Saturday’s theme? Coaching dumbfuckery. Don’t worry, there was more than enough to go around.
Andy Reid did every Andy Reid thing in the Andy Reid book (well, I dunno if he ate an entire ham, but I am not willing to rule it out, either), especially on the clock management front. Seriously, it was as if Kansas City had never played football before, and was entirely unfamiliar with how the rules worked.
New England was fairly pedestrian throughout, which kept the Chefs in it. After a pathetically slow TD drive cut it to 27-20 and forced KC to attempt an onside kick (and fail miserably), Belicheat decided to get too cute by half (as he is wont to do) and called for a horribly executed slant pass that should have been intercepted, and possibly returned to make things entertaining. But when you have Satan on your side, the ball bounces to Edelman for a clinching first down instead.
Boring game, predictable result. Blech.
Game two? More of a Hunter S. Thompson gonzo feel.
Let’s just say, charitably speaking, that Carson Palmer’s sphincter got a wee bit tight. Less charitably, you could say he fucking choked. AGAIN. With that running game and defense, Arizona needed him to just not suck, and he was not up to the task.
But that wasn’t the weirdest part. NO, Bruce Arians consistently put more and more of the burden on his shoulders. The more Palmer fucked up, the less the Cards ran the ball. Sheer lunacy. Finally, even a team as inept as the Packers were bound to take the lead, and they did in the 3rd quarter, 13-7.
Ensuing Arizona drives ended FG, INT. Then another easy INT was dropped before FINALLY re-taking the lead. On a deflected pass that should have been intercepted but luckily went straight to a Cardinal in the back of the end zone. Yes, twice on the SAME FUCKING DRIVE.
Green Bay, thanks to Mike McCarthy doing his usual dipshittery, only had one timeout, so they had to go for it on their own 24, and failed. Arians – usually a conservative coach – now had the easiest call in the world to make. Run three times, and kick a FG. Green Bay gets the ball back with 1:05-1:10 left, maximum. Against your monster defense that’s bailed you out all night. ESPECIALLY when your QB is playing like a poor man’s Matt Cassel.
NOPE. 2nd down, Arians calls for a low percentage fade pass to the sideline. Incomplete by a mile. Gee, would that 40 seconds come back to haunt them?
FG is good, and the kickoff return is stuffed around the 15. Rodgers is sacked back at the 4, and it looks like maybe it’s a “sound and fury” kind of thing. I will still bitch about it here, but more as a cautionary tale. Then, on 3rd and forevs…Rodgers completes a 60-yard bomb to Janis. Being the 2015 Packers, they can’t do a simple spike play, but rather dick around and try to do a real one and aren’t set. Refs don’t blow it dead and do a 10-second runoff for some reason, but still, it’s now 1st and 15 from the 42 with 12 seconds to play.
Incomplete pass, now Hail Mary time. Arians calls timeout and decides to be fucking stupid again, and piss off the gambling community.
Now, I get not wanting to rush 2 or 3. Why let Rodgers have all day to set up his Hail Mary? But Arians brings the fucking house, and as a result, Janis has single coverage in the end zone. The only question is whether Rodgers can see it, and have the arm strength to get the ball there under duress. But it turns out he’s pretty good, and he does. Peterson punches the ball out, but there is a bit of a delay first and the catch holds up on delay. OT, and the backdoor push is gone for good (no extra point will be kicked in OT).
Because this is the eternal fuckup game, the refs can’t flip the goddamned coin right. So they have to DO THE MOTHERFUCKER OVER. And AZ wins THAT one, takes the ball, and immediately gets a 76-yard busted play to Fitty (who was left uncovered). And because Arians is determined to have me stroke out, he still won’t run with David Johnson on 1st and goal from the 4, tossing incomplete to a well-covered Fitty. Thankfully the second play is a shovel pass to Fitty, which works and the shitty fucking Packers are out of the playoffs.
Maybe the REAL fucking Cardinals will show up next week and not the assdick version we saw tonight. Otherwise, they damned sure better be playing the Panthers, and not the SeaTruthers.
I go sleepy time now.
Balls! How about if they wore the throwbacks?!?!
http://57.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m90vfn8PIW1qf5do9o1_400.gif
Kill me now.
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Only watched until the first td of the ARI/GB game yesterday then went to a college bball game. Got out to a series of texts from the gf/fiancee character that ended with “we won.” Then I listed to the Cardinals Talk postgame show for my two hour drive home. [Insane] Fans calling in were also concerned with BA’s playcalling approaching the two minute warning but the hosts did a good job toeing the company line: “Well we knew when Arians got his own team that he was going to be aggressive. #NoRiskItNoBicuit”
Saw the highlights this morning — Palmer has been saved by DBs with greasy hands all season. The play of that game aside, I’d rather see SEA come to ARI than play the Panthers. I think the familiarity of SEA would be preferable to playing CAR for the first time.
