February Thaw?

  I came away with a lot of impressions from this weekend’s NFL games. Some were good, but too many were mostly bad. 

The New England-Denver game was a travesty. The weather was horrible, contributing to a less-than-exciting contest which ultimately put the Patriots back into the Super Bowl. That kind of game did not showcase the level of play which we could expect from elite teams—the top two in the AFC. 

Conversely, acceptable cold water in the Pacific Northwest led to a veritable offensive explosion which resulted in a Seattle win. It was a much more riveting affair which the Seahawks won capitalizing on poor play by the Los Angeles Rams. 

Do I think the better teams won both games? I believe so. 

Were the teams evenly matched? Yes—with an asterisk because Denver played without Bo Nix, its stellar stating quarterback, who broke his ankle last weekend and could only sit in a suite and cheer on his mates. 

Had Denver been guided by Nix instead of Jarett Stidham, who hadn’t taken a snap in a NFL game in eons, I think Denver might have pulled away from New England and would be headed to the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, California. And even with Stidham’s unsteadiness, Denver had its chances. 

What changed the complexion of the game was a gaffe by Stidham. Pressured by the New England defense, Stidham tried to shovel the ball away to his left. 

Except that it appeared to be a lateral, not a forward pass. Which was recovered by New England, which ran the ball into the end zone for an apparent score. 

But initially thinking it was a forward pass, the closest official blew the play dead. Then the chaos began.

After a review and discussion among the officials who were also in contact with the review people in New York City, the call on the field of an incomplete pass was reversed. The Patriots were awarded the ball close to the Denver end zone because the whistle had ended the play. Now New England was in business, with a prime opportunity to score. 

Two plays later, New England QB Drake Maye scampered into the end zone. The score was now tied at 7. The game had changed, with the momentum in the Patriots’ favor. 

With the weather becoming a factor in the third quarter, the kicking game for both teams suffered greatly. Both teams’ kickers were normally reliable and accurate. 

Not with the field in windy, snowy conditions, hampering the ability to get a firm hold and set with any placement. The two kickers went 1 for 5, with Andres Borregales connecting on a 23 year attempt with 5:32 left in the third quarter. 

The score put New England ahead 10-7. That would prove to be the final score. Enough to secure an AFC Championship for the Patriots. It is the eleventh win for the proud franchise, which also has six Super Bowl victories. 

The game wasn’t won until Maye scampered left on his own to secure a critical first down very late in the game. It wasn’t a designed play and almost didn’t work. Maye made it just far enough to lead his team to the win. 

Seemingly in big games, quarterbacks make key runs of great difficulty to lead their teams—Maye had two such runs on Sunday. Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza had a memorable scoring run last Monday to win the national title for Miami. Even LAR QB and notorious non-runner Matthew Stafford managed to sprint for a needed first down to keep a drive alive. 

Speaking of Stafford and the Rams, the LAR quarterback was outstanding. He looked like the Hall of Fame QB he will become once his playing days end. Stafford went 22 for 35 for 374 yards. He threw for 3 TD’s and had no interceptions against a really good Seattle secondary. Stafford exploited the inexperience of some Seahawks defensive backs and utilized the superior protection afforded him by the Rams’ offensive line while running through his progressions to repeatedly spot open receivers.

Two plays changed the game. A muffed punt by Xavier Smith was recovered by Seattle. On the next play, Seattle QB Sam Darnold found Jake Bobo in the end zone to put the Seahawks up 24-13. 

Behind Darnold’s guidance, Seattle extended the score to 31-20. When Seattle DB Riq Wooten was flagged for taunting LAR receiver Puka Nacua, Stafford went after Wooten and Nacua beat the DB to get the score to 31-27 after the extra point. 

LAR had another strong possession after a Seattle punt pinned them deep in their own territory. Stafford led the team down the field. Then some questionable play calling did LAR in. Runs instead of passes. And an unsuccessful fourth down pass which was swatted away left the Rams with no points on the drive instead of kicking a field goal and reducing the Seahawks lead to just one point. 

That might have been pivotal. The Rams got the ball with under thirty seconds and needed to score a touchdown instead of a field goal to win the game. 

Stafford made a game effort. His final completion to Nacua was caught in bounds. With no time outs left, the clock ran out and the game ended. 

