Necessary Roughness, Week 17 in the NFL

NR presents…

Necessary Roughness Presents, Week 17 in the NFL :
You play to win the game, unless you’re the Colts, Saints and Cardinals


where...

…the Bills turn back the clock to 1993 and crush the Colts!
…13 of the 16 games played had little or no effect on the playoffs!
…week 17 provided us the outcome of three of the four wild card games!
…the New York football Giants tuck their giant tails for the second consecutive week!
…thanks to all three people (mom included) who read this blog nearly all regular season!
…Matt Leinart was benched in the midst of a game he knew since mid-season he would play!
…Pittsburg is the first defending champ to not make the playoffs the following year since Pittsburg!

…beyond belief!


1st and 10…

The Denver Broncos, who started this football season at 6-0 only to finish 2-8, missed the playoffs by losing a do-or-die game to the woeful Kansas City Chiefs at home in blowout fashion. The Chiefs had never won a game at Invesco Field prior to Sunday, going 0-8 there in the past eight seasons. To make matters worse, head coach Josh McDaniels (a one-time undefeated head coaching sensation) benched star receiver Brandon Marshall for not being “invested” in the team for suffering a hamstring injury and demoted his best tight end, Tony Scheffler, to the practice squad for still unclear reasons. Great job Josh! You were the only potential budding branch of the Bill Belichick coaching tree 1/3 of the way through this season before apparently being attacked by emerald ash borers and withering away into a hollow, broken twig lying dead on the ground all while somehow proving, once again, that Belichick is a selfish, arrogant ass hat. If I was a Broncos fan, I would have torn out my own eyeballs and stomped them under heel after watching Jamal Charles gash the Broncos defense while the offense had no real punch with their two best playmakers on the bench. Marshall will look pretty good in a Baltimore Ravens uniform next season, and I guarantee his next head coach John Harbaugh won’t inappropriately call him out after watching how he handled Ed Reed’s injury for the past month.

The Philadelphia Eagles were shut out, stomped and outright embarrassed by the Dallas Cowboys in typical Philly fashion. Andy Reid wasted timeouts and screwed up the game clock, Donny Mac threw tons of passes at his receivers feet and whipped fast balls at their back shoulders as they were running 100 mph in the other direction and the defense fell completely apart in the most inopportune moments, which happened to be nearly every play they were on the field. But what really has Philadelphians chugging Lagers this week is the fact that the Iggies could have locked up a two seed in the NFC and the bye week that comes with it with a win, but will instead be the sixth seed and play the Cowboys in Dallas again in the first round of the playoffs. Upon realizing that the playoffs are played in January and not in December (when Dallas typically struggles), Philadelphians had this sort of Lagerific reaction. You stay classy Philadelphians!

Chris Johnson proved that he wasn’t just talking at the beginning of the season by breaking the 2,000 yard rushing mark (2,006 rush yards from scrimmage) and could have threatened Erik Dickerson’s rushing record if the NFL’s most self-aggrandizing, game-changing, camera-loving referee Ed Hochuli hadn’t called back his 65-yard touchdown run on a bogus holding call. Great job, Ed! There is a penalty on every single play in every game of the season. You just don’t call back a breath-taking, potential record-breaking run like that over something so silly in a game only being played for CJ to break 2,000 yards and beyond. It really is mind-boggling the performance that Sonic the Hedgehog gave us this season. In an era of oft-injured prima-donna skill players, CJ put together an old school display of durability and toughness coupled with world class speed and quickness last seen in Barry Sanders. If the Titans had won one more game and made the playoffs, Chris would have been the obvious league MVP. Thank you Chris Johnson, from the bottom of my heart. As an aficionado of smash-mouth, run first, defensive football; you were a bright spot in a season filled with roughing the passer penalties. Great job.

On the final Football Night in America, Tony Dungy said that he would have coached the Bengals to beat the Jets in a meaningless game for Cincinnati. Hmmm, I seem to remember a game a few seasons ago when Tony had a chance to keep the division rival Tennessee Titans out of the playoffs by beating them at home and thereby allowing the harmless Cleveland Browns into the playoffs, only he benched his starters and allowed the Titans a narrow victory and ultimately a scary third matchup of the season against Tennessee in the playoffs. I will never forget this transgression as it was the moment I turned against Dungy as a Colts fan. Tony’s statement on national television also reinforced what kind of double-talking, hoodie-fearing kind of guy he really is deep down inside. But Tony can’t be blamed entirely, practicing what one preaches has never been a strength of most Christians.

…touchdown!


extra point…

This is the end my friends, the end of the regular season. 17 weeks of glory, and now (mercifully in many cases) only 12 teams remain to play out the post season. The regular season is indeed a marathon full of peaks and valleys, wild speculations and over reactions, Sunday kinship and beer guzzling. It is the true essence of the NFL. Even Rams fans have a sense of hope for the first few weeks of the season. It is truly what makes America the land of the free and the home of the brave. Thank you to all who share in this passion throughout the land, to those who share my modest living room on Sundays, the Blue Doom Crew, and to those in far-away places who phone, text and e-mail throughout the season; we are brothers and sisters of an unbreakable bond. What we share with others is all we have. If we share but mutual passion, then we have shared our souls. Thank you. I hope to have some post season ramblings over the next month and a week.

…it’s good!


ps…

Making the Gaub Blog is, for sure, my early highlight of 2010. Great job LFG, great seeing you and the Reaper King, friendo.

…beyond belief!