With Christmas now in the rear view mirror, this introduction could easily qualify as a "Plus/Minus Take of the Week". The plus: football fanatics everywhere were treated to a Christmas Eve full of football; it was like being able to open presents at midnight instead of waiting until 9 a.m. long after Santa done crawled his dusty behind back up with milk in his mustache and Christmas cookie crumbs in his beard. The minus: although they had two pivotal division matchups with playoff implications--one being in prime time--they had to sacrifice most of Christmas Day to the NBA. Either way, outside of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and spending time with family and friends, there aren't too many other things I'd rather do than watch football on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For some teams--as well as some coaches and GMs who will get their pink slips before Black Monday--jolly old St. Nick had lumps of coal. However, if you were like the first team featured in this week's edition, then you felt like you got straight As and minded your manners at the 11th hour...
When doing this week's edition of "Views from the Nosebleeds", the natural choice of a lead story was last week's senseless murder of former Jets running back Joe McKnight in an alleged road rage incident with 54-year-old Ronald Gasser at an intersection in Terrytown, Louisiana right outside of New Orleans. However, because of the racial, social and political layers involved, I decided to make that a post unto itself. Furthermore, as a Black man in America whose spirit has grown weary from constantly being reminded the lives and memories of people who look like me don't matter--see the mistrial in the Walter Scott case as further evidence--I have too much frustration in my heart to take away from what is intended to be a half-serious, half-light-hearted series about my favorite sport. Since these posts are already long enough on their own, there is plenty of good and not-so-good football to discuss, so let's kick things off with two not-so-good, but-not-as-heavy stories...
If you're an avid sports fan, then this was your week. Beginning of the World Series between the two franchises with the longest World Series championship droughts in the Cubs and Indians. Beginning of the 2016-17 NBA regular season, which saw a loaded Warriors squad get their lunch money taken by the Tim Duncan-less Spurs to the tune of 129-100. While very few people I know are checking for NHL action this early in the season, football nearly took a back seat in the midst of a smorgasbord of intriguing sports options until a Saturday night thriller in Tallahassee with No. 3 Clemson outlasting (now) No. 19 Florida State, 37-34. Not to mention Fox being the beneficiary of a quadruple-header on Sunday between three back-to-back NFL contests and a do-or-die Game 5 of the World Series for the Cubs. So during a weekend which featured eight games decided by eight points or less, three overtime games and the first consecutive weeks of back-to-back ties since Weeks 12 and 13 of the 1997 season, there was a lot to love and hate about Week 8...
I came into Week 2 of NFL regular season action on a high from a solid Saturday in NCAA football. Although all three of my favorite teams won big--including Michigan storming back from being down 14 points in the first quarter at home to beat Colorado 45-28--my favorite game of the day was between two unranked teams, Maryland vs. Central Florida. After UCF QB McKenzie Milton lost his third fumble of the game in the second overtime in a tie game at 24, Maryland freshman QB Tyrrell Pigrome had the daunting task of filling in for the injured Perry Hills. However, there are few plays better in someone's first snap than to get a 24-yard TD run to win the game 30-24 in double OT and push your team under your first-year head coach DJ Durkin to 3-0. Yeah...seeing another one of my favorite college football teams win in dramatic fashion definitely got me ready for football on Sunday. So enough about the kids and let's talk about the grown man's game...
