Harbaughs!

Mike Schilling 47 Comments

A few observations:

  • John got all the social graces in the family.
  • The Falcon offense was completely predictable: run on first down or on third if less than two yards to go; otherwise, pass
  • If any of my kids had acted out like Jim H. after his challenge was denied, they would have gotten a good talking-to and a time-out.
  • I don’t know why Vernon Davis was MIA for so long, but he’d better be a big factor in the Harbaugh Bowl.
  • Ray Lewis had another fine game.
  • The Falcons won Yards, 1st downs, and Time of Possession.  The Pats won Yards, 1st Downs, and Yards/Play.  Statistical victories today weren’t worth the pixels displaying them.
  • If the game had come down to the missed FG, I would fear for Akers’s mental health.  He looked like a very unhappy man.
  • Joe Flacco had another fine game.
  • My earliest sports memory in the ’64 World Series, where the two starting third basemen were brothers.  This is bigger, though Peyton vs. Eli would be bigger still.  (Ken Boyer is another forgotten Cardinal.  If it weren’t so difficult for third baseman to be elected to the HOF, he’d probably be in, but I’d be surprised if anyone reading this remembers him)
  • Joe Buck actually made an unscripted, funny joke.  (When one of the sideline reporters couldn’t be heard over the crowd noise, he told her they’d have to wait for the transcript.)
  • Oh, and WOO-HOO!

What does everyone else think?

Mike Schilling

Mike has been a software engineer far longer than he would like to admit. He has strong opinions on baseball, software, science fiction, comedy, contract bridge, and European history, any of which he's willing to share with almost no prompting whatsoever.

More Posts

47 Comments

  1. The Falcons were overrated. They have a good quarter and half then slowly, from coaches on down, choke. Sort of amazing how they could lose leads like that two weeks in a row. The 9er’s are a good team, they stayed calm and cool even when they were on the edge of being routed and shouted out.

    I’m really surprised the Brady’s folded. I’m even more surprised the ratbirds were able to slowly come back and take the over. It didn’t help the Brady’s seemed to drop a lot of balls. Flaco is usually just good enough to really disappoint you in the end. His biggest challenge, which he met today, is to avoid big fork ups.

    I need official corroboration Buck’s joke was unscripted.

    • It was right before the game started. Erin Andrews, giving the 49er spiel, shouted over the crowd noise, but the lady with the Falcon spiel wasn’t as loud. That’s hard enough to anticipate that I’m guessing extemporaneous..

      • The reason DVR’s were invented was so that nobody has to listen to pre-game spiel. On a different note the spell checker tells me “pre-game” is misspelled and its offering to change it to “pee-game.” pee-game????

        • DVRs were invented so I wouldn’t have to look at Erin Andrews? Talk about useless devices.

          • Ohhh there has been a bit to much looking at Erin Andrews using high tech devices. Eye candy aside, sideline reporters are wastes of oxygen. They exist primarily to inject even more cliches into each broadcast.

          • Don’t dis the sideline reporter. Suppose you weren’t sure if both sides came to play? Of if, after the first half was over, thee was still a lot of football left?

          • I need to know if they really want it and they’re going to go out there and give it their all. Are turnovers going to be important?

          • Eye candy aside, sideline reporters are wastes of oxygen. They exist primarily to inject even more cliches into each broadcast.

            A have this vague recollection of Holly Rowe asking actually interesting, specific, and relevant questions in her halftime interview during the Reggie Bush vs. Vince Young Rose Bowl. That was officially the only game in history where a sideline reporter made a meaningful contribution to a broadcast.

            Though it was nice to see The Greatest Special Teams Player of All Time, whose jersey I wear every Sunday to this day, on the sidelines yesterday….at least someone from the Bills is working during the playoffs this year.

          • I’m still irritated that his perseverance and gutsy, never-say-die attitude kept the Cowboys from being the only team to roll up 60+ points in a Super Bowl. That and Leon Lett’s nonchalant stupidity.

          • Unfortunately, that was Don Beebe, not Steve Tasker. Or at least it would have been, had the Super Bowl been played between 1991 and 1994. Which, of course, it wasn’t.

