Weekend winners
Blake Bortles. The Jacksonville Jaguars clinched a postseason spot with their third consecutive win, and Bortles has been a dude in during that streak. Jacksonville has scored 30 or more in each December game and Bortles has thrown for 903 yards and seven TDs (no picks) in those games. With Bortles leading the charge, the Jags have won seven of their last eight. He has completed a career-best 61 percent of his throws this year.
Chick-fil-A. Almost always, the fast food giant is closed on Sundays. It’s part of the company’s core. Apparently, so is helping folks. The chain opened at the Atlanta airport on Sunday when the power was out and fed people for free. Bowling for Bowls of Bowl Game Success (Bowler optional). The contest officially is out biggest to date with right at 80 entries. We will aim to post the early standings no later than Wednesday. Deal? Deal.
Dallas Cowboys. Dallas had to have that win Sunday night. Simply had to. Now, the Cowboys are 8-6 in a packed NFC playoff picture. With two weeks left, Rams have a two-game lead in the West, Saints and Panthers are tied at 10-4 atop the NFC South, Eagles and Vikings have clinched the East and North. The 10-4 team that does not win the NFC South is the front-runner for the first wildcard. Atlanta could go to 9-5 tonight with a win or fall to the group at 8-6 with a loss. Dallas, Detroit, and Seattle also are 8-6. But the Lions are banged up and the Seahawks are bickering and depleted. Plus Dallas is in the hunt and the Cowboys get Ezekiel Elliott back next week.
Star Wars. Yep, as expected, the new Stars crushed the box office, making more than $220 million. It’s the second-best opening weekend ever. The best of course was “The Force Awakerns” so there’s that.
Weekend losers
Jerry Richardson. The Panthers founder and owner announced he is selling the franchise. The allegations of sexual – some former employees claim he asked to shave women’s legs in the office – and racial harassment in the workplace have become overwhelming. Among the names already surfacing to buy the team is one Puff Daddy/P Didy/Sean Combs, the rap mogul. A minority owner would be great for the game. His chances may be doomed before they ever get started, though, since Combs said he would sign Colin Kaepernick.
Tennessee Titans. That was a painful loss for a team fighting to make the postseason. Wow, a 25-23 setback at San Fran could be a season-changer.
Our bowl picks. Bagel-and-four to start the bowl season. Ouch. C’mon Lane Kiffin. We even got heckled pretty good in an email from someone who was torqued by our very rare disaster. Here’s the feedback: For the love of God please stop posting your picks you guys obviously are living on past performance and have no clue about 2017 college teams. This is not “entertainment.” Good talk.
NFL
In several ways, you could have listed the NFL as a winner of the weekend.
Great games in every platform on Sunday.
Panthers-Packers with the return of Aaron Rodgers at 1. Cowboys-Raiders in a name-worthy match-up that went to the wire to close Sunday night. Steelers-Patriots at 4:25, and when the numbers come back, that one will be a monster.
(Side note: That Steelers-Pats game was aces, friends. Aces. It had the feel of an AFC title game, and if we’re lucky, it will be.)
The action, for the second week in a row, was fun on the field. Those thrilling back-to-back Sundays also came after a Saturday without gobs of college football. Good times. Until they are not.
But each of those three home-run showdowns was marred with controversy.
We already discussed Jerry Richardson, the disgraced Panthers owner who is selling the team amid allegations of workplace harassment by no fewer than four former employees. But each game – as good as they were on the field – had moments exposing some of the warts of the game. Some of those warts are unavoidable, but a couple must be addressed.
We’ll start in Carolina, where despite the return of Aaron Rodgers, the Packers dropped a game they simply had to have to stay alive in the NFC playoff race. Rodgers looked rusty – he had two underthrows that were picked that normally he would have turned into TD passes – but man he’s fun to watch.
As great as Rodgers is, he was the second-best former MVP quarterback on the field. Cam Newton was the truth Sunday throwing it and running it. He finished with 300 total yards (242 passing, 58 rushing) and four touchdown passes and arguably the best in the moment trash-talk of the season.
As for the warts on this one, the final half of the fourth quarter was filled with buzz-worthy talking points. First there was the blatant head-hunting crack-back block that Thomas Davis delivered on Davante Adams after one of Rodgers’ three interceptions was bad. And dirty. And avoidable. It also will be exhibit 1A in the offseason discussions about the NFL adding some form of the college targeting rule in which players are kicked out of games.
