I think the reason it seemed weird was for some reason the announcers couldn’t heap enough praise on the Bills QB. They made it sound like he had been doing some amazing things when about the onlything he had done was not throw an interceptio…until he did.
Gostkowski is the Pats’ kicker.
The Bear’s Lovie Smith tried to do that to Gostkowski before the HALF in that game.
[nitpick] Gostkowski is the Pats kicker. At the end of the first half the Bears did the call-time-out-as-the-ball-is-snapped thingy and it backfired.
From yahoo sports:
That left rookie Stephen Gostkowski with a 52-yard field goal attempt that went wide right. But Chicago had called a timeout before the kick and Gostkowski’s second try made it over the crossbar. His longest kick of the season gave New England a 10-3 halftime lead.
I’d prefer it to work like this:
Coach: Hey ref, keep an eye on me – I’m going to call a timeout.
Ref: Tweeeeeeeet!! Timeout!
Coach: NO! I said was going to call a timeout! I just wanted to be a little bitch about it and do it one second before the snap!
Ref: TFB. You said “timeout”, you got your timeout.
And might I just note how fricking badly that game was tearing me apart inside?
See, I needed a total score of 47 or better in order to win a pool this week. Didn’t matter who won the game, just needed 47+.
Oh, and I’m a Giants fan, so naturally I find all things Cowboys-related to be as appealing as caramel apples dipped in a fresh cesspool. For last night, it was “Go Bills!”
Halfway through the 3rd, we’re at 37 total, and Buffalo is up by 11. I’m fricking golden – they’ll definitely team up to put 10 more on the board!
4th quarter begins with a Dallas FG. Ok…that’s fine…total of 40. Hmmm…but Dallas is down by eight. Which means if they get a TD, they’ll go for two. Fine if they convert, but…hmm…well, go Bills.
Drive the field drive the field drive the field turnover!
Drive the field drive the field drive the field turnover!
FUCK! Someone score here, wouldya?!
Grrr…fine, I really wasn’t talking to you, Dallas, but a score is a score. The total is now 46 – I’m one point shy of winning my pool, but you’re going to try for two. Gaaa! Dropped pass!
That put me in a hellish position. If they had converted the 2-pointer, then the game would be tied and the Bills still could have won. But being down by two meant that unless Buffalo could somehow manage to get a Safety while the ball was at mid-field, I was screwed.
If I wanted to win my pool, I had to…<gag>…root for the Cowboys.
I’ve showered six times so far today.
Icing the kicker is one of those desperate things the defense does because there’s nothing else they can do; its their way of asserting control in a situation where they really have little control over the outcome–it all depends on the execution of the snap/hold and the accuracy of the kicker.
I recall a “Simpsons” episode once where Moe is about to be robbed by Snake, who grabs Barney hostage and tells Moe to “hand over the cash or the rummy gets it”. Moe promptly (and a little callously) drops to the floor and quickly rolls into a sealed, protective chamber, only peeping out to say “Ha! I’m behind six inches of bulletproof glass; do your worst!” At which point Snake gingerly hops across the bar and empties the register. Moe screams in protest, pounds on the glass, and finally–as a sign of his desperation–he begins to flick the lightswitch in his cubicle on and off. That, my friends, is the exact equivalent of trying to ice the kicker with a timeout.
The best way to deal with the right-before-the-snap time-out (“legal” or not, it is a thoroughly snaky and annoying thing to watch): Blow a penalty on the defense if any one of their linemen moves across the line of scrimmage to hit/touch an offensive lineman. After all, the defense called timeout, so they knew there would be no play. Why shouldn’t they then be penalized for hitting an opposing player during a timeout? This ridiculous bit of gamesmanship would then vanish instantly; either the defense draws a penalty, or the offensive line will have a free shot on the defenders (the offense doesn’t know the timeout is coming, so it’s a little like the “flinch” rule which penalizes defenders for causing an offensive player to false start by charging at them prior to the snap).
The Cowboys converted me for at least a night last night. I loved both teams, the fans, the craziness. I think Tony Romo is a true find- there are a lot of guys that would have thrown in the towel after, oh I don’t know, interception #5.
I hate to say it, but I like this Cowboys team.
If you allow coaches to call time outs before a kick, they must figure out some system where the kicker knows time has been called before he kicks it- perhaps a flashing red light affixed to the head of the referee in the middle of the field? Its bullshit when you have the entire stadium in hysterics because they think they just won the game, and two seconds later find out no, dickhead coach called time.
As an aside: it has been said here that icing the kicker doesn’t work. But there seems to be evidence to the contrary.
Brilliant! I’d pay to see that 
(PS. Forget about the Mafia game, Hal?)
Was it me or did it look like Michael Irvin was in the suite with Jerry Jones on MNF? It looked like him.
It was Irwin. I was watching the highlights somewhere and they mentioned that he was celebrating with Jerry Jones.
Well, if I were playing I’d have clunked the ball at least thrice per down, but did you see the defense the Bills were playing at that point of the game? Something like 3 people rushing and everyone else protecting something like 60 yards downfield. He dinked the ball about three times in a row to a receiver on his right with nary a Bill in sight!
And the Bills’ defense were the ones who made the game close!
The only thing the prevent defense does is prevent you from winning the game
I loved his response to the second question in the post-game on-the-field interview, asking how he felt at halftime after throwing four picks. “Was it four?” he asked incredulously. “I thought it was, like, seven!”
I played the position in high school, and I have to be honest - if I’d thrown 5 picks and lost a fumble in a game, I’d probably still be legendary for the immense amount of choking I’d have done down the stretch. But Tony just came out and played football. Okay, I’m not extremely happy with 5 interceptions in a game. But, Troy Aikman did it.
What Troy didn’t do, however, was have four 300-yard passing games in a season. Or have three 300-yard passing games in a row.
Nor did Staubach.
Nor any other Cowboy ever.
After an absolutely dismal opening, and of course the turnovers, Romo ended up 29/50 for 309 and 2 TDs, which is pretty amazing, particularly considering the Cowboys had to compete with the 12th and 13th men on the field. It must have been an incredibly heart-wrenching loss for Bills fans, but I’ll take a W when I can get one.
(And I was almost as tickled to see Irvin and Jones go apeshit after that second field goal as I was that we won…good times. Irvin will be receiving his Hall of Fame ring next week at halftime in Texas Stadium.)
I think the NFL should send out a memo that these “icing” timeouts will fall under the general penalty of “unsportsmanlike conduct” with an appropriate penalty. You’ll get your timeout, but the kicking team will get some yards.
Gotta say, I really don’t get the hate for the last second timeout before a kick. There’s already a risk that the coach will time it wrong, and there will be no icing of the kicker whatsoever.
Not to mention, you can’t change the rule, really. As someone mentioned, it’s possible that someone will notice that they have 12 men on the field, and will need a time out. Or maybe they want to rearrange their line to give themselves a better chance to block the field goal. You have to let them call a time out. There’s just no way around it, no logic that says, “Sure, you can call a TO on any play… EXCEPT this one.”
And if you wanna make it so that a player on the field has to call it instead of a coach, how does this solve anything? The player can tell an official ahead of time that he’s going to call a time out, and then, mere feet away from the center instead of across the field, he can time his TO to fustigate the kicker same (if not better) than the coach can.
To me, there’s very little difference between calling this last second time out and a QB calling an audible. Football is a game of inches and seconds. This isn’t any different.
Call the timeout prior to the snap, but if your side then runs into a member of the offense after the timeout is called, flag it as unsportsmanlike conduct.