Week 3 Recap and How the Referee Lockout Could End

***Blogger's Note: I published this post about an hour before the Packers-Seahawks game ended, and wow.  To annotate the contents below, the Bad Stuff is obvious and the Week 3 Feature is all too appropos.  For the Good Stuff, it doesn't get classier than how the Packers dealt with an awful call in the moment.  They went back out on the field for a meaningless extra point despite clearly being furious, and Mike McCarthy/Aaron Rodgers handled their press conferences way better than could be expected or justified.***


Man oh man, what a week for Futbol Americano.  Upsets, last minute go-aheads, three simultaneous games in overtime and ever-suspect officiating across the board.  Hold on to your purse strings, Bill Belichick.  As a Saints fan, I can only say, "Le Sigh" at this point, but as a football fan in general, I am thrilled with the turbulence we're experiencing from one week to the next because it means we're in for one of the wildest seasons in the modern era.

Here's your Week 3 Recap in Quick Snap form.  I'll also feature a big idea, team and/or player each week to keep things interesting.  This week: How the Referee Lockout Could End in Four [Unlikely] Scenarios.  But first, the good stuff:

Week 3: The Good Stuff

• Torrey Smith's Bittersweet Day - It is difficult to write about something like Ravens WR Torrey Smith's exceptional performance on Sunday night--mere hours after he found out his brother was killed in a motorcycle accident--without sounding like either a tunnel-visioned sports statistician or a cloying armchair psychoanalyst.  There is no denying that Smith and his family will continue to bear heavy hearts over their loss for a very long time far outweighing the impact of any game, but the emotional resilience that he showed on the field is the stuff of legends.  
• How 'Bout Them Cardinals? - I deserve no credit for this, but in the first draft of my Week 3 picks, I had Arizona over Philly and then figured that their then 9 - 2 run was just too good to be true *when* the Eagles finally cleaned up their mistakes.  No more.  The Cardinals look like NFC dark horses that are now battle-tested against two heavy playoff favorites.  It's still hard to say whether their style is sustainable for another 13 games, but stay tuned for some excellent upcoming divisional clashes with apparent doppelganger San Francisco.  On a related note, the September Surprise honorable mention goes to the Minnesota Vikings who out-49ered the 49ers at the Metrodome through four quarters this weekend.  One day, I'll be able to throw in an "any given Sunday" clause without thinking of Al Pacino or gratuitous bloody eyeballs.

• Nailed It!: My Best Prediction of the Week - Another week above .500 in the pickings is good enough for me.  This is a close call since I also had Atlanta and Cincy against the odds, but I'm giving a shout out to winless-no-more Jacksonville against Andrew Luck the Wonderboy:
• "This one is obviously a little bit of a gamble, but the Jaguars have a vastly underrated defense unlike the Colts.  watching Andrew Luck's challenges against the Steelers (preseason) and Bears earlier this year suggest to me that this game is within reach for Jacksonville with enough willpower and very few mistakes on offense."

Week 3: The Bad Stuff
This whole section is dedicated to ugly collapses in Week 3.  Misery loves company and how.  We saw several snakebit teams suffer some ugly late-game collapses on Sunday that they won't soon forget, especially when January rolls around:

• First, there was the chip-shot-that-wasn't when the Lions "undecided" to go for it on 4th down on Titans' 7-yardline when a field goal would have guaranteed at least a tie.  Jim Schwarz may claim there was a miscommunication amidst the chaos, but putting your team into a very unnecessary sudden death situation after a timeout doesn't pass the sniff test.  I suspect that someone on high gave the Lions that gun with which to shoot themselves in the foot.
• Then, there was Dolphins' coach Joe Philbin icing the Jets kicker in overtime... except that he ended up icing his own team's would-be game-clinching blocked field goal, a move that eventually allowed the Jets to go ahead for good.

