The Couch Critic - Week 12

Yesterday promised to be a good TV football day in the Student's Lounge. Two games featuring four good teams at 1, followed by a huge Giants game at 4. I decided to keep a running log of the games and their coverage. I'm calling it "The Couch Critic." Looking over it this morning, it's pretty interesting (to me, at least) to see how my thoughts about a game involving a team of mine evolve as the game goes on. Anyway, here's the first entry; click here to read the whole thing.
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12:55 - Welcome to the first (and possibly last) installment of The Couch Critic, my notations on the day's NFL action from where I'm sitting. Who cares what I have to say? Well, consider this in the spirit of George Costanza: "Maybe I could be like, an announcer. Like a color man. You know how I always make those interesting comments during the game." Disclaimer: I'm not sitting on a couch, rather a moderately comfortable desk chair. My room can't fit a couch, and I'm not moving the TV to the living room. I have a nice swivel move between the TV and the computer, so I'm sticking to that.

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12:57 - Two nice appetizers before the main event at 4 (Giants at Seattle). On CBS we have New England at Kansas City; a pair of 6-4 teams that match up pretty well. On FOX, a pair of 7-3 teams: Tampa Bay at Chicago. Excellent game, but as a Giant fan I have no idea whom to root for. I guess I'll support the Bucs, since I "picked" them. (My picks, for no other purpose than picking them, have a lot of favorites... I liked the lines, I guess: KC -3.5, Carolina -3.5, Cincy -9.5, San Diego -3 (that one's a lock), Tampa Bay -3, Minnesota -4, Tennessee -9.5, St. Louis -3, Jacksonville -3.5, Miami +7 (I feel like Saban needs to prove something after that whole "who-cares-if-we-lose" fiasco), Philly -4, Jets +2, and Colts -8 (no line is safe with that team, especially at home). Yes, I left out the Giants. I can't objectively assess them. But, for the record, Giants +5.

1:00 - I'm glad FOX assigned Kenny Albert to the Bucs-Bears game. I'm guessing Buck and Aikman have the day off after working Thursday, so Stockton/Moose slide up to do the Giants-Seahawks game, giving Albert/Baldinger this one. The reason I'm glad is because if Kenny was assigned to, say, Titans/49ers, I think he'd have to kill himself dealing with the fact that he missed the most exciting Rangers game in years in order to cover a pair of 2-8 teams. (CBS has Enberg and Dierdorf. Which is a good thing, especially because Enberg thrives off crowd energy, which Kansas City fans always provide.)

1:10 - Did you know the Bears' front four had 8 sacks last week? Yeah, I did too, but I forgot until they sacked and stripped Simms at the 1-yard line. One play later, 7-0 Bears. This D-Line is playing like my Madden 2005 Giants team when I play on All-Pro (i.e. comically good). Why Madden 2005 and not 2006? Because I'm in Year 13, and I'll be damned if I buy a new version before I finish my 30 years.

1:19 - KC drives down the field quickly. 7-0 Chiefs. This crowd is pretty pumped up. I'm glad the Giants get them at home. Then again, Oakland won't be much better.

1:30 - Scanning out of town scores, I see Nate Kaeding just missed a 40-something yarder in calm wind. See, Jets fans? You still have something to smile about.

1:42 - Bucs FG, KC FG, 7-3 Bears, 10-0 Chiefs. By the way, both games are now in the 2nd quarter and I have yet to see a Game Break on either network. Boo. And Sportsline/NFL.com's scoreboard won't load the GameCenter for Vikings-Browns. Boo.

1:45 - One downside of the Colts having home-field advantage this year will be the absence of the great "Cut that meat!" chant Peyton Manning was subjected to last January in Foxboro. Though I guess "De-Caf!" doesn't have the same sharpness to it.

1:50 - Around the league... David Carr is channeling his inner Joe Montana against St. Louis: 7-10, 100 yards, 2 TDs, 14-0 Texans. Bet he's gonna love having Reggie Bush around to take some pressure off. And there go the Jets fans' smiles.

1:53 - Our games? Not so exciting. Chiefs have picked off Brady twice, lead 13-0. Meanwhile, Bears-Bucs is a defensive battle (no surprise there), with the only TD coming off a fumble inside the 5. If you took the over (31.5) you deserve this. Game Break! Tomlinson 1-yard TD. Yeah, that was worth showing.

