If you wanted your team to go to the Superbowl, maybe you should have legalized pot
We need a place to talk about The Big Game and how Denver is going to win it.
Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
I admit: I was sort of rooting for the Chargers so I could point out that, at least, Tim Tebow won a game in the playoffs.
Again: I was sort of rooting for the Patriots so I could point out that, hey, that’s where Tebow ran into a brick wall too.
But now we’re here.
I may as well cheer for Manning.
Yay Manning.Report
The Broncos are gonna go to New York with one goal in mind: win one for the Timmer.Report
If they try to go to the Super Bowl in New York, they’ll be in for a major disappointment. There is only one professional football stadium in New York, and it’s a good 6-7 hours’ drive away from where the Super Bowl will be.Report
Among the last 27 Heisman Trophy winners, Tim Tebow is the only one to quarterback his team to a playoff victory. #TheMoreYouKnowReport
Jim Plunkett.Report
Sorry, overlooked the “last 27” part of that. My bad.Report
Even Canadians are hating on Tim Tebow.Report
He’s no Rickey Ray.Report
Boo Manning! Go Hawks!
I’ve always despised Denver, going back to the John Elway days, in part because Elway came off like a prick. I want to see Denver crushed.Report
I’d rather be in a stadium full of potheads than a stadium full of drunks.Report
As long as they don’t keep ritual chanting dude in a stoner voice I’m with you.Report
I’d rephrase that to “as long as security confiscated their bongos.”Report
Sadly Jerry Garcia died in 1995.Report
Behavior wise, I agree with you.
Smell wise, not as much.Report
You’ve never smelled vomit?Report
I really dislike the smell of weed. Really really dislike. I think it smells like skunk I have left concerts because many people were smoking up in an enclosed location. But point taken.Report
Obviously you needed a few more tokes yourself, then you wouldn’t have minded the smell so much. 😉
(I agree, though.)Report
It’s Super Bowl 420.
Report
From Bill Simmons: the Smokeabowl.Report
Jaybird, Could you please tell the world why you are so in love with Tebow? Oh yeah, GO DENVER!!!!Report
I think it has something to do with the way Tebow touches people.Report
I’m looking forward to seeing Loudmouth Sherman and the Seattle Whodats get obliterated when they play without the support of home-team refs and a crowd whose behavior would constitute interference in any other sport in existence.Report
Among sports fans, pettiness is too often treated as a virtue.Report
My man Jim!Report
Ah, how I love to hear the sweet swan song of whatever species of bird it is that loses every year each October, January, April and June.
Is there ever any team one roots against whose wins aren’t because of officiating?Report
The New York Yankees.Report
Well, yeah. The Yankees go without saying.Report
Last year, the Ravens beat the 9ers fair and square, as did the Giants the year before. And the regular-season game in Seattle was a complete rout.
But in this game, the officiating was just atrocious.Report
Loudmouth Sherman? Pretty apt description. I’ve taken to calling him “Dick” Sherman.
(I hope he can cover five guys at a time, cuz that’s what he’s going to need to do.)Report
Here is Sherman’s apology:
“I apologize for attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates … That was not my intent,”
Which is nonsense, because focusing all attention on himself was exactly his intent.Report
I’d love to see Seattle win, it’s cool to see a young team go up against an established one. You guys are funny: “I haven’t heard of these people, how dare they be good?!” But I think Dallas has the advantage.Report
One thing for certain: a team with an ugly uniform will win. I like Seattle… bring on the brashness and the arrogance and the attitude and the swagger… they can back it up, so why the hell not? But their uniforms are godawful. Put up against the 49ers classic set, they looked like some weird team of space aliens. I’d also like to see Manning win. All of the hemming and hawing over him being a choke artist is nonsense and a second Super Bowl should shut at least some of that up. So, I’m okay with either team taking the Lombardi, but would rather we not have to watch a game featuring so much orange and turquoise.Report
“they can back it up, so why the hell not?”
Welp
It’s hard to do badly when you, e.g., run over the kicker and get only a 5-yard penalty for it. Or when the refs watch an opposing player take a career-ending injury making a play, then say “dinsynuthin” while the Jumobotron shows it happen in slow-motion.
The 49ers did some boneheaded things that did indeed cost them the game, but you’re dreaming if you think the officiating wasn’t a factor.Report
I never said officiating wasn’t a factor. As I said on the other thread, I thought the Bowman call was the correct application of a flawed rule. However, that was ultimately of little matter because they ultimately benefited from the result when they got the ball at the 7 instead of backed up at the 1. The running into/roughing the kicker call was also a bad one. Even still, the Seahawks are a great football team who come to play and play hard.Report
I don’t know if it really was a factor, but it certainly felt that way. Much more so than the Broncos-Patriots game, where I barely noticed that the officials were there.Report
run over the kicker and get only a 5-yard penalty for it.
