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.
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