February 07, 2010
I don't have a television any more. And I'm not really a big sports fan. But I was curious about just how it was going. And damn, but it was hard to find anywhere that listed the current score, let alone any detail.
I guess the NFL is trying to clamp down on that kind of thing. But on their own site, there's a page which has a pretty nifty flash app that receives data regularly from their server and graphically shows the state of the game.
Most predictions I've seen say that the Saints are gonna get whopped, but as of half time it looks like they're hanging in pretty well. Behind, but not all that far behind.
While I'm talking about sports, another weird thing: Asashoryu won the January tournament, his 25th win. Then he seems to have gotten in a fight in a Tokyo bar. Now he's announced his retirement.
He wasn't very popular with the fans, and he has kind of dominated the sport for the last five years or so. I gather that ratings and tournament attendance has been off during his years as a yokozuna. I wonder if it'll pick up now that he's out of the sport?
That leaves Hakuho the only yokozuna. He, too, is from Mongolia but I don't think he's as controversial as Asashoryu was.
Kind of a pity that Asashoryu couldn't control himself. It's obvious that he is still in winning form. And his 25 victories is third on the all time list. If he'd stayed out of trouble for another couple of years he might have set a new record.
UPDATE: And now the Saints are in the lead. Good for them!
UPDATE: What's with the Colts not doing any huddles?
UPDATE: You know, it's really pretty neat watching the game this way. I don't have to put up with all the advertising, or listening to moronic "analysis". I've got a player window open and I'm watching Nanoha A's, and whenever anything happens on the browser window I can pause it and take a look.
Somebody named Porter just earned himself an MVP, I think. I bet he's on cloud 9 right now.
Why in hell would New Orleans want to take a timeout when they've got a 14 point lead? (They have an extra man on the field or something?)
UPDATE: For a team that was supposed to get whomped, New Orleans is playing a pretty good game.
UPDATE: Congratulations to New Orleans for a hard-fought win. And congratulations to someone named Porter, for putting the game away.
Unfortunately, the Superbowl is usually a mismatch. Doesn't seem like it was this year, though; both teams did well. (Except for one interception pass tossed by Manning, and I bet he wants that one back.)
UPDATE: Naah, Porter didn't get the MVP. They gave it to New Orleans' quarterback. Boring!!!
Any interception is a good interception. But an interception that you run back for a touch down, in the Super Bowl, is as good as it gets for a defensive back. I think Porter is probably a pretty happy man tonight.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at
05:09 PM
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As for the no-huddle, NFL rules are such that if the offense goes into a huddle or substitutes any new players onto the field, the defense has to be allowed to substitute players as well. If the offense does neither, they can line up and snap the ball while the defense may not be ready. Offenses usually use no-huddle to run plays significantly faster, when they're desperate for time or want to take a risk to upset the defense by changing the tempo or preventing them from having the time to safely make substitutions.
The Colts use these rules to do something unique. Manning calls his own plays from the line, old school. Nobody else does that anymore. So, since he's running the offense, unless they have a player who needs a breather, he gets everybody right back up on the line after a play, forcing the defense to hustle up or risk giving him a freebie. He then (usually) spends the entire time allotted to the offense to get their play off calling nonsense, keeping the defense keyed up, and then calls for the center to hike the ball with a few seconds left on the play clock.
The Super Bowl really hasn't been much of a mismatch since Free Agency/Salary Cap ~15 years ago. Before that, you usually had the traditional powerhouses (mostly from, since the end of the 70s, the NFC) winning every year. Dallas and San Fran managed to trade a couple after Free Agency, and Pittsburgh has done o.k. in it, but as a whole, there's been a much wider variety of teams winning it all since then; only the Patriots have threatened to dominate, and even they can't always pull it off.
Posted by: BigD at February 07, 2010 07:22 PM (LjWr8)
Thing is, I don't want to watch it, even online. I just want to know what's going on.
I didn't know that Manning called his own plays. I assumed he had a radio in his helmet.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2010 07:30 PM (+rSRq)
Posted by: metaphysician at February 07, 2010 07:31 PM (vM63Z)
Then came the play of the game: not the return, but the onside kick to start the second half. Utterly unexpected, and it rocked the Colts back on their heels, where they spent the rest of the game. Sure, they marched right down the field the next time they got the ball, but the defense had been taken out mentally, and the offense got flattened by the intercept, and N.O. clearily winning the appeal on the 2 pt. conversion could not have helped the Colts mindset. New Orleans deliberately changed up their defensive calls in the third quarter and again in the fourth, keeping Manning from getting his rhythm back.
Great performance by the Saints, but in a way, it's too bad you missed the commercials. The Audi one is going to be big on the conservative blogsphere tomorrow, I think... I've never seen such a frightening commercial. But it will sell cars to people who think that way....
Posted by: ubu at February 07, 2010 07:50 PM (uDoAi)
Posted by: Wonderduck at February 07, 2010 08:15 PM (w5qDx)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2010 08:18 PM (+rSRq)
OK, I just watched that Audi ad. Hole Lee Sheet!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2010 08:21 PM (+rSRq)
Monster.com: Fiddlin' Beaver. A beaver that can play the violin makes it big with the help of a job search engine.
Posted by: Wonderduck at February 07, 2010 08:21 PM (w5qDx)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2010 08:42 PM (+rSRq)
Posted by: ubu at February 07, 2010 09:09 PM (uDoAi)
I know. For those on the left, that ad will come across as mocking. For those on the right, that ad will make them want to buy Hummers, not Audis, as backlash.
I'll be damned if I know what they were thinking -- except, maybe, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2010 09:18 PM (+rSRq)
I think Toyota would disagree with that aphorism at the moment, and I hope Audi eventually will, too.
On top of everything else, they did bad things to a great Cheap Trick song.
Posted by: Wonderduck at February 07, 2010 10:17 PM (w5qDx)
The downside is that your QB has to be as good at play-calling as your coach; in fact he's doing some of the offensive coordinator's job, so your coaching staff has to be confident in him, and indeed in their jobs. Of course, if you're in the Super Bowl, your job security generally isn't in question...
Your team has to be able to execute, too. Lots of practice, and frankly, it's hard to do for an away game, because the noise level can make it difficult to call plays at the line. But if it's something that your team is comfortable with, and your opponents aren't, it can give you an advantage. (As it turns out, not enough of one. But if you ask me, the Colts lost the game on defense; after the first quarter they forgot how to tackle, and NO got a lot of yards on second-effort runs after a tackle was missed or broken.)
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at February 08, 2010 07:10 AM (mRjOr)
*sigh*
Posted by: atomic_fungus at February 08, 2010 12:59 PM (DgY1D)
Enclose all spoilers in spoiler tags:
[spoiler]your spoiler here[/spoiler]
Spoilers which are not properly tagged will be ruthlessly deleted on sight.
Also, I hate unsolicited suggestions and advice. (Even when you think you're being funny.)
At Chizumatic, we take pride in being incomplete, incorrect, inconsistent, and unfair. We do all of them deliberately.
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