And the opposing team has to decline even that, because it would force them to punt again and you’ve just injured their punter.Report
” that was ultimately of little matter because they ultimately benefited from the result when they got the ball at the 7 instead of backed up at the 1. ”
And that’s true. But it’s hard to maintain interest in playing particularly well when the entire stadium and millions of people on TV see Bowman strip the ball and then get his leg injured to the point where it’s not safe for him to walk, and the officials say “welp we already called it, shit happens I guess”.Report
@jim-heffman
If the team stops playing hard because of a bum call, then they don’t deserve to win. As gruesome as it was, Bowman’s injury is immaterial to the call. There is no injury provision in the rules. Whether you fumble because you thought you were in the end zone but were still on the 1-yard-line or because you leg shatters into a million pieces, a fumble is a fumble. NOW, as the rules are commonly understood, Bowman should have been ruled to have recovered the fumble and been down my contact. But as the rules are written and as the refs called the play on the field, there was nothing that could be done after the fact. To suggest it was conscious bias is silly.Report
Do you guys mean the play where the kicker got run over by landing on the defensive player’s hand and twisting his ankle?Report
@stillwater
Yes, that’s the play they mean.
The opinion that it was roughing the kicker is risible.Report
“The opinion that it was roughing the kicker is risible.”
ah-heh
“Bowman stripped the ball but the refs mistakenly called it down and it’s unreviewable? Tough luck, that’s the rules, gotta play the rulebook.”
“Receiving team ran over the kicker’s plant leg? I don’t care what the rulebook says, calling that roughing-the-kicker is risible.”
***********
“If the team stops playing hard because of a bum call, then they don’t deserve to win. ”
:rolleye: If that’s what you need to tell yourself, I certainly can’t stop you.Report
We threw it into double coverage, and the pass was intercepted, ending the game. But if the refs hadn’t made a couple bad calls we would have won.
Also, I’m rooting for the other team, because I don’t like the way that dude treated Erin Andrews!
Pettiness flaunted as a virtue.Report
“Pettiness flaunted as a virtue.”
I guess you missed the part where I said that the 49ers did some boneheaded things that cost them the game.
But hey keep ragin’. I know how much that means to people like you.Report
What I didn’t miss was the part where you said you were going to root for the other team because the refs and a post-game interview you didn’t like.
And I think “ragin'” means something different than what you think it means, particularly if you think my two comments saying that you’re petty constitute raging, particularly given how many comments you’ve devoted to refs.Report
it’s hard to maintain interest in playing particularly well when the entire stadium and millions of people on TV see Bowman strip the ball and then get his leg injured to the point where it’s not safe for him to walk, and the officials say “welp we already called it, shit happens I guess”.
The refs were mean to us so we gave up? Really? I’m willing to wager none of the 49ers are such pansy asses as a particular one of their fans.Report
“The refs were mean to us so we gave up?”
Hey you poor people, stop being so sad about being poor. Just work harder! What, you’re just gonna give up because the people who make the rules are doing a bad job that advantages the other players? Buncha quitters. If you lose it’s your own fault!Report
No, I mean the play where the defender ran into the punter’s plant foot and knocked him over.Report
@jim-heffman
A pro athlete whose team still has a very real chance to play the game will play through to the final whistle. Your description of the 49ers as struggling to be motivated in a close game where a win would put the in the Superbowl is not as much of a critique of the refs as it is an insult to every player on the 49ers. Imagine going into their locker room and sympathizing with them for having given up–I’m pretty sure we’d find out they still had a lot of fight left in them.Report
Jim –
Uh, you do realize who you’re talking to? Negative analogies to objectivist arguments aren’t going to be useful in convincing an objectivist.Report
@katherinemw,
Am I confused or are you calling me an objectivist?Report
Yes.Report
I’m about ready to take bets that both Denver and Seattle will have better weather than the Meadowlands on Feb 2. Then my inner cynic says, “And what excuse will the NFL give Denver and Seattle for why they can’t host a Super Bowl after that?”Report
For Seattle, it’s the number of hotel rooms. That’s the big stumbling block.Report
How many hotel rooms does East Rutherford have?Report
I know you are being a smart ass, but it doesn’t matter how many hotel rooms are in East Rutherford per se.Report
ScarletNumbers is right. It would usually be how many rooms within a certain area.
