Tuesday Afternoon Linebacker

Short week, and a late entry. Picks also contained within.

Reservations
What a boring game. Being on pay-per-view I didn’t get to take a gander until Sunday evening (thanks TiVo). And I could barely keep my eyes open. But I did make it (so far) through the entire first half and part-way into the 3rd quarter. Through that I would say the Gators have a good shot at winning this weekend against FSU. As I’ve said a hundred times already, the match-up to watch is when the Gators have the ball. When the Noles have the ball it will be, as SMQ described this past weekend’s Notre Dame-Duke match, “the Iminently Resistable Force running half-speed into the Quite Easily Moved Object”.

Which unit will be less inept on Saturday? If only because they’re home, I’d give the Gators the edge.

Left? Which?
A win like this has to be tempered by the competition. Atlanta is bad. Just bad. The loss of Ron Mexico gutted this team on offense. And the defense isn’t good enough to make-up for the turmoil. But we tried early on to give it away. A fumble, then Brian Kelly’s brain fart re-turnover. Insane I tell you. Insane.

But once the second half started the PiPP calmed down and took care of business. The way they closed out Atlanta shows me that this team has some promise. I’m still not sold that they’re going to Glendale. But the playoffs are looking very good right now.

Against Washington I don’t know what to expect. The ‘Skins have been up and down all year. The game is at RayJay, so that’s an advantage.
TALB Pick: Bucs close over Redskins

One More
The Bulls dispatched Louisville pretty early. I with more than 14 minutes to go in the first quarter the Bulls were kicking off with a 6 point lead. That’s a good omen right there. Now just get past Pitt this week and it’s 9 wins and another bowl game.

TALB Pick: Bulls average over Pitt

Indisputable Visual Evidence
Cleveland. Baltimore. If you don’t know by now, then looky here. Upon your ensuing perusal of various football stories from around the Internet you’ll likely find one of the following two basic arguments; 1) the refs blew it all the way around, they had no business reviewing the play or 2) they got it right, and I don’t care if they reviewed it “illegally” or not. Both of those arguments would be, in TALB’s opinion, wrong.

First, in the NFL the word “reviewed” has a specific meaning. That is that the Referee (capital “R”) went under the hood and looked at instant replay footage. In this case, that never occured. What did occur was that the game officials had a conference after the play to determine what happened. They did not all agree the kick was no good. They do this all the time.

Second, they got it right. In the NFL, scoring is determined when the ball crosses the appropriate imaginary plane. For touchdowns that plane is one that starts at the front of the white painted line of the end zone and extends up to infinity. Bounded only on the sides by the sidelines. For field goal and extra point attempts that plane is bounded on the sides by the uprights, the bottom by the cross bar. Like the goal line, it extends upwards to infinity. And once the ball crosses that plane, as it surely did on Sunday, the kick is “good”.

“But TALB, it bounced out!” Don’t care. I bet that person also thinks ball carriers have fumbled in the end zone too. And that’s another thing, scoring in football is about the ball itself. As long as the player in possession of the ball is inbounds and not down if the ball crosses the plane, it’s a score. Same for kicks. If it crosses the plane, it’s good. The only caveat here, is that a kick has to travel completely through said plane. While a touchdown is scored once the first micrometer of the ball crosses the plane.

The thing about kicks that is not reviewable has to do with if a ball went across the top of an upright.

Programming Note
I kind of liked how last week went. The Tuesday installment was short and sweet, talking pretty much just about the games. And then the following days with the “feature” entries. I think that’s how TALB will start to look from now on. Well, hopefully starting next week.

Running Items
Breath Of A Salesman
And oldie but goodie, the Bud spot with the Clydesdales standing around as if they were playing football, and a zebra under the review hood. Then the one cowboy says “The ref’s a jackass.” And the other responds, “No. I believe that’s a zebra.” Very dumb spot, but I like it.

Plus One Bowl
Oh jeeze, I don’t know. LSU seems like a pretty good lock. But if they draw Georgia who knows. And you know Oklahoma, if they even make it to the Big XII championship, is going to want to play spoiler. Heck… throwing darts…
LSU vs. West Virginia

Super Bowl XLII
New England vs. Dallas

Next Week: Gobble gobble