October
12, 2005: NFL Commentary, Week 5
By White Russian
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Opposite Directions
After Green Bay ran up the score in their victory over the hurricane ravaged
New Orleans Saints, Houston stands as the last winless team. On the other
end of the spectrum, Indianapolis remains the only undefeated team. One year
ago, in the week five commentary on October
11th, 2004, Houston's big three of Carr, Davis, and Johnson were compared
to the big three of the Colts in that Houston seemed to be following the model
set by Indianapolis in building their team. Since then, Houston has gone backwards
in every phase of the game, while the Colts suddenly have a solid defense
to go with their high octane offense.
Brother Nature's take on week 5
There sure was some bad officiating in both the baseball and football
games last night. The amount of time a coach takes to complain, another umpire
or official could go look at a monitor for an instant replay. If the coach
finishes before he can finish looking at the monitor then play should resume,
but if the coach keeps complaining then the offical has more time. This could
lead to coaches arguing every call. Then the officials better start getting
the calls right or take the time to look at a monitor and make a correct call.
I really don't care about the 'human element' - when a call is a bad call,
it is a bad call and affects the rest of the game, whether it is taken advantage
of by the team that gets the favored result or not. We have the technology
- it should be utilized for correct calls.
Steelers game:
I
agree with the announcers that a rule change is needed. On a punt to San Diego
the ball bounced off the receiver's shoulder pad more than arms length and
Pittsburgh defensive guy caught the ball still in the air. The ruling was
that he was interefered with the ability to make a fair catch. It bounced
off him more than arms length. Bad rule.
Also, Ward caught a pass as he was going down, but didn't get control until he was on the ground. A San Diego densive guy was next to him but it looked like he only touched his towel, which is not considered part of the uniform. Ward got up and ran into the end zone for a touchdown. Red flag was thrown and after review they changed the ruling on the field to say the defender touched his foot. It didn't look like Ward had control of the ball, especially in a footbal type motion after getting control, when the foot was touched. Bad call.
Baseball:
New York second baseman Cano swings at strike three, which the catcher doesn't
catch, Cano runs to first, catcher throws the ball from outside the foul line,
ball crosses the foul line and into fair territory and the first baseman misses
it. Cano is called out for going outside the base path. He ran just inside
the path almost right on the line. He was actually, probably not on purpose,
avoiding the throw because it should have been thrown outside the foul line
the whole way but carried in. And the base is inside the foul line. I disagree
that he was running out of the base path. If you watched the next several
batters going to first, they all ran the exact same line that he ran. All
were just inside the foul line. No one runs in that box outside the foul line.
The base should be moved over or bigger.
There was also a very close call at first. Too close to really argue, I guess,
but the umpire was wrong, as evident when we saw several replays.
More Incompetence
Just
one day after Brother Nature sounded off about officiating on Monday night,
the umpires reached a new level of incompetence in the waning moments of the
Angels - White Sox game 2 on Wednesday night.
With two outs and the score tied at one in the bottom of the ninth, Angels pitcher Kelvim Escobar struck out A.J. Pierzynski to end the inning. Not only did Angels' catcher Josh Paul catch strike three, the home plate umpire clearly signaled that the batter was out. The catcher tossed the ball to the mound, knowing that he had caught the ball and the inning should be over. While the Angels players started running off the field, Pierzynski ran to first. To everyone's surprise, Pierzynski was ruled safe. The inning continued. On the 0-1 count to the next batter, the pinch runner stole second. On the next pitch, the batter, Crede, hit the game winning double.
Chicago won the game and scored zero earned runs.
His Name Is...
Paul Maguire, referring to Jacksonville receiver Jimmy Smith. In the span
of a few sentences, Maguire said Smith's name three times. Twice he said "Jimmy
Smith", but once he said "Jiminy Smith."
Joe Theismann, referring to Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer, called him "Chris Palmer."
Chris Berman, referring to Darrell Jackson, called him "Bobby Jackson."
Medical Lesson
Thanks to Fox's WebMD Injury Report, we should all now be able to identify
where the right shoulder is located. The WebMD graphic shows the outline of
a body and the affected area is highlighted in red. In this case, they were
referring to Bartolo Colon and his injured right shoulder. No other useful
information is presented in the graphic, but that would probably be too much
information for us to process if they included more.
Mike Martz Revisited
Last season the BMTG chronicled the week to week coaching by Mike Martz of
the St. Louis Rams in order to determine if the excessive criticism typically
leveled at him was actually justified. After following his moves the whole
season, the BMTG concluded that there was enough evidence to declare that
the criticism is warranted. Despite his continued incompetence, Martz is still
the head coach of the Rams and the BMTG is following up one year later to
see if he has improved after receiving the BMTG’s open
letter. This week's analysis:
Brother Nature cited no bad calls by Martz this week, but was disappointed by the poor clock management at the end of the game. With 7:31 left and down by two scores they took their time and only got a field goal. They gave the ball back to Seattle with 3:59 left. The defense, which was bad all day, stopped Seattle and forced a kick with 2:52 or so left, but the Rams fumbled on the return, giving the ball back with 2:48 left and the Rams defense couldn't stop them before time ran out.
While Brother Nature cited clock management, there was a play early that some would consider highly questionable. With the score tied at 7, the Rams had the ball on the 35 yard line and faced 4th and 8. They lined up for the 53 yard field goal and Wilkins proceeded to fake it and punted instead, hoping to pin Seattle down at the goal line. The result - touchback, ball goes to the twenty for a net of 15 yards on the punt. Wilkins is an excellent field goal kicker - why not go for the field goal? Why turn down the chance for points?
Martz himself acknowledged that after missing several practices due to health issues that he should have stepped aside and let someone else coach the game. He has since stepped aside indefinitely due to his health issues and Sandman predicts that his coaching days are over.
Return of the Meaningless Injury Report?
The injury report has long been useless, as teams do not accurately report
injuries and the only people even looking at the report are people in fantasy
leagues. The BMTG will attempt to examine the actual usefulness of the injury
report by looking at the report released on Wednesday and comparing it to
what actually happens in the games. A doubtful status means that a player
has a 75% chance of sitting out, questionable is supposed to be 50%, and probable
is 25%.
Here is this week's breakdown:
| Probable |
Questionable |
Doubtful |
Out |
|
| # of Players Listed | 74 |
86 |
10 |
31 |
| # of Players who did not play | 8 |
31 |
7 |
30 |
| % of Players who did not play | 11% |
36% |
70% |
97% |
| % of Players expected to not play | 25% |
50% |
75% |
100% |
And the total so far on this season (only four weeks worth)...
| Probable |
Questionable |
Doubtful |
Out |
|
| # of Players Listed | 228 |
316 |
40 |
101 |
| # of Players who did not play | 25 |
147 |
37 |
100 |
| % of Players who did not play | 11% |
47% |
92% |
99% |
| % of Players expected to not play | 25% |
50% |
75% |
100% |
Week 5 marked the first week that a player listed as doubtful actually played. In previous weeks 100% of the doubtful players did not play, while this week 3 out of 10 doubtful players played. Week five also marked the first time a player listed as out ended up playing.
Fantasy Notes
Steamboy's
hands off approach did not work in week four, leading to the egregious error
of playing three Chicago players on a bye week, but the strategy paid dividends
this week, as Steamboy had his best week of the season.
Through
five weeks, The Diesel's kickers have combined for a grand total of 150 points
(or 30 points per week).
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