Whipped Cream Difficulties

So, it has come to this: the ultimate Tuesday Morning Quarterback of the season.

And just in the nick of time, too, as we are entering one of the busy periods of our year, in which we are booked with meetings (with people!) three out of five days of the working week through May.

But enough about that. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

The secret to the Super Bowl is that Doug Pederson went for it on fourth down, twice, while Bill Belichick didn’t. (Ding!) 837 words down.

Three times this season the zebras on the field signaled a touchdown catch versus the Patriots, then a phone call from the league operations center took the points off the board. If this had occurred on the Zach Ertz touchdown catch with 2:25 remaining in the Super Bowl, the sense that officials favor the Patriots would have spiraled out of control, tainting the Super Bowl result and ruining the season.

“tainting the Super Bowl result and ruining the season”? That’s underselling it, Greg. If the Ertz touchdown had been reversed, Philadelphia would still be burning.

(Which reminds us: this is one of our favorite Superb Owl tweets.)

It’s a catch if it looks like a catch.

We remember an Oilers-Steelers playoff game from when we were younger, and something that “looked like a catch” but wasn’t. The Oilers would have benefited from TMQ’s proposed rule, but would it have been the correct call?

And doesn’t “it looked like a catch” leave just as many opportunities for folks to complain about officiating? “Hey, it looked like that Patriot caught the ball to me.” “Hey, it looked like the ball hit the ground before the Eagle caught it to me.”

We are happy the league is re-evaluating this rule. For the tenth year in a row.

This Super Bowl was among the most entertaining ever, ending this fractious, declining-ratings season on a happy note.

With 103.4 million watching, last night’s game on NBC from Minneapolis is down 7% from the total set of network eyeballs from the 2017 Super Bowl. A steeper fall than even the declining the stock market today, that’s the worst the Super Bowl has done since 2009 when the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-23 defeat of the Arizona Cardinals scored 98.7 million viewers.

Stats. Sweet blocks: Jason Kelce (Eagles), Joe Thuney (New England). Sour: New England on 3rd and long. Mixed: Tom Brady can’t catch, Nick Foles can.

The Steele and Nunes memos are overrated. And things are generally better than we think they are. By the way, Gregg Easterbrook has a new book coming out – called, interestingly enough, It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear. Just saying. (Yes, that is an Amazon affiliate link: we have no moral problem with making a few pennies from people purchasing TMQ’s books.)

The Super Bowl was an exhibition of undrafted unwanted players. (Ding!)

Lots of bad sports predictions. Mostly sports related, many Super Bowl related, a few technology related.

Why so many points and so much yardage? Tight ends are important. (We think that can be promoted to Ding! status.) Almost interceptions. State standings. Uncalled flagrant holds. The 600 Club.

Holding the kick return trick play to negative yardage compared to the conventional 25-yard line start was the hidden play of the 2018 Super Bowl.

And that’s a wrap for this season.

Use the offseason for spiritual and intellectual growth. Take long walks. Appreciate the beauty of nature and the glory of the night sky. Eat more plants and more fresh food, no matter how annoying all that chopping is.

Wherever possible, put people on hold.

Have a good offseason, everyone. This includes you, Gregg. And you too, Kevin.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2018 at 8:07 pm and is filed under NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.