Mike Tomlin Got In Jacoby Jones' Way And I Love It

People are all up in arms about this.  Me personally, I was just hoping for a second tie in the NFL in two weeks because both the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers are going for an AFC Wild Card spot which the Buffalo Bills are poised to snag.

(Quick aside: look, before you burst out laughing at that last point, the Bills play the Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots.  Patriots game is a loss, fine, but the next toughest game is still totally winnable against the Falcons.  Bills put up an 8-8 record, we're right there.)

In the Thanksgiving night game between the Ravens and Steelers, Jacoby Jones was returning a kickoff with the Ravens ahead 13-7.  He was streaking up the left sideline, he cut back in and was tackled just after it looked like he might have the legs to take him to pay dirt.

Who is that standing on the sideline, a little too close to the field? Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin. He did nothing illegal, according to the officiating crew, but when you take a look from all the different angles, it sure looks like he knew what he was doing.  You can see that hilarious image above of him looking over his should as Jones was coming, and apparently what he was looking at from the beginning was the jumbotron showing the run back.

Now unless you were there, who knows what angle the big screen was showing, so we'll never really know what Tomlin was thinking when he did that.  All I know is this was a little big of gamesmanship played by Tomlin, and I love it.  The Ravens players were upset about it, but at the end of the day, they won anyway, so who cares? 

Great move by Tomlin mixing things up like that.  I could watch that little shuffle move he does all day. Cat-like reflexes, that guy.

C+ for Super Bowl Commercials This Year

The Ravens beat the 49ers 34-31 in Super Bowl XXVLLXLXLLXIIIXIVLMMMMCXIVILIII last night, despite everyone believing the game would be a defense-dictating, low-scoring affair at the Superdome in New Orleans. Joe Flacco won the MVP, and older brother John beat Jim Harbaugh. Ray Lewis' last ride went until the train ran out of tracks. A great game, complete with a power failure and a Jerome Boger as the head referee, but for this disgruntled borderline Patriot fans and for fans somewhere in the middle of the 3,000-mile gap between the two warring cities, their attention once again turned to the famous Super Bowl commercials.

SB commercials have had a long history of costing way too much money to air 30-seconds for either shock-value based trash or in vain attempts to get you to laugh. Their affects usually last only until the game comes back on, but there are always those two or three that you will remember. This year, there were about six that I'll remember, but only three that I like enough to talk about some more.

For starters, can someone explain to me what Doritos M.O. is? When's the last time you saw one of their commercials? February 2012? During the Super Bowl? Either way, their first appearance, just minutes into the game was a solid showing and one of my favorites on the night. Anytime there is a man and goat roommate situation, it will have my undivided attention and in this case, it comes in at number three.


Number two is from a brand that has been on my top three commercial list since they were using frogs and chameleons in their ads. The Budweiser Clydesdale commercial once again impressed, this time with an ending that could have conceivably made a grown man tear up...not that I know if any did or not, I'm just saying...



And finally, if you didn't think this was the best commercial going, then I'm not mad, I'm just angrily disappointed.


Plenty of commercials came and went, and if you were hoping for another showing of the GoDaddy.com commercial or the old people Taco Bell commercial, then you are out of luck, my friend, because I thought they were pretty terrible. They dragged on for too long and both made me uncomfortable in their own unique ways. But in all seriousness now, what is the point of these commercials? I understand over 100 million people will see them, but is it worth the money? Do sales of Doritos skyrocket starting that Monday morning, or have these commercials just become a spectacle?

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing them, especially in a year like this where I had no real investment in either team, but am I the only one who thinks that maybe just some of that money could be used for good? If I'm getting preachy, I apologize, but think about it. Lay's potato chips aren't going to start collecting dust on a grocery store shelf because they didn't run a commercial, are they? I guess my point in all of this is, take GoDaddy.com for example. How many of you know what they do? How many use that site? How many actually visit it thinking you're going to see someone naked that they didn't show you in a commercial? Answers: Not enough. Not many. And way too many.

Ray Lewis Dances on the Side of a Hotel

IT, IS, ALIVE!

How awesome is this?  The Ray Lewis pregame dance immortalized by a laser light show on the side of a hotel in Baltimore.

Hopefully they can transport that and get it to the top of Gillette Stadium to shine on the field after another victory for Lewis and the Ravens.  With that image in mind, now is a good time to explain my Super Bowl picks.

