Our holiday weekend was both busy and lazy.
We watched one of our two year old nephews from Friday night through Monday morning. He’s a really good kid – smart and funny and loves being with the girls – but you do kind of forget how exhausting that phase of life is. The repeated questions. The bizarre mood changes. The out of nowhere finickiness when eating. The failure to grasp basic logic. We love having him but it’s a relief to pass him along after a few days rather than face his barrage of Two-ness constantly.
But the weekend was mostly good. The big bummer was our expected snow storm came through about 12 hours later that initially forecast, and by the time we could get him outside to play the windchill was in the single digits. So we only took him out for about 10 minutes, made a slow lap around the house looking for icicles, and then went back inside.
M went on her first ever ski trip Sunday, down to a hill near Cincinnati with a group of other middle schoolers from North Side Catholic schools. She had a great time. She had never tried skiing before. Late in the afternoon she sent us a video of her zooming along rather nicely. All without taking a class. She had a great time and is excited to go to Colorado some winter and try skiing with her cousins.
As for sports, I’ll save the KU stuff for a post later in the week. Our nephew-watching duties cut into my football viewing time a little on Sunday. I actually slept through most of the first half of the Rams-Saints game and then turned the TV over to the kids while I made dinner. I started getting texts about a terrible call and then it took me five minutes of searching before I could find the remote to switch back to the game. It was after that game ended before I finally saw a replay of “The Call.” Man…that was brutal. How many bullshit DPI penalties do you see every game and then they let that go? Utterly amazing. If I was a Saints fan I would probably still be rioting.
I kept the TV on while we ate dinner and had one eye on the game. But somehow I missed that Greg Zuerlein’s absolute bomb of a field goal was for the win. I muttered “Wow,” between bites of taco lasagna, thinking it was just a great kick. Then I saw Rams running on the field and realized the game was over. That was a wacky, wild game.
For the Pats-Chiefs game, I watched the first two drives then had to run out to pick M up. By the time I was home it was halftime and I just had this feeling that A) the Chiefs would get back in it but B) the Patriots would manage to pull it out.
My football picks generally suck but this one was right on!
For most of the third quarter we were watching a movie with the nephew before bedtime. But I was able to sit down and give the game my undivided attention roughly mid-way through the fourth quarter. Which was the perfect moment to pick things up. With about 5:00 left I – semi-jokingly – texted a couple friends saying there would be four more scores in the game. I was wrong; there were five.
For an non-partisan viewer, those final five minutes plus overtime were fantastic to watch. And the best part was Tony Romo calling every damn play before it happened. I don’t get how some viewers are put off by this. And I don’t get why no other analyst is as good at it as he is. Does he watch more film than them? Are they told not to do it, as he apparently was told by CBS for part of this season? Or does he just have a gift no one else has? It was an amazing football game taken to another level by his insights.
I’ve heard plenty of bitching about the NFL’s overtime rules. In general I agree with those complaints. The overtime rules are already tweaked for the playoffs since you play until there is a winner. Why not make a second minor tweak and say that both teams get a chance with the ball, regardless of how the first possession plays out? Ending the season based on the whims of a coin toss seems counter to what the NFL is all about.
Then again, every sport is somehow compromised by its overtime rules. Soccer is strange, with different tournaments having different rules. College football is dumb. Basketball likely gets it best: add five minutes and keep playing. But team fouls also carry over, so you begin overtime with teams generally being overly penalized for every foul. Playoff hockey is fantastic: add a fresh 20 minutes and repeat until someone scores. But while those extended overtime games are often breathless viewing experiences, the play can get very choppy because of exhausted players.
I’ve heard some folks say the NFL should just go to a fifth quarter in the playoffs. Add ten minutes, play it out, and if someone is ahead at the end you have a winner.
I think the fairest way is to ensure each team gets at least one possession in overtime and then sudden death kicks in. No need to play out the last three minutes if one team kicked a field goal and the other scored a touchdown.
Anyway, another January disappointment for Chiefs fans. Another January of listening to Patriots bullshit. How long until pitchers and catchers report?