Taking Candy from a Packer

I'm typing this on my phone from the train on my way to work. Hopefully later I can go through and maybe add more imagery or detail or something. I don't know. But after last night I needed to vent. I will also freely admit that I am a little biased given my loyalties, but this was embarrassing.

For much of the night, the Green Bay-Seattle game was an excellent contest. And without the ending, it was a great game played by 2 teams who wouldn't give up. That gets lost in the chaos today: Seattle played a great football game. They gave Rodgers the Cutler treatment early and for the most part they played fantastic defense. And you have to credit Russell Wilson for putting Seattle in a position to win at the end.

I have said on here many times: the officials don't decide games, the players do, regardless of how poorly called a game was. The way Seattle played the first 30 minutes was worthy of a win, but the Packers made the necessary halftime adjustments. When Green Bay scored the go-ahead touchdown, for the half they had run probably 40 plays from scrimmage to the Seahawks' 6. 6 plays. A pair of three and outs. Dominance. They forced a turnover on downs with less than 2 minutes left after Russell Wilson moved them downfield (with some zebra help). You can say Green Bay left them too much time on the clock to score. You can say they couldn't execute on defense on that final drive. But that's where the problem lies.

Green Bay did execute on that final play. If you've listened to the analysis or watched the postgame last night and look at this close up you can see. At first I thought it was simultaneous possession. But the more you look at the play the more you realize they were wrong. Green Bay won the game. And it got taken away.

For what it's worth, I thought Mike McCarthy handled his postgame presser with as much class as one could in that situation. Had it been me I might have received the first million dollar fine in NFL history. But I love that Packer players went right to Twitter to vent. Tom Crabtree and TJ Lang were the first to get to social media and vent... Especially Lang. I like his take:

@TJLang70: F*** it NFL.. Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs.

Most experts were saying it would take something like this to force the NFL's hand with the referees' union. I wish it wasn't my team that had to be the victim, but I'd feel bad for any team that lost like this.

The other fascinating thing to me about this game: the social media reaction as a whole. Other than the night Osama bin Laden was killed, this game seemed to make Twitter explode the most (and will probably stay so until the November elections.) But from an objective perspective, it's fascinating to see. We are a culture of immediacy. Everything that happened in the first 59:52 of that game was put on the back burner because of the final 8 seconds. It's fair because the referees decided this outcome, but at the same time it ruins what was otherwise actually a really good game.

I was pissed off last night and didn't get enough sleep. But what sleep I did get I think helped temper my anger over injustice. It's hard to, but part of me does feel bad for these replacements who are doing the best they can, but when a rule is not followed and the officials' mistake cost the team a game, we have problems. The NFL is a much faster game than the lower levels from whence these refs came. This is not to detract from D-II or D-III football because I love D-III football, but all these replacements regardless of level are having a tough time with the adjustment. Bring back the real refs. Now.

One final thought that again needs to be made. We saw based on social media how angry this has made people over a game. For a split second last night I wished harm on Golden Tate (moreso because of his blatant pushoff, not helped by the fact that he denies it) before I checked myself. Thats not what's important. This game overshadowed what should have been the top storyline from this week in Torrey Smith of the Ravens. He lost his brother early Sunday morning and with a heavy heart went out and played and had a great game in a win. All for his late brother. Recognizing our loved ones and cherishing every moment we have with them is what's most important. It's a damn shame that our eyes are drawn away from that and into a debacle that could have been and needs to be solved. Now. Before another fan base has to go through what I and millions of fellow Packer fans had to. I love the NFL. I don't want this to destroy it.