A Sports Fan's Nightmare in the Age of Technology

A Sports Fan's Nightmare
in the Age of Technology
by Martell

As if the outcome of the game wasn't enough. It's been a decade since my team won a playoff game—heck, it's been a decade since they've even been to the playoffs—and now they were at home, favored by 7, and being picked by all the media pundits to advance to the next round. They had come out of nowhere this year to win 12 games and a division title—catching plenty of breaks along the way, to be sure, but playing pretty solid football. So it should have been enough pain for me that they lost the game. I should not have had to experience that loss in the torturous way that I did.

You see, I am a Chargers fan, and this past Saturday they lost to the New York Jets 20-17 in overtime, but that's not really the issue. There is nothing about this loss that makes it intrinsically worse than any other. Sure, it was heartbreaking, but living the life of a sports fan requires learning to deal with heartbreaking losses. They happen to every team at one time or another, even the Yankees. No, the problem was not the loss itself. The problem was the way I ended up experiencing it.

First, a quick aside. Overall, I am a big fan of most technological advances, but one of my favorites is the invention of the digital video recorder. Being able to rewind live TV or easily record hours and hours of programming without worrying about video tapes is just amazing. For anyone who is ultra-busy but still likes to watch TV, this invention is a dream come true. For ultra-busy sports fans, it is doubly so.

Being the ultra-busy sports fan that I am, I had a scheduling conflict with the Chargers-Jets game this Saturday. We were having about 25 people over to the house for a social get-together, culminating with a 3 1/2 hour group activity that would start right around halftime. There was no way I could watch the game live, but not to worry—I have a DVR! The plan was to watch the first half with the group, tape the second half with the TV off, and then watch it after the party was over. I let everyone present know about the plan, so that nobody would accidentally spill the beans if they learned anything, and I turned off my cellphone as well. There were a few other people that wanted to see the game too, so we decided we'd all watch it together. I turned on the game at 5:00pm, set the timer for four hours, watched the first half, and then turned off the TV and let the DVR record the rest.

The party started wrapping up shortly after 10:00pm, at which point myself and four other guys settled in to watch the second half. When we had last left, the game was tied 7-7 at halftime, and it looked like it was going to be a real nailbiter. We fast-forwarded through the first portion of the game and got to the start of the second half. And indeed, the game was a nailbiter. I'll take you through a bit of the amazing drama we experienced.

The Jets got a touchdown on their first drive, and added a field goal near the end of the third quarter, giving them a 17-7 lead going into the fourth. The Chargers promptly drove down the field, adding a field goal of their own, but the Jets were able to make it into field goal range, facing second and 6 at the Chargers 31-yard line. Even more importantly, they had chewed up about half the remaining time on the clock; if they could put some points on the board, the game would effectively be over.

But with second and 6, there was a penalty on the Jets, moving them back 5 yards. Martin ran for two and Pennington threw an incomplete pass. Facing fourth down on the Chargers 34-yard line, the Jets elected to punt rather than go for the 52-yard field goal that would ice the game for them. Their kicker had looked pretty shaky all game, so skipping the field goal may have been the right decision, but the punt ended up going into the end zone, giving the Chargers the ball at the 20 with just under five minutes left. It was still 17-10. The Chargers had a chance.

Though I was the only Chargers fan of the five people in the room, I think because I was the host everyone had started rooting for them along with me, and the energy in the room was high. When Brees fumbled on first down, but was able to fall on it, the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. The 21-yard completion to Antonio Gates on the next play got a couple of people out of their chairs. When Brees found Gates again two plays later for a 44-yard gain, everyone jumped up. And when Tomlinson ran for 12 yards up the middle, we were going crazy as the game reached the two-minute warning and the Chargers had first and goal at the Jets 9-yard line.

First down, Tomlinson runs for 1 yard. Second down, Brees keeps it himself and gains 7, getting all the way down to the 1-yard line. Third down, Tomlinson is stopped for a 1-yard loss. The Chargers take a timeout with 24 seconds remaining. This is it. Fourth and two, Brees drops back to pass, is nearly sacked, backs up, and as he's being taken down, throws up a prayer that the Jets defenders bat to the ground. Game over...but there's a flag. Roughing the quarterback on the Jets! Automatic first down! On the next play, Brees threw for the touchdown, and the game was going to overtime. It was just amazing.

It was right about this time that I noticed we were just over 3 and 1/2 hours into the recording. Considering I had only set the timer for four hours, this could potentially be a problem. So now, not only were we rooting for the Chargers to win, but we were rooting for them to do it quickly too!

When they won the coin toss, everything looked good, but three plays later, they were forced to punt. The Jets couldn't do anything either, though, also going three plays and out. But with two drives came two commercial breaks, and we had managed to run about 10 minutes off the DVR clock. We were now down to 15 minutes of recording. If the Chargers didn't score on this drive, we weren't going to see the end of the game.

The Chargers got the ball on their own 30 and put together a masterful drive. 5 yards. 8 yards. 1 yard. Another 8 yards. 3 yards. 2 yards. 10 yards. 9 yards. 2 yards. The Chargers had first and 10 at the Jets 22-yard line. They were easily in field goal range, and unlike the Jets, the Chargers' kicker had looked fine so far. But we were down to 3 minutes on the DVR. We needed the Chargers to move fast!

First down, loss of 1, 40 seconds off the DVR. Second down, no gain, 40 more seconds off the DVR. Now, in overtime, many teams like to try the field goal on third down, just in case there is a bad snap or something, and I was openly begging the Chargers to take this into consideration. If they could just get their kicker on the field right now, we would see the game-winning kick right before the recording ended. Happily ever after, the end, roll the credits. But they decided to run another play. Third down, gain of 1, 40 more seconds off the DVR. Well, we still had one minute left. The field goal attempt would take place in about 30 seconds. Maybe we could have our storybook ending after all.

Regarding game-winning field goals, there's this other thing teams like to do. It's called “icing the kicker.” Basically, what this entails is letting your opponent line up for the kick and then calling a timeout at the last second, just to get inside the kicker's head. It rarely has any effect, but teams still keep doing it, and that's what the Jets did. Five seconds later, the recording ended. We missed the Chargers game-winning field goal.

Obviously, we had to know what happened, so we switched over to ESPN to catch the score on the ticker. We just missed the NFL scores, so we switched to ESPN2. Their ticker was in the middle of college basketball scores, which can go on forever, so we moved on to ESPNEWS. Same thing there. What was going on?!? We just wanted to see the final score in print, so that we knew for sure that the Chargers had won. I told the group I'd go check on the internet. I opened Internet Explorer and accessed espn.com.

It was at this point that I was kicked in the stomach. The first image I saw as the page opened was a picture of the Jets celebrating. I read the caption: “The Jets kicker didn't miss in overtime.” I went from euphoria to shock in the matter of a second. I accessed the score page; it was true, the Jets had won, 20-17. I read the play-by-play and went back into the living room, where I shared the shocking news with the group. Everyone was as stunned as I was.

If I had seen the whole game, the realization wouldn't have been so sudden. I would have seen the missed kick and been disappointed, but would have still had hope that the defense would hold. Then, as the Jets drove down the field, with each play I would have lost a little bit of that hope, piece by piece, until the moment that their winning kick passed through the uprights and the game was final. Heck, even if the recording had stopped at any other point, it wouldn't have been that bad. But it had to stop right at the moment when my hopes were the highest, possibly the only moment during the game where I truly felt the Chargers were going to win. It was a total sucker punch.

It turns out I got my storybook ending after all. I just didn't realize I was reading A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Martell can be reached at martell@babblog.com.