I admit that I didn’t watch the Browns game against the Lions on Sunday - but I am going to write about it.
Tim and I have wasted upwards of $250 going to watch Browns games this season, so this week, we finally decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. We’d stay home and use our time … I want to say more wisely, but I’ll actually just say differently.
Of course, what ended up happening was the Browns and Lions - by most accounts - played one of the best games of the entire 2009 NFL season. Obviously, I’m not going to tell you that this happened because we didn’t go to the game. I know enough about the cosmic order of the universe to know that my appearance at a bar on the westside of Los Angeles has no impact on what goes on in a stadium in Detroit.
My knowledge of the game then comes largely from watching Football Night in America (as a side note, Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison may be the two best studio analysts in America covering any sport). I got the impression that Alpha Dog was getting a lot of criticism for taking a timeout after the pass interference call and before the final play.
The logic behind criticizing Alpha for this - other than the fact that Alpha MUST be criticized for something every Sunday - was that it allowed the Lions to put an injured QB (Matthew Stafford) back in the game … an injured QB that then threw the winning TD pass.
Think about that for a second. How much sense does it really make?
Now I know Daunte Culpepper hasn’t always been a great QB, but I can tell you for certain that his shoulder wasn’t separated like Stafford’s was. In fact, I might argue that calling a timeout was a brilliant move on Mangini’s part because it allowed Stafford to come back in the game.
Personally, I’d rather play against an injured player than a non-injured player on most days of the week.
Of course, like many things in sports, the media determines the quality of the decision based entirely on the outcome. This is both the gift and the curse of sports - there is always a clear winner and a loser. Subjectivity only applies before and after the contest.
And let’s end this by talking about Detroit. After the game, I wondered about the quality of their decision to let Stafford get back on the field. The story goes that when Mangini called the timeout Stafford was lying on the ground in a pool of sweat, surrounded by doctors. He heard that the timeout had been issued and, knowing the rule, he jumped up, knocked three of the five doctors out, evaded the last two, used sign language to communicate to Offensive Coordinator Scott Linehan that he could still throw the ball, and then rushed out onto field to take what ended up being the second to last snap of the game - which was followed by the tying TD pass.
Because of Stafford’s decision, the Lions beat the Browns and are now 2-8. It had to be a quality decision then, right?
Well … let’s just say Stafford had gotten hurt worse on the play. Or had thrown an incomplete pass or interception. Then would it have been a quality decision? What if Daunte Culpepper had come in instead and thrown the tying TD? That could have happened - we’ll never know - but then the decision to keep Stafford out of the game would have been a great one.
But letting Stafford come back in also set up another scenario - he could become a professional sports hero, even if for just a moment, in a destitute city with a crumpled franchise.
What is the value of that in relation to the future risk to Stafford’s health?
Hard to say since we all know that no one play determines the outcome of any game, but if that TD pass ends up allowing the Lions to avoid the first pick in the 2010 draft then … maybe anything is worth that.
