Quite frankly, I'm disgusted. That's mostly because the FOX broadcast decided it was necessary to repeatedly show Zach Miller's leg go the way of Gordon Hayward's until my lunch was on the verge of needing replacing, but also because the ensuing overturning of his touchdown was nothing short of a disgrace. Letter of the insanely stupid law or not, NFL officials had the opportunity to lean on the initial ruling on the field and decided to take points away from the player that only put the ball on the turf long after a play that could potentially cost him his leg...
As a fan of the team that benefited from the call, I can definitively say I was disappointed to see it go in the Saints' favor. They very well may have won anyway, but it couldn't have felt more unjust to see their odds drastically increased by the most cold-blooded of technicalities. With how insanely intricate the NFL has made the definition of a concept as fundamental as a catch, I think we can make a broken leg stipulation that allows a player to drop the ball after rummaging around on the ground trying to accept the fact that standing on his own two feet will be out of the question for the foreseeable future. The New Orleans Saints are now the winners of five straight, but unfortunately bogus officiating made sure that wasn't the lead storyline from yesterday's game. Speaking of yesterday's game, I'm not sure there's ever been a more glaring example of just how costly turnovers can be. Not once did it feel like a one score contest until it was a one score contest, and that was a direct reflection of Mark Ingram's issues with ball security. I was looking for things to get mad about as the Saints appeared to be juggling away a sure victory, and I realized that - other than a couple breakdowns in coverage - it was a pretty complete performance otherwise. Unfortunately, turnovers are offensive efficiency's kryptonite, so Drew Brees' racking up of 299 yards while completing 82% of his passes was rendered laughably unproductive in the second half. As far as Mark Ingram is concerned, I am not at all concerned about Mark Ingram. It feels like every season he has one outlier of a game that allows the braindead portion of the fanbase to continue the false narrative that he's not a capable starter. Last year it was when he temporarily fumbled away his role to Tim Hightower and this year it will certainly be when he appeared to be in the bag for the Bears. Luckily neither of those valleys cost his team a victory, so it shouldn't be forgotten that his efforts are imperative to this team peaking. Maybe Alvin Kamara gets a slightly bigger share of the carries going forward, but - considering he was a convenient knee placement away from also ending up on the shit list - it's probably best to keep running your workhorse until his mistakes are far in the rearview. The two-headed tandem had a huge hand in getting them to 4-2, so there's no reason to re-invent their wheels now that they are 5-2. Simply put, Mark Ingram knows damn well that he sucked and that more is expected out of him, and him teammates should take notice so as to not make games against inferior competition harder on themselves going forward...
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