2:05 - I was wrong. Buck and Aikman are, in fact, working (I assumed they weren't because Nantz and Simms are off, but OK...), they're just working Eagles/Packers. Wait, what? FOX assigns its #1 announcing team, fresh off a Thanksgiving stinker, to the 2-8 Packers and the Mike McMahon-led Eagles instead of a battle between two first-place teams? Does this make sense to anyone? Anyway, all this courtesy of The Flash, who subscribes to SportsWeekly, which provides announcer info. So we'll be getting Stockton/Moose with more Siragusa than we'll want. Fine. By the way, the other guy who missed the Garden Showdown last night (seriously, between the skates to win a 15-round shootout?!) is Sam Rosen, who is in Buffalo for Panthers-Bills. Missing that game last night must be killing him, especially since he's probably thinking, "Hey, three weeks ago I did a Rangers game in the Garden Saturday afternoon, then did a Giants game in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, so why couldn't I do a Saturday night Ranger game and take the 1-hour red-eye to Buffalo?" By the way, I'm quite certain I'm the only person who cares about this. Besides Chris Russo.

2:13 - 24. Season 5. Frank? Jack! January can't come soon enough.

2:14 - Touchdowns coming in bunches now around the league, including Santana Moss's first one in over a month. Of course, our games are at 13-3 and 7-3, respectively. Meanwhile, a glance at the San Fran/Tennessee GameCenter shows the 49ers season in a nutshell:

1-10 - SF25 (3:59) K.Barlow right guard for 75 yards, TOUCHDOWN NULLIFIED by Penalty. PENALTY on SF-K.Harris, Offensive Holding, 10 yards, enforced at SF 25 - No Play.

1-20 - SF15 (3:46) K.Dorsey pass intended for B.Bajema INTERCEPTED by K.Bulluck at SF 23. K.Bulluck pushed ob at SF 7 for 16 yards (J.Smiley).

2:28 - Halftime pretty much everywhere. Low-scoring games, by and large (our games: 7 FG's, 2 TD's, many zzzzzzz's, while my "lock" of San Diego is losing). The most total points in any game at the half are the 27 in Texans/Rams game, with Houston holding a 24-3 lead. Carr's first half: 13/17, 171, 3 TDs. Ryan Fitzpatrick is playing quarterback for the Rams. I am not making this up. The only thing worse, in my mind, than a rookie quarterback being thrown into a losing game is a rookie quarterback from Harvard being thrown into a losing game. As a friend of mine once pointed out, do you think the Knicks' PA announcer had to retrain himself from laughter when introducing Chris Dudley "at 6'10" from Yale"? I mean, is there anything less intimidating than a center from Yale? I'm putting a quarterback from Harvard out there as a possibility. By the way, as the Texans roll over the Rams, two local thoughts just hit me: 1) This is great news for Jets fans, who can now be tied for first in the Reggie Bush sweepstakes by the end of the day, and 2) This is bad news for Giants fans, as a Rams loss means Seattle could clinch the division with a win today. Not that they're going to play any harder than they would have, but this doesn't really help.

2:36 - Chad Johnson's TD celebration du jour: scores, puts the ball on the ground, then putts it using the pylon as a club. My score: 9 out of 10. He shouldve found a hole to putt into. But give the guy credit: every week it's something else, and it's always entertaining. And he didn't resport to "Hey I'm playing in Baltimore, I'll just mimic Ray Lewis!" Side point: Minnesota/Cleveland GameCenter is up and running. My quesiton: who actually noticed and let them know there was a problem?

2:41 - Shows how much attention I'm paying to the KC/NE game on CBS: Dan Dierdorf isn't doing this game with Dick Enberg; on the receiving end of the "Oh my!"s today is none other than former QB Rich Gannon. I'm guessing this means he's not in the league anymore, though I'll bet Jets fans wish he was. Seriously, who'd you rather have at QB tonight: Brooks Bollinger or Rich Gannon? Oh right, you guys want to finish 2-14. My bad. Anyway, with Gannon in the booth, I'm gonna have to listen a little more carefully. And as I type this, he says "Will Shields, a perennial Pro Bowl." This 19-3 game may be worth watching after all.

