AFC Championship Game: the Greater Evil Prevails

Today's AFC Championship matchup between the US Department of Defen...ahem...excuse me...between the New England Patriots of the Ravens of Baltimore proved to be an entertaining game.

I was so thrilled to see that with 7 minutes to go in the 4th quarter and a modest, 3-point lead, the Patriots decided to throw a bomb to the end zone--into double coverage--on 1st down.  This showing of greed and false bravado on part of Belichick and Brady bore chilling resemblance to one of our nation's most embarrassing media/foreign relations/war stunts.  Announcing victory before completing the job!

Q: Why not just hold onto the ball and run the clock?

A: Cuz that just ain't the American way!!!  We gotta show 'em it wasn't a contest to begin with!

Luckily however, it was a very close and substantial battle.  In fact, the Ravens should have won the game!  Dropping balls in the end zone and missing field goals are Steeler-esque mistakes and I share in the sudden shock that the Ravens and their fans are surely feeling.

If you're still reading this after my military-sports complex metaphors, congratulations! You are about to be handsomely rewarded.  I've always suspected that you may be able judge the quality of a team's leadership by the superfluous entertainment company they keep in their luxury boxes and on the victory platform.  Who's that on the left-hand side of the frame?

And creepin up on Belichick?

Eww gross!  I could tell Steven Tyler's hair had ambitions!

How embarrassing!

Good thing our unofficial team mascot is this guy:

OH MY

WOW!

Damn, that is intense.  How long have I been saying this guy needs a stylist?  Wife does not equal stylist.  Please Ben Roethlisberger's wife, keep it up!  You're blowing my mind...

2011->2012

I feel a little sentimental about the end of the 2011 regular season, mostly because I can't imagine football--no, Steelers Football--without Hines Ward.  Over the last 14 years I've gradually become a woman and come of age as a sports thinker parallel to his incremental accrual of hall of fame accolades.  So in a sense I feel I've grown up with him.  And that's right, I just likened womanhood to hall-of-famedom.

2011 challenged me to watch him on the sidelines and in the press conferences with less swagger, less bling, and greater humility.  Maybe that's what becoming a man is all about.

I cried when he got that 1000th catch cause I realized I had seen almost all of them, and it all sort of flashed before me, my life and his, spanning the 1st and 1000th catch.  Its overwhelming if you really think about it.  I realized that this sort of affiliation/identification of regular people with public figures is no longer a behavior that I observe with incredulity of my elders but something that has been slowly becoming part of me.

As soon as it was announced that the Steelers' Wild Card game this Sunday would be at Denver, all I could think about was how Ryan Clark would be ineligible for play, and how bummed that made me feel.  GD sickle-cell!  Imagine how strange it must feel for him to have to sit out because he might bleed!  #25 has been at the top of his game and really coming into his own as the exact sort of safety to compliment the cosmic safety style of Troy P..  Hopefully we make it to Baltimore so Clark can shine!

What adds insult is that we have to haul it to Denver and play without Clark because they won the AFC West with a paltry 8-8 record.

Does anyone else out there object to the term 'Wild Card'?  It implies that you only got with the luck of the draw and that you're the joker or jester to the court of the other teams that 'deserve' to be in the playoffs.  Well sometimes the joker makes it all the way to the top!!!

GO STEELERS!!!!  and please leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you