Sunday, September 28, 2003

Housecleaning / Football. Sorry for taking so long to post the fourth part of the "community meeting." I really need to do a summary -- but I wanted to post everything I could remember before I started getting into doing my own commentary.

I also wanted to take a break and look at something completely different: football. I caught the last 3 minutes of the Redskins-Patriots game and then the last minute or so of the Texans-Jags game.

The 'skins got a bad ruling on the Laveranues Coles replay revue. He clearly puts both hands on the ball -- in fact, he touched it with both palms -- and got both feet down. He had his hands on the ball and twisted forward, thrusting the ball forward to ensure he got the first down and only upon hitting the ground, did he lose the ball. But that shouldn't have mattered because he clearly controlled the ball -- i.e. had possession -- prior to twisting -- and far prior to losing the ball.

The Texans game showed that pass interference can operate somewhat like late fouls in a college basketball game -- actually a smart play. The Texans had the ball inside the 10 and just needed a FG to tie the game and send it into OT. A touchdown would win it for them. The Jags committed at least two pass interference penalties -- but those were effectively meaningless, because they kept the Texans from scoring and allowed the clock to run down. The Texans ran a play with 6 seconds left on the clock and the Jags broke up the pass by committing pass interference. Effectively, this was a meaningless penalty because it meant the Texans had one more play -- a play which they should've used to kick a FG. However the Texans coach went for the win -- and got it when QB David Carr dove over the pile into the end zone. Nevertheless, I think the NFL Rules Committee should consider adding 10 seconds to the clock when the defense commits a pass interference penalty at the end of a game (during the last 2 minutes).

Oh, and did I mention that my Raiders may have finally woken up?