Seattle was on the way to meet New England again in the Super Bowl. In 2015, a throw at the goal line by Seattle QB Russell Wilson was intercepted by New England’s Malcolm Butler, preserving a Patriots title. 

Could Darnold and his mates exact revenge for the fans in the Pacific Northwest? You know that’s on their minds. 

Meanwhile, New Englanders place their hopes on Maye and former Patriots great and current head coach Mike Vrabel, who resurrected a downtrodden franchise and has them back in the Super Bowl in his first year at the helm. It isn’t as ridiculous as it seems that the Patriots might win another title for the Kraft family, owners of the team.

To do so, New England needs to execute a precise game plan on offense. With Stafford’s brilliance demonstrating how to surgically operate on the Seattle defense, Maye must not make many mistakes. 

It is ironic that Maye can take pointers from Stafford. These two quarterbacks have repeatedly been mentioned as the top two candidates to win this season’s NFL M.V.P. Award. 

Not that it is a one man team. The Patriots have a top punt return threat in Marcus Jones, who set records this past season. Jones holds the highest career punt return average in NFL history.  And the Patriots' defense surrendered just over 200 total yards on Sunday, which while weather-driven, kept them in control of the game. 

Yet, to me, the deciding factor for the Super Bowl will be how Darnold plays. He nearly matched Stafford, going 25 for 36 for 346 yards and 3 TD’s. The former New York Jets top draft pick clearly rebounded from his poor showing last year with Minnesota in his first playoff game. 

Darnold is now an elite quarterback, worthy of mention with Stafford; Maye; Detroit’s Jared Goff; Dallas’s Dak Prescott; Trevor Lawrence of Jacksonville; Denver’s Nix. Darnold can  even be compared to KC’s Patrick Mahomes, who had a sub-par year and finished twelfth in the QB rankings but who also has three Super Bowl rings. I don’t think he has quite earned a comparison with the G.O.A.T., Tom Brady. 

So how the quarterbacks fare on February 8th in Santa Clara will go a long way towards deciding who is the champion of Super Bowl LX. Keep your eyes on them when you watch the game.

One thing we won’t have too much concern for is the cold and snowy weather of February. What we saw in Denver wasn’t pretty. Maybe the Coloradoans are hardy enough for that kind of precipitation. 

Correspondingly, CBS showed a snow-covered Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where the driving snow was augmented by bitter cold and wind. Imagine that scene had the Patriots garnered the top seed in the AFC. 

Games like Sunday’s have always been played in the home stadiums of teams in January. Too many times have we seen frigid temperatures which create less-than-optimal conditions for the players and fans. 

How many people died in Kansas City, suffered frostbite in Cincinnati or succumbed to bone-chilling temperatures in Green Bay to root for their team? Ditto the players, while handsomely paid, have to endure these nearly unthinkable surroundings. And what about ushers, support staff, broadcasters and their crew and any others necessary for the completion of the contest? Three of four layers of clothing may not be enough.

These fans were paying top dollar for the privilege of attending a game in potentially bad weather. For that matter, the prices for the CFP title game were beyond ridiculous, just like they will be for the Super Bowl, enriching the coffers of the owners and teams, while people make obvious choices to overspend for a lifetime of memories. Those memories should not be life-threatening. 

My wife astutely pointed out how, with the weather deteriorating, the Krafts were sequestered in a warm suite, watching the teams play. The Krafts are benevolent, but they also are in business to make money. While winning championships. 

Domed stadiums should be a must. When the health and safety of the fans and players is paramount, somehow domes are in cold weather locales or are planned for the future. 

Imagine if the NFC Championship was outdoors in Minneapolis with the icy grip of Winter paralyzing the city? How many people would be in peril? This is why there is a dome where the Vikings play. 

The NFL could change the way things are. Baseball did with COVID, going to neutral sites. Ditto the NBA and NHL. 

Either require that all new stadiums have domes in places where the cold invades or make all playoff games neutral site affairs. Enough of the spectacle of snow and freezing fans with owners warmly ensconced in booths while giving the appearance that they are special because of their wealth. 

If better weather conditions is what the Super Bowl is about, why not move the games leading up to it? The CFP took the second round games to bowls in warm weather. Are they smarter or less smug than the NFL? 

As a New York Jets season ticket holder for the past 49 years, I have not faced too many weather dilemmas based on the absence of home playoff games. I have maintained that my health would always come first if I had to make a choice about attending a playoff game in adverse weather. 

