Tag: NFL

A tale of two games

We (Jacob and I) drove from the hotel to the stadium; Tom met us there. My goodness, was it eerie.

The game: well, it snowed during the first half and they only allowed fans in the club section and in the lower West side section and in the club sections.

The game went sort of quickly. Illinois drove but failed on downs. Northwestern drove and kicked a field goal. That was almost the first quarter. Illinois responded with a touchdown drive to go up 7-3. Northwestern drove and went up 10-7 hitting a pass in the back of the end zone.
Illinois stalled..punted with just under 2 minutes left in the half, but Northwestern threw an interception (tipped ball). That lead to an Illinois touchdown and a 14-10 halftime lead.

The Illini stopped the Wildcats in the second half and appeared to take control of the game. But a good drive ended with a field goal.

Northwestern continued to make mistakes. But then came the play that changed the game: Northwestern got a strip sack and got the ball at the Illinois 1. So on first down:

On 4th down, the Wildcats took a deliberate “delay of game” penalty and then kicked the field goal.

After that, the only score came when the Illini kicked a field goal. It was only 20-13 but that appeared to ice the game. Northwestern turned it over 4 times, the Illini only once. And that, plus the goal line stand, made the difference.

It was an unforgettable game played ..almost like on the moon, with lots of big plays.

We got back to the hotel late, but got a good start to Indianapolis. The roads were fine there.

We watched the Texans beat the Colts 20-16. While it was true that the Texans benefited from a questionable pass interference call:

Colts fans also complained about an extra point, but it appeared to me to be good (it did hook outside the upright as it passed.

The Texans struck first with a field goal. In the second quarter, the Colts scored on a nice pass to the left but missed the extra point. The Texans drove a scored a TD to take a 10-6 halftime lead.

Another nice drive lead to a 13-6 lead, but the Colts tied it at 13 with another passing touchdown.

The Texans took a 20-13 lead with a rushing touchdown, and the last score came with a Colts field goal with just under 9 minutes to play. The defenses took over from there and the Colts failed on downs with just over 2 minutes left. This allowed for the Texans to pick up one first down and then run out the clock.

So..this was quite the weekend of football.

Catching up again

Saturday: 4 mile Moss/H neighborhood course at 16 mpm. This was before leaving for Indianapolis

Sunday: 2 mile strip mall walk 17:10 pace

Monday: prior to work: 2 miles at 19 minute pace. No knee brace; did this after lifting.

The lifting: pull ups: sets of 5 with one 7-3 set, and 1 penalty rep.
Bench Press: 10 x 134, 3 sets of 5 x 155

High incline: 10 x 94, 2 sets of 5 x 105
Trap bar deadlift: 10 x 94 pinch grip, 1 x 134 pinch grip
low: 10 x 134, 10 x 184. 4 inch: 10 x 234

Tuesday (today) Riverplex again: 11 miles in 40 minutes (10 in 35:10, the usual 1-2-3-4-5-6-5-1 with changes every 5 minutes). Then outside for 3.25 in 53:02 (knee braces).

Limited knee pain; almost unnoticeable.

Indianapolis: In perhaps the easiest trip I had up there, I took Jacob and Brian to the Titans at Colts. The Titans hit an early pass to go up 7-0 after 1, but the Colts outscored the Titans 24-0 in the 2’nd and built the lead to 38-7 with 6:50 to go in the 3’rd. The Colts were to rush for 335 yards with Taylor getting 218 of them. The offensive line opened up gaping holes.

But the Titans didn’t quit. They cut it to 38-15; the Colts missed a field goal, then the Titans got two more touchdowns with one 2 point conversion, and soon it was 38-30 with 3:05 to play.

But the Colts got a couple of first downs and then punted to the Titans 11 with only 3 seconds in the game, and the final pass was intercepted.

In the NFL game, the only sure lead is a win.

Weekend’s worth of workouts

I took the weekend off! That meant: 2 football games on Saturday and 2 football games on Sunday. All 4 of the teams I was cheering for…lost

About the workouts: Saturday: walked 10 miles (usual ball field course) this time in 2:34 (10.4 miles; I was 2:28:50 at mile 10) . That course IS getting easier.

Sunday: 2 mile walk before the games (14:30 pace) after some deadlifts:
10 x 134, 10 x 184, 5 x 225 (bad set), 10 x 225 (better), 2 x 300 6 inch (bad set), 5 x 300 (better).