• There were also the New Orleans Saints, who just cannot catch a break to save their season.  Despite working up to a 21-6 lead in the 3rd quarter with a 3+ turnover margin over the Chiefs, we saw a bogus TD reversal for Pierre Thomas, a botched Garrett Hartley field goal in short yardage, yet another untimely Drew Brees interception, a safety against the Saints, and a 91-yard TD run for KC during which Jamaal Charles was virtually untouched.  I sure hope Aaron Kromer is raking in a ton of cash somewhere in Vegas because you really have to go out of your way to screw something this easy up in those proportions.
• Finally, there were the Pittsburgh Steelers who had a 20 point lead going into the 4th quarter against a pretty tame Raiders squad and somehow managed to cough the whole thing up under the watch of the Steelers' "elite" defense in less than 15 minutes.  Yowza.
• Shanked It!: My Worst Prediction of the Week: It's a bit obvious, but I definitely didn't see a Vikings victory in the cards this past weekend.  Bonus points for jinxing Randy Moss into having a karmic kind of day in Minnesota:
• "I can't think of many teams that are further apart on the spectrum of contenders and pretenders than the 49ers and the Vikings, respectively.  It's going to be an NFC bloodbath at the Metrodome on Sunday.  Of course, what kind of karma is it that Randy Moss is suddenly good again?"

Week 3 Feature: How the Referee Lockout Could End in Four [Unlikely] Scenarios
There's no need--or way--to sugarcoat it, the replacement refs are looking just about as effective as Tim Tebow's arm these days.  I've played out a few scenarios in my mind about how this thing ends, and well, it ain't too pretty.  Here's how the referee strike could end four ways, betting lines included: 

1) The Replacements Blow a Call So Monumental, It Clearly Throws the Outcome of the Game - 256: 1 - That's right, it could take all 256 games of this regular season, officiating consistency and integrity thrown completely out the window, before the Commish decides to loosen the purse strings for the good of the Playoffs Gods.  Why?  Because the number of games whose outcomes have already been clearly, directly impacted is nearing double-digits or maybe more than that if you believe in things like momentum and cause and effect having an impact on this thing we call football.  Ginger Badger don't care.  Will fans and the media keep hounding the NFL to scatter a few fractions of a percent more to the zebras to keep all that is good and holy about the game in tact?  Absolutely.  Will we stop watching any games in the meantime?  Absolutely not.  Advantage, Goodell.

 2) The Replacements Let Dirty Play Descend Into Chaos, Resulting in an Unforgivable On-Field Injury - 1,000: 1 - Some would argue we've sadly already seen this scenario in action too, most notably with the no-call helmet-too-helmet hit that sent Oakland's Darrius Heyward-Bey to the hospital on a gurney this weekend.  Unlike some league overlords I know, I'm not going to make some sort of accusatory speculation about how their management decisions have trickled down into extraordinary player-to-player violence that would magically not otherwise occur.  That would be a stretch (wink wink, nudge nudge).  But here's the thing, Rodger Goodell is definitely not about to make any kind of concession that he is contributing to the very player safety issue he's in the legal crosshairs for already.  Especially not after his player bounty sanctions were overturned and a layer of scapegoating was at least temporarily removed in a very embarrassing way.  It ain't gonna happen. 

3) A Coach Finally Punches a Replacement in the Face, and the Crowd Goes Wild - 50:1 - It seems we're getting closer and closer each week to a total meltdown on the sidelines to this abysmally inconsistent play calling.  I thought the vocal stylings of John Fox/Jack Del Rio last Monday night were bad, but then we nearly saw Bill Belichick leave Baltimore in the back of a squad car after Sunday night's Patriots loss on a nanometer of field goal post.  Most rational people on Tuesday through Saturday would probably be able to sympathize with these poor replacement officials who are doing their less-than-qualified best with no thanks from the bullies on the sidelines.  But when the game is on the line, mark my words, someone in a striped shirt is eventually going to get punched to atone for the sins of many.  And the crowd is going to freakin' love it.  And then we'll have to deal with our loss of humanity as a society and reinstate the real referees. 

4) The Baltimore Cheer Catches On and TV Sponsorship Takes A Nose Dive  - 10:1 - If there was one mischievous but enjoyable outgrowth of the Patriots-Ravens game last night, it had to be that five-figure-strong crowd chanting obscenities in unison for several minutes to the consternation of TV censors everywhere.  Now I might be crazy, but I think that those Ravens fans are really on to something here.  If the NFL has made it clear that the top brass has zero interest in putting aside its ruthless avarice for the love of the game or the safety of its players, and we won't stop watching anyway, and we don't want to see a poor economy class referee get a black eye from a Belichick or a Harbaugh, we have got to start making this stuff [temporarily] inappropriate for television.  Let the sponsors sort out our wholesome Sunday family pastime.  If you're reading this and you'll be anywhere near the vicinity of an NFL stadium this week, take a page from George Carlin and shout those seven words with every ounce of passion you have for this sport!  For to save football in the referee lockout era, first you must destroy it.