SportsGirl

I have been told in the past that I’m forbidden from blogging about college football on a Monday. That the NFL trumps college any day, especially on Mondays. And to a certain extent, I agree. Between the Pats-Colts game and the Cowboys-Eagles game, there’s plenty of NFL action to discuss. But for anyone wanting to get my thoughts on the BCS mess that I see brewing this season, tune in tomorrow. I’m not pleased with the ranking of LSU at #2 this week.

For now though, let’s delve into the NFL action, shall we? As I said to my boss, who is a devout Browns fan, did you ever think that the Cleveland Browns would be described as an offensive juggernaut? His response of course was “Uh…no”. Who would think that in Week 9 the Browns would be able to rally from a 21-6 deficit against the Seattle Seahawks, a team that most analysts are far too reluctant to label as mediocre, force over-time and then win?! And that just hours before that, the San Diego defense would give up 296 rushing yards to rookie phenom Adrian Peterson? San Diego having defensive issues while Cleveland out-slugs their opponent offensively? Did I miss the message that yesterday was backwards day in the NFL?

But one thing that was not backwards was the Patriots win over the Colts in a game that lived up to the hype for me, though in a different way than I was expecting. That was a tough game for me to watch. Between the questionable officiating (could NE have gotten slapped with a few more bogus pass interference calls while Indy mugged the NE receivers sans flags?) and Brady having a very un-Brady day, I was a nervous wreck. I don’t have too many deeply-held interests in the games I watch. But New England is one of two teams that I can’t watch lose, with U of M being the other team. I have a growing affinity for the Dallas Cowboys, especially with Romo at the helm which I’ll discuss in a second, but if they lose I’ll get over it. With New England losing, I was not a fun person to be around yesterday. Sure it was exciting when Randy Moss reeled in that sick, one-handed catch in the middle of the field and maintained possession without ever securing the ball with his other hand. That man is a freak of nature. Thank God he’s on our team! But watching Dwight Freeney fly around putting pressure on Brady is not my idea of a good time. It wasn’t until the Pats scored in the 4th to bring the score to 17-20 that I started to feel the color return to my cheeks. I started to remember, hey, we’ve imposed our will on all the other teams we’ve played this season, why not on the Colts? Then the strike to Kevin Faulk came with a few minutes to go in the game and now the color in my cheeks was accompanied by a smile. Albeit a tight-lipped smile, but a smile none-the-less. But it wasn’t until the Patriots stopped the Colts on their final possession and got the ball back with about 2 minutes remaining that I actually relaxed. Even as they took a knee to end the game, I was a little tense. What if something happens and Brady drops the ball before his knee goes down and the Colts recover…you never know these days in the NFL. Stranger things, i.e. Antonio Cromarti returning a missed field goal 109 yards for a touchdown, have happened!

Still feeling euphoric from the Patriots win, I settled in to watch the Boys versus the Eagles in what I was hoping would be an entertaining Sunday night game. Considering the Cowboys won in decisive fashion, it was entertaining in that regard. But the Eagles got manhandled, starting with their first play from the line of scrimmage, and sloppy football is rarely fun to watch, even when it’s your team benefiting from the mistakes. The eventual score of 35-17 Cowboys tells the tale. Philly could never really get things going on offense. McNabb was picked off twice, and had the above-mentioned fumble on the first play. Their defense didn’t even manage to sack Tony Romo, which was a first for them. And you just sort of knew when the game started that Philly lacked the pizzazz needed to beat the Cowboys coming off a bye week and Romo coming off his monster contract negotiations. A fresh team and an underdog QB who now needs to prove he’s worth the cash his owner just promised to shell out? Unbeatable unless you bring your A+ game.

So the Eagles fell by the wayside, a fate which I’m hoping more Dallas opponents face in the coming weeks. Now I begin my stewing over what will happen if the Super Bowl is a match-up between the Cowboys and the Patriots. No matter where I watch the game, here in Dallas I’ll be a hated spectator rooting for New England, but would get lambasted even more if I played both sides of the fence and said I didn’t care who won. What’s a SportsGirl to do?