DOLT HARD FACTS
Analysts ignore easy-to-see penalties
B RINGS to mind the atwar spouses. He: “You’re driving me crazy!” She: “I’m not driving you anywhere! Drive yourself!”
It’s nuts. By halftime of Saturday’s second NFL playoff game, PanthersSeahawks, eight fouls for misconduct had been called; four in the first game, RavensPatriots.
Sunday’s CowboysPackers replay rule festivalcumfiasco — so much for the original intent to only reverse egregiously incorrect calls — included a late hit foul against guard T.J. Lang that relocated Green Bay from Dallas’ 7 to its 22, and an eventual field goal.
In games that pros — college men, too — could least afford to act like standalone jerks, they took turns!
On Saturday, Ravens wide receiver Torrey Smith was flagged for sustaining an afterwhistle macho hassle — smack in front of a side judge — and later for taunting. Smith had 62 yards in catches, 30 in personal fool fouls.
In the fourth, NBC’s Al Michaels flatly noted each team had 55 yards in penalties. But neither he nor Cris Collinsworth noted most of them — 60 of 110 — were for misconduct!
Near the top of PanthersSeahawks, Seattle’s Jeremy Lane was slapped with an outof bounds unnecessary roughness call — after a fair catch! That’s nuts in a preseason game!
But given ample opportunity and conspicuous evidence, neither the NBC crew nor Fox’s Kevin Burkhardt and John Lynch even bothered to hint these playoff games are being determined, to some great degree, not by football, but by individuals committing lunacide. Or does “the game is getting chippy” suffice?
On the other hand, Michaels, with the help of several NBC graphics, twice made a big deal of Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco’s wins and losses record — as if he were a starting pitcher! Yep, it’s all him. If his backdoor slider is working and he keeps the ball down in the zone ...
In the first six quarters of Saturday’s games, there were eight penalties for misconduct. Eight. The AlabamaOhio State semifinal, to some significant but incalculable degree, was determined by a taunting penalty.
But when it’s time for our paid experts to “break down the games,” the most easily preventable — thus most costly — and irrefutably inexcusable “mistakes” don’t even make the cut. Doesn’t matter who’s at the wheel, it’s enough for the logical to be driven crazy.