I wanted to wait until (1) the NFL's Week 12 was almost complete and (2) the critical college games on Saturday were played before posting this morning. The Bills, despite winning for the second time in five days at Ford Field to improve to 8-3, now stand 5th in the AFC playoff standings with two division games coming up, starting with another Thursday game - their third this season - four days from now in New England. The Chiefs hold the first overall seed at 9-2 with the 8-3 Dolphins holding the second seed. The week 15 game in Orchard Park on the weekend of December 17th/18th will be a big one for sure with the AFC East division title probably hanging in the balance. The league can wait until after this week's games (week 13) to announce the TBD portion of the schedule for week 15 with three games set to be played Saturday the 17th - early afternoon, late afternoon and a night game. Look for the Bills v. Dolphins game to be either the Saturday night game or the Sunday night game. If it ends up being slotted into either of those night games, my hopes of attending my first live game in three years will be dashed. Don't think I have what it will take for a winter night game and driving until 3am.
As for this weekend's games, let's start with the Vanier Cup. Here's a good football trivia question: Which game has a longer history - the Superbowl or the Vanier Cup? The answer is the Vanier Cup but only about three months longer. Superbowl LVII will be played in Glendale, AZ in February but the 57th Vanier Cup was played Saturday in London, ON. Neither holds a candle to the Grey Cup which, as of last weekend, now has a 109-year history. The Laval Rouge et Or won their 11th Cup (in 13 trips) over the Saskatchewan Huskies at Western Alumni Stadium (formerly called J.W. Little Stadium which makes me wonder if something in Mr. Little's history was unearthed and deemed to be unsavoury) before an announced sell-out crowd of 8,420. London is quite a hike from either Laval or Regina which meant that only a handful of actual fans of the two teams made it to the game. After we graduated from university, a group of us attended the Vanier Cup every year at Varsity Stadium in downtown Toronto. We stopped going after the first year that the game was moved to the canvernous Skydome where the combination of a small crowd and a closed roof made for the most antiseptic possible atmosphere (and a longer walk to the Morrisey Tavern). We would have driven to London if the Western Mustangs had made it but probably not otherwise. The Mustangs fell a game short of Saturday's game which would have made it a "home" championship game for them. The weather certainly cooperated and in the images I saw of the stadium, it looked more full than Mosaic Stadium in Regina did the previous weekend for the Grey Cup. So ends another season of three-down football. I feel like the core group of Canadian football fans (of which I am one) has no younger generations coming behind it to take up the cause. Twenty years from now, will be talking about the 129th Grey Cup and the 77th Vanier Cup? I hope so but I'm honestly not sure.
By several orders of magnitude, the biggest game on Saturday was played in Columbus, OH where the Michigan Wolverines won "The Game" (the 118th in the storied rivalry) for the second straight year and guaranteed themselves one of the four spots in the College Football Playoff, also for the second straight year. Attendance at the Horseshoe was 106,787. The Wolverines gained ten yards on the ground in the first half but finished the game with 252 as they physically dominated the Buckeyes at the line of scrimmage in the second half. The No. 1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs will also be in the playoff but the other two spots are still up for grabs and dependent on the Conference Championship Games this weekend. In the running are: USC and TCU with Alabama and, yes, Ohio State still with outside shots. The participants are chosen by vote rather than by competition on the field so there is no certainty about which teams will make it - except that even if Michigan loses to Purdue in the Big Ten Championship or if Georgia loses to LSU in the SEC Championship, they are both considered to have earned their spots in the four team playoff.
After every NFL, each team's head coach delivers a brief post-game speech in the locker room with cameras rolling. We rarely see them from the losing locker rooms (maybe after the Conference Championships or the Superbowl) but they offer coaches the opportunity to deliver an inspirational or congratulatory message which reflects their personality, coaching style and communication style. On Thursday afternoon in Detroit, Sean McDermott's speech was worth seeing. He started calmly, recounting the previous week's blizzard, two flights to Detroit and the life lessons that such adversity can offer. He then erupted in joy declaring that it was "One Hell of an Effort!" to the cheers of the half-dressed players surrounding him. It was great to see some emotion from the usually stoic and tight-lipped coach. He then offered "Game Balls" to No 17 for the clutch throw near the end of the game, to No 14 for the catch and to "our little kicker" Tyler Bass who sheepishly appeared from behind a couple of behemoth linemen to claim his game ball for the winning kick. I really do think that McDermott and Beane have built a positive and sustainable winning culture.
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