The Ravens and the Falcons.

Look, yes Tom Brady and Colin Kaepernick are good.  And before you Pats fans freak out that I mentioned Kaepernick next to your god, just know I respect Brady ('s acting career) and mean no offense.  The Patriots offense is even better than top notch, with or without players like Rob Gronkowski -- out with a broken arm for the rest of the playoffs -- and Danny Woodhead.  However, the Ravens defense is deserving of the same adjectives that you could use to describe the Pats' O.  It will be an all-out battle between Lewis and Brady. 

On the offensive side for Baltimore, Joe Flacco leads nearly the exact same offense onto the field as he did when Billy Cundiff missed a field goal to send them to the Super Bowl.  Well, minus Lee Evans who, if he had just caught the ball in the end zone, could have won them the game anyway.  The Pats secondary seems to be getting better game by game, but the Ravens receivers are white hot right now.

As far as the NFC side of things goes, I couldn't really care any less.  Matt Ryan looked like a champ in the first half of the Falcons eventual win over the Seahawks, but then whoever the crazy man inside his head is decided that he just wanted to continue to be terrible in the postseason.  Yada yada yada, they won by a field goal.  Not a strong case for them, I understand, but I'll get there.

When the 49ers made the switch from Alex Smith to Kaepernick, I thought they were going to fold.  Very wrong, as it turns out.  I'm not a believer in Kaepernick, because I don't believe in anyone who wears a baseball team's hat with the wrong colors on it.  He can run, so if they can hold him to less than 180 yards, we'll see...

Either way, my picks are based off of two people.  Ray Lewis and Tony Gonzalez.  Both of these players, veterans of 33 combined years, will be calling it quits whenever their playoff runs end.  One of the greatest tight ends of all time running routes covered by one of the greatest linebackers of all time in the Super Bowl?  Come on, that's an awesome story.

Here's to Hoping This Won't Be Ray Lewis' Last NFL Game

If you haven't seen this video yet, you've been missing out.

Ray Lewis has no connection to Stanford or its basketball team, but after this speech, the bond has been forged forever.  Lewis is in a dogfight with Andrew Luck and the Colts in the first round of the NFL Playoffs that could prove to be Lewis' last game of his 17-year, 246-game career.  Join me in praying that its not.

Ed Reed Thinks NFL is Turning into Powder Puff

The Steelers found a way to win over the Ravens Sunday afternoon led by 15-year veteran quarterback Charlie Batch.  The game came right down to the final seconds, as Shaun Suisham solidified the 23-20 win as time expired.

The Steelers offense never really seemed to get rolling, as it took them nine minutes into the third quarter to get their first touchdown.  They were stymied in enemy territory a couple times, including an Ed Reed interception just shy of the Steelers end zone.  The pick was good for Reed's 61st in his career, but following the loss, that wasn't even in the back of his mind.

Following his one-game suspension for repeated violations of player safety rules, Reed was understandably upset as he could not help his team to a victory.  After the game, he chose to put some of the blame on the league's back.

He was asked about the rules "protecting" offensive players, and his response was influenced not only by the loss, but by the bias of a hard-hitting defender.

"It's definitely changing the game," Reed said. "It's become an offensive league. They want more points. They want the physical play out of it, kind of. They want like powder-puff, to where you can just run around and score points cause that's going to attract the fans. I understand you want to make money, but bending the rules and making the game different, you know, it's only going to make the game worse."

The only thing the rules do to "protect" players is say that you can't bash their heads in with your own head.  No where do they state you cannot hit a person with as much force as you deem necessary.  Tough loss for the Ravens.

JJ Watt Eats 215-Pound Burritos?

I love when players are mic'd up on the field. It's fun to try and guess what profanities coaches are screaming from the sidelines, but its even more fun when you can actually hear every malicious word.

In last Sunday's game between the Texans and Ravens, Texans standout defensive end J.J. Watt was jawing back and forth with Ravens running back Ray Rice, when Watt dropped the great finishing line in the video above.

It's still not as good as the mic'd up banter in HBO's "24/7 Flyers-Rangers," though.  The stuff hockey players say to each other is pure gold, but the highlight for me was when Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist was skating by the Flyers bench, and one unknown Flyers player just goes, "hey, f*** you, Lundqvist!" admist a bunch of other jeers toward the eventual Vezina Trophy winner.