.

How can you expect your heroes to bounce back, if you don't?

:: winning Bill Murray smile ::

.

Drew Brees "Scars Can Be Beautiful, Too" Dept.

25 years from now, the pain of Super Bowl 49 will be clear in your mind.  You know how the rigged Steelers game still touches a raw nerve?  That is the way with this game.  You'll never forget it.

But, in pain and in joy, you feel alive.

You aren't bored and you aren't lethargic.  You're stimulated and animated.  Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.  :- )  That proverb is correct.

.

Russell Wilson "Fortune Favors the Bold" Dept.

Andre Agassi once said after he lost to Pete Sampras, "Pete was better today.  Give him credit."  He glared at the reporters with eyes blazing.  He finished,  "At the same time:  I'll play him tomorrow for a hundred bucks."

If the Seahawks and Patriots played tomorrow, who would you bet?  Seems like it would be 50-50.  

True, the Seahawks were only one yard away.  But let's not kid ourselves that the Patriots didn't deserve to win.  You'll remember that Jeremy Lane needed to pick Brady in the end zone to keep it as close as it was.  It took the fantastic Kearse catch -- fantastic in the dictionary sense, fanciful, irrational, far-fetched -- to get to the 1-yard line.  The Wilson interception was the first Seahawk turnover:  we'd needed a 2:0 turnover edge to get to that 50-50 point.

The game was back-and-forth.  What was the yardage, just shy of 400 per team?  Niners Nation fans are always talking about how "lucky" the Seahawks are.  Funny how much luck you get when you don't quit, and the Belichick Patriots don't quit.

Argue all you want.  That was Ali and Frazier, toe to toe, and it could have gone either way.  So losing wasn't totally an unfair result.  That makes me feel better, y'know?  The 2014 Seahawks weren't obviously the best team in the NFL.

Just a 50-50 game in which the Patriots won this one.  But the NFL doesn't play best of seven.  As they shouldn't.

.

Colin Kaepernick "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" Dept.

I am definitely not one to second-guess a play call or a pitch call.  I hate it.  Just hate it.  But if there were a single play call you would ever lament, it would be that one.

..

Dr. D is a flag football quarterback, and he never tries to muscle the ball into a mess like that in the middle of the field.  A pass to the corner of the end zone?  Beautiful.  A rollout and a look for a receiver dragging laterally?  Okay.

And it's one thing to throw a slant.  It's another thing to throw it with 9 players between the hash marks.

Dr. D never throws that ball (hot shot into a crowd) in ANY game situation - 50-yard line, 3rd and 5, up by 14 points.  But to do it in THAT game situation?

To do it on the goal line when the Seahawks could have just given it a good muscular shove and used simple, Neanderthal brain-dead muscles to force the victory?

..

Yes, the DB made a great play ... but the Seahawks have thrown several picks already on that play.  It's not Wilson's strong suit, which is fine -- you work around every player's toolkit.  Here is where an MLB manager second-guesses you with "you never get beat on your second pitch."  He means, if you're Aroldis Chapman and you have a Beast Mode fastball, you're not going to throw a changeup on the deciding pitch of the World Serious.

Trust an old quarterback here:  that play, with the condensed field, is a jump ball.  Bevell complained that Lockett didn't wrestle the ball away.  Since when is Ricardo Lockett a mauler like Rob Gronkowski?  It says here that asking Lockett to make that play is like asking Damon Lillard to defend a center in the post.  

If nothing else were wrong with the play, you'd still have the worst possible player selection to execute it.  But it's not like nothing else was wrong with the play.

..

I'm not one to second-guess a pitch call or a play call, but it's fair to call that the worst play call I've seen.  If that play call is not wrong, then there is no such thing.

..

The Seahawks just flat botched that one, threw away the victory.  There's nothing in sports that hurts like outplaying* a tremendous opponent for three hours, and then botching it in one moment of lost concentration.

Welcome to the world of pitchers, who can fight for 8 innings and hang a single curve ball, or miss by 8 inches with a single fastball, and watch the other team celebrate.  "Closers have to have a short memory."

I'm not mad at Bevell, though.  You weigh a man's career by considering both his strengths and weaknesses, his successes along with the failures.  It's a total package you're asking about.

.

Tom Brady 2005-2013 "In the Morning, I'll Still Be Married to Giselle" Dept.

Three ways a Russell Wilson season can end.

• The Seahawks lost the 2012 Falcons game in the final seconds.
• They won the 2013 Super Bowl.
• They lost the 2014* Super Bowl in the last seconds.
• (How many times in Wilson's career have his teams been out of it in the 4th quarter?)

Meaning what?  The Seahawks sometimes lose a game, but they never lose their Fear Factor.  Come game one of the 2015 season, their opponents would rather be stepping onto the field with anybody else.  

Like Belichick said, you're just never going to see the Seahawks let up for a second.  There are guys like that you play against, and you might win, but you never enjoy the game.  You're always just glad the game is over.  And you dread the next one.

The Seahawks are beaten but unbowed.  Their 2015 opponents, all sixteen* of them, will be dreading the Seahawk game.  This Super Bowl loss doesn't help the San Francisco 49'ers any.

.

Troy Aikman "It Ain't Like 3 Rings Gets You Kicked Out of Football" Dept.

In golf, a missed putt is a shot you never get back.  The 2014* Super Bowl will always be one less ring for Wilson.

But then again, the Tyree Helmet Catch will always be one less ring for Tom Brady, and Brady moved on.  Imagine being 18-0, the Randy Moss season, the 50 touchdown passes, the absolutely perfect season, and it's ruined by a fluke like Tyree's.

Brady moved on to attacking the next season.  Same with the Seahawks.  Wilson still has a shot at five Super Bowl wins, and the Legion of Boom still has a shot at 3 or 4 of them.

.

Andrew Luck "Call Me a Neckbeard One. More. Time.  Please!," Dept.

The reporters on the sidelines were tweeting that Russell Wilson, as the game went on, was "throwing with supreme confidence."  He looks like a young Drew Brees with mobility, an extra 1-3 seconds to throw, and you notice that when push really comes to shove, he goes DOWNFIELD.  

It's interesting that under duress, that is Wilson's instinct:  to (1) find a metal pole for cover and then (2) find a KILLSHOT.  

If they ever get this guy a receiver, a Beckham or Gronkowski or somebody, there's no telling.  As it is, I can't wait for Wilson's fourth year.

......

Congrats to the Pats,

Dr D