2:49 - "Alex Brown should star in "Prison Break" because nobody would get away from him." -- Brian Baldinger, killing two birds with one stone. He made sure to continue his weekly tradition of working "Prison Break" into everything he sees in the 3 minutes following Kenny Albert reading that week's promo, and he continued his weekly tradition of being the most painfully unfunny football analyst on TV. By the way, think about his above statement. Alex Brown should star in Prison Break because nobody would get away from him. So Alex Brown should star as.... the prison?

3:09 - Bears 13, Bucs 10 after three quarters. 66 minutes until the Giants kickoff. Of course, what will undoubtedly happen will this game will get exciting in the 4th quarter, leading to a climactic final two minutes, which the New York market won't see because the Giant game will pre-empt it. Not that I'm complaining - I don't want to miss a second of the Giant game. But if you're gonna be a crappy game when I'm watching you, you'd better be a crappy game when I can't watch you due to network restrictions. Time to order pizza so it gets here in time for kickoff.

3:13 - Memo to San Diego offense: WAKE UP!!!

3:21 - Around the league.... Texans beating Harvard, 24-10... Definition of a FG battle: 9-6, Buffalo, mid-4th... Cincinnatti's 34-0 bashing of Baltimore led me to check the last time the Bengals shut out an opponent: 1989, Week 13, against Cleveland. 16 years since their last shutout, and they're a little more than one quarter away. If the 4th quarters of our games are boring (Tampa Bay just cut it to 13-10, though), I'll check if that's the longest a current team has gone without pitching a shutout. I'd have to think so.

3:26 - There goes the shutout. Now I'm going to check out of spite.

3:34 - Around the league... Brees picked off in the end zone, Ravens get another TD (shutout talk maybe a bit premature), despite their best efforts, Carolina gets a touchdown (on their fifth play of the drive inside the Buffalo 5), Harvard-led Rams cut Houston lead to 24-16. Meanwhile, Chris Simms is leading his second straight impressive drive. Turning into a good game, just in time to get me juiced up for (did I mention this yet?) Giants vs. Seahawks. By the way, I know the Giant game could get really ugly really quickly. I'm fully aware of this. But for now I'm just going to focus on the fact that the Giants are playing a game in Week 12 that could decide home-field advantage for the NFC.

3:41 - Bucs down 3, Simms leads a great drive, less than 3 minutes left, 29-yard FG attempt by Matt Bryant. Wide right. I feel bad for Tampa Bay fans right now, but as a Giants fan, I can't even pretend to act surprised. There's a good chance that kick keeps the Bucs out of the playoffs. And Bryant destroys yet another team's season. Amazing. The downside of this game getting good is that Pats/KC has been reduced to permanent picture-in-picture, so I can't keep track of Gannon's Grammar Gems.

3:51 - Fittingly, the game ends on a sack of Simms. By the way, when FOX just got back from commercial, the first shot was of a despondent Matt Bryant, leading to this exchange:
Kenny Albert (rhetorically): You know what Matt Bryant's thinking about.
Brian Baldinger: Yeah, he's thinking about that last missed field goal. This game could be tied up right now.

Why couldn't they show Kenny Albert's facial reaction to that? It was probably something like "Rangers kill off an overtime penalty, win a 15-round shootout, and I missed it to sit next to the world's biggest moron."

3:56 - KC beats New England, CBS switches to San Diego/Washingotn. Nice. Seems the San Diego offense got my memo, as Tomlinson just tied the game on a 32-yard TD run. After forcing a Redskins punt, they're driving for the win.

4:04 - Sean Springs may have just picked my lock of the week by picking off Bress with 65 ticks left.

4:09 - Chargers defense comes up huge, forces a 53-yard attempt from John Hall. No good. Bad day for former New York kickers continues. Unless Chargers can gain yards quickly (30 seconds left), this game will go into an unseen-by-New York OT. Meanwhile, Harvard-led St. Louis just cut it to 27-24. Of course, there's only 26 seconds left and... They recovered the onside kick! Woah! And now they're at the Houston 30! If the Texans lose this game and end up finishing 1-15, there needs to be an investigation into whether they lost this one on purpose. Redskins intercept hail mary, invisible overtime it is.