          • Argh…and I fumbled my recollection at the goal line. I’m pretty sure the Super Bowls were held in the years 91-94. Well, at least one team showed up each year to play…

    • “The Falcons were overrated. They have a good quarter and half then slowly, from coaches on down, choke. Sort of amazing how they could lose leads like that two weeks in a row.”

      I’m tempted to think their fast start the past two weeks was a function of playing West Coast teams in early games. Numbers suggest WC teams really struggle in 1 o’clock games on the East Coast.

      • There’s probably some truth to this (though yesterday wasn’t a 1:00 start). Also, I read somewhere (Football Outsiders maybe?) that home-field advantage has its biggest impact in the first quarter. If you can weather that as a visitor, you’re in better shape.

        • I think a lot of Atlanta’s struggles come down to coaching. At times, their offense seems unstoppable. With White and Jones outside, Gonzalez working inside, and Quizz out of the backfield, I sometimes wonder how they don’t score on every drive. But somehow, they don’t. Their playcalling is odd at times. They seem to run a masterful 2-minute drill, which makes me wonder if they should be using that approach and mentality the whole game.

          • One weird stat is that they led the league in scoring on the first drive. As I said in the main post, I think that they get into a pattern and become predictable.

          • I wonder if they script their first drive so they are well prepared and have a great plan so they kick butt. Two minute drill are striped down and simplified plans which they specifically practice. The rest of the game they don’t have the same level of plan, practice or vision so they sort of suck.

        • Yeah, there’s definitely something wrong there. Whenever I’m watching them, I never have any confidence that the offense will actually play well. Then they start flinging it around, I think, “of course, with those players how can’t they produce?”

          And then…

    • I’m not surprised the Brady’s folded. He gets really shaky and inaccurate when he gets under pressure and takes a lot of hits. The methodical, short pass hope to get more works well in the regular season when the quality of the opposition is highly variable, but come playoff time, when teams tackle better and stay at home more it becomes a dicey strategy.

  2. I’m still not sure which Harbaugh is which. Which one led a cardiac Colts team to the AFC Championship and fell short against a Kordell Stewart led team when a bouncing Hail Mary fell harmlessly to the turf?

    The petulant Ravens one did seem silly after the challenge, but he was right, so… I dunno. Half-credit?

    I quasi think that, similar to how they didn’t run pistol sets or read-options the two weeks before the Packers game, the Niners were simply hiding VDavis for the past 8 weeks… just waiting to unveil him.

  3. Oh yeah that roughing the qb call against the falcons when the lineman slightly whacked the 9ers qb was terrible.

    • It was. But it made up for the call Harbugh went insane over, where the ball was clearly trapped, not caught.

      • Five years ago we would have called that good enough for a catch. This year, though, that’s definitely a trap.

  4. “If any of my kids had acted out like Jim H. after his challenge was denied, they would have gotten… a time-out. ”

    So the exact opposite of what Harbough got.

  7. So we’re rooting for the 49ers? Is that the general consensus?

    Because Ray Lewis stabbed his girlfriend at a dogfight before we found out that she never really existed?

    • I’m rooting for the 49 ers to win, but for Jim Harbaugh to spontaneously combust after losing a challenge during the third quarter.

    • I will be pulling for Baltimore, though for the first time in a while will be pretty happy for either team winning.

    • I will root for the Ravens if they all start representing Baltimore and speaking only in Wire quotes, e.g.

      “Coach Harbaugh, what are your plans for containing Colin Kaepernick?”

      (Eyeing her notebook balefully) “Is you taking notes on a criminal fishing conspiracy?”

        • “Tell them to have fun at the Pro Bowl”. Suggs is the Ravens’ Jaybird.

          If he were the Ravens’ Rawls, he could have said “You, Belichek, are a gaping asshole.”

    • I don’t know…I find myself favoring the Ravens for some reason. Maybe it’s the purple…

  8. Jim Harbaugh, in both an X’s and O’s sense and an antics sense, has turned the dreary act of watching NFL teams and coaches trying to risk-averse the other team into a loss into something that is actually fun. Whatever amount of money he is making is not nearly enough.

    This has been a crazy year. College football was boring and the NFL was interesting and exciting for the first time in recorded human history.

Comments are closed.