To anyone who saw the Seattle Seahawks beat down the San Francisco 49ers in the second half of the recently concluded NFC Championship Game, the surprise was not that the 49ers lost, but that they came so close to sending the 12th Man home to an off-season of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Instead, with a first down on the Seattle 18-yard line with nearly a minute and two timeouts left, Colin Kaepernick tried, as he had done many times earlier in the playoffs, to force a pass into tight coverage. Despite being turned the wrong way on the ball, Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman managed to tip the ball to his teammate for an interception. As is the case with all sports, the fate of a football season often comes down to inches.
For me, the main tragedy was seeing NaVorro Bowman, probably the best player the Niners have on the defensive side of the ball, go down to a gruesome knee injury in the fourth quarter. I would be surprised if he played another game in 2014, and it was an unfortunate reminder of the brutality that is the essence of the NFL. It also reminded me why I feel a tinge of guilt as I watch it.
Not much else to say at this point, except that the Super Bowl will again be its usual anticlimactic holiday devoted to capitalist excess. Unless, of course, a nice blizzard happens to hit New York in a couple of weeks, in which case we will all be treated to the spectacle of a stadium full of corporate high-rollers freezing in the cold. Those unfortunate enough to be outside the skyboxes will wonder just what Roger Goodell was thinking when he scheduled an outdoor Super Bowl on the East Coast in February. That would be even better than the cloudburst that drenched them in Miami back in 2007. I will be watching the weather forecasts carefully.
Other than that, as I’ve said on similar occasions, pitchers and catchers report in just a few weeks.
