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For such a stinker of a game (no surprise there, really, except that the Browns really are that bad).  I feel for my Cleveland kin, whose voices I hear in the back of my head lamenting another poor performance by a Cleveland sports team.  But, a standout performance by Mike, Jaws, and John.  I rarely even acknowledge the presence of announcers not named Madden or Costas or Thorne, but in this case I believe a trophy should be awarded for a ‘clutch’ performance.  In the face of unrelenting horribleness, they made the second half of that game immensely entertaining with their unvarnished opinions, discussion of SNF, back and for between Jaws and John, retro highlight reels, and above all highlighting the fact that a quarterback is having a terrible night when he can’t hit the football field with a throw.  Hats off to you guys, great job!  And keep it up John, work on your polish and you may be the replacement for Madden that we are all hoping and waiting for.  My favorite (paraphrased) quote of the night:

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Ok, I have had enough.  If a score is a game winning score (at least!) the call on the field should stand regardless.  If it turns out the the scorer is an alien from the planet mars and is packing a ray gun with plans to kill everyone in the arena after the game, the score should still stand.  I am sick and tired of getting excited at seeing a score, seeing it ruled a score, and seeing that ruling overturned.  I hate it, it is wrong, and the fans are the ones who suffer.  Fix it now.  And I am talking to you, NFL, NCAA, MLB, NHL, Olympics, etc.  Fix it or I swear to you I will stop watching or caring or buying your crappy products.  I want enjoyment in my recreation.  Who cares which team wins or loses, half the time I could care less.  What I really care about is being able to know for sure that what I see is what I get.  I get enough false starts and overturned rulings at work, I DON”T NEED IT ON MY DAYS OFF!

So how did everyone else like the debut of Jerryworld? I was impressed with the stadium and the quality of the game. I bet the ratings will be the highest for a regular season game in years. And 105 thousand people may signal a new era of expansion in the NFL. Now if we can just get rid of the stupid “coaches calling timeouts” rules along with instant replay, we will really be making progress!

So next year’s NFL schedule has been released.  Below you can find the information on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2009 NFL schedule.  I’ll update this post as I have time to analyze it, but it looks like a very tough road to hoe this year, competition-wise.   The NFC East and AFC east, combined with the NFC south represent the most competitive three divisions in football, hands down.  Coach Morris has his work cut out for him.  Also apparent is that almost all games are 1:00 pm starts, and our division play is densely packed at the end of the season.  And, we once again have a favorable bye week.  Week 1 is September 13th, 2009.

Week 1  Dallas at Tampa
Week 2  Tampa at Buffalo
Week 3  NY Giants at Tampa
Week 4  Tampa at Washington
Week 5  Tampa at Philadelphia
Week 6  Carolina at Tampa
Week 7  New England at Tampa
Week 8  Bye
Week 9  Green Bay at Tampa
Week 10  Tampa at Miami
Week 11  New Orleans at Tampa
Week 12  Tampa at Atlanta
Week 13  Tampa at Carolina
Week 14  NY Jets at Tampa
Week 15  Tampa at Seattle
Week 16  Tampa at New Orleans
Week 17  Atlanta at Tampa

I have a new scoring system that I believe could be applied across sports leagues to improve the “watchability” (I must have seen too many bud light commercials recently).  I am calling it the “plus one” system.  Essentially, it rewards teams that score first for scoring first.  My idea is that by rewarding teams that score first over teams that score second, a more aggressive attitude (which I believe fans in all sports like to see) is rewarded over a more defensive attitude.  This is accomplished through the “plus one” mechanic.

To illustrate the mechanic, take your favorite sport, and imagine a situation where the two competing teams are tied, but the score is non-zero.  In all sports I can think of, this tie is treated equally.  My idea is to add an invisible “plus one” to the score of the team which was the first to reach that number.  This rewards them for achieving the score first, and forces the other (losing) team to respond in a more aggressive manner than if the two teams were literally drawn.  And the “plus one” system works without altering the scoring, tactics, or play making of any game to which it is applied.

The system would affect the philosophy and attitude of the games, but in my opinion only to the benefit of the spectators, which are really the consumer of and fuel behind the sport anyway. And such a change in philosophies would most certainly affect the tactics and structure in the long run, but professional sports are dynamic anyways, and this would be no different in my opinion.  This is dynamism which the sport’s fans can really get behind.

If its not on the menu the next (first) time I go to Pittsburgh, I’m gonna move there and open a restaurant.  What would it be?  Meat, cheese, a bun, and hurtling through the air.  Catch it on your toes and I’ll give it to you free.  Congratulations to the Steelers and the great city of Pittsburgh for winning another Super Bowl title.  And congratulations to the Cardinals, for making it an interesting contest.  I happen to be a pretty big sports nut, so I will respectfully decline to say the game was played well (18 penalties?  How many personal fouls?) but it took a cue from recent Super Bowls and kept from being a stinker of a game.

And now for my rant.  This may, deep down, be the single most important rant I will ever put on my blog.  Why do we have instant replay? Of course, I know why.  I could tell you, but you wouldn’t believe me,  so I will let a professor I had in Grad school do it;  “Follow the money”.  Or listen to Cuba.   Translated?  More commercial spots.  Its not to get it right, because if it were there would at least have been a cursory review of the last play of the Super Bowl.  We would be able to challenge more plays.  And outright blown calls that result in wins or losses would be reversed after the game.

I could go on and on with examples from previous games and previous years about the ludicrous nature of grown men discussing the intricacies of “Control” and “Feet touching” and “was his arm moving forward?”,  but I already get more of that than I need to from Al, John, Chris, and the rest.  If you need a second reason; the nerds are to blame.  “We can cover the field from how many angles?  We can locate the first down line to within how many millimeters?  How can we not see everything clearly?  Put more cameras out there!”

If I thought anyone would care or agree with me, I would make a plea to the NFL, “Please get rid of instant replay, I have learned my lesson!”  What is the lesson, you ask?  Human beings are and always will be fallible, so get used to it, suck it up, stop whining, and accept that as long as football is played by humans, watched by humans, and policed by humans, there will be errors, mistakes, and disagreements.  Ignore the gamblers who are predisposed to being whiny, sniveling and angry anyway.  You want money?  Go out and earn it.  Please, NFL, don’t drive me back to watching 3 hour baseball games because you got greedy and tried to draw out your already long games to lengths that make me unable to watch even a single one.

For the record I am a Bucs fan.  When not rooting for them, I usually root for the underdog, but have always had a soft spot in my heart for the black and gold.