aaron rodgers Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

The Catch That Wasn’t – Revisited

I have talked about this catch/uncatch on Twitter and Facebook and here on my blog. First, let me say that I don’t think that Dez Bryant’s fabulous catch changed everything. An NFL game has several critical points. The Dallas Cowboys had several opportunities to beat the Green Bay Packers. In my opinion, not going for it on 4th and 1 late in the second quarter was a huge mistake. This allowed Aaron Rodgers and the Packers an opportunity to march down the field and kick a field goal before the half. Big mistake. The second huge, glaring error was DeMarco Murray’s fumble. This is the play of plays. I have watched this play five or six times. I’m positive that DeMarco Murray is running this play over and over in his head because that was really the game. Murray had a touchdown. The play was blocked up perfectly. There was a safety in the center of the field. There was no one else. Simply heartbreaking.

SB Nation has a great article on the catch. If you simply go through the sequence, Dez Bryant rises up and snatches the ball from the air. He turns away from Sam Shields. Dez takes two steps as he twists toward the goal line. Dez takes another step and lunges toward the goal line. He hits the ground as he stretches the ball toward the goal line. The ball pops up and Dez regains control as he rolls into the end zone.

First, it was a very athletic play. This catch was as beautiful as Lynn Swann’s sliding catch in the Super Bowl against the Cowboys more than four decades ago. Secondly, when does a receiver become a runner? Why does this matter? Because the rules for ball control are different. If Dez were still a receiver, then the ruling was correct. On the other hand, if Dez were a runner, since he had taken three steps and did what I think was a “football move” by twisting toward the end zone, then when Dez hits the ground and the ball pops up, this is a fumble which was recovered by Dez.

I don’t think that the NFL will ever clarify this play. It is what it is. I do not feel sorry for the Cowboys or Dez Bryant. The Cowboys had several other opportunities to win this game. Aaron Rodgers was on one leg and the Packers simply made more plays. Or to misquote John Madden, “The Cowboys lost because when time ran out and the game ended, they didn’t have more points than the Parkers. That’s why they lost. They needed more points.” 🙂

By ecthompsonmd|2015-01-18T19:25:19-04:00January 16th, 2015|NFL|Comments Off

News Roundup: Lies, J.P. Morgan Chase, Best Quarterback in the NFL and More

When I first started this blog, I thought it was very important for me to combat all the lies that are told in the public sphere. That proved extremely fruitless. Yet, there are some lies that we clearly need to call out. George W. Bush’s former White House Press Secretary, Dana Perino, decided that she would tell a little fib on national television. While on Fox News she said, “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” You don’t have to be a genius or know how to use Google to know that 9/11 occurred while George W. Bush was in his first term as president of our United States. Yet Rudy Giuliani, who was thrust into prominence by those same attacks, repeated the claim only a couple days later. Besides the multiple failures of 9/11, which I will not go into, there was the anthrax attack in which several Americans died and several others became sick. This was a terrorist attack. It happened on George W. Bush’s watch. Frank Rich has more. Look, I really don’t mind you having your own opinion. If you believe that George W. Bush was the greatest president since George Washington, good for you. I do mind when you pretend to have your own set of facts. The facts are clear. The failures of the George W. Bush administration led to 9/11. The failures in the aftermath of 9/11 led to our taking our eyes off the ball and focusing on Iraq instead of Al Qaeda. This allowed us to go into Iraq with too few troops to secure the peace. Now, let’s return to reality.

It would be nice if we had some fairy godmother who could wave a magic wand and change the world for good. Wouldn’t it be nice if corporations would be penalized for gross negligence? If you have a security breach in which 76 million credit card holders have their data exposed to thieves, isn’t that gross negligence? Why can’t we, as Americans, form a class action and sue J.P. Morgan Chase for gross negligence? Oh, that’s right, it’s illegal for us to do it.

It appears that a gay teenager was beaten. Unfortunately, this isn’t news. What is news is that he was hospitalized for the beating and is being charged by police for… I don’t know what exactly. It’s crazy.

Google is working on a really large TV which will fit together like Legos. Sounds cool. Hope it works.

Deaths from heroin overdoses have more than doubled over the last several years.

Conservatives are all up in arms because of voter suppression. I can only laugh. It is conservatives who have pushed voter suppression. They pushed ID cards and several other gimmicks in order to limit the young, the poor and some of the elderly from voting. Now one of their own, Leslie Rutledge, has been kicked off the voter registration. One of the things that I find amusing is that conservatives continue to say that this is a right-leaning country. If so, wouldn’t conservatives push to have more people vote instead of fewer? (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2014-10-11T23:02:47-04:00October 3rd, 2014|Corporate Wrongs, Healthcare, NFL, Party Politics|Comments Off

Craziness of the NFL

Matt Flynn, the backup QB of the Green Bay Packers, has flown for 480 yds and 6 TDs. What an amazing performance! He has the Packers record for yards and for touchdowns. Let me type that again – Matt Flynn has the Green Bay Packers record for passing yards in a game and for number of touchdowns in a game. That’s more than Aaron Rodgers, who has had a great season. That’s more than Mr. Packer (before he left Green Bay), Bret Favre. Matt Flynn.

Oh, by the way, Matt Stafford, in the same game, threw for over 520 yards, which is a Lions record. No game in NFL history has had two quarterbacks throw for over 400 yards. Calvin Johnson has 244 receiving yards and a touchdown, which is another record (Lions).

By ecthompsonmd|2012-01-01T17:53:09-04:00January 1st, 2012|NFL|Comments Off