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| The Lions have played every Thanksgiving since 1945 while the Cowboys' series began in 1966. |
What a day. I love Thanksgiving. After all, you can’t beat
the three F’s – Football, Football and … Football. Oh yeah, family and food are
somewhere in there.
The early game was as odd as it was exciting. The Texans are
the first team since 1994 to play two overtimes in a five-day span. They are
also the first team to win both of those games.
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| Justin Forsett's (28) elbow is clearly down and his knee appears to be, too. Photo credit to The Kansas City Star. |
The win came after two missed field goals in overtime, one
by each team. But the odd moment came in the third quarter. With the ball on the
19-yard line, Matt Schaub handed the ball off to Justin Forsett, who took it 81
yards to the house, the longest run in Texans franchise history. The only
problem was, seven yards into the run, both his elbow and knee touched the
turf. It wasn’t obvious at first, and the officials did not blow the whistle.
But it was a scoring play; it would be reviewed, right? Well, it would have,
and the officials would have corrected their mistake through the review, as
they have the opportunity to on every scoring play – because officials do make mistakes occasionally. Why
didn’t they? Jim Schwartz threw his challenge flag, that’s why. He had thrown
it before Forsett even got to the end zone. But, by rule, if a coach illegally
challenges a play that is automatically reviewed, the play can no longer be
reviewed because the team may not benefit from an illegal challenge.
Had Forsett not scored, there is no telling what would have
happened. The fact that Houston won, even though the rules were followed
perfectly, left a bad taste in my mouth about this game.
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| Pierre Garçon has spent much of the season hurt, but provided a spark on Thanksgiving. Photo credit to star-telegram.com |
The middle game in the Thanksgiving lineup was a homecoming
for Robert Griffin III as he met the Cowboys for the first time in his career.
Dallas led 3-0 at the first break, but four second quarter touchdowns, three of
them passes by RGIII, gave Washington a 28-3 lead at halftime. As we’ve seen so
often in these matchups, Dallas came back and looked like the Redskins might be
on the edge of a total collapse, but the offense stayed strong and scored just
enough to win. After a late Dallas field goal brought the score to 38-31,
Dallas attempted an onside kick, which was recovered immediately by DeAngelo
Hall who ran all the way to the 1, where he slid down rather than scoring to go
up by two touchdowns with just a few seconds left.
RGIII became the first rookie since at least 1950 with
consecutive 4+ passing touchdown games. It was also the first time in seven
tries that the Redskins beat the Cowboys on Thanksgiving.
The late game was interesting for about five minutes, during
which the Patriots scored 28 points to take a 28-0 lead after going into the
first quarter break tied at 0-0. The second half was kind of boring with no
more exciting plays to speak of.
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| Mark Sanchez slams into Brandon Moore's (65) rear end in the second quarter. Photo credit to The New York Post. |
The slaughter began deep in Patriots territory, when Mark
Sanchez threw pass that was undercut by a safety and taken the distance. A
couple minutes later, the Patriots had the ball at their 17-yard line and
nobody covered Shane Vereen on a swing route and he caught a pass from Brady
and took it 83 yards to the house. A minute or so later, Mark Sanchez made a
huge mistake by turning the wrong way on a handoff, tried to run with the ball,
slammed into his lineman’s rear end, and fumbled the ball when he hit the
ground. That turnover was taken the distance. On the ensuing kickoff, Joe
McKnight fumbled directly into the hands of Julian Edelman who took it to the
end zone.
It was the most bizarre five minutes of football I’ve ever
seen, but not nearly as bizarre as the Jets’ meltdown was hilarious.
The Jets build their team to beat the Patriots, and they
have now lost four consecutive games to their rivals. If they can’t even beat
the team that they focus on throughout the offseason, how do they expect to
ever make the playoffs?
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