Monday, January 9, 2012

Playoffs? Playoffs?*

Well, now. Who woulda thunk it. And what did the winning quarterback say about an especially improbable win?
The receivers make him look better than he really is.

Maybe that's true, maybe he just tosses the ball in someone's direction and lets them try to make a play. Maybe this whole thing has been one stroke of dumb luck after another, a cacophony of happenstance, the unpredictable outcomes of an inept, ill-suited flash-in-the-pan making it up as he goes along.



And maybe, just maybe, a group of tough men believing in themselves, working together with a common vision, giving everything they had, all played better than they really are. Nothing comes easy, or free, in the NFL.

"It's supposed to be hard," Jimmy Dugan growled. "It's the hard that makes it great."^


*Jim Mora, press conference, November 25, 2001.
^Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), A League of Their Own, 1992

4 comments:

  1. He slipped the ball in right on target more times than I remember him doing it in past games. The final receiver's run in that game made the whole team look a little better. What an ending! :)

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  2. His passing seemed a bit more effective, which opens things up and gives them a little room. The writer in me is captivated by the story line and the characters. Here in Denver, the Broncos have been quiet the last few years - at least now they are interesting...and interested. And I agree - the ending was amazing. One of the knocks on Elway was always his accuracy, how he couldn't hit anyone in stride so they could run after the catch.

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  3. I think it was a combination of luck and what you said, a bunch of guys coming together to believe in themselves again. I also have to say it's nice to hear someone give his teammates credit for a win instead of hearing some overpaid asshole gripe about how "the other team didn't win, they didn't do anything worthy. we just lost."

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  4. Yes, it's interesting to read the things coming out of the team now that the season is over. It will be interesting to watch the draft - if they go for linemen and D backs, they're happy with Tebow. If they go after a quarterback early.... Uh oh.

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