To me, that’s a no-brainer. And someone would buy my tickets if I sold them. Perhaps at a profit for me. 

The long-range forecast for Super Bowl Sunday is for a high of 70 degrees. I hope that the fans will have thawed out by that time in February. They deserve that much for the ridiculous prices they pay. 

All In The Span Of Three Days

  Well, the college football playoffs are over. To very few, the winner was no surprise. At least to the 60-65% wearing Crimson and Cream in the University of Miami’s stadium, seemingly dwarfing those clad in Orange, Green and White. 

The Indian Hoosiers prevailed by a score of 27-21. Closer than the two previous games IU won. Miami was absolutely no pushover. 

A number of top tier NFL players on the U’s squad showed up to play. They were a formidable opponent and those who bellyached that the Hurricanes didn’t belong in the playoffs got that wrong. Ditto those who bad-mouthed the Atlantic Coast Conference for fielding inferior teams. Miami’s two loses were to ACC schools—Louisville by 3 points and at SMU by 6. Defeating Texas A&M, Ohio State with their roster full of pros and Mississippi wasn’t exactly chump change here.  Kudos to the Miami team and Head Coach and Miami alumnus Mario Cristobal for energizing his rabid fan base. 

This was a physical game. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana’s  star quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner took plenty of shots from the Hurricanes’ pass rush, some of them questionable in their legality. One led to a bloody lip for the kid who grew up 2.2 miles from the Miami campus, played on it and whose mother played tennis there while attending the school. His parents still live there and his father is a valued member of the medical staff at the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital adjacent to campus. 

Mendoza and his mates didn’t have an awesome night offensively. Miami played somewhat better. As actually alluded to, this was smash-mouth football. Physicality was the name of the game. 

What separated the teams were two mistakes by Miami and one gutsy play by Mendoza. Miami punted near its end zone and sloppy protection allowed the kick to be blocked and for IU to fall on the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. And in the final drive with IU clinging to its lead, heralded QB Carson Beck, who transferred in from Georgia, where he backed up Stetson Bennett on a championship team and who has NFL aspirations, threw an ill-advised pass which was intercepted. Game over after two keel downs by Mendoza. 

As for the gutsy call, IU head man Curt Cignetti related after the game that the play in which Mendoza scored the deciding points to put IU out of reach, was a quarterback draw installed this week. It worked almost to perfection as Mendoza bumped and cut his way into the end zone. 

Cignetti is a force. He is a football lifer with a pedigree from a College Football Hall of Fame father as his mentor and from Nick Saban, whose staff he was on at Alabama. As Cignetti famously says, look it up—I am a winner!

To many, this Indiana team was a team of destiny. Some say it is the greatest team ever. I don’t know how to measure others before it, so that is for those who believe what they want to believe. That they went 16-0, tying a Yale team from 1894 which played a looser schedule,  is an accomplishment. Indiana’s schedule was not as easy as others think—even Kennesaw State was a conference champ and played in a bowl game.Only three of the 15 opponents (they played Oregon twice) had losing records. And three of the five road games were closer scores than any other games until the championship game. 

Mendoza is a determined kid. Smart, affable and unafraid. I don’t know if he will succeed in the NFL at a mercurial stop like Las Vegas, where Tom Brady is part owner but Mark Davis can be a bit crazed in his decision-making. It will be dependent on how the draft goes, trades and signings progress and who the next head coach and offensive coordinator will be. Patience will be needed in stop where anything but patience is welcome. 

Indiana’s rise from basketball school and football doormat has been marvelous. They used the N-I-L and transfer portal magically. Mendoza and the kids who followed Cignetti from James Madison are proof. Talent neglected on the way up and who had a chip on their shoulder while raising their games under coaches who recognized the talent was always there. 

Look at Mendoza, Offered only to walk on at Miami and considered to be locked in at Yale, when California swooped in. He led the Bears to bowl games in his two seasons there. Cal is not exactly a football powerhouse. Indiana spotted him, recruited him to their stellar business school for grad school (he finished Cal as a redshirt sophomore). The rest is history. 

Another Miami kid, D’Angelo Ponds was a lockdown corner back. All 5’9” and 173 pounds of him denying pass after pass to taller receivers. This guy will play in the NFL. A JMU guy loyal to Cignetti, who believed in him. 