Also, the NFL promised this to New York in order to get funding for the stadium. It was clearly a special deal for two large market franchises. (They did the same thing for Detroit, but they don’t have an outdoor stadium, so it was less of an issue.)Report
Even if you look beyond East Rutherford, that part of NJ doesn’t have a ton of hotels does. NYC does. But traveling between NYC and East Rutherford ain’t particularly easy, especially given that the stadium is banning private car drop-offs on game day. There are only three river crossings between Manhattan and NJ, one of which involves going 15 miles out of your way (the GWB). It’s going to be a nightmare.Report
Not just the number, but the local custom of piping Metallica songs into them 24 hours a day.Report
Well, the only real reason they awarded it to New York/East Rutherford was to get the stadium built, so I imagine they were willing to bend a number of rules.Report
Nice Super Bowl arrangements you’ve made, with everyone in Manhattan and the game in East Rutherford. Be a shame if there happened to be a traffic study going on on Feb 2…Report
More seriously, since the stadium was built with private money, the two owners somehow held up all the rest of the NFL owners? Give us a Super Bowl or we’ll take our teams somewhere else? Give us a Super Bowl or we’ll play our games in crappy old Giants Stadium? I could understand if there were public money involved: put up some hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars and in exchange you get the economic benefit of a Super Bowl. But that wasn’t the case, at least not as I understand it.Report
I think it was Goodel’s way of paying back the Jets and Giants. “That was really swell of you guys to build a state-of-the-art stadium with your own money. Here, we’ll give you a Super Bowl to help you recoup the costs.”
As I understand it, there is much debate as to how much of a economic benefit hosting the SB actually is to the community. But there seems to be no debate that it will be quite beneficial to the Jets and Giants, as they are actually guaranteed a cut of ticket, merchandise, and concessions sales.Report
And the local area actually did shell out money on infrastructure costs, largely building a train line out to the stadium (which they have may done eventually anyway, but probably not with the timing they did).Report
Do they? It was my understanding that one of the conditions for hosting a Super Bowl is that the stadium, parking, and operations have to be turned over the the NFL rent-free for the duration, with revenue going into the pot that gets split evenly across all 32 teams. Granted, revenue from a game at MetLife Stadium is probably going to be higher than other venues could pull: more seats and the market will no doubt bear higher prices. But you don’t get to be an NFL owner unless you have ego problems, and I can’t see the others who have struggled to get facilities built going along with giving the Giants and Jets a sweetheart deal.
There have been rumors floating around for the last few months that Denver and the Broncos will be allowed to submit a bid for one of the next block of Super Bowls, something they have never been allowed to do before.Report
You are right. I had misunderstood how those revenue streams were dispersed.
This article points towards other ways in which the taxpayers were on the hook for costs related to the stadium: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/nyregion/giants-and-jets-super-bowl-hosts-have-already-been-richly-rewarded.htmlReport
@kazzy Fortunately, there are other, rail based ways to get to the stadium. Under 30 minutes from Penn Station.Report
If the Broncos win the Super Bowl in two weeks, I’d be willing to make a modest wager that Denver and the Broncos end up hosting one of the Super Bowls in the 2018-2020 block. They’d have an owner with three SB rings*, a metro area that has done everything to make the franchise viable — paid the lion’s share on the stadium financing**, routed light rail to provide a dedicated station*** (only open on game days), etc, — a Hall of Fame QB as head of operations, a future HoF QB leading the team, and the precedent set this year that the Commissioner can waive some of the site requirements, especially the temperature rule. If I understand the temperature rule correctly, Denver comes closer to meeting it than East Rutherford by several degrees.
* And whose memory has begun to fail. Can you say, “Sympathy vote”?
** At the time the tax to pay for the bonds passed, some wag pointed out that if the city simply condemned the franchise, the accepted value was somewhat less than what they were paying for the stadium, and they could take their chances on getting the NFL ban on municipal ownership overturned in court.
*** By 2018, the bulk of the trip to the stadium from pretty much anywhere in the core metro area (Denver and inner ring suburbs, plus some), will be able to be made on light rail. I’m curious about how many other NFL franchises that’s true of.Report
I remember talk of having the Super Bowl at Mile High, in the 90s. If I remember correctly, one of the sticking points was the elevation.Report
I think it was Goodel’s way of paying back the Jets and Giants.
And he left some issues unresolved because of incompleteness.Report
I think it was Goodel’s way of paying back the Jets and Giants.
I thought paybackin Jersey was less…pleasing.Report
@mo
If you look carefully at the map there — with its many colored train lines — you’ll see but one train line actually runs to the stadium complex. It connects Seacacus with the Meadowlands. You cannot take a train directly from Manhattan to the game.