The football

First up was Navy vs Notre Dame. Navy came in 6-0 vs weak competition. ND came in 5-1 vs much stronger competition. It was never close:31-7 at the half and ended 51-15. Navy turned it over 6 times; it was clear to me that they were rattled. Despite the frequent short fields, ND rolled up 466 total yards. Navy did break a couple of long quarterback keepers.

If anything, the Navy vs ND game was MORE competitive than the Illinois vs Oregon game, at least at the half (35-3). Compared the Ducks, the Illini appeared to be playing in slow motion.
The Illini did dominate the 3’rd quarter with two long drives, one which ended in a touchdown, and the Ducks tacked on a 4’th quarter field goal to make it 38-9. The Ducks piled up 527 yards of total offense to 293 for the Illini.

Pro: I got to watch the Colts fall 23-20 to the Texans. in an emotional roller coaster of a game. It appeared as if the Texans were about to salt the game away with a long drive, but a goal line fumble appeared to be returned for a touchdown with 3 minutes to go. BUT, the lineman was down by contact…and the Colts went nowhere. They punted with 2 minutes to go (4’th and 23 on their own 2), held, had one last shot, but got sacked on their Hail Mary attempt.

But, I suppose the key play came with 23 seconds before the first half, when it appeared that the Colts would go in with 10-10 tie at halftime. This boneheaded call lead to a Texans TD and 17-10 halftime lead.

Then came the Bears. The Commanders dominated play for most of the first 3 quarters but only had a 12-0 lead to show for it (4 field goals) and the Bears struck with the 3’rd quarter ending.

So it was 12-7 and with 5-6 minutes left, the Bears had first and goal from the 1! And they run a play with a lineman carrying the ball?

The Bears defense holds, the Bears get the ball back and smartly drive again. And then a PI in the endzone gives them the ball at the 2, and this time they score. The make the 2 pointer and they lead 15-12 with 26 seconds left in the game! Washington has 1 time out.

So, Washington gets the ball to midfield with time for one more play. Hail Mary:

Note the Bears’s DB. You cannot make this up.
Saturday: two blowout losses. Sunday: 2 heartbreakers.

At least Texas held on vs a spirited Vanderbilt team to win 27-24, recovering an onside kick in the final 45 seconds.

Politics: Jerry Jones will beat Paul Krugman

First: I did my morning workout: yoga with Ms. V and then 5 treadmill miles: 5.2 going up every 5 minutes (32:54 at 3) then 42:41 at 4, 52:24 at 5. I didn’t have the pep to go too much under a 10 minute pace toward the end (19:30 for the final 2). I felt good but must have looked terrible getting off of the treadmill.

Now about politics: I see this so often.
1. Liberals lionize someone..either a kid (here or here) or some orange haired “activist.”

2. Conservatives attack: “that kid needs to learn some….(insert “history”, “policy”, “economics”)” while smirking.

3. Someone like Paul Krugman pounces point out that said activist is saying basically true things.

4. Liberals say “see…I told you…listen to the kid…even Krugman (or some other expert) says that they have it basically right…”

And we lose. Why?

Politics often has little to do with facts; conservative attacks are more about “neener neener…those libs are following some dumb kid (or weird activist)” hoping that the undecided say “ugh..do I want to ally myself with THEM?” That is, “is THAT the kind of team I want to join?”

The correctness of the ideas has very little to do with it.

And that is where Jerry Jones, the owner of the NFL Cowboys, comes in. The Cowboys are the NFL’s most profitable team and, by objective measures, perhaps the most popular team.

Yes, the do have a distinguished history; at one time, they WERE among the NFL’s elite, year in, year out.

But that was a long time ago. In the 24 seasons since their last Super Bowl win (1996, after the 1995 season):

1. Regular reason: they are 20 games above .500, with a record of 202-182 (about a 9-7 season average).
2. Playoffs: they have appeared 10 times and have…FOUR Wild Card Round wins to show for it..zero divisional round wins..which means zero appearances in the NFC championship game.

Reality: the Cowboys are a very average franchise, in terms of on the field success. And yet, they remained viewed as one of the top franchises.
That is “marketing” and Democrats are dreadful at it.

That is, IMHO, why we lose so much.