Just Another Classic

Football and Hockey and NASCAR, Oh My!

This weekend marked a great weekend in sports. There was a good lineup on Saturday with a good spread out schedule of hockey beginning with the Sens game at 2pm and ending with the Canucks game at 10pm with the meat in that sandwich being a Calgary victory over the Leafs. Throw into the mix some very good NCAA college football games where USC was made to look like UC Chattanooga versus Stanford where Stanford was accused of running up the score...since when does USC not do the same thing in that situation??? There was alos a Florida game versus The South Carolina Game Cocks where the Chosen One Tim Tebow was playing.

Where things got the most interesting was that Sunday schedule. Granted the quality is going to ramped up when you have the NFL involved but there were some very compelling storylines throughout the day. There were a lot of games that must be classified as surprises. Either teams that should have won but didn’t, teams that had no right being in the game but making things very interesting and a ton of injuries to some very big name key players. Dallas should not have played so poor versus Green Bay, New Orleans should not have had the difficulty with St.Louis.

The two best events of the weekend without a doubt were of the Championship level. If we can get this much excitement come Super Bowl time we as sports fans will be laughing. Jimmie Johnson took his Lowes 48 Chevy Impala to Phoenix International Raceway and took the race, led the most laps and got max points to extend his lead in the race for the Sprint Cup and his 4th Consecutive Championship. With the win Johnson added to his lead over teammate Mark Martin and the 5 Car. What Johnson needs to do now is finish the race in one piece in 25 place or better at Homestead Miami Speedway in the last race of the season. If he is able to do this he will have to be considered one of the greatest of all time.

Now onto the NFL Game of the year. Not since the Patriots were on their run to go undefeated has there been so much hype for any regular season game. Even the Brett Favre-Green Bay game and storyline wasn’t at this level. This was one of the better games you are going to see, either regular or post season. The game from start to finish was entertaining but it had one of the wildest finishes you are going to see.

The Patriots, who were up 6 in the 4th late in the game when Bill Belichick made the decision to go for a 4th and 2 on the thier own 28 or whatever...deep in thier own end anyway. Instead of punting and putting the Colts probably back on thier on 40 yard line or so, they decided to go for it and came up a few inched short when Kevin Faulk bobbled the ball and was knocked back. The Pats have been slammed since then for that decision. "How can you give the ball to Peyton Manning on the 30 and expect to win?? I have to say I can’t say it was the worst thin in the world. If you actually look at the situation it isn’t as bad a call as it would appear at first glance. The Colts were basicly unstoppable in the 4th quarter, the Patriots defence (who played well all game up to that point) were gassed with hands on thier hips and knees and showing signs of being worn out. The Colts had just scored in under a minute and a half and were rolling. Manning was in a rhythem and carving up a tired defence. Many commentators are saying that Belichick’ showed no confidence in his defence and that would be a bad thing in the lockeroom going forward. I don’t see it like that. I think that he showed the ultimate vote of confidence in his franchise and one day Hall of Fame quarterback (with Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Kevin Faulk) to pick up 2 yards. What I saw was if you give the NFL MVP the ball anywhere on the field you are going to lose. Like Herm Edwards said " YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME!" Tom Brady’s arm gives you the best chance to do that, couple that with a tired defence...why not? Maybe they were saying If we can’t get 2 yards then maybe they don’t deserve to win. They can aford the loss in that divison so the risk reward made it woth it.

It is just like in racing do you race for points and go concervative or do you roll the dice and try to win, even if you run the risk of running out of gas on the back stretch. Sometimes you just have to go for the win.