Four Down Territory: Week 12

The NFL, for some odd reason, just can’t get overtime right. Sunday we watched the Broncos and Chiefs play an extra fifteen minutes when it could have been wrapped up in five. I get it, you want it to be fair as possible but an NFL game shouldn’t be over three hours, people have to work the next day. The league needs to go back to the sudden death rule if it wants to add excitement to overtime. Sudden death adds an element of urgency and, literally, makes every possession count.

Let’s start the drive.

1st Down: With five games to go the MVP race is starting to get clearer. You have the usual suspects like Tom Brady (which is amazing because, ya know, the whole suspension thing) and Russell Wilson. Then some new faces start to emerge. Ezekiel Elliott has quickly made his mark as the best running back in the league and Matt Ryan appears to have made “the vaunted leap.” Derek Carr has kicked the door in NWA style and put Oakland, soon to be Las Vegas, on the map. The most surprising name on the list is Matthew Stafford. You’d think losing Calvin Johnson would hurt but it seems like Stafford is thriving. A piece of me wants to see Brady win and throw a forest worth of shade at Goodell but I’m going with Elliott as the league MVP.

2nd Down: There’s only one rule in football: don’t ever, ever, ever ever, count Aaron Rodgers out. Monday night Rodgers shredded the Eagles in primetime. He completed 76.9% of his passes while throwing for 313 yards and two touchdowns. He made the best throw I’ve ever seen to Davante Adams and my mind still can’t compute how he did it. It was like watching a dad play against the eight-year-olds in the abandoned lot down the street who kind of looks something like this. Seriously, Rodgers is the best in the game, period. The Packers are back in the thick of things and the sky is falling in Philadelphia.

3rd Down: Sunday, at 4:05, we all took a trip to the upside-down while watching the Seahawks take on the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay won 14-5, winning their third straight. Every year we have to watch a game where a team flies across the country, or the Atlantic, to play a game and every year it’s brutal to watch. There’s no way around it but those games need to be reserved for NFL Sunday ticket and local markets. Anyone who isn’t a fan of the two teams playing doesn’t need to be subjected to that.

4th Down: Don’t look now but the Ravens are on top of the AFC North. A division we all thought Pittsburgh was going to run away with is now intriguing. Big Ben‘s knee injury set the Steelers back and now their best bet to making the playoffs is by winning the division. Luckily, for the fans, those two teams meet on Christmas day in Pittsburgh.Nothing spreads holiday cheer like an AFC North showdown. NBC can do us all a favor and flex that game to primetime instead of Broncos/Chiefs. Besides, we just watched that game. We’re good on that.

Extra Tidbits: The primary focus of 4DT is to cover the NFL but I can’t sit back anymore while Jim Harbaugh acts like a child on the sidelines. How are you “leaders of men” but are out in these fields breaking headsets every time a call doesn’t go your way? Grow up, Jim. While we’re in college let’s take a moment to point out the blatant hypocrisy known as college coaching. Tom Herman agreed to be the head coach of Texas even though Houston, his current team, still has games to play. The NCAA seems so hellbent on making sure that college kids don’t get a piece of the pie that the athletes are baking but a coach (again, “leaders of men”) can jump ship before the season is over for more money? At the very least coaches shouldn’t be able to talk to teams until their seasons are over. But keep handing out crazy punishments because, “morality.” Don’t worry, I’m not a Brian Kelly stan. He’s the biggest hypocrite of them all.

Tweet Me: @mattgarrett41

As  always, thanks for reading.

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