The Best of Wild Card 2013
- Ray Lewis' Grand Farewell - Nobody really knew what to expect when Ray Lewis took the field for one last home game in Baltimore on Sunday, but it couldn't have been a more fitting farewell for the heart and soul of the Ravens. Despite rumors that he'd be limited in play, Lewis played nearly every defensive snap and ended the day with 13 tackles and a deflected pass looking just as ageless as ever. Roll credits.
- Aaron Rodgers' Peak - While the Vikings under backup QB Joe Webb weren't formidable competition by any means, Aaron Rodgers had a very efficient evening in Lambeau with over 65% completion, 270 yards and a TD. Ever the smirking cad, Rodgers should be feeling good about himself getting hot at the right time. Next week in Candlestick will be a big step up.
- Seattle's Grit - I was a little nervous after the first quarter in Washington on Sunday. The Redskins looked to be running circles around the Seahawks' scary defense by jumping out to a 14 point lead, but that would ultimately be as far as Washington got. Even putting the game in the context of RGIII's knee injury, Seattle adjusted in a big way taking away rookie RB Alfred Morris' power and forcing the hobbling QB to try to make plays including forcing a rare Griffin INT. In that effort, they came back from their biggest deficit of the season on the road, and all signs point to this being a different kind of team than we might have thought even half a season ago.
- The Bengals-Texans Futility Bowl - We knew this one would be quite the Futility Bowl at the end of the day, since neither of these teams look even close to competitive next to the Patriots and Broncos, but that doesn't mean they had to play each other like that. Andy Dalton threw for -17 yards until well into the second quarter and the Bengals went 0 for 9 on third downs on the day. Matt Schaub threw an ugly pick six to put Cincy temporarily ahead anyway. Kudos to Arian Foster and Jonathan Joseph for making enough plays to get Houston the win, but they don't look any better suited to face the Pats in Foxboro than they did a few weeks ago.
- Poor Joe Webb, and Poor, Poor Adrian Peterson - In a way, maybe this was an easier let down weekend for Vikings fans than if they'd been able to play at full strength with Christian Ponder under center. It still would have been an uphill battle regardless, but Ponder was sidelined just before the game in Green Bay on Saturday, leaving backup QB Joe Webb to seal the Vikings' fate with less than barn-side accuracy in the pass game. After some big misses to wide open receivers, Webb made it easy for the Packers to focus all of their attention on Adrian Peterson who, while having an MVP year, never had a chance against 11 defenders on every snap. It was almost as ugly to watch as...
- BCS Snoozefest - I will digress for a minute in the Pros to reinforce how very pathetic the BCS Championship was on Monday night. You know it's rough when the highlights pretty much consist of 1) an old man gawking too publicly over a pretty girl; 2) Memphis native (!) and Alabama center Barrett Jones tussling with his own QB after the team was up by a 30-point margin; and 3) Coach Nick Saban looking about miserably uncomfortable as a four-time national champion as is humanly (or androidly?) possible. I look forward to seeing what two SEC teams will make it through the final four in the new playoff system next year but yeesh, pray some thanks to Tebow that the NFL has done parity right in the modern era. Now back to the program.
As I watched RGIII's knee buckle late in the 'Skins-Seahawks game on Sunday night, I had a Usual Suspects-style epiphany of all of the pieces stacking up against this poor guy. Yes, you have to look first and foremost at the questionable decisions Coach Mike Shanahan made, and "questionable" is putting it way too nicely, but here are all of the factors that culminated in a knee that just shouldn't have bent that way. To those who deign that the Redskins coaching staff couldn't have known what would happen to their star and/or that he gave them the best chance to win, find a highlight reel that goes from the second quarter on and ask yourself what you'd do with your non-medically trained eyes.
- The Show on Turf - The grounds crew (under Redskins management) decided not to resod a cold and bare FedEx Field before Sunday's game, making the conditions brutal (essentially like playing on pavement) for both teams. You may even recall that it was on this field that Adrian Peterson tore his ACL just over a year ago and that RGIII injured his knee the first time around this season. Seattle also had some turf monster casualties, as kicker Steven Hauschka strained his calf and elite pass rusher Chris Clemons ended his season with a torn ACL. All because Dan Snyder is the very worst kind of cheap skate.
- The Strasburg Effect - It's more than a little likely the Redskins were recalling the recent misfortunes of their neighboring pros, the Washington Nationals, who made the controversial decision to bench the healthy and critically important Stephen Strasburg earlier this season before the Nats made ever made their first playoff appearance. We'll never know the true impact of that decision, but at the very least benching Strasburg did not yield a World Series appearance or win, so this was a town that was already hyper-sensitive to when and why its star athletes were subject to being benched. Throw in your standard media questions about players' toughness in the NFL (Jay Cutler, anyone?) and it's clear that fear of backlash may have factored in more greatly here than in many other circumstances.
- Dr. Anderson's Loose Lips - Further complicating matters, the Redskins' team doctor, James Anderson, surprised the media just a day before the Seahawks game by admitting that he never cleared RGIII to return for play the first time he injured his knee this year. Anderson essentially implied that he was overridden by a Washington coaching staff that was not prioritizing its star player's health. Coach Shanahan tried to backpedal on these claims immediately by flatly denying them, but Sunday's game made it obvious that the medical staff was either ignored or just paying lip service to Manson-Eyes Mikey after he sent Griffin back in series after series even when he was barely able to walk straight. In Shanahan's haste to "prove" he was honoring the doctor's advice, that advice was either severely inaccurate or, let's be real, never more than a PR factor.
- Short-Sighted Play-Calling - Even if one grants the Shanahans the benefit of the doubt that they felt Griffin was their best option and that they believed he was healthy enough to play, Kyle Shanahan was merciless in his play-calling, making few adjustments even when it was clear his QB had no mobility. For example, I recall a read option in the third quarter after it was obvious RGIII was down to 1.2 knees when he literally hop-scotched his way to the sideline for a few yards. Shanahan was calling a game that reflected the fact that Griffin could hardly throw the ball anymore, but he more or less doubled down on plays that would make the offense most immediately successful--other than calling on backup Kirk Cousins--without thinking for a second about the risks involved then and now. It serves no good to suggest Shanahan was doing this with any malicious intent whatsoever, but Washington fans have to be asking where the cooler heads were in these moments to stop a really bad plan from being realized in the worst way.
- "Playing Hurt" Culture - Perhaps the biggest overarching issue in all of this, and what has made it the media story it has been for the past two days, is that Griffin's cringe-inducing injury was more salt in the NFL's player safety wounds. With mounting litigation from former players regarding brain trauma and clear evidence that football has compromised many players' long term quality of life, every team and player is under the microscope for how they respond to potential and real player injuries. In Griffin's and Shanahan's comments following the game on Sunday, they made a specious distinction between "playing hurt" and "playing injured." I get that it's part of this game to play through injuries when possible since no one survives a season without getting "banged up" one way or the other, but these are all still injuries with a matter of degrees. To pretend that those that qualify as "playing hurt" aren't vulnerable to getting worse or putting someone at risk for long-term health problems is no more than a myth. Here's your Exhibit A.
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