night) and failed to gain any yards. Ballgame! I would have put Tom Coughlin on the horse trailer for his ability to be the "greatest challenger of all-time". (See more on that call below)

Here's some officiating roundup's for the crazy weekend. I'm sure plenty of ommissions are to be found. Feel free to email links/pictures/video's of awful officiating to the email address to your right. Over there -----> and... uh up a little.

Starting on the high school field: The Georgia Region 7-AAAA championship game was delayed for over 3 hours and didn't get started until 10:15 because the referee's association forgot to schedule anyone for the game. They had to wait for one game to end, then use a police escort to bring the officials from that game over. Things get even crazier in high school football, when this kid - weighing in at over 300 lbs - is the new quarterback for Ellenville (NY) High School. It's good to see kids are laying off the steroids these days. On the other hand... the drive thru's up there must be doing ok.

Onto College, I watched some of the Ohio State / Northwestern game; a few snaps of the Michigan / Minnesota game, and most of the Penn State game. I wasn't able to catch any of the showdown in Lubbock or either of the other Saturday night games. Many Penn State fans are crying foul on the Anthony Scirrotto Pass Interference call late in the 4th on a crucial 3rd and long. It was a tough call that could have gone either way - but after reading the rulebook they may have a point. If you recall, Scirrotto was obviously going for the ball and incidental contact was made between him and the Iowa reciever. According to the official NCAA rule book:

It is not defensive pass interference:
2. When two or more eligible players are making a simultaneous and bonafide attempt to reach, catch or bat the pass. Eligible players of either team have equal rights to the ball (A.R. 7-3-8-XII).

Also...

g. Each player has territorial rights, and incidental contact is ruled under “attempt to reach…the pass" in Rule 7-3-8. If opponents who are beyond the line collide while moving toward the pass, a foul by one or both players is indicated only if intent to impede the opponent is obvious. It is pass interference only if a catchable forward pass is involved (A.R. 7-3-9-I).

When I first read about the PSU'ers hawking about the bad call, I thought they were just finding an excuse - and teams have lost games on far worst calls - but, after reading the rule carefully to understand all the wording, well... they may have a point. At this point, it doesn't matter - Penn St is #8 in the BCS and best case scenario is a berth in the Rose Bowl.

In the NFL - If the Chargers lose yesterday to the Chiefs, one of the biggest topics of conversation today would have surely been the pass interference call that was called late in the 4th quarter against the Chargers. This was an obvious bad call, and it set up the Chiefs with a first and goal from the 2 yard line that led to a touchdown a few plays later. The Chargers have had a handful of calls go against them this year (the biggest by far is the Ed Hochuli blown call that sent him to rehab earlier in the year), and this would have been another one. This time it didn't hurt them, and after winning the game you don't hear much about it.

In last night's Eagles / Giants game - I learned something. The ENTIRE body has to be across the line of scrimmage before it is an illegal forward pass. Wow... Chris Chase at Yahoo Sports makes a good observation about this rule:

This makes the tuck rule look like logical. Every spot ruling in football is based on the position of the ball. On a touchdown, the ball only needs to cross the plane of the endzone. The ball carrier can have his toe on the two yard line and it wouldn't matter so long as the any part of the ball is touching the end zone.
Each individual play in a game is also spotted wherever the ball is located when a player is ruled down. And this threshold isn't only subjected to the football. When a player steps out of bounds, he's considered out at the instant one foot touches the line. It doesn't matter where the rest of the body is, all that matter is that if one bit of the toe touches the OB line, that player is out.
But the line of scrimmage rule is written so that quarterbacks have to entirely cross over into another plane in order to be over the line of scrimmage? Compared to the other rules, this one is a complete outlier. It's completely ridiculous.

I have to agree with Chris. Never in my life did I think Coughlin was winning that review - but I thought it was pure genius and pure "in your face" when he pulled that one off.

Other football facts: Randy Moss was fined, and then unfined for his remarks last week about the officiating.

