In case you hadn’t heard, the US national team advanced to the 2nd round of the World Cup after a late goal from Landon Donovan gave them a 1-0 win over Algeria. It was an incredibly tense affair for the American fans who saw their team dominating Algeria but not finding the back of the net until stoppage time in the second half. Well, actually, they did find the back of the net much, much earlier. Roughly 20 minutes in Clint Dempsey scored, only to have his goal disallowed for a supposed offside. Now, in fairness to the referee and the linesman, it did seem at first glance as though Dempsey could very well have been offside—he was lurking near the back post with no one around and tapped the ball into the back of the net with ease. I was outraged all day, but this morning I went back and looked at the videos again and it’s about as close a call as could ever happen (the relevant rule and official interpretation says that a player is in an offside position if “any part of a player’s head, body, or feet [not including the arms] is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent.” So maybe the refs don’t deserve too much bashing for that call by itself. But it’s pretty damn frustrating when it happens a game after that utterly bizarre call to disallow what would have been the USA’s winning goal against Slovenia. And had the US not advanced to the 2nd round, this post would involve lots and lots of curse words. Continue reading ‘world cup refereeing’
Tag Archive for 'sports'
Free agency season just started in the NFL, and as should be expected, the Saints have already lost one prominent player, linebacker Scott Fujita. The thought of even one piece from our title-winning team going missing has sent some Saints fans into tears. There are two groups of people: those upset at the Saints for letting Fujita go, and those upset at Fujita for leaving the Saints. Regardless of which camp you’re in (or whether you’re upset with both), you need to calm down and realize that football is about two things a) winning games and b) making money. Sometimes in that order, sometimes not. While Scott Fujita is a class act, stand-up guy who has been a great friend to the city of New Orleans, it’s clear that the ownership and/or personnel staffs and/or coaches felt that he wasn’t worth what the salary he commanded on the free agent market. And for Fujita, it’s clear that the positive aspects of playing in our wonderful city for the defending Super Bowl champions didn’t outweigh the millions of dollars more he’ll be making in Cleveland. I’m going to explain why you shouldn’t be mad at the Saints or at Scott Fujita. Continue reading ‘people who are mad that fujita’s leaving’
First of all, let me admit that I’m a casual, bandwagon Hornets fan. When I was a kid, my favorite team was the Orlando Magic (because of Shaq), and after he went from Orlando to Los Angeles most of my interest in the NBA faded. Sure, I’d watch a game here or there, but I mostly preferred the college game. So much of the NBA play was dominated by isolation plays for the stars, as opposed to the ball movement of the college game. The refs let stars get away with traveling and carrying. The 24-second play clock led to an uninteresting, back-and-forth style of play, and outlawing zones struck me as taking away a big part of the game. I remembered when I was little and we almost nabbed the Timberwolves; the Times-Picayune even ran a headline that said “Got ‘em!” above a Timberwolves jersey. This was pretty exciting, aside from the minor detail that we did not, in fact, get the Timberwolves.
When the Hornets came, I wasn’t all that excited at first. I’d watch the occasional game on TV, but didn’t pay too much attention. Then in 2003 I moved to a new house and got DirecTV, which didn’t have (and still doesn’t have) Cox Sports TV, so I couldn’t watch Hornets games aside from the occasional nationally televised game. But then the Hornets got Chris Paul and returned to New Orleans full-time after a Katrina-induced exile to Oklahoma City. And they started winning. I had to been to a Hornets game once before (2004, maybe?) when my dad got some tickets from a work colleague. But I didn’t go again until I decided to go in March 2008, when the red-hot Hornets were fighting for the #1 spot in the Western Conference. They were playing the Bulls and entered the 4th quarter down by nine, but came back to win by eleven. Chris Paul had 37 points and 13 assists. I didn’t start attending every home game or anything like that, but clearly the NBA and the Hornets had some appeal. Continue reading ‘that Hornets games are not on DirecTV’
Okay, I guess I’m a few days late with this post, but a certain sore loser from Russia won’t shut his trap, so why should I? I’m talking about Evgeni Plushenko, the silver medalist in men’s figure skating, who has spent the days since his loss (if one can call a silver medal a loss) bitching about the winner, American Evan Lysacek. Most of Plushenko’s criticism centers around one fact: Lysacek didn’t do a quad, and Plushenko did. In Plushenko’s mind (and in the mind of some commentators, such as noted mullet-loving Canadian figure skating great/he-man Elvis Stojko), the quad should be the sine qua non of men’s figure skating. In their minds, the sport hasn’t advanced in decades, while other sports have moved ahead in leaps and bounds—just compare this year’s halfpipe routines to ones from four years ago. Continue reading ‘evgeni plushenko’s whining’
I’m an Olympics junkie. Every two years, all I want to do is watch round-the-clock coverage of sports I wouldn’t otherwise care about, except that I’m sucked in by jingoism and sappy human interest stories. This year, NBC has apparently decided that it would like to do the crappiest job possible of televising the Olympics, and is making my life miserable.
