Today, the football watchign public was witness to a beautiful disaster, one that ended 12-9, somehow scoring 2.5x more points than the game detailed in my original post below. But anyway, what I learned about halfway through that farce of a game was that football has a certain value in how good it can be when it is truly bad. Following that game also on twitter, it was a wild deluge of "man, these offenses are awful" that escalated to pure horrified joy when we had Matt Ryan get sacked back to back times right before halftime, and a literal mockery when Russell Wilson threw a pick in the end zone on what could have been a clinching drive. It was a farce, but a beautiful farce if anything. So, in spirit, let's detail the last time we had a public farce, the famed 6-6 tie between the Cardinals and Seahawks (of course, featuring Mr. Russell Wilson as well....)
***************************************************************************
The world reacted in very disparate ways to yesterday's 6-6 OT Tie between Arizona and Seattle. It was almost universally negative, seen as an extension of the issues the NFL has had all season: bad play, bad offenses, boring primetime games, and eventually declining ratings. I don't care about any of that. My reaction, and mirrored by a small portion of the NFL populous, was that it was fantastic. It was everything I wanted to see from those two teams. I don't care what anyone says, that was a great, enjoyable game.
Admittedly, the OT madness did ruin the game slightly. Had Catanzaro just hit his field goal, that would've been close to a perfect game. Great defense can be as entertaining as great offense. Maybe everyone doesn't see it that way. But if you claim you do, there is no excuse for not enjoying that game. The defenses were tremendous in every respect. The Seahawks and Cardinals, when they are humming, an incredible to watch on offense. Fast, furious, intense. Both sides were locked in on defense from the start.
Yes, the problems that both teams have on offense, mainly at the OL, exacerbated the problems and made the jobs of the defenses a lot easier. But watching great defense dominate middling offenses can be fun. People decry the number of penalties, particularly the holding penalties on the Seattle and Arizona lineman. That isn't sloppy play. That is dominance by defenses forcing their opposing OLs to hold to survive.
For all the people who complained about that game, I ask then what would a great defensive game look like? I saw many people say how ugly the game was, how boring it was, how it was bad offense and not great defense. No, that is just not correct. If you couldn't enjoy that game, then just admit you find offense boring. The sporting ideal of the NFL should be that a 3-0 game and a 51-48 game are equally exciting - or equally messy. Both feature one side of the ball dominating the other side of the ball. Yes, a perfect game is probably 27-24 or 23-20, or some game where every unit plays decent. But if we aren't getting that, I would take 3-0 as easily as a 51-48. Those are both farces.
Honestly, the best part of the game to me was that it was so unexpected. Sure, a lot of people expected the game to be low scoring, but I didn't know the NFL in 2016 was capable of a 6-6, touchdownless game, that wasn't marred by some horrendous QBing. At the nadir of the Whisenhunt post-Warner years in Arizona, they had a few of these games, but those had Max Hall and John Skelton at QB. This game had Russell Wilson and Carson Palmer.
This whole season has been something of a fresh start for defenses. Aside from New England, and maybe Dallas, the top teams so far in 2016 are all defense focused. Seattle, Minnesota, Green Bay, Denver, Kansas City. All of these teams are among the best in the league, and all have better defenses than offenses. Scoring is tracking to be down this year. Defenses are slowly climbing back after the NFL paradigm changed following the 2011 lockout. And nothing showed this more thant 6-6 in OT.