The rule has helped change the culture of the college game, but the increasing numbers of reviews and delays continue to slow any type of flow these big matchups start to develop. (Reviews of a Carolina TD catch and the game-sealing fumble by the Packers were two others.)
Maybe there’s no way to ever go back, because we all want the calls to be as right as possible, but man every score and every turnover – two of the biggest plays and emotional turning points in a very emotional game – is no longer celebrated. It happens. We wait for a guy to get a call. We wait for him to tell us what’s up.
That’s where we are. And again, no one wants any incorrect call to determine a game.
But if we are going to slow the flow and put so much on technology, then how in the name of Ed Hochuli are we to a place in a multi-billion-dollar industry does a team’s season come down to whether a referee can fit a piece of folded up paper in his pocket between the ball and one of two polls connected by a chain.
Yes, technology allows us to see which of Damiere Byrd’s butt checks touched down in bounds and whether it’s a TD or not in super-duper slow-mo, but the medieval system of America’s most popular game that is above all else defined by acquiring yards and forcefully moving through, over and beyond the next line is two old guys with sticks and chains.
And in the Dallas-Oakland game, the on-the-field crew needed a piece of paper to determine if the nose of the ball was even with the poll.
Wow.
It also directs us to the most notable referee-related issues Sunday.
Also in the Cowboys-Raiders, the game was sealed when Oakland quarterback Derek Carr fumbled into and through the end zone. The play resulted in a touchback and everyone seems upset with that. (We’re kind of surprised with all the hullabaloo about this. All the rules are against the defense, and all these guys stretching and extending to get into the end zone run the risk of the fumble. We don’t really have a problem with this rule to be honest.)
The rule we do have an issue with is the NFL’s catch rule, in which the definition of a catch seems to be more and more cloudy with each passing season. We also have an issue with the TD catch rule that cost the Steelers late Sunday.
You have seen it by now, but tight end Jesse James lost control of the ball coming to the ground on what was originally called a TD in the final seconds that would have given the Steelers the win.
Under the letter of the catch rule, the overturned called was administered correctly. Yes, we need to figure out a better way to determine a catch. Something that seems kind of ludicrous in this day and age, right?
My biggest issue is the double-standard of crossing the goal line for runners as it is for someone catching the ball.
Still the games were fun. Confusing at times, but definitely fun.
This and that
– Side note: We revisit this because we asked for input last week. We did start Aaron Rodgers over Philip Rivers in our fantasy semifinals. We won rather comfortably, and Rodgers had a much better day than Rivers. On to the title game, where we face the best team in the league who just dropped 130-plus points in their semifinal win. That team’s name? Danger Kitty. So there’s that.
– We referenced our dreadful start to the bowl season as far as our prognostications. Well, we were 2-1 on our NFL picks Sunday with the lone loss being the “over 53” in the Steelers-Patriots game, which appeared to hit on the TD that was overturned and would have hit if the Steelers kick the field goal rather than turn it over at the end. (That said, if our previous run of like six straight weeks of 2-2 holds true to form, then everyone should go big against the Falcons minus-5.5 tonight.)
– We have said this many times, but when TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer writes on college hoops, we’re in. Here is his view on UT’s 78-73 loss to UNC on Sunday in an entertaining game.
– Sure looks like Justin Fields, the top-rated football prospect in this class, is locked and loaded to sign with Georgia on Wednesday when the early signing period starts.
– Bruce Feldman of SI reported Sunday that Austin Thomas will not be coming to Tennessee. It was previously reported that the 31-year-old Thomas, a native of the Volunteer State, was joint Jeremy Pruitt’s staff as the “GM” of the program. Man, been an offseason to forget for Johnny Vols Fans everywhere.
– We love the draft. You know this. We also believe that the Cleveland Browns will love this draft, too. Cleveland, according to the ESPN computer projections, is pegged to have two top-five picks in the 2018 draft. The order, according to Football Power Index, which simulates each game for the rest of the season 10,000 times, is projected to be Cleveland, Indianapolis, New York Giants, San Francisco and Houston, which dealt its first-rounder as part of the deal that allowed the Texans to draft Deshaun Watson.
Today’s question
We’re a week from Christmas. Ho-Ho-Ho.
Weekend winners and losers. Go-Go-Go.
On this day, Dec. 18, Brad Pitt is 54. Stone Cold Steve Austin is 53. Katie Holmes is 39. Keith Richards is 74. How’s that dude still alive? Ray Liotta is 63.
As for a Rushmore, Steven Spielberg is 71.
Rushmore of Spielberg movies.
Go.