Tuesday Night Bites: More NFL Wild Card!

 Last night, we went through the morning NFL wild card games, from Mike Vrabel’s questionable calls, to Frank Reich’s wise ones, even in loss. As logic has it, 24 hours after the first iteration of this column, we’ll be moving to the afternoon games, a mere 3 hours later. 

These games were each boring in their own right, but with enough intriguing storylines sprinkled in to stay watchable until the final play. From green slime to emergency QB situations, these battles stayed rich in the way of talking points.

Seahawks Vs Rams

It was Russell Wilson vs John Wolford at the QB position. The former celebrated Super Bowls, while the latter hoisted the Belk Bowl (now the beloved Mayo Bowl) trophy and worked hard to make it in the Alliance of American Football. A first-ballot Hall of Famer (I’m not sure if this will come to be true, but I love exaggerating about the Hall of Fame. One “The Basketball Tournament Announcer” called Joe Johnson a HOF lock) facing off against an undrafted player known to few before mere weeks before. Until… it wasn’t. 

Wolford got injured on the Rams’ second set, forcing the usual starter, Jared Goff into action, after allegedly -2 year old coach Sean McVay elected to start the former Arizona Hotshot (yes, that’s an AAF team) given Goff’s shaky status with an injury. As some pointed out, the injury was strangely similar to that of Carson Wentz a year ago in the Wild Card round, who faced those same Seattle Seahawks. Wentz received a concussion courtesy of a bad hit from Jadeveon Clowney, that he never returned from. Jamal Adams also dealt a questionable tackle towards John Wolford, a helmet-to-helmet hit just like Clowney’s, sending Wolford not just to the bench, but the hospital. 

Quick John Wolford Did You Know: He was teammates with current Bachelor Matt James, as they worked as a solid QB-WR tandem.

This game received the billing of a low-scoring slugfest, boasting the smallest over-under line of any of the six Wild Card games. Forcing a below 100% Goff into action? Well, for folks betting the under, it would be like announcing Tom Hanks was joining the already stacked Ocean’s 11 cast. The second game of the weekend lived up to its reputation for the first 20 minutes, with a 6-3 Rams lead, as both kickers saw 3 point attempts, but none for the point after touchdown. Then, things flipped.

Seahawks OC Brian Schottenheimer called a screen pass on 2nd and 7 to DK Metcalf. Skip forward 2 days, and he’s out of that job. Perhaps it had something to do with that very playcall, jumped by Darious Williams and ran back for 6 points. Some blame the body language of Russell Wilson, or his decision making for still making the throw. Others blame Freddie Swain, another Seahawks receiver, for not blocking (read: committing offensive pass interference) Williams. Personally, I point the finger at DK Metcalf. He sent a message by catching up with Buddha Baker on a pick six attempt from Baker in Week 7. As a result, I expect him to stop every pick six against the Seahawks for the rest of time. 

The Seahawks offense again reduced the lifespan of under bettors with a fantastic drive to come back. Russell Wilson threw across his body, eluding pressure, over a looming defender for approximately 40 air yards, as DK Metcalf made up for his prior folly on the pick six by catching this one and taking it for six. Nope, that wasn’t all for the first half. On the back not of Goff, but rookie RB Cam Akers, the Rams responded with 6 points of their own, making for a 20-10 halftime score, favoring the Los Angelinos. 

In the second half, absolutely nothing happened, if we’re trusting my memory. Fortunately, resources exist on a newfangled machine called the Internet to help jog my memory. The Seahawks coasted along, failing to score for a long time after their field goal to open the third quarter. Yet, I always just felt like the Seahawks would come back, because that’s what Russell Wilson does: he leads his Seattle teams back to win games that they shouldn’t. 

This came to a head when the Seahawks received a punt with over 7 minutes on the clock, down 10. This seemed like the drive when Russ would begin his miraculous comeback bid. Unfortunately, he didn’t even get to touch the football. DJ Reed returned punts all games. I admired his courage, refusing to fair catch even with defenders in the near vicinity. The Rams failed to get a hit on him on the catch, which would’ve forced a muff. Instead, later on the play, once Reed had full possession, as he was tackled, he lost the football. The Rams took over, Robert Woods caught a TD, the over hit, and that was that. 

Meme of the Game: I have no clue why I laugh about Joe Buck’s trench coats so much, but I do. They make him look like a businessman with a job as Encyclopedia Brown on the side.

Bears Vs Saints

Boring football game. Saints won fairly handily. But… the game was simulcast on Nickelodeon, making for some of the best entertainment of all time. Here were 5 of the best NFL X Nickelodeon moments:

5. Lex Lumpkin. Apparently, he’s a Nickelodeon star, but I just can’t get over the fact that in an NFL Playoff game, there was a sideline reporter named Lex Lumpkin, sounding like a cartoonish villain. Somewhat Solid Man Vs Lex Lumpkin!

4. In this game, Javon Wims suited up for the Bears, in their rematch against the Saints. In the first matchup, he sucker punched CJ Gardner Johnson. I just wanted to visualize Nickelodeon explaining that to young children.

3. The F-Bomb. As occasionally occurs, a hot mic catches comments on the field, including less than savory words from the players. In this case, a mic picked up an F-Bomb from Cordarelle Patterson, presumably making television history with the first curse on Nickelodeon.

2. The NVP. First of all, this is the most hilarious award of all time, with the words Nickelodeon Valuable Player all existing as separate words, but not coming together to form a coherent phrase that makes any sense. Secondly, the election for it was rigged in hilarious fashion, with hit sports podcast hosts of Pardon My Take, Big Cat and PFT Commenter getting their hundreds of thousands of followers to elect lackluster Bears QB Mitch Trubisky the NVP, garnering a massive 49% of the vote. 

1.SLIME SLIME SLIME SLIME SLIME SLIME