Which would, admittedly, be hilarious. Have a whole bridal carry situation.
A coworker of mine thinks it was set up to make Mahomes the new “face” of the NFL. Also that the NFL and AFC are following the orders of the FCC.
Even though I live in PA, I was favoring KC just bc I like their logo. I’ve always liked them and I’m not sure why.
Speaking as someone who neither loves nor hates either team, I got what I wanted: an exciting, high-scoring game. Jalen Hurts is an amazing quarterback, and I enjoy Nick Sirianni’s aggressive style. But damn, Patrick Mahomes has that Michael Jordanesque ability to find another gear when he needs to. That second half, he played like a man possessed. Well, all the Chiefs did - their O-line protected him against a defense with (if I heard the talking heads correctly) the third-most sacks in NFL history. Great game.
I’m a huge Eagles fan, and I’m totally willing to give full credit to the Chiefs for turning around the game in the second half, but that defensive holding penalty really left a bad taste in my mouth. It turned a one in a fifty shot for the Eagles to come back to tie or win into 1 in a million.
The NFL has the same basic officiating problem as the NBA and NHL, which is that you are attempting to officiate contact between guys in the midst of chaos. The NFL is actually harder in the NBA in one way in that the line between an acceptable action and an unacceptable action is not quite as well defined or is even possible to well define under the current ruleset. (The NHL has a similar problem.) Baseball, by comparison, being a noncontact sport more or less, doesn’t really have this complication 99.9 percent of the time, but has other unique officiating problems.
I am not convinced NFL officiating could BE better than it currently is within totally changing the rules.
Over the decades, the NFL, the entire league, has been re-engineered for parity. From draft rules to game rules, the overall health of the game is better. And the overall quality of the Super Bowl as a game is much better. Compare recent SBs to those of the 80s and 90s when they were largely blowouts.
Also, (mostly) gone are the days of the perennial losers. Remember the Aints fans wearing paper bags on their heads? What about the hapless Buccaneers of their early years? Despite coming close to an early Super Bowl when they lost the NFC Championship to the LA Rams, 9-0. If they’d won that, they would have gone to Super Bowl XIV. But otherwise they were hapless. Toothless.
(Pretty much) gone are the days of any doormat teams. On any given Sunday during the regular season, just about any team can win.
Parity has been largely achieved, and somewhere, someplace, Pete Rozelle is smiling.
Not a football fan since the 80s Bears, but I remember when Bradshaw and the Steelers were amazing and fun, and when he was a character in the booth. This was the only football I watched this year. Who thinks that TB adds anything to the broadcast. He and Jimmy Johnson sure seemed to have outlived any usefulness they may have once served.
Never was a fan of replay, and this hardened my decision. Having that idiot go on about “the process.” As well as the whole issue of what got reviewed and what didn’t. Not to mention what gets replayed. Did anyone else see the punt returned step out of bounds a couple of steps before the play ended? Maybe he didn’t, but he was tight wiring the sideline, and they never replayed a shot showing his feet. Is it clear to everyone why the first sideline catch was disallowed, but the second allowed? Replay/delay did not make it clear to me.
And Rianna… I’ve long sorta marveled at my cluelessness as to popular singers. Sure, I’ve heard the name Rhianna, and I know she is phenomenally wealthy, so apparently a great many people like her music. But it sorta amazes me that I did not recognize even a snippet of a single one of her songs during halftime. (I couldn’t even tell how many songs she sang - several of them sounded quite similar.). I woulda thought a chorus or riff wood been drilled into me through advertising, TV/movies, etc.
How much was she actually singing, as opposed to lip-synching? Of course, more that is just not aimed at me. I’ve rarely enjoyed a SB halftime, even when I knew/enjoyed the artist (such as Prince.)
I’m not at all expert in these things but it would seems to me that would be almost impossible to fix an NFL game in regards to point shaving. Maybe you can bribe a player or two, but an entire team? And the staff? And the ownership?
And amazing how there are no, none, zero leaks about this happening. The NFL can dictate game results w/o upset players, coaches, and staff? And no leaks? Nobody mad because they wanted to win a SB and the league says “no”? No dramatic shifts in the betting lines once it’s known the fix is in?
Hmmmm…
It would also impact future contract negotiations.
Probably worse than that. I think the Win Probability numbers I’ve seen show about a 25% chance to win down 3 with 1:50 or so left and the ball. These were neutral numbers, but I think the in-game numbers show about the same (75% chance of a Chiefs win if the holding is not called and they kick a FG). Obviously that goes to 99+% after the penalty and subsequent kneel downs.
That said, it is a foul, so it’s kind of hard to complain about it. I really hate the “let them play at the end of the game” argument since it implicitly allows fouling to decide the game. There is a chance that without the hold Mahomes hits JuJu for a TD there. So you can’t really say “let them hold to make the game exciting”.
