By David Roth
After a season defined largely by the yawning gap between the league’s haves and have-nots, parity seems to be creeping back into the NFL just in time for the postseason push. Week 15 was marked by a number of hard-fought and emotional games, from the New Orleans Saints’ fall from the ranks of the undefeated against the Dallas Cowboys to the back-and-forth slugfest between the Kansas City Chiefs and Cleveland Browns, two of the NFL’s worst teams. The most emotional games of the weekend, though, involved two reeling teams from the AFC North. The Pittsburgh Steelers avoided becoming the first defending Super Bowl champs to lose six straight by winning a shootout with the Green Bay Packers. And the Cincinnati Bengals, still grieving the death of teammate Chris Henry, hung tough before falling to the San Diego Chargers.
The Steelers and Packers traded scores right up to the last whistle in Sunday’s 37-36 Pittsburgh win, but some eye-popping passing from Ben Roethlisberger helped the Steelers salvage a win despite another lackluster defensive effort. Roethlisberger finished with 503 yards and connected with wide receiver Mike Wallace on a game-winning touchdown pass as time expired. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ron Cook is in awe of Big Ben’s big day. “Each week, we get to watch one of the game’s all-time greats. Each week, we know the Steelers are never out of a game because of him,” Cook exults. Roethlisberger’s heroics rescued Steelers coach Mike Tomlin from the consequences of a controversial decision — opting for an onside kick after a go-ahead score late in the fourth quarter, which allowed the Packers to score on a shortened field and take back the lead. At Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner blog, MJD explains Tomlin’s thought process. At his blog Advanced NFL Stats, Brian Burke says it was the right call.
No explanation was necessary for the Bengals’ evident heartache during Sunday’s game against the Chargers. Television cameras caught receiver Chad Ochocinco sobbing on the sidelines after a first-half touchdown catch, and the entire team played with a striking combination of purpose and sadness. At Sports Illustrated, Jim Trotter examines the team’s fractured psyche by focusing on Ochocinco’s game-day experience. At Fox Sports, Mark Kriegel explains why Ochocinco backed down from his earlier pledge to play the game in Henry’s No. 15 jersey.
Congratulations to everyone who bet that Cleveland Browns running back Jerome Harrison would put up the third-best single-game rushing performance in NFL history on Sunday and push Jim Brown out of the Cleveland Browns franchise record books. You know, Jerome Harrison, Cleveland’s 2006 fifth-round pick? Right, that guy rushed for 286 yards in Cleveland’s 41-34 win over the Kansas City Chiefs. Harrison led college football in rushing during his senior season at Washington State and has long argued that he deserved a chance to start in Cleveland, or somewhere. “The funniest part: After years of telling everybody and anybody that he just needed a chance and he could do this — well, maybe not this — Harrison tried to play it cool Sunday night,” the Kalamazoo Gazette’s Graham Couch writes.
Aiding Harrison’s efforts to downplay his achievement was the fact that his offensive explosion may not even have been the most impressive showing on his own team in the game. Joshua Cribbs returned two kickoffs 100 yards and 103 yards, respectively, both for touchdowns, giving him an NFL-record eight career scores on kickoff returns. In the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jodie Valade caught up with Cribbs after his record-setting performance.
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There are gay men in pro sports, the military, or whatever tough-guy job you choose. While surely there are still some people out there clinging to the crude, old stereotype of the limp-wristed gay man, it’s worth remembering that the stereotype is just that: crude and old. It is also, thanks to the emergence from the closet of living rugby legend Gareth Thomas, looking just a little bit more outdated today. The Welsh rugby star, 35, captained the Wales and British Lions rugby teams during an accomplished career before retiring from international competition, but remains active with Britain’s Cardiff Blues. Thomas’s sexuality had reportedly been an open secret in the sport for many years, but is a secret no longer.
“If you bend it like Beckham, or for that matter, if you can create mayhem on a rugby field, there is no room for denial. You may have a black skin, but that won’t hide your abilities,” Simon Barnes writes in the Times of London. “But if you can’t hide skin colour, you can certainly hide sexuality — and that has been sport’s secret for years. The rest of the world has changed: sport is, slowly, grudgingly, in its own time, catching up with the society it caters for. Let us salute Gareth Thomas and look forward to the day when the courage he showed is no longer necessary — or even comprehensible.”
In the Independent, Emily Dugan situates Thomas’s coming out in the context of the current British sporting scene.
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As is true of many traditions, there’s less history and less provable merit behind the NBA’s de rigueur morning shootarounds than you’d expect. The practice originated not in the early years of pro basketball but in the early 1970s, and, thanks to different perspectives on the need for sleep (among other things), it may be on its way out.
“For 38 years, the morning shoot-around has been an unquestioned staple of the N.B.A. game-day routine,” Howard Beck writes in the New York Times. “It may soon be extinct, another dusty exhibit in basketball history, next to the peach basket, the two-handed set shot and John Stockton’s short shorts. … A growing interest in sleep science — and a recognition that players need more time to recharge — is fueling the trend. Simply speaking, N.B.A. players often fail to get enough sleep.”
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We were playing as Pete Incaviglia instead of an Elf Wizard, but for dorks of the pre-Internet era whose tastes ran more to baseball bats than broadswords, Strat-O-Matic Baseball was every bit the equal of Dungeons and Dragons in both popularity and depth of player absorption. While more advanced simulations and fantasy baseball have cut into Strat-O-Matic’s popularity and notoriety somewhat, the original card-and-dice baseball simulation game is still very much alive. In the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Baxter reports on the game’s most recent breakthrough: the development, by accidental baseball historian Scott Simkus, of player cards for Negro League stars that match the high standards for accuracy of other Strat-O-Matic cards.
“That’s a theory that can be tested now, since Simkus’ Negro League cards were based on the same statistical and probability formulas as Strat-O-Matic’s regular-season and Hall of Fame editions,” Baxter writes. “Therefore, Strat-O-Matic founder [Hal] Richman says, Gibson’s card will perform against Tim Lincecum just as the player would have in his prime. And Paige will have the same success against Ty Cobb on the top of a card table that he would have had facing him on a ball field.” Quickly, to the basement!
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NFL 2009: Chris Henry's Memory Lingers Over Week 15 – The Daily …
