Nine In The Box

Good afternoon everyone.  Sorry about the late post today - after watching that horrible, horrible game yesterday, I stayed up a little late hanging out with some cool friends who were kind enough not to repeatedly bring up 'Denver 29  Pittsburgh 23'...  That the Broncos were able to knock my banged-up Steelers out of the playoffs didn't surprise me.  The way that the game played out, with the amount of offense, with the suddenly shocking overtime finish, that surprised me...  I can proudly say that I was right there with my Steelers the whole way, not giving up when the score was 20-6, but instead talking to and yelling at my friend's t.v. right to the finish.  An unfortunate result of the outcome is that with the exception of tonight's national championship game, I will not be able to stomach watching ESPN for about a week (this was true after last year's Super Bowl also, and is generally true anytime after one of my favorite teams is knocked out of the playoffs).  I have to admit that I was surprised by how many calls the officials missed in yesterday's game - one of my friends keeps telling me that there were a lot of bad calls in the Lions/Saints playoff game also, but I watched that game  sporadically while at work, and really did not see much of it.  If the Steelers would have won yesterday, the Broncos would have been justified in pointing to the blown call on our obvious backward pass yesterday when we were inside our own 20-yard line, a play which the officials blew dead and was hence not reviewable.  I know that we were playing with an injured Roethlisberger, no Pouncey, no Mendenhall, no Clark, no Kiesel, and no Hampton, but it's never fun when the season ends...  I am curious to know whether a road team has ever come from 14 points down in a playoff game to tie the game or win it, but again, I'm not watching any ESPN this week, so.....  Putting nine players in the box probably wasn't the best move on the opening play of overtime, but the host of the little football party that I was watching the game with had previously pointed out that the Broncos had run the football EVERY TIME on first down throughout the course of the game...  Okay, time to ramble about other things...  Wednesday's post will be a recap of my bowl predictions for this season.  Regardless of how tonight's game turns out, I am going to be pretty much .500 straight across the board - picking the games straight up, against the spread, and on the overs/unders.  I am not a rabid LSU or Bama fan, but thinking that LSU has a better team (the reason that I picked them), and not being a fan of Nick Saban (he just seems dishonest and two-faced to me, going back to when he said that he wouldn't be leaving the NFL for the Alabama job), I will be rooting for the Tigers to win tonight.  A friend of mine who I work with gave me some props on the blog, remembering how I had said that Tyrann Mathieu should be part of the Heisman conversation, which was followed by his inclusion as a finalist for the trophy and a trip to New York for the ceremony (the two things are totally unrelated, I assure you)...  :)  My friends and I watched parts of the made-for-t.v. series 'The Firm' last night when we were hanging out, and I mentioned that the movie would have obviously been a lot less interesting without the action scenes...  As I sit here and type, 'The Big Bang Theory' just came on, and I have one question:  Why did no one ever tell me about this show???  I've been watching the show in reruns for just over a month now, but I can tell you why the program is so popular.  First, it's funny - you just have to laugh at the guys, who are often laughing at each other and themselves...  Second, Kaley Cuoco.  When you start watching the show, she's cute.  But after you get into the show and start following it, she becomes extremely attractive because she actually interacts with and befriends these 'nerdy guys' that she has for neighbors as opposed to acting like a total stuck-up princess primadonna.  This might just be my opinion, but I see that she is going to be hosting one of the upcoming television award shows.  That probably gives you a little bit of insight about me - I don't tend to hang out with people whose sole mission is to treat the rest of the planet like trash...  I added 'College Gameday' on my facebook, and today they asked the question, "If Alabama wins tonight, which would you vote for - LSU or a split national champion?"  My answer of course - "a playoff system"...  ;)  I'm going to let you go for now so that I can get ready for this game which begins in about 45 minutes.  Enjoy the game and I'll see ya again on Wednesday.