Just say "Joe"!

I always forget that the first two games of the NFL playoffs, the wildcard games played on the Saturday of the first playoff weekend, are always televised on ABC, with the latter game being anchored by the good Monday Night Football crew (Al Michaels and John Madden), and with the earlier game being anchored by the much less-good ESPN Sunday Night Football crew (some guy whose name I never remember, Paul McGuire, and -- wait for it -- Joe Theissman). So I always forget that with the end of the regular season, I still have one game of Joe Theissman's inanities to sit through.

He was in usual form yesterday, during the Rams-at-Seahawks game -- most of the time he was just babbling really loudly about nothing particularly insightful. But you can always count on Joe to open his mouth at some point during the proceedings and uncork an utterance so dumb that it makes one's entire scalp itch. Yesterday's such utterance -- the one I heard, anyway -- came near the very end of the game. With about a minute left in the fourth quarter, the Seahawks were trailing 27-20 and were driving toward the end zone for what they hoped would be the tying touchdown. It was a tense ending to a pretty entertaining game (even though neither team stands a Buffalo January snowball's chance in Hades of not melting of moving past the next round), with the decision coming when a Seahawk receiver failed to rein in a nearly perfect pass on fourth and goal.

But I digress -- back to Joe, who about with a minute left takes careful note of the game situation and offers this bit of insightful comment:

"This situation will either end with the Seahawks scoring and sending the game to overtime, or with the Seahawks losing the game."

Really! I hadn't realized that the Seahawks were trying to tie the game to avoid losing! Amazing! Thanks be to Joe for spelling it out!

PS: Actually, there was a third alternative: the Seahawks score the touchdown to make the game 27-26, and then go for a two-point conversion to win outright. Of course, nobody on Earth would be insane enough to go for two instead of kicking the point-after-touchdown to go to OT in such a situation.

PPS: I watched Die Hard a couple of weeks ago, and I suddenly realize who Joe Theissman reminds me of: the doltish news anchor at the TV station where that smarmy, opportunistic reporter works. The one who, when a terrorism expert mentions something called the "Helsinki Syndrome", offers the helpful clarification, "As in, Helsinki, Sweden." The terror expert says, "Uhh...Finland", and then goes on as the anchor carefully positions his lantern-like jaw for proper TV display.

PPPS: Actually, I now recall that former University of Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne attempted the two-point conversion to win at the end of the 1984 Orange Bowl. Trailing 31-30 after scoring a TD with less than a minute left, he went for two, which would have given the Cornhuskers a 32-31 win. Instead, the conversion failed and the Huskers lost 31-30 to the Miami Hurricanes. But I seriously doubt anyone in the NFL would ever try this. Well, Mike Martz might do it. But nobody else.

PPPPS: By the way, has a less-disciplined game ever been played in the NFL than yesterday's contest between the Jets and the Chargers? You had the Jets having ten men on the field twice, the Chargers having twelve men at one point, Marty Schottenheimer actually going onto the field of play, a roughing-the-passer penalty on fourth-and-goal that gave the Chargers the chance to tie the game (which they did), missed field goals, bad snaps, failure to run in situations that clearly called for it, et cetera? It was like watching a Gregg Williams-era Bills game.