Am I Alone In Thinking That The Packers Game Winning Hail Mary Wasn't All That Miraculous?

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME pic.twitter.com/O4cq4WncXx

— Rob Perez (@World_Wide_Wob) December 4, 2015

I'll give you this, there were certainly miraculous parts about it. The fact that Aaron Rodgers can throw a football 70 fucking yards? That's a miracle. A miracle we knew about previously, but a miracle nonetheless. The Lions lack of awareness? Also pretty miraculous. The play itself though? I'm going to stop short of calling it divine intervention. Not because it wasn't amazing, but because I knew that ball was going to be completed like a half second after it started it's downward trajectory. If a play is that unbelievable, I shouldn't know what the outcome is going to be halfway through it. I honestly would have been shocked if that ball ended up hitting the turf. That's how bad the Lions defense was on that play. It didn't take a lucky bounce, or good fortune. All it took was a shockingly easy pitch and catch. A pitch and catch that extended nearly three quarters of a football field, but a pitch and catch regardless.

I get that people will use this as an example when they say "anything can happen", but anything is much more likely to happen when you are just standing around with a thumb in your ass as the opposition heavily outnumbers you in the endzone. Anything is much more likely to happen when you have two cornerbacks just standing around at midfield with no discernible purpose whatsoever. Anything is much more likely to happen when you play it safe and only rush three with the game on the line. Much like every single one of you, my one word reaction to that play was "wow". However, it was more so directed at the coaching and the execution, or lack thereof, of the Detroit Lions, than it was a declaration of shock. That was a level of ineptitude so unparalleled that a desperation 65 yard touchdown pass, all through the air, looked relatively ordinary. That's a credit to Aaron Rodgers, but it's also an indictment of a team that somehow made a particular Cleveland Browns loss look relatively painless*.

*I'll never be surprised by a gut wrenching loss by the Cleveland Browns or a gut wrenching loss by the Detroit Lions, but the fact that both happened on the last play of the game, 3 days apart, is truly something special.