"I think we have to score at least 24 points in order to win a game in the playoffs, period," Jets RB Curis Martin said before the game. "I don't think there's anything below that that's going to win a playoff game."
Although they only managed to score 20, Doug Brien's 28-yard field goal with 5 seconds left in overtime was the second time the Jets defeated the Chargers last night. The first time was with 11 seconds left in regulation time, after Drew Brees' hail-mary toss into the endzone fell flat on 4th down.
All set to celebrate, we were all forced into the suspended animation of disbelief, as a flag lay on the field because of Eric Barton's bonehead forearm shiver to Brees' head. Due to this flagrant stupidity and carelessness, the Chargers were given a first and goal, were able to convert the second life into a game tying touchdown pass one play later and send the game into overtime forcing the second win of the day for the Jets.
Nevertheless, the Jets won a game not even Jets fans really believed they could win after their appalling performances of the last several weeks combined with a dodgy defence and QB Chad Pennington's dodgy shoulder and all those questions about not being able to win a big game. A 20-17 road playoff victory is a big game and although the Chargers are certainly not the equivilent of facing the Steelers in Pittsburgh or New England anywhere, at least the season doesn't end now in humiliation, doubt and questions about the future. They are still not quite good enough to be the league's elite, but they might just be getting closer.
*****
The other game of course, was the matchup of, other than the Vikings, the two unworthiest teams in the postseason. The end result was, as Sports Amnesia and millions of others predicted, a Ram victory, although it took about the thousandth dropped pass of the game by a Seattle receiver to finally seal it with only seconds left.
Bobby Engram dropped Hasselbeck's final pass, on fourth-and-4 from the 5-yard-line with 27 seconds left and the Hawks are history yet again, freeing beleaguered coach Martz to lead his Rams next week at either Philadelphia or Atlanta.
Funny thing is, Engram isn't usually the worst offender. The Seahawks were tied this season for the most dropped passes with 38, led by league leader Darrell Jackson who had 11 all by himself and Koren Robinson, who had 10 despite missing at least four games due to suspension and being deactivated for several others by Seahawks management due to bad/strange/evil behaviour.
It's hard to believe a team as inept as that even made it to the playoffs by winning their division but it's hard to believe that the Rams, the first 8-8 team to win in the postseason, are as bad as they have been advertised as being.
The Rams actually looked pretty good and QB Bolger, combined with the offensive wizardry of Martz and the great receivers and running backs, just might be a team to be reckoned with in the next round, regardless of how overmatched their defence seems to be at times. The main thing is, they didn't let Shawn Alexander run wild on them, a mere 40 yards on 15 carries. And the other thing is, for all their flaws, the Rams have now beaten the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Jets and Seattle Seawhawks in the last three weeks and have averaged 26 points a game doing it.
So far, Sports Amnesia is happy at 1-1 for the Wildcard Weekend. Gladly wrong on the Jets game and certainly better than Sports Illustrated's "experts" collective 0-10 record for the weekend to date.
Lastly, the Seahawks in losing, maintained their level of postseason mediocrity not having won a playoff game since 1984. That is the longest active streak without a playoff victory: 20 years. Even the likes of the Bengals are only on a 14 year losing streak, just ahead of the Lions, who haven't won a playoff game since 1991, the Chiefs, since '93 and the Bears and Chargers since '94.
*****
The biggest news keeps getting bigger and whilst Archie Bunker's Army is contemplating the near-reality of the Mets signing megastar Carlos Belran, Newsday takes it a step further and writes the Mets Are Closing In On Beltran.
It appears there's something to this Omar Minaya for GM thing after all. I'd only hoped for it ever since the Idiot Collective fired Bobby V and retained that jerkoff Steve Phillips as GM instead. I only called for it once the Idiot Collective finally woke up and fired that jerkoff Steve Phillips. I only screamed about it when they refused to hire Omar and hired his lacky instead. Now, finally, the fruition of years of hope shining through...
You can imagine the hype of a New York franchise signing Pedro Martinez and the most sought-after free agent of the year all in one offseason. Geez, pinch me. I might actually start believing the Mets won't finish in last place this season.
******
A few funnies this week. First of all, from the San Fransisco's Scott Ostler writes:
"Jose Canseco auctioned off his 1988 MVP plaque for $30,000. Says his agent: 'We sold the MVP plaque because it was sitting around and the dogs were eating it.'
Let's hope Jose uses the money to buy Alpo. And that he shares it with his dogs."
Next was the
This brought up a few obvious questions like, why stop with Los Angeles when you could be MUCH more specific.
For example, Edison Field has a pinpoint longitude and latitude, why not rename them the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Longitude: -117.8833228849 and latitude 33.7881384963, located 4.2 miles southeast of downtown Anaheim and 3.3 miles southwest of downtown Orange? Imagine trying to fit that on the front of a baseball cap. But damn it, at least fans will know where to find it.
And what about the redundancy of the term Los Angeles Angels itself? "Los Angeles" is Spanish for "The Angels" already so do we really need to say, The Angels Angels of Anaheim?
In addition to the aforementioned stupidity of renaming, the team also sent an e-mail to every other major league club on Monday, no kidding, asking to be called "Los Angeles" instead of "Anaheim" and listed in abbreviations as "LA" or "LAA" instead of "ANA."
Perhaps it should just be listed as "DUH".
Really, someone bring Angels owner Arte Moreno some smelling salts, he's obviously eaten a few too many jalapeños to stay sane.
Finally, the term of the week comes from the Orlando Sentinal's Mike Bianchi, one of the more talented writers in sports commentary.
Bianchi says that following their latest debacle in the Orange Bowl, the Oklahoma Sooners should be termed Chokelahoma.
By the way, to your left in the links column, I've added a special category of sports columnists I favour so if you like good sports writing and somehow managed to feel unfulfilled by this drivel, you can always look there.
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