4:13 - Rams score 10 points in final 26 seconds, send game into OT. Dude.

4:15 - Goodbye Redskins/Chargers, we hardle knew ye... We'll follow ye on NFL.com. Time for the main event. And pizza arrived just in time. 2 questions about that: 1) how many times do you have to order the same thing before you can put your name on it? I'd love to save time by just calline and saying "Yeah, just send over a Student of The Game special." 2) How lazy am I that I ask for delivery when the pizza place is a 30-second walk from my apartment? Well, it's half laziness, half I-don't-want-to-miss-a-snap."

4:40 - Wow. FOX goes commercial-free for the first 14:17 of the 1st quarter, giving me little time to catch my breath. So here's why Tomlinson is an elite running back. He saves the game in overtime, wins a huge one for his team, and makes sure to cover the three-point spread in the process. What a guy. Then there's the Harvard-led Rams, who were down 24-3 at the half, 27-17 with a minute left, and won in OT, also on a TD (also covering a three-point spread. Amazing, by the way. When was the last time 2 games went into OT with a 3-point spread (thus increasing the odds of a push) and both end with the favorites getting 6 in OT?) Harvard rookie quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick's final line: 19/30, 310, 3 TDs, 1 INT, 1 W. Not bad at all. My apologies. No more Chris Dudley comparisons till next week.

4:41 - Oh right, the Giant game. Surprisingly, they've been stopping Shaun Alexander. Not surprisingly, Hasselbeck is picking on Corey Webster like he's one of the last O'Doyle brothers (O'Doyle rules!). Hard to hate the guy matched up with him, Joe Jurevicius (who just caught a 35-yard TD). Ex-Giant, plays hard, good guy, and tragic family stuff. Can't the Seahawks bring Koren Robinson back? That would make things easier. Other highlights so far: Burress has great hands, and a notable NFL record was set.... by a punter. Nice achievement, no question, but there has to be an asterisk when a punter sets a record for consecutive games. It's just not the same as a defensive end (Jim Marshall, previous record holder). To me, this is the football equivalent of breaking Cal Ripken's record by pinch-hitting in 2,633 straight games.

5:02 - 7 Giants penalties in 24 minutes. Wonderful. Most of those are false starts. Four, says Dick Stockton. Like I said earlier, this could get real ugly real fast. Around the league... well, it's hard to pay attention because 1) Giants are on, and 2) the other three games are awful. And now the Giants just got called for a false start ON A PUNT! AND AGAIN!! Someone needs to start passing out Prozac or Xanax or something on the sidelines. ENOUGH WITH THE FALSE STARTS!

5:08 - Time to see how I did in my early game picks. Won: KC, Carolina, Cincy (about that shutout...), San Diego (barely), Minnesota, Tennessee, Rams (see San Diego). Lost: Tampa Bay. Wow. Only Matt Bryant kept me from being 8-0 in the early picks. Giants force, recover fumble. Bout time something went right there.

5:15 - I have absolutely no idea how the Giants recovered that Manning fumble. Is it just me or does Manning seem to fumble more than any QB in the league? And that time he wasn't even hit! AND ANOTHER FALSE START! 7 today. At least 4 of those on Pettigout, who needs to be put out of his misery. I can't remember hating another New York Giant more. Wait, we had Ron Dayne.

5:27 - Giant game: Flag, flag, flag. Meanwhile, the offense isn't playing too well, but showing that it might be good enough to win later in this game. Tiki hit 1,000 yards, yay. Around the league... seems Byron Leftwich left the game, wonder how serious that is. Samkon Gado: 14 carries, 90 yards, TD. Gotta love this guy.

5:37 - While this Shockey TD is under review, a quick thought on what just happened. Shockey caught (maybe) the ball in the end zone, then got pounded by Marquand Manuel, knocking the ball loose. Despite the refs' signal that it was a TD, Manuel picked it up and ran it out, all the way to the 30 before he listened to the whistles. One quesiton for Mr. Manuel, though: what are you running with? If the ball was knocked out before Shockey had possession, it's incomplete. And if it's knocked out after he had possession, it's a touchdown. How could someone catch a ball in the end zone and fumble it? Anyway, TOUCHDOWN! Give the Giants credit; it looks like they're gonna make this a fight. Halftime. Gonna go check last time _________ shut out an opponent.

