Monday, December 07, 2009

New Orleans Saints Football Voodoo

Tell me, why should it be
you have the power to hypnotize me?
Let me live 'neath your spell,
You do that voodoo
that you do so well. ~ Cole Porter, You Do Something to Me
Maybe there is something to Voodoo. You have to start wondering after the New Orleans Saints game yesterday. The Saints should have, would have, lost the game except --
  • Saints punter Thomas Morstead shanks a kick that only goes 29 yards where it bounced off the back of a Washington Redskins player and is recovered by New Orleans.
  • Four plays later, third and 26, quarterback Drew Brees desperately trying to avoid being sacked heaves up a horrible pass that is intercepted. While running back the interception the Washington player has the ball snatched out of his hands as easily as stealing candy from a baby. Touchdown New Orleans.
  • Leading 30-23 with less than three minutes left in the game, Washington lined up a gimme, 23-yard field goal that would have iced the game. Shaun Suisham missed the sure thing.
  • Five plays later Brees completes a 53-yard pass for the tying touchdown.
  • In overtime, a Washington player catches a short pass, is hit hard, the ball comes loose but the whistle is blown before it is recovered by New Orleans and is the Washington player is ruled "down by contact."
  • Upon review, the loose ball is ruled a fumble recovered by New Orleans (the Ed Hochuli Rule).
  • New Orleans kicks their short field goal and wins the game.
Somewhere along the line, all these improbables coalesced into the impossible. New Orleans should have lost this game. It should not even have been close. Yet, they won and continue to be undefeated.

Maybe it's time to release the skepticism and accept that voodoo is real.

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