“Heroes” (and errors) on MNF…

I’ve always been a fan of various characters from the Marvel Universe. If you happened to watch Monday Night Football on ESPN last night (10/23/06), you got to see a thing of beauty that brings to mind some “hero” titles you just don’t find in comics these days. As a long time N.Y. Giants fan, I suppose it should be enough to take pride in the win over an NFC East division rival and take first place in the division. NAAaahhh! In an uncharacteristic feat of gloating, I found myself taking pleasure in the sighting of Terrell Owens (a.k.a. T.O.) whimpering behind Bill Parcels (a.k.a. The Big Tuna) along the Cowboys sidelines following a game-changing dropped pass. I just couldn’t help but think what might be going in the mind of T.O. (a.k.a. Mighty Mouth) at that particular point in time. To replay the scene for those of you didn’t watch:

The Dallas Cowboys (a.k.a. America’s Team) were on the 30 yard line. It’s 4th down with two yards to go. The Cowboys Quarterback, Drew Bledsoe (a.k.a. The Human Statue), drops back to pass, goes through his reads, and finds a wide open T.O. in the flat just beyond the first down marker. Drew throws a bullet pass to him—WHOOooosh!—but T.O. (a.k.a. Rocks-for-Hands) was too focused on his next publicity stunt to catch the ball despite the fact that it hit him right in his ten digits. T.O. (a.k.a. The Amazing PublicityMan) proceeded to step to the sideline and positioned himself directly behind the Tuna, and made a point of staying out of Bill’s death ray peripheral vision. The Cowboys turned it over on downs, and the Giants subsequently crushed the Dallas Cowboys in Texas Stadium, 36-22. All is good with the world this day. By the way, is there a better name for a football team in the National Football League than “GIANTS”??? I think not. But I digress…

On a slightly more serious note, I believe the NFL (a.k.a. the (sometimes) No Fun League) has got a minor problem on its hands…literally. Allow me to explain:

In Major League Baseball (a.k.a. MLB…a.k.a. Mighty Long Ballgames), they keep some pretty dopey statistics: ERA and Slugging percentage have always come across as a non-necessity. To Baseball’s credit though, pitchers don’t get dinged (much) for the occasional bonehead plays made by others in the field. Those stats are captured as “Errors” against the offending fielder. I believe it’s high time that errors were introduced into the NFL. Based upon their performance, Quarterbacks receive a Passer rating that’s derived from a formula created by Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Don Smith (a.k.a. the Incredible Blockhead) in 1973, and applied retroactively to all previous seasons. The Passer Rating is calculated using each quarterback's completion percentage, passing yardage, touchdowns and interceptions and has a maximum value of 158.3—the latter “logical” value being a function of Don’s Mathematical wizardry.

The most frequently-voiced objection is that plays in which the quarterback is sacked do not count toward compiling the rating, thereby giving a quarterback, who is about to be sacked, an incentive to deliberately take the sack rather than throw the ball away and have an incomplete pass lower his completion percentage, touchdown passes-per-attempt ratio and his yards-per-attempt ratio. Many defenders have pointed out that no professional quarterback would intentionally take a sack to the detriment of his team in order to preserve a passer rating. Yeah, right. Getting back to the topic of errors, it seems to me that receivers ought to have errors assigned for passes that either hit them in the hands, chest, or facemask. Why those three areas? No reason in particular other than the fact that I think that’s a reasonable expectation for a professional athlete. Ball hits you in the hands? Catch the damn ball!! Ball hits you in the chest? Catch the damn ball!!! Too many times, receivers drop balls when they “hear the footsteps” of a defensive back who's got a bead on them. What? A professional receiver would never intentionally drop a pass to avoid getting hit, would he? Yeah, right.

Similar to MLB, there would need to be an impartial official designated by the league to identify such errors. And by they way, in fairness, there is only one legitimate reason to intentionally drop a football. On behalf of all men in our fair nation, I’m going to forgive any receiver for dropping balls below the waist for…uh…protective purposes. And that’s all I have to say about that!

Peace,

+THINKER