Category Archives: Other Football

Lambeau bleeped?

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Up they go, the exuberant Pack, into the stands at Curly Lambeau Field, glorying in yet another TD pass from Aaron Rodgers to… somebody. And once the Packers start leaping, there is no stopping them. They will leap again and again on Sunday in the NFC divisional playoff game, you can be sure of it.

Where is the outrage over this stunt? It’s just not happening. The No Fun League somehow sanctions the celebration, says The Leap is fine. The Giants say it’s OK by them. A Facebook community called, “Ban the Lambeau Leap,” has only 16 “likes” after 14 months.

“I think it’s great,” Giant center Kevin Boothe said of the Leap. “I don’t want to see it on Sunday, but they can do it again after Sunday. It’s not showing anybody up. It’s for the fans.”

– Filip Bondy, N.Y. Daily News.

There are a bunch of people in my Twitter timeline worked up about the get-off-my-lawniness of this column’s — or actually, its headline’s — suggestion that the Lambeau leap be banished or punished, but the actual content of Bondy’s piece reads more tongue-in-cheek than sanctimonious. And I haven’t seen the print edition of today’s Daily News, but I’d guess this came as part of a playoff preview package full of the civic-pride stuff typical in newspapers around most postseason series, building up our city and tearing yours down, all in good fun. Better take shots at the Lambeau Leap than cheese, no?

For the record, this site endorses nearly all post-touchdown celebrations. I think they should be avoided when your team is down by multiple touchdowns due in large part to your own fumbling because they then make you look like a fool, but otherwise, you know, go to town.

And after spirited internal debate, I think I’m even cool with the NFL’s harsh stance toward post-touchdown celebrations, as ridiculous as it seems. If there were no such thing, maybe too many scores would be celebrated in over-the-top fashion and the one-upsmanship would spiral out of control until no one paid any attention anymore. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a brilliant turn by the league to position itself as the humorless bad cop, incapable of fully controlling those lovable punk-rock miscreants who’ll happily incur fines to express themselves freely.

And we’re back

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A very happy New Year to you and yours. I’m up and running here at 75 Rockefeller Plaza, trying not to think about the Jets’ awful effort on Sunday.

I can’t imagine anyone really wants to hear about that by now, plus since the Titans won anyway it doesn’t really matter, but since it’s on my mind and I’m still trying to clear my head of all the pork and fried food (note: not mutually exclusive categories)  I ate this week, real quick:

Santonio Holmes embarrassed himself, and benching Holmes was probably the best decision Brian Schottenheimer made all season. Y’all must know by now I’m not much for sanctimony when it comes to player behavior, but sulking about your individual opportunities has no place on a football field when a team is playing for its life, or, really, any other time.

Selfishness in baseball is fine about 95% of the time. A player working to pad his own stats — whatever that means — is going to work to get hits and home runs, and if that means occasionally eschewing sacrifice bunts and small-ball tactics it might not win him favors on the bench or in the clubhouse but it doesn’t seem likely to do his club much damage in the long run. This we’ve discussed.

Football requires 11 men operating in unison, and one squeaky, whiny wheel demanding oil can gum up the whole machine. Or something.

And not that it matters. The Jets’ engine never really ran optimally this season, and Holmes is hardly the only one to blame. Schottenheimer’s playcalling was as predictable and plodding as the inexorable march of time. Mark Sanchez spent most of the season looking somewhere between timid and terrified in the pocket, partly due to some woeful play from his offensive line, partly due perhaps to his own inability to throw the ball downfield with any professional accuracy.

But if for some masochistic reason I ever choose to look back on the Jets’ 2011 campaign, once full of hype and hope and hoopla, the lasting memory will be Holmes getting shoved out of the huddle by his own teammates: the embodiment of an offense gone awry and of Rex Ryan’s too-often misplaced faith in his players contradicted with empirical evidence.

True story: I twice fought with teammates during high-school football games. For whatever reason — and as sad as this is to admit — high-school football was about the only thing I’ve ever taken seriously, and it made me something of a red-ass on the field and in practice. The first time, a receiver I believed to be stoned was laughing on the sideline during a lopsided loss, and I overreacted. I was frustrated; it was the worst game of my football career.

The second time, a tailback who had spent most of the season suspended returned only to complain about the blocking in front of him, then taunted an offensive lineman with a speech impediment in the huddle. I lost it and shoved him off the field, then got into it with him again on the sideline later.

If I remember correctly we actually won that game — a rarity — but none of that matters now. I mention both those anecdotes only because I had figured that for the most part, guys with those type of attitude issues are weeded out long before they hit the pros — if only because the amount of work that must go into maintaining an NFL career seems likely to deter anyone who couldn’t even maintain decorum in high school games. But I guess assuming that is ignoring ample evidence to the contrary. Exhibit A: Santonio Holmes.

Whatever. Whatever, whatever. It’s depressing and I don’t really want to think about it anymore. Same old Jets, I guess is the point.

How ’bout them Hoyas?

Riverhead kid gets suspended, famous for Tebowing

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Maybe young Connor Carroll is being completely earnest in that interview, but something about the way he twice stresses, “[Tebow] has great faith” suggests to me he’s either a) trolling everyone, or way more likely b) carefully asserting his own innocence in a manner particular to generally well-intentioned high-school wiseasses that I mastered myself at his age and still respected years later when I worked at a high school.

And to Carroll’s credit, this seems like a classic school-administration overreaction to a bunch of kids getting swept up in the latest craze, like the time my elementary school banned all items of Simpsons clothing and paraphernalia for some stupid reason. Probably some overwrought assistant principal accused these kids of making fun of Tim Tebow’s religion, which is likely eight or nine steps removed from what’s going through their heads when they Tebowing in the hallways. (UPDATE: I clearly should have read that article I linked, which says pretty explicitly, “The students were not suspended for bringing religion into the school, but instead for clogging the hallway.”)

Anyway, perhaps the least surprising part is that Tebowing-related news items like this one find their way into SportsCenter and onto ESPN.com. Some other headlines to look out for:

Colts and Ravens Continue NFL Tradition of Postgame Tebowing
BREAKING: Tim Tebow currently Tebowing
Area Man Dies Kneeling in Traffic: Is Tebowing to Blame?
Church Group Tebows at Advent Retreat