That’s what IU was made of. Guys who were overlooked. Discarded. Whose fire burned hotter than almost anybody recognized. The coaches found them and molded these unsung players into a team ready to compete harder than anybody else.

In a couple of years we will see the pros littered with players from both teams. Some will star and some will filter through and out of the league. But what will be most memorable is that they competed against each other for the national championship. 

Which proved to be a coronation for the Indiana Hoosiers, two years out from playing crappy football. Every sport has its Cinderella story. Will the glass slipper still fit next year? Or in another year?

The NFL has set its Final Four. New England plays at Denver for the AFC title and Los Angeles travels to Seattle in the NFC. In games which cold and snow affected some while at least in Denver the lucky bad breaks went in favor of the Broncos. That obviously refers to Denver QB Bo Nix suffering a fractured ankle on the last play of the game-winning drive after Buffalo QB Josh Allen, the reigning M.V.P., was picked off on a questionable non-call in OT. 

Houston could not handle the cold, Drake Maye or the Patriots defense. I have continually thought Mike Vrable is the coach of the year for completely turning around the franchise of his playing days into a Super Bowl contender with a win over Denver, which is forced to start a back up QB on Sunday who hardly has played. 

The Rams survived a great throw by Bears QB Caleb Williams which tied the game with seconds remaining and put the Cardiac Bears in position once more to pull magic out of a hat. Except that on the supposed game-winning drive, Williams ended the Bears season with a poorly thrown ball which was intercepted. From miracle work to dunce. 

LAR went down the field and the ‘Thicker Kicker’, a rookie out of Missouri, banged through the winning field goal. The Rams now face Seattle for the third time, on its home turf, primed and ready to vanquish a second NFC West opponent in two weeks. 

Seattle QB Sam Darnold was healthy enough despite nursing an oblique injury to take down San Francisco. The defense looked awfully good, too,

Let’s see if the magic is there for Matthew Stafford, a possible M.V.P., as he invades very hostile territory in the Pacific Northwest. Or was it sheer luck that LAR advanced to this title game?

And will the other M.V.P. hopeful, Maye, overcome a very stingy Denver defense which must prevail given the offensive uncertainty at QB? Nick Foles, on his birthday, reminded us (and Philly fans) about the ability of a backup to defeat the Patriots in championship-level games. 

The NFL coaching carousel grew to 10 when Buffalo fired its head coach, Sean Mc Dermott. That makes two William & Mary guys out of a job, as he joins former Steelers head man Mike Tomlin, who abruptly resigned after Houston ended the Steelers’ season. 

Like John Harbaugh, who seems energized in New York, his and Mc Dermott’s successes weren’t enough when not getting to the Super Bowl with M.V.P, quarterbacks. It’s going to be interesting to see who replaces these stellar coaches, with Harbaugh already hired and Mc Dermott sure to be. 

Owners have the right to be pissed when the ultimate prize is not attained and big money is spent pursuing it, with little reward. Buffalo moves into a new stadium. They wanted to be champions leaving the old one. Except recent history tells us that in Buffalo, championships don’t happen with the Bills of Allen and Jim Kelly, two Hall of Fame quarterbacks, nor with the Sabres hockey team.

By the way, I wish former Jets head coach Robert Saleh good luck in Tennessee. At east he doesn’t have an Aaron Rodgers injury to mar his chances at winning there. 

Speaking of hockey, goalies for San Jose and Florida ended up brawling on Monday night. Thankfully nobody was hurt. Don’t see that much. Must have been the rarified South Florida air. 

Lastly, on Monday night, the resurgent Golden State Warriors saw their season come crashing down when star Jimmy Butler landed awkwardly contesting a rebound and tore his ACL. Steph Curry and mates may have won the game over Miami, but this is not sustainable for the rest of the season in a tightly-contested Western Conference where no playoff or play-in position is really set. 

Unless there is a trade, the 37 year old Curry, once more a starter for the Western Conference in the upcoming All-Star Game, may never smell a winning team again. Barring some transaction of significant magnitude, including his own. So sad. 

Don’t look now Knicks fans. Your team is in free fall, Ever since owner James Dolan claimed this was a championship team, Injuries haven’t helped. The team needs help. 

Miami. Indiana. A CFP champion is anointed. NFL playoffs are paired down and another coach is axed. Hockey goalie fights. The Warriors lost Jimmy Butler. The Knicks continue to lose. All in the span of three days.