Football On A School Night ...

... is best when it's packaged NOT as it was last night (MNF in Buffalo for the first time since 1994), but as it was tonight (the AFC Championship Game from Jan. '96 -- Steelers vs. Colts).
Thanks a million, Disneyland Sports Mishmash/Hodge Podge.
This worked out nicely as part of the healing process for America, now that the Yankees are finished (and now that we no longer will glare at our TV screens and wonder why the Pinstripe players were wearing that #10 on their sleeves ... seriously, our beloved #10 Chris Chambliss is alive n' well, is he not? So, what's the deal? Just as what was the deal with the black armband below the #10 for Chris Chambliss? Was the black armband for Cory Lidle or Hank Bauer? +++++ Too much mystery, too much melodrama w/ that franchise ...)

So, now it's back to football (and, better yet, football which doesn't involve the 5-cent analysis from everybody's buddy with the $5 haircut, Sean Salisbury).
That replay of Steelers-Colts from Jan. '96 ... just what the doctor ordered.

It was the usual great package from NFL Films ... the camera angles and slo-mo ... the interspersed interviews with the key participants ... the spliced-in radio broadcasts of the action.
It was refreshing to hear Jim Harbaugh say that in 15 years of NFL action, the only player he feared was Greg Lloyd ... and, in case we'd forgotten, the key pass from Neil O'Donnell to Ernie Mills and his dandy toe-drag down to the 2-yard line which set up the go-ahead TD in the final two minutes was "80 Semi Go" from the playbook.
Tough break about that double-move, Ashley Ambrose.

Speaking of tough breaks, it's often eerie to see close-ups during these re-broadcasted "classics" of players who are no longer with us.
Such as the slo-mo shot of a lead-blocking Justin Strzelczyk.

TIME-FRICKIN'-OUT!

What's THIS on the Versus Network (the sports-like network which is an unknown channel on most of America's cable systems. (Is it Channel 63? Channel 28? Channel 144?)
This get-together in blogdom is over because it's a re-broadcast of the USC-Stanford game.
Time to watch closely and ponder what the aformentioned Harbaugh can do with a gritty group of upstarts against the Troy dynasty now that he finds himself trailing, 9-0, at halftime.
Word on the street is that Pete Carroll, with his windswept hair and seductive poses, wanted to shove this one so far up Harbaugh's ass that it would shut up the Stanford coach forever.

Well, if Pete can coax his lads into playing an inspired second half of quality football, then, yes ... a 51-0 victory should keep everybody satisfied ...