Furthermore, the vast majority of attendees have no interest taking a public train to the game. They’ve shelled out thousands of dollars for tickets; they do not want to stand on a cold platform waiting to get squeezed onto a train. You are going to hear a lot of grumbling. And while much of it can be easily dismissed as a First World Problem (“Wahhh… I had to ride a train with regular people to attend a $5000/ticket event!”) to the broader populace, that is a real issue for the League. Big shots are going to be furious with Goodel, wondering why they can’t just take a black car to the event like they normally would. They’re going to be angry that they might have to wait for several hours in the cold for a return trip (the station can only handle 10K passenger/hour).Report
It connects Seacacus…
Which, contrary to rumor, has not been temporarily renamed Seahawkus.Report
@mo @kazzy
While kazzy is right that there is only one train line that goes directly to the Meadowlands and it is from Secaucus, Secaucus itself is on AMTRAK’s Northeast Corridor.
Therefore, mo is right that there are many trains that lead to the Meadowlands, via Secaucus.Report
I’m going to say the same thing I said on Facebook.
The 49ers lost that game because they were stupid with 22 seconds left to go, and that’s the whole story of the game.
The officiating was bad, but except for the roughing the kicker* none of the calls were particularly bad. The turnover that wasn’t called is understandable given the fact that none of the refs saw the ball come out when it came out (the larger point about the non-reviewability of the call is valid, but that’s not the refs fault). I counted five bad ones that went the ‘Hawks way and one bad one that went the 49ers, and that’s not a terrible ratio for playing on the road. You want those calls, you get a better record, and they didn’t do that at the beginning of the season, so that’s just tough patootie.
When your hurry-up offense gets you to first and goal with 22 seconds left and two timeouts, you call time out, set up your quarterback read option, run the play and if you don’t have a clear shot in the end zone, you run the ball with your quarterback, the signature play that worked for you all friggin’ game.
If Kap gets tackled, you have plenty of time to call time out and then you have two more pass plays that you’ve already set up during the time out to run.
If he doesn’t get tackled, you win.
Harbaugh screwed it up, just like he almost lost us the game against the Saints and did lose us the game against the Giants two years ago, and lost us the ‘bowl last year. Guy is a hothead. He reminds me of Dusty Baker: he’s got the spirit to get you to the gates, but he lacks the brains or the guts (brains in Harbaugh’s case, guts in Dusty’s) to get you to the Promised Land.
What you don’t do is run one more hurry up play and then throw the ball away to the other team. That’s on the head coach and the QB. They put themselves in position to win, and then they screwed it up.
* risible my ass. It’s been established football rules forever that if you touch the kicker’s leg in any way without first getting contact with the ball, you get that 15 yard penalty. It’s been that way for 15 years or more. I haven’t seen a kicker get his leg touched without that call in five years.Report
“The 49ers lost that game because they were stupid with 22 seconds left to go, and that’s the whole story of the game. ”
Oh, most certainly. Even before you get “shoulda called a timeout” at the end, you have at least two situations where Wilson got chased out of the pocket and STILL made a huge completion–in one case putting Seattle at first-and-goal. Vic Fangio is at least as responsible for the 49ers loss as anyone else, despite his team’s surprisingly successful goal-line stands. You gotta make sure your players do their jobs!
As many people have pointed out, this was pretty much a replay of last year’s Super Bowl. The 49ers were all over the place, versus a team that played competent but not spectacular football, and there were some rotten calls that might not have changed the outcome but certainly changed the tone of gameplay from “excited” to “desperate”.
(everyone remembers the last play of last year’s Super Bowl. They don’t remember the previous play, where Crabtree caught the ball and tucked it, took two steps, was knocked out of bounds at the 1, and the refs called it an incomplete pass even though he never let go of the ball.)Report
Oh, I remember that play, you betchoo.Report
We were making bets on the O/U for “childish actions” taken by Harbaugh. It was one of the funner subplots of the game.
Of course, no one is going to question his class. Just Richard Sherman’s. Ya know, the guy actually on the field playing. The guy with the 1400 SAT scores and degree from Stanford. He’s the thug. Harbaugh is just fiery. A leader. Motivating.Report
What was the over-under for Harbaugh trash-talking the other coaches?Report
I generally don’t follow football or sports of any kind, but being a Denver native, I’m rooting for the Broncos.Report
My second favorite team is playing in the Super Bowl: whichever team is playing against Denver.Report
Its interesting that the two teams that legalized the use of 420 will be playing in a state that won’t allow them to smoke. I see this as a big controversy with the NFL coming up, since they conduct regular drug testing for those players that reside in a state that allows the use of marijuana. Go team go! Light em up! the420superbowl.comReport
Some interesting contract talks in the making, no matter the profession. Here in WA, I have a professional license to protect, and any Sched I substance impairment could affect my status. Additionally my employer recieves funding from the Feds, ergo Zero tolerance policy.
Besides, I fear any revisitation to the random psychedelia of my randomly misspent youth will prove a disappointment, the memory outrunning the actual experience. Por ejemplo– When I ceased indulging, the music of the Grateful Dead held little interest for me any longer. Well, okay with the exception of the song “Truckin'”.Report