Cowboys, replay, and overtime (warnng: LONG post!)

I'm just now realizing that I haven't blogged about Sunday night's game yet! First of all, let me clarify something; the Cowboys did not "merely survive" on Sunday night in their 14-10 victory in Washington. They played a solidly better game than the Redskins did. I realize they didn't win by a lot, and I'm not trying to say they were perfect, nor were they the team we saw last season who could score at-will. However, having a quarterback with a bum pinkie who only threw one really poor pass is in itself fairly significant. Also, what Marion Barber did on the Cowboys' last possession was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen a running back do. 

Let's recap: There's about 10:30 left in the game when Dallas scores a touchdown to take the lead. Washington drives into Dallas territory where they face a 4th and 4 around the 35 yardline. Their options are a) kick a 52ish yard field goal, or b) go for it. Since a field goal would only bring the 'Skins to within 1 point, and since it's a fairly long kick to begin with, they went for it. The Dallas defense held, and the Cowboys took over at their own 35 (ish) with somewhere over six minutes left in the game. Now, in case you're unfamiliar with this sport, there's a very common game plan in this situation that the Cowboys would surely follow. The idea is to run the ball on every or almost every play so that you can take as much time as possible off the clock so that when the other team gets the ball back, they have very little time to score a touchdown. The concession in this game plan is that the other team will get the ball back, it's just that the leading team wants to get at least a first down or two in the process.

The Cowboys proceeded to put the ball in Marion Barber's hands for 11 straight plays. ELEVEN STRAIGHT! Apparently nobody told Barber that punting the ball was inevitable and he was just supposed to delay it as long as possible. He gained first down after first down after first down. The Cowboys never punted. The Redskins never saw the ball again. Until the last two plays (Romo kneel-downs to run out the clock), no one else on the field carried the ball on that drive. If you're not impressed yet, consider this: Millions of viewers at home, and 90,000+ in the stadium, including 11 Redskins on the defensive side of the ball and their entire coaching staff on the sidelines knew that every play on that drive would be a run play to Marion Barber... and they couldn't do a blasted thing about it. It was fantastic.

Here's the shakedown for the rest of the season: If Dallas wins their next two games, like they should, against the 49ers and the Seahawks, then they'll enter December at 8-4. In order to make the playoffs, I'm guessing they'll need to go 10-6, which means that if they can go 2-2 in their games against Pittsburgh, New York Giants, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, then they should be in. The unfortunate reality is that December has been a rough month for the Cowboys in recent seasons, so we'll see what happens.

Now, I've got a few things to say about other football stuff from this weekend.

There's been a big deal made about a blown call made by officials at the end of the Pittsburgh-San Diego game. With the Steelers leading 11-10, the Chargers ran a play with just a few seconds left, and it was one of those lateral-as-much-as-you-have-to-as-long-as-you-don't-get-tackled plays. At one point the ball ended up on the ground and Pittsburgh's Troy Polamalu recovered and ran it in for a touchdown. The replay official called for a review and then the referee came out and called the touchdown good, then he huddled with other officials, and said that there had been an illegal forward pass during the Charger's play, so the play was dead at that point.

The call was wrong, and the officials said so after the game. However, it did not affect the outcome of the game, because Pittsburgh was already ahead, so Polamalu's touchdown would have only extended the score. The reason there's a big to-do about it is because the Steelers were supposed to win by 4 points (or something) in order to cover the spread for the Vegas gamblers... so gamblers lost millions of dollars on the wrong call. Certainly there were fantasy players out there too who had Pittsburgh's defense that got screwed. 

BUT, people are going nuts over this bad call. The league is talking about changing the replay rule so that an official could go back to check the replay a second time if they need to. Everyone wants the heads of these officials on a pike... and IT DOESN'T MATTER. The NFL does not need to be in the business of appeasing Vegas gamblers, nor does it need to make fantasy players happy. The league needs to do what it can to ensure the fairness of games, and that the right team wins, and that is exactly what happened. The one bummer is that Polamalu deserved a touchdown, stat-wise, but I haven't read anything about him complaining (but then again, he's a decent guy, and he'll take a win). Everyone should stop griping. And stop gambling.

The other thing I wanted to address was all the talk about changing the NFL's overtime rules. People are upset that a game ended in a tie (Eagles-Bengals). Peter King thinks it's unfair that "a coinflip" has so much impact on who wins an overtime game (his point assumes that usually whoever gets the ball first scores first. His solution would be that each team gets a possession. If, after each team has had an offensive chance, neither team has more points, then the game continues in sudden death fashion. I disagree with Peter King. He dismissed out of hand the stat that only 54% of overtimes in the NFL end with the first team that gets the ball scoring on their first possession -- but that stat does impact his argument! If barely half the time the coinflip comes into play, then his "fairness" stance carries little weight with me. I'm of the opinion that football is about both offense and defense. Why can't the opposite be argued with King? If I have a fantastic defense, then they should get rewarded for stopping the other team's offense.

So first of all, I don't have a major problem with the current set-up for NFL overtimes. I think teams should be embarrassed to get a tie put on their record. Get yourself into fieldgoal range, people!

Second of all, if I thought the system should be changed, I have an unorthodox proposal: There is only one possession in overtime. If the team that gets the ball (determined by a coinflip) does NOT score, then the other team wins. This system would award a team that boasts a good defense. Everyone's worried about the coinflip's power, because in their eyes, most teams are able to get into fieldgoal range whenever they get the ball. If that's true, then let's reward the other team if they stop them!

Comments on my system? I realize this post is really long now, so I'm done.