Tis the Season

Brady

ESPN is the most powerful media entity in all of sports. They dictate what time college football is played at. They pay the NFL billions and make a profit. However, on Brady, they overreacted all day long yesterday. Stop with the comparisons to Jordan and Woods. Both basketball and golf have laid those two stars as the foundation for their success. The NFL is different. Fans of the NFL have their favorite teams, and then they have their favorite players. Joe Montana disappeared for two and a half seasons only to re-emerge in Kansas City. The top story of that time: Steve Young winning an NFL MVP. Nobody asked when Emmitt Smith retired "Who is going to be the next Emmitt Smith?" So Brady being gone for the season levels things out a bit. It'll open up the doors for new stories and fresh faces. So put down the gun NFL pundits, they're still playing next Sunday.

Pac 10 Refs

A lot has been said about the Jake Locker penalty in the BYU-Washington game. The majority of which has been along the lines of "should have been a no call." I even heard one on air personality say that refs "hide behind the rulebook." Digest that one for a minute while I ask a hypothetical question. What should have the call been if the ball was thrown into the air and hit a BYU player? That would have constituted as a penalty more than likely. Celebration rules are intended for players to avoid drawing attention to themselves or "showing up" the other team. Had the ball landed on a BYU player's head, that would fall under the heading "showing up" the other team. No, it didn't happen that way, but refs don't call holding because it resulted in a touchdown run. They call holding on TD runs, QB sacks, and everything in between. They call penalties on infractions if it had an consequence in the game or not. Locker made a mistake, and the refs made the right call.