Rex Ryan was relatively calm in his post-game press conference in Seattle. Bills beat reporters, among others, were expecting him be breathing fire after a heartbreaking down-to-the-last-play loss in the the Bills first trip to the Pacific Northwest since 2004. If it were a baseball game, Ryan surely would have been ejected by referee Walt Anderson just before halftime after he expressed his outrage to him at a non-call on Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman. Sherman was as clearly offside as a player could be on a Dan Carpenter field goal attempt with three seconds left in the half. Officials flagged the offside but no further penalty was called on Sherman who continued into the backfield and slammed into Carpenter's plant leg and knocked him to the ground.
When a punter is fouled as or after he punts, there are two types of penalties which can be called: "running into the kicker" which is a five yard penalty or "roughing the kicker", a personal foul which carries a 15 yard penalty. It seemed clear to me that, notwithstanding Carpenter's embellishment of his leg injury, a personal foul should have been called. Then, the officials botched the lead-up to Carpenter's actual kick attempt, finally placing the ball on the field with less than five seconds remaining on the play clock. After the delay of game penalty, Carpenter missed the kick. Ryan was understandably livid in the moment but, presumably having learned how to avoid fines from the league office for comments on officiating, simply said that he would have made a different call on the Sherman play. He was also obviously proud of how his team competed in the game - and rightfully so.
Ryan was asked if he thought that last night's game was Tyrod Taylor's best one in a Bills uniform. He replied by saying that Taylor plays well every game and that he isn't sure why this opinion isn't more widely shared. Despite throwing one needless and careless interception (only the Bills 5th turnover through nine games), Taylor demonstrated his usual elusiveness in the pocket and his consistent ball protection instinct but he also had a pretty good night throwing the ball, following two games where he did not. The Bills defence was also solid in the second half after a shaky first 30 minutes. And, the game was theirs to win on the last series and the last play where Taylor's pass sailed through the endzone. Was Robert Woods held on that last play? Didn't look like it to me but a defensive holding or pass interference call on the play would have gone a long way to righting the officiating wrong from the end of the first half.
With nine games down and seven to go, the Bills probably have to win six of them to have a realistic shot a wildcard spot. With road games in Cincinnati and Oakland and a home date with the Steelers on the schedule, they have a tough road. At 4-5, the Bills look to be close to a lock to extend the NFL's longest playoff drought which dates back to the Music City Miracle which followed the 1999 season.
Before the game, I looked up the history of the Bills playing on Monday night. With a couple of exceptions, it isn't pretty. The most memorable game for me was the October, 2007 game against Dallas where the heavily favoured Cowboys eked out a 25-24 win after a successful onside kick and a 53 yard field goal as time ran out. The Bills are 2-9 in their last 11 Monday night games.
The history of Monday Night Football is also fascinating. Thanks almost entirely to a man named Roone Arledge who convinced his skeptical bosses at ABC (CBS and NBC had passed on the idea, thinking that football fans would not watch a game on a Monday night) to take a chance on it in 1970. Arledge introduced many innovative ideas to the prime time broadcast, including the use of multiple cameras and celebrity guest appearances in the broadcast booth, the most famous of which was Howard Cosell's 1974 interview with John Lennon. Six years later, Cosell announced, during a live broadcast of Monday Night Football, that Lennon was dead, making ABC the first network to break the story.
To my American friends, I wish you a successful election today. NFL fans in southern California will be paying close attention to a proposition on the ballot in the San Diego area where voters will choose whether or not to allocate tax dollars for a new stadium for the Chargers. Only in America.
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