Gregg Easterbrook was on the Brian kenny show on ESPN Radio last night and Kenny asked Easterbrook what the Vikings should have done. Easterbrook said, “Handed the ball off and given the Cowboys a chance to make the stop.” I was shaking my head thinking, "What the hell? Since when is running a passing play not giving the defense a chance to make a stop?
But somebodys feelings were hurt. Didn’t you see Brookings blubbering like a baby?
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I will take complaints from the losing team about “running up the score” seriously starting the first time I hear a losing player say something along the lines of “Well, we didn’t like losing this playoff game by 24 points, but I really want to go on record thanking those guys for not running the score up further. That showed real class”. This is just something for losers to say when they have a microphone stuck in their face and they don’t want to talk about how their team got blown out, so they decide to criticize the other team’s etiquette.
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Fuck the Cowboys.
Watching the game live, I thought that Brookings was mad about Favre’s celebration, rather than the play itself. It’s pretty minor in any case.
For what it’s worth, that last TD broke a personal record for Favre. He’d never thrown 4 TD’s in a playoff game before.
I think he’s also just exuberant in general about getting another deep run in the playoffs.
Attempting to score with a 27-3 lead with seconds left in the game is unsportsmanlike. Whining about the other team running up the score is unsportsmanlike too. Neither team looked very classy to me.
When I read the poll this morning (I didn’t see the game) and I read the words “seconds”, I assumed something like 15 seconds and from the 30 yard line or something and I thought “ya, not too sportsmanlike, but not the end of the world either”.
Then when I found out it was 1:55 left and from the 11 I was surprised. The poll doesn’t reflect that play at all, 2 opposite ends of a spectrum. With 1:55 left, if you don’t want to be part of someone padding their stats, then you better stop them.
While it is clearly not what most teams would call in that situation, it’s also mighty close to being completely out of the “unsportmanlike” spectrum. Enough so that I would be embarrassed if it was one of my teammates complaining.
When I’m playing chess and my opponent effectively eliminates my ability to win, and slowly, inexorably positions his pieces for a checkmate…what should he REALLY do? Should he just stop playing and say, “we’ll just say I won, OK?” Hmm. Maybe. But generally speaking he still plays until he achieves checkmate.
When I’m playing basketball at the Y and we’re playing to 21 and our team has a fast break and the score is 19 to 2 and no one on the opposing team is even close to being able to defend…should our guy just stand there and wait for the other team to catch up?
In ANY sporting contest, is it the responsibility of any team to compromise their gameplan for the sake of letting the other team have a chance at stopping them? This is like Uncle Joe pretending not to be able to play defense against little Jimmy so he can score a basket. It may be appropriate if it’s an adult versus a kid, but on a professional level it’s insulting. Even playing pickup games of basketball, even if our team was getting trashed, I felt far more insulted if the other team obviously gave up on trying their best. It means that they have no respect for your team and they feel no threat from you at all. Either way, if there’s a score or an obvious show of pity, it’s an insult. Treat a team like they could always be a threat, and you show respect.
This isn’t a rhetorical device to be a dick, I swear, but have you read the thread?
Going for a score and throwing early in the drive tends to give the ball back with more time on the clock either way, which compromises your chances of winning. Running the ball at the end of the game isn’t a practice rooted in the idea that you have to be nice to your poor opponent. It’s a practice that helps you win. So a deviation from that practice, when it’s criticized for being unsportsmanlike, isn’t a problem because it doesn’t show enough “pity” – that’s a bullshit strawman being slapped around because it’s easy. The problem is, why are you taking a chance just to score extra points? What’s your objective?
If you really want to analogize, what if your chess opponent saw he had you finished and instead of mating you, which he could, he instead decides it would be better to kill off every single extraneous piece first. He could, in theory, make a mistake and cough up a piece that he otherwise would never have lost, and so there’s a very slim chance that he actually blows the match by doing it, but he gets a more emphatic victory 99.99% of the time, so he does it. Would you feel like that was a bit over the top? Chess is a lousy analogy anyway, so how about this:
Does anybody remember Lindsey Jacobellis? She was winning a race handily and in the home stretch she tried to do a little trick and grab her snowboard on a jump. She fell and lost, which illustrates the risk involved, but if she pulled it off successfully and won, is that unsportsmanlike? Or is that an “if you don’t want your opponent doing tricks just before the finish line, beat her?”
It was 4th and 3 and the opposing team was sending a 10 man run blitz. The best chance of getting the first down was to pass. In this case, they were so close to the goal line that getting a first down and getting a TD were almost the same thing.
If this had happened at the 50 yard line, and they passed in order to pick up the first down to continue to run out the clock, is that okay? If so, then is this only not okay because the first down line happened to be near the end zone?
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Seemingly every team that the Vikings have faced in the latter part of the season have been playing defense almost exclusively against the run. Pretty much every team stacks the defense against Peterson. What’s left? Oh, right, a Hall of Fame QB and a rapidly rising core of receivers. This QB and core of receivers has effectively beaten the crap out of your team the whole game…and yet they have been effective in stopping the run, for all that helps them. So Peterson pretty much is stymied and the running game that was so good for MN is pretty much ordinary at best now. MN is a passing team now, and they have been for several games now. Did the DC for Dallas not watch the tapes? Was it really a big surprise? But still the gameplan was to stop the run, and stop the run they did. 4th down and 3, maybe last year I would have said hand it to Peterson or Taylor. This year, especially late in the season, I would remember that Peterson tends to fumble at the worst times and he’s averaged something less than 4.5 yards per carry. Passing is what got the Vikings the lead. Passing is what will decide the Vikings’ fate. If idiot DCs for other teams continue to plan as if Peterson is the biggest threat, Favre will continue to set records. And boo-fucking-hoo about sportsmanship when Cowboy players were saying that only they could defeat themselves. Trash talking is part of the whole scene, of course, but you have to take as well as you give. Fact of the matter is, the Vikes showed how far away from championship status the Cowboys are right now; that last drive wasn’t the only time in the game that the Cowboys seemed to give up. They barely deserved to be in the playoffs, and they got the exit they deserved; getting whipped on the ass and crying in their beers. Good riddance, Cowboys.
Hey…it was against Dallas, so who gives a rat’s ass? 