All said, it’s just nice to know that the Cardinals have, at worst, an NFC Finals Participant banner coming their way. Finally, I have the Fox pregame talking show heads on (with Randy Moss and Colin Cowherd) and they are horrible. Just. Fucking. Horrible.
I don’t mind Randy Moss, but that sounds like a TERRIBLE combination. I am glad to see Arizona doing well, Palmer too; he’s had his best year. Plus Fitty, like to see that.
I think Moss is the only guy on the set who doesn’t get Colin’s act. So Colin is sitting their spitting his typical troll bate and Moss is just over there getting all fired up, “It’s playoff football, Colin! IT’S PLAYOFF FOOTBALL!”
I’ll take your word for; Cowherd fills me with so much rage that the millions of people more deserving of his paycheck are not getting it that it is not worth it to watch/hear.
I watch NFL Live (yeah, I know) and Ryan Clark is already the best guy on there, the most level headed and considerate.
I, on the other hand, again the outlier, enjoyed both games and understood the the coaches motivations for the way they played it, although I disagreed with it in both instances. I will defer to you people since I am a coach potato and have not played and coached for my entire life, built and watched the respective teams for this year, watched both mine and the opponents game film for days, knew what my players were capable of all year, knew who had what injuries, etc., etc.
Happy breakfast.
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Also DVRing saved me from most of the inane prattle.
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Goddamit. I just made eggs and coffee. The Rock n Roll marathon is near my place so I don’t want to deal with the traffic closure stuff. Menudo sounds awesome. Or that breakfast sandwich.
There is a few places near here that make really good Menudo. Both are perfection, one is a little tame and needs spices.
That has coronary artery obstruction written all over it.
And I must eat it.
Is it a sandwich or a pancakewich?
Seatruthers will win the Super Bowl if they can win today. Calling it now.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOurns.
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Hoping he is inking.
I’m with you on this one. Mostly because me and a buddy plunked down $50 each on them and if they win we both get $2750. GO HAWKS!
I so want you to be -$50 at the end of this………… UNLESS, UUUUUUUUUUUUNLES that would mean another P*ts trophy. If that were the case, then by all means.
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Filled the blackouts with last night’s threads.
Goddammit Chiefs; KC garbage time starts way too early. Yeah yeah clock–where was the Chiefs D? Still, they made it interesting. And I guess Brady does sprints now.
Carson Palmer had an Angels in the Outfield! You’re totally right with Arians’s pigheadedness in putting it on Carson. Those are two happy bastards today. So Rodgers covers 85+ yards and a TD in two passes; it was the one-hoppers that seemed strange. I’m happy Fitzgerald took charge.
Are you leaning towards rooting for any of the teams that play today?
It’s easy for me, being a Donks fan and a CLT native (though I live outside Raleigh now). For the unaffiliated, my pitch is that CAR/AZ would match the two best teams in the league all season, and a road game is the only way Dreamboat can be stopped.
I sadly agree with this and am now in the interesting position of not caring too much if the Steelers lose. Best chance for Pats to lose is in Denver.
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I agree. One thing though: is diplomacy reverse-jinxing?
We’ll see how we play, but I’m not optimistic. It will take Denver turning it over a LOT and us converting to win and at that point, our chances in New England are… not good. Unless everyone magically recovers in another week and that’s doubtful.
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I can only take the “the coin did not flip” fuckup as evidence that the refs have been fixing coin tosses.
http://www.wired.com/2010/11/st_cheatscience_cointoss/
Also, maybe Bengals playoff fuckuperry is a chronic condition? Get your shit together Mr. Palmer. There’s good on fire, and there’s this :
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It was an exciting game but, god, Collinsworth was making it out to be THE CRAZIEST GAME IN THE HISTORY OF ALL CRAZINESS!!!1!!1!!
And being the good little company man he is, certainly didn’t acknowledge (i) that it was a very poorly played game overall; and (ii) it was only excited as the result of a toxic mix of incompetence and idiocy by AZ (though he did at least touch on how awful Palmer was on the go-ahead 4Q drive, assume he got electroshock at the commercial break to bring him back in line).
That idiot, Beav, should have went for two.
agreed, had them very much in chaos at that point.
Ward wanted him to go for two, but June was upset.
That’s what I was thinking. No balls on that guy.
I picked a hell of a day not to watch football (not my choice).
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So apparently Andy Reid needs the challenge flag taken away from him after the 2 minute warning. I assume to keep him from doing something stupid.
Why is the cork on the fork?
To keep Ruprect from injuring himself…and others.