The Olympics are in Vancouver, so that should be great for TV in the USA, right? No need to tape-delay stuff for ten or twelve hours until prime time. I’m cautiously optimistic that the live prime time coverage will be good, but it looks like NBC is going to suck horribly at everything else. I’ve been looking through the TV schedule and this is pretty much the way it works on the average day (all times Central):
NBC: mixture of sports/feature pieces from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. (weekdays) or 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. (weekends), the big-name sports from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., then recap/medal ceremonies/some sports coverage from 10:30-11 or 11-12.
MSNBC/CNBC/USA: USA curling & hockey matches, some other hockey matches. Continue reading ‘nbc’s olympics coverage’
I’m under the weather with a bit of a cold and too lazy to form a lengthy, sustained argument on one topic, so here’s a smattering of tidbits on things I hate but couldn’t make a full post out of. Continue reading ‘miscellany’
If you’re second-guessing anything from the Saints’ 26-23 win over the Falcons, it’s probably that fake field goal late in the 4th quarter. I’ll get back to that later, but the real mistakes were a few clock management errors that made the result far closer than it should have been. First, the Saints didn’t run enough time off the clock at the end of the 1st half, enabling the Falcons to mount a scoring drive of their own; second, the pass-happy playcalling on the drive leading up to that fake field goal let the Falcons save their timeouts and gave them more time to drive down the field for a tie or win. Continue reading ‘bad clock management #4′
Now, I’m going to start this with a disclaimer: I didn’t see much of the LSU/Ole Miss game because I was moderating at a quiz bowl tournament. But I did hear everything from LSU’s failed two-point conversion and successful onside kick through to the end of the game, and when I got home I rewound and watched the game from the same point on. But I’ll just be concerning myself with the last minute of the game, so that shouldn’t matter.
LSU got a remarkably good break with their successful onside kick, and then another when Brandon LaFell made a superb play, racking up the yards after catch en route to the Ole Miss 31-yard line. At that point LSU was in excellent shape, with two timeouts left and within Josh Jasper’s range (he had already made a 50-yarder earlier in the game). That said, a 48-yarder is no gimme, so Les Miles was entirely justified in trying to pick up more yards through the air. But Jordan Jefferson has got to have the pocket presence to get rid of the ball. On first down he successfully avoided a sack by throwing the ball away, but on 2nd down the 10-yard loss was a killer. Certainly one could argue for running the ball there, but the fault for the sack has to rest with Jefferson. The 3rd down play call for a screen pass is one of those things where if it works right, we’re all talking about how much of a genius he is. That’s the sort of play that very easily could have gotten fifteen yards and put LSU solidly back within Jasper’s field goal range. Was it the best call? Maybe, maybe not, but I have to rail against the results-oriented thinking I’ve already bitched in my Belichick post. If Ciron Black gets out and makes a block there might’ve been a decent gain on the play instead of a loss. While Les Miles and Gary Crowton’s playcalling was certainly questionable, it was also defensible. Continue reading ‘bad clock management #3′
I watched the Saints’ win over the Falcons. After the Falcons turned the ball over on downs with 1:49 left, I thought, “I realize they can’t quite run the clock out, but with an 11-point lead the Saints should kneel on the ball and then punt on 4th down. I realize this is one of those things where people are going to say, “Kevin, you’re only saying this because of what happened.” Well, that’s true; had the Saints run for a first down, had there not been an injury, had there not been a fumble, no, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. (I’d still be right, though.) But I definitely thought the Saints should have taken a knee. And my dad said the same thing when I talked to him after the game, and I checked a few message boards and saw at least one more person agreed with us. Click here for my explanation.
There are about a thousand different ways to deal with a tied football game. You can leave it tied, as was the rule in college for many years. You can let the teams alternate possessions starting at the 25 or the 10, as is the case now in college and high school. Neither of these solutions is ideal. The current college and high school system eliminates the importance of field position, punting, and the vertical passing game, while placing a heavy premium on turnovers, field goal kicking, and two point conversions. And obviously, ties must be avoided in the NFL playoffs. But either of those proposals is a huge improvement over the NFL’s joke of a playoff system. In fact, just about any system would be an improvement. It is far too easy for the team that wins the coin toss to march down the field, kick a field goal, and win the game without a single possession for the other team. Of six NFL overtime games this year, three have been decided by a field goal on the opening possession. Continue reading ‘the nfl overtime rule’