The real problem is what @RickJay says - the NFL is almost impossible to ref perfectly accurately. I still think the NBA is harder, but it’s close.
A few other random thoughts:
Great job by the Chiefs OL holding the Eagles defense to zero sacks. Helps wash away the memory of the SB loss to TB when the OL couldn’t do anything to protect Mahomes.
Odd game in that in all of the most memorable offensive plays were either by the losing team or were due to schemes getting guys wide open in the red zone. Pretty lousy job by the Eagles DC in being prepared to handle the Chiefs motion on those plays - never a good look when receivers can walk into the end zone.
I guess we can bury both the “Andy Reid can’t manage a game” and “Andy Reid can’t win the big game” narratives now?
Rihanna just didn’t have enough juice (to my eyes and ears) to handle half time all by herself. I kept waiting for a supporting act to pop in to help spice things up, but it never happened. Pretty dismal.
It certainly was close, but there was an official about five yards away right on the sideline, and probably another looking at it from behind the play. Their angles might have been just a little better than what we saw on our television screens.
And I will hazard a guess that that play was closely scrutinized in the replay booth.
This is his second championship. I would think the first one would have erased any “can’t win the big game” talk all by itself. The second one certainly demonstrates that the first wasn’t a fluke, though I don’t think anyone thought it was.
Yeah, you would think. I’ve still heard from fellow Chiefs fans giving most of the credit to OC Beiniemy or Mahomes/Kelce or whomever.
I guess unless he wins one without Mahomes there will be always be questions like Belichek gets about whether it was more him or Brady.
I get that it was a penalty, and Bradberry even admitted it. But given that it wasn’t a big hold, and it was the first defensive holding or DPI penalty of the entire game, either both teams defenses hadn’t committed a single foul to that point, or the refs had decided to give the defenses more leeway.
Do your remarks kinda try to have it both ways? If the officials have the best reviews, then why have replay? And if I and you saw it as that close, why didn’t the announcers/director see fit to at least point that out on replay. Why did they question the call on the late holding call?
I thought the announcers were somewhat inconsistent in what they replaced/discussed, and what they didn’t.
I’m coming from a perspective of playing rugby, where there is only 1 official on the field, and no one other than the team captain can even speak t him, and must call him “sir.” If the official didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. Period.
In American professional football, the announcers don’t decide the penalties.
The NBA is both harder and easier. Easier in the sense that the rules are somewhat more objective; harder in that seeing what the hell just happened is much more difficult. The NFL is more spread out; seeing whether a shooting foul happened in a tangle of arms and legs under the basket is impossible to do perfectly in real time.
nmmmmm
Right. Bradberry himself got away with a pretty clear DPI (much clearer than the 4th quarter hold, IMO) on 3rd down earlier in the game (on Smith-Schuster in fact).
You can see it partway down this article: Chiefs win Super Bowl over Eagles: The refs’ holding call was right, but it’s still maddening.
I think that was what Smith-Schuster meant with his postgame comment that “eventually they were going to call it” (or something to that effect).
So that’s what’s tough - if the ref doesn’t call it early in the game the defender can probably expect it won’t be called with the game on the line. Which, of course, incentivizes holds and DPI at critical moments relying on the “let them play” mantra from the refs. And nobody wants the game decided because DBs can just grab the receivers on the critical plays.
Uh, no. I was pointing out that probably two officials had pretty good views of the play, but the replay booth likely also took a closer look.
In watching a replay of the return, you can see that there’s an official about two yards away from Toney as he’s running down the sideline. And the replay CLEARLY shows that he didn’t step out of bounds.
As to the announcers, I cannot speak to that. Perhaps they also saw the replay and deemed it unnecessary to talk about it.
Thanks. I happily acknowledge I was mistaken.
I thought I recalled the video of the final part of the runback being from behind him - but I’m sure I misremember. You are correct, there was an official right there - he shoulda had a perfect view. I finally figured out how to cue/pause the replay you link. The step I was thinking of was at the 8.5 yd line. At first it is obscured by the official, but as it progresses, you see his foot clearly a couple of inches in.
You are right, I was wrong.
I thought I had recalled it a pretty standard trope to focus on a runner/receiver “tightrope walking” trying to stay in bound, so as a VERY casual viewer, I expected them to replay that aspect. I thought it somewhat odd that, when a play was being reviewed, they could show 10-20 different angles, but on other plays, they just replayed the identical shot.
But obviously I have not watched football in a while, as I recalled them showing both feet in bounds, instead of describing “the process” of control…
Can I get anyone to agree with my proposal that they outlaw shoes and gloves that are the same color as penalty flags?
And what is with kickoffs/touchbacks? When did they move the touchback starting point from the 20 to the 25? And do kickers kick from further up, or have they just gotten that much better. Really detracted IMO to not have a single runback until the intentional squib kick.