6:00 - And the second half has started. I can't believe the Giants actually are leading right now, but then again, the defense is playing relatively well, the offense began to click a little, and if they can stop committing penalties and make a few big plays (and not let Alexander break loose), they could definitely win this thing. And apparently there are other games going on as well. The Dolphins just sacked Kerry Collins in the end zone; 16-7 Miami.

6:21 - I'm not slowing down, I just have less to say. Close game, Manning just threw a costly interception. How costly it turns out to be depends on what Seattle can do with the ball and good field possesion. They haven't done much since that first TD drive; if they don't get points now, I'd be concerned.

6:24 - Good morning, Shaun Alexander. Please just hit the snooze and go back to sleep. TD, Seahawks. Pick? Costly.

6:29 - Near-INT, Tiki sidelined, false start, crowd frenzied, 3rd and 13. Should've been 3 and out, instead Manning completes to Burress. Gotta take momentum back here. Never mind. No momentum can be gotten when Petitgout and Diehl give 5 yards back every 4 downs. And another flag! That Manning INT is gonna be analyzed to death tomorrow.

6:38 - The results are in. Sure enough, the Bengals have gone the longest without shutting out an opponent, their last one coming in Week 13 of 1989, when they whitewashed Cleveland. But the next-longest one might surprise you: Washington, which hasn't shut out an opponent since Week 5 of 1991 (Redskins 23, Eagles 0). Then Arizona (Week 15, 1992), Minnesota (Week 14, 1993), and New Orleans (Week 17, 1995). All four recent expansion teams since then (Carolina, Jacksonville, Baltimore, Houston) have all forced the opposition to put up a 0.

6:42 - 14 penalties. And yet Manning-to-Burress can make 1st and 20 disappear.

6:57 - 4th and inches at the Giants 4 (play under review, the spot will stand; Holmgren was going to take a timeout anyway, so why not at least give the challenge a shot). I say go for it. The Giants defense is good, but they've been missing tackle after tackle, and odds are you're gonna get the inches you need in any case. By the way, Dick Stockton is lost. It's 14-13 Seahawks right now. First he says, "If Seattle kicks a field goal, they'll make it a two possession game ." Huh? OK, he corrected himself. But then, when debating whether to go for it on 4th, "If they get the touchdown, then it's a two posession game." Because there's no possible way to get 8 points in one possession, right? Oh. Forgive the bitterness, this game is getting tough to take. I think whether I watch the Jets game completely depends on the outcome of this game. If the Giants win, I'll be excited to watch another football game, even if it involves the Jets and Saints. If they lose, I'll need the stacked Sunday night lineup of The Simpsons/Family Guy/Desperate Housewives/Curb to distract me from what will certainly br a difficult defeat.

7:05 - Again with the "two scores"!! Memo to Dick Stockton: They play with the 2-point conversion now. They have since 1994. Wake the hell up.

7:07 - I swear, every time the Giants start a play, I hear whistles, even when there aren't any. That's how this game has been going.

7:16 - OK, another review, and who knows if this one will stand or not. But I must say, atrocious job by Stockton and Moose. Any football fan worth his salt remembers the game a few weeks ago when the Saints got screwed by an absolutely awful call. Ernie Conwell was down, a Rams player picked the ball off of him and ran it in to the end zone. The play started before the 2:00 mark in the 4th quarter and ended inside 2:00, with Jim Haslett out of challenges. So what everyone learned that day is the rule that if the play starts outside of 2 minutes, it's a coach's challenge, and inside of 2 minutes is a booth review. But Stockton was busy telling the world that because the play ended inside 2 minutes, it was going to be reviewed by the booth. Awful job. In his defense, Larry Nemers, today's referee, misled everyone when, after reviewing the spot of the 4th down, announced, "Seattle has used its second challenge," when their "first challenge" was actually a booth review on Shockey's 1st-half touchdown. So Holmgren did have his second challenge, which is fine if he didn't know that (thanks to Nemers), but then Stockton's response should have been along the lines of "Well, this can't be challenged by Holmgren (he has none left) nor the booth (the play started outside of 2 minutes).

