My Beautiful Disaster

Here’s a game I wasn’t too interested in. I knew it’d be a good game but I just wasn’t feeling it. It was made all the worse given that night. However, it was interesting to see the carnage the Colt offense wrought.

The Colts had the ball for only 15 minutes of the game and yet managed to put 27 points on the board. The last drive was 4 plays and 80 yards for a touchdown. Imagine if the Colts defense stopped Miami’s offense and got the ball back in Manning’s hand again. So is the Dolphins defense that bad? Should Manning slow down the drives for his defense’s sake? Afterall, Pennington had a chance to win the game but blew it. I think Manning could have managed it better so they were never in that position. I have to hand it to Miami’s offense and their wildcat obsession to tire out and beat down the Colt’s defense for 45 minutes but they should have won the game. I’ve seen horrible clock management like that a few times before, it reminded me of the Seahawks loss in the Super Bowl against the Steelers. It took forever to setup a play and then they call a timeout after wasting 30 seconds and then they don’t get a snap off before the 2 minute warning… wasteful.

Both quarterbacks sat around 66% completion rating though Manning had almost 100% more yards than Pennington and he had 2 touchdowns to boot while Pennington only had an interception. Not good at all. Let’s not forget there were THREE dropped touchdown passes for the Dolphins, including the potential game winner. Talk about needing some practice.

The Dolphins have a weapon in Ronnie Brown, they’re rush attempts were 5:1 compared to the Colts with 239 yards on the ground to a paltry 61 to the winners. We have two potentially good teams here but there’s a lot of work to be done.

We have a double header on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. The Patriots took on the Bills and the Chargers are taking on the Raiders. My intial thoughts are “how boring” considering the Bills and Raiders suck. Well, that was last year, this is a new year. The Raiders are an awfully young team led by Jamarcus Russell… not new to the NFL but he’s just coming into his own I’d say. The same goes for Michael Bush and Darren McFadden. Surprisingly they’re doing really well especially their running game. However, their receivers have not impressed and Russell has to go to his tight end. Whatever works, right?

The Bills now have Terrell Owens on their team. Always the drama queen but he was somewhat subdued this game. The Bills led the game the whole way which took me back. They only hit Owens maybe two times. The Bills had a healthy 11 point lead. The Patriots would need a touchdown and two point conversion plus get the ball back and get a field goal. Brady gets into gear and manages to drive down and score a touchdown with apparent ease to his tight end Benjamin Watson. They attempt a two point conversion and Randy Moss is open but he throws a pick looking for a covered Watson in the corner. The Patriots kick off and it’s McKelvin that fields this kick in the middle of the endzone. So tell me why you’re up 5 points with less than two minutes to go… why don’t you kneel it? At the very least run it out and then go down. 35 yards is a nice return and you did kill clock time but the obvious fatal error here is what if you fumble and that’s exactly what happened and the Patriots recover. It takes a few plays and a minute to find Watson down the middle and score another touchdown. They go for a two point conversion so a field goal won’t end the game. That’s broken up so the Bills have blown a huge lead and need to drive down to get the field goal. It started off well but the clock management was horrid and a few sacks just sealed the deal. I’ll give the Bills credit for doing so well but this chokage is what kills them and makes them a laughing stock.

Can the Raiders follow suit or do they have a chance to win this one? Their running game looked stellar though Russell’s throwing was inaccurate and his receivers still too inexperienced. Right before the half, the worst officiating call I ever seen came down from the review booth. Louis Murphy jumped up in front of the safety and Russell fed the ball perfectly over the linebacker and Murphy caught the ball and got two feet down in the endzone. That should be it. Touchdown, it shouldn’t matter what happens afterwards. The refs called for a touchdown but a booth review came down since it was under 2 minutes. However, Murphy came down with the ball and the ball touched the ground but his arm was still under it and he still maintained possession. The booth said he did not maintain possession… WHAT THE FUCK? He looked like not only did he catch it and score, but he had it down to the ground… it no longer matters if the ball touches the ground as long as the player still has possession. It looked more like a touchdown than Shockey’s the day prior. Hopefully, the NFL will review that call, that’s just pitiful.

How do the Raiders respond? Deep into the 4th quarter Russell finds an open receiver, none other than Murphy in the middle of the field. He launches it right on his numbers and he cruised into an easy touchdown. The game is all but over as we saw in the prior game. What happens here? Rivers makes several completions and performs an excellent two minute drill to finish off with a handoff to that fast Sproles for a touchdown to end the game in a Chargers win. (Sproles had several very large kick returns one of which allowed the game to go tied into the half.) Nice job Raiders, you’re right there with the Bills.