First... Biden was boo'ed at the Eagles game; then it was the refs. Figures.

A lot of folks are up in arms about an illegal forward pass call against the Packers in yesterday's loss in Minnesota. The call resulted in a safety for the Vikings. The Vikings won by 1 point. Head official Alberto Riveron has some explaining to do. We'll see if the NFL apologizes for this one.

Last Word... what's with all the Tony Gonzalez love yesterday. Listen, I know he's good and he's going to be in the Hall of Fame, but we don't have to change his first name to "Future Hall of Famer". This isn't Brett Farve, and even Farve doesn't get that treatment during every highlight. Gus Johnson must have called him that at least 3 times during yesterday's game, Dan Patrick called him that during SNF Highlights last night, and even today on Arrowheadpride, they say "Tony Gonzalez (10 catches for 113 yards and 2 touchdowns) - Another outstanding performance from our future Hall of Famer."

I just found this interesting and wondered if anyone else noticed.

Giants... Disciplined

In Peter King's MMQ, he notes that the Giants are acting a lot like the Patriots in how they have bought into their coaches coaching styles. One example is the discipline that the Giants have shown during their three playoff games. King says:

In the playoffs, the Giants have turned the ball over once in three games. They're plus-five in turnover differential. They're plus-eight in penalty differential; they've committed 14 to their foes' 22

Just to give you an idea how that compares to the Patriots, so far in their 2 games they have been called for 8 penalties (for 93 yards).

So... the per game pentalty average in the playoffs is:

Giants - 4.67
Patriots - 4

For the Patriots however, having a Jeff Triplette crew officiating one of your games is an advantage. As we have discussed here before, Triplette is one of the leaders in calling the fewest amount of penalties during a game, especially for a home team.

It will be interesting to see who the officiating crew is come Super Bowl Sunday. But if these trends continue, don't expect a lot of yellow hanky's laying on the field on the evening of Feb 3rd.

As for the game itself, I think the Giants have a better chance than what most people are giving them. Over at PFT, they compared Eli to the Tom Brady of 2001. Could this be the beginning of something special for Peyton's younger brother? Will Peyton soon become known as "Eli's older brother"? If you recall, the Tom Brady of 2001 was up against impossible odds when his Patriots team were heavy underdogs in the Super Bowl that year when they matched up against the "Greatest show on Turf" St. Louis Rams. You know how that turned out, could this be the year the Giants do something similar.

Expect of Lot of Dirty Play at Lambeau

The Packers are claiming the Giants are dirty players. In an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal Giants Center Shaun O'Hara is accused of being a little too physical.

"With 3:22 remaining in the Packers' 35-13 victory at Giants Stadium, Kampman was blocked to the ground by Giants center Shaun O'Hara. As backup quarterback Jared Lorenzen was sacked, Kampman started to get up when O'Hara delivered a forceful forearm to the back of Kampman's neck."

What's worse, even Patriots Safety Rodney Harrison (one of the leagues dirtiest players by reputation) agreed with the Packers accusations and had this to add:.

"I'm going to tell you, we saw it on film," New England Patriots safety Rodney Harrison said after facing the Giants in the regular-season finale. "It wasn't no secret. They push, they hit late, they come at you and try to take you out. That's the way they play."

"It wasn't no secret". Rodney needs to work on his double negatives.

Now, how does this affect the Officiating? If McCauley will indeed be the head official (see below), then this may be a good thing for Packer fans. Why you ask? Well... McAulay ranks "number one in calling the largest percentage of penalties and penalty yards against visiting teams (59% by penalties and 60% by penalty yards)! On average 18.9 more penalty yards against visiting teams per game than against home teams."

Hopefully McCauley and crew will be able to keep the dirtyness to a minimum on Sunday, but I'm sure - especially if the Giants fall behind - we can expect to see some added intensity in their players to try and get them back in the game. That added intensity may result in a few personal foul flags if the Giants aren't careful.

By the way, if you recall... The Giants may have had a good reason to be a little dirty during the Patriots game.