7:25 - After all that drama, I can't believe a) The Giants got that touchdown; b) they converted the neccesary 2-point conversion; c) the defense just forced a quick 3-and-out. Then again, I should start believing; they did the exact same thing against Dallas and Denver. Now, barring a Bledsoe-esque bonehead play (and against Seattle, you never know), the Giants either win or force OT. What a finish. By the way, it should be noted that this is maybe the finest games of Jeremy Shockey's career, edging out the season-ender against Philly in 2002.

7:30 - No good. Both the field goal and the Giants' chances right now. That was it, they had their chance. Now Alexander will pull a Tomlinson, and we'll have our 3rd OT TD of the day. Lost the toss. Game Over. Side point: Very nice of you, FOX, to have a virtually commercial-free 1st quarter, but did it need to be at the expense of the 4th quarter? Ever hear of setting up the situation? Commercial ends, - BAM! - ball is snapped. Next time just don't even show it. Like the way you miss pitches in the freakin' World Series.

7:36 - On a happier note, I've never had a better week for picks (again, for no other purpose than to pick games. Seriously. With picks like these, I wish I would've put money down.) In the late games, I won with Jacksonville, Miami, and Philly. I have the Giants +5, but I still think Seattle is getting a TD here. Barring that, I'll be 11-1 going into tonight.

7:38 - Bottom line: when you need a play to be made, get the ball in the hands of Burress. Another false start. I'm sure Coughlin will go easy on Luke in practice this week. And if the Giants win the division, thank Tim Carter, who just recovered what would've been a huge Shockey fumble.

7:40 - I've started to tape PrimeTime already. Win or lose, I have no idea if I can stomach it this evening. Maybe after the late SportsCenter.

7:45 - Yet another booth review. Here's something to pass the time: ESPN put up a graphic with some notes about our Harvard friend, Ryan Fitzpatrick. 1st Harvard QB to ever play in the NFL. 1 of 3 active NFL players from Harvard. 250th pick out of 255 in the 2005 Draft. And the 14th of 14 QBs selected. And now he has one more win than the 2 first-rounders, Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers.

7:49 - Feely misses. Again. Defense needs to come up huge. Again. It should be noted that both Tony Siragusa on the TV side and Dick Lynch on the radio side interrupted the play-by-play to call the field goal no good. See, that's no good. Let the play-by-play guy call the plays. Granted, it was out of character for Siragusa, but Lynch does this on a regular basis.

7:58 - The return of Thunder and Lightning! Can't you feel the symmetry? Ron Dayne with a huge run in OT on Thursday, and now Tiki with a huge run in OT today. And for the record, I started typing that before Dick Stockton brought it up. First 100-yard rusher Seattle has allowed all season. Even if it did take an extra period.

8:00 - Third time's a charm? Oh for goodness' sake. Bring back Matt Bryant.

8:04 - You give a team that many chances, that's what's gonna happen. Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible loss. Give credit to Manning, Tiki, Burress, and Shockey for doing everything they could to win this game. Give credit to the defense for standing tall as many times as you could expect them to. Blame Feely. And nobody but Feely. He lost this game. 3 times. 3 times! The weird thing is, I feel like the Giants answered the question of whether they can beat a quality opponent on the road with a yes. Sure, they didn't get the win, but the team proved they can win. I know theoretics don't count. I'm fully aware of that fact. But I have a lot more confidence in the team as a whole to win on the road, Manning specifically, then I did this morning.

So the Seahawks will get home-field advantage in the NFC, and the Giants and Cowboys will duke it out for the division next week. Maybe the Giants end up with the 2 or 3 seed, and end up back at Qwest Field with something to prove. And maybe they'll play disciplined and actually convert a field goal when it counts.

One final, Simmons-esque thought just came to me: you think opposing players who see Feely now will give him the Jim Levenstein treatment and hold up three fingers in the air, mocking him, as if to say, "Three times?"

This concludes The Couch Critic for this week. I just can't stomach watching Saints/Jets. Not after this. I'll probably flip to it during commercials, maybe keep it in picture-in-picture. But my mind won't be rational enough to do another three hours of this. Maybe tomorrow night, if I feel like it. But this was fun. Until the end, of course. Anyway, I'm outta here. Wait, false start!