A good Sunday

Man, Sunday was a good day for the sport editor. And, man, I gotta tell you DVR makes it all so much better. Delivered birthday wishes to my favorite 2 year old, ended up mostly playing nerf basketball in the living room (oh yeah, I showed that kid who's boss!). Arrived back home around 2:30 and popped on the Bengals-Bills game.

Normally the sport editor would turn his nose up at such mediocre fare but deep down he is a long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan and has to seize this rare opportunity to see his boyhood squad on national TV. Got through the first 3 quarters in about an hour (thank you, DVR). The Bills tore down the field on their opening drive, JP Losman carving up the Bengal secondary like a Rob Zombie villain (or would it be hero?). The Bengals matched the feat on their opening drive, Carson Palmer looking even more impressive flinging confidently down field. Then they both wound down a bit. The Bills were able to knock in 4 FG's over their next 5 or 6 possessions but the Bengals held the halftime lead thanks to a kick return TD. The Bills secondary was flat out more effective than the Bengals, even laying some serious hits on Chad Johnson eventually knocking him senseless late in the game. (Yeah, I know it's utterly tasteless to rag on the guy who got carried off on a stretcher, but isn't he overrated? Seems to me that Houshmanzadeh gets it done while Johnson takes all the pub. I don't mean that Johnson's no good, not at all, he's a fine WR, I'm just suggesting that his mouth has advanced his fame more than his on-field skills) The Bengals D stiffened in the red zone but gave up points more readily than the Bills.

As I got into the 4th quarter, I was approaching live action again, so I switched to Juventus-Inter over on Fox Soccer. This too was aided by DVR action, allowing me to skip the opening blah-blah and get right into the action. If I didn't know I was watching two of the finer teams in Europe, I would've swore I was watching two city park beer league squads having a hack fest. Tenacious D is all well and good but the ref was doing more work than I'd like to see him do. In soccer (and I would suggest similarly in baseball), the ref is all-important in determining the flow of the game. And if the ref loses control then it can descend into nothing but brutality with a little round ball. In this case, though, it was the players who dictated the ref's whistle. They came out sloppy and cruel and the ref had to insert himself early and often. And the side judges too: good god, Inter must've been off-side at least a dozen times in the first half! It was a really frustrating game. Just before half-time, when I had long since assumed Inter would never be on-side, Cruz shook loose and drilled one low and to the left of Juve's keeper, a nice strike.

At half-time, I skipped back over the 4th quarter of the Bengals-Bills game. The Bengals were ahead 21-19 with 8 minutes or so left and they looked poised to squeeze the clock to zero. But the Bills quite effectively used Marshawn Lynch to protect the ball, move forward and eat up some clock. An odd strategy since their passing attack had dominated but it wasn't scoring touchdowns and adding in Lynch's speed to the outside and confidence between the tackles kept the Bengals D backpedaling. And the coup de grace: Lynch with the halfback option pass to reclaim the lead with 5 minutes to go. Good stuff. I figured Carson Palmer had enough time to engineer a drive but the Bengals just couldn't get it done and went 3 and out. Then Lynch, in an attempt to run out the clock, shook off three tacklers in the backfield and broke clean for a 50 yard run up field. As a Bills fan I was pleased, as a spread player I was less so. I had the Bengals -1, I figured their passing attack would make the big statement on Buffalo's workmanlike D. I figured wrong, it was the other way around. The Bengals just don't have much D and the Bills are a little stronger than I gave them credit for.

It was about time for Colt-Pats, the day's tastiest morsel, but I went back to the second half of Juventus-Inter. I hoped that the two squads would've tightened up and gotten back to playing clean soccer but not so much. In fact, the injuries--real injuries, not just the soccer kind--came pretty heavy in the second half. Inter (top of the table in Serie A right now), was the better team, I thought. They defended and turned it and controlled the ball up front well enough to get a handful of shots throughout the match. Juve (currently in 4th in Serie A), on the other hand played hack-y and couldn't maintain possession. But they did get the equalizer on some frantic play in front of the goal. It was a nice strike but I think the keeper would've had it except that it ricocheted off the leg of a defender and took an unnatural hop over his head. It ended in a 1-1 draw which Juve was lucky to have. Though they're only separated by 3 spots in the rankings, I thought Inter looked like the much better team on Juve's home turf.

And that brings us to the Thanksgiving turkey, Colts-Pats. I anticipated a high scoring affair with the home team at least keeping it close, if not pulling out the victory, though honestly I thought virtually any outcome was possible (multiple universes are great for over-imaginative physicists but can be a troubling concept to gamblers). And any outcome would make for an exciting contest. It was more of a defensive contest than I would've thought but still it made for a good game. Samuel's first interference call was a good call but an unnecessary foul; the second one was a horrible call--it should've been offensive pass interference! Both led to FG's and a serious ass-whippin' at half-time, I'm sure. And what was with that interference call on Moss in the end zone? Both defensive lines were excellent. Neither of these QB's have had pressure like that all year long. Man, Addai's TD was a nice run after the catch but, man, that was some horrible tackling, they just never put him down. Addai is a beast, always knew he was good, but he came up huge on this day. I never understood why knocking a guy out of bounds before he gets both feet down is punished. Isn't that good defense? It’s the receiver's responsibility to get 2 feet down, why can't the defender knock him out? On the Pats TD drive in the 4th Stallworth had only 1 foot down and was knocked out and given the catch. But it seems to me Stallworth still had room to get the 2nd foot down, he just didn't. Why is the defense punished for that? I don't get it. Didn't it seem like Tony Dungy was still talking when Belicheck walked away?