Due to the holiday season my sports watching was somewhat limited this weekend (not because I was spending time with family, I just left all my holiday shopping until the very end, but same result). I still managed to catch a couple of games however so here are some quick thoughts before I go to bed. Keep in mind I am not in a good mood as it is well past midnight on Christmas and Santa has yet to stop by with anything.

Pass Interference - At the end of every Sunday (and usually Monday too) I think to myself what an unusually bad week the refs had calling, and not calling, pass interference. The recurrence of which leads me to believe that it’s really not so unusual. This weekend alone, and I was only able to watch two games in their entirety, and I saw at least 2 obviously blown calls. Now I’m not hating on referees, they do a fine job, but these are two that would’ve been overturned were replay available. The first was in the Pats-Dolphins game, which fortunately did not affect the outcome. It was called with 5:40 left in the fourth on Asante Samuel, and I challenge any of you to say otherwise. It would be nice if coaches were able to challenge the same thing, only its a “judgement call”, so they can’t. Special message to the NFL…it doesn’t matter! On all reviews there must be conclusive, indisputable evidence for the call to be overturned, just implement the same policy here. There are some calls where everyone and their blind grandmother can see that the call should or should not have been made; those should be overturned. It says something about how spoiled we are in New England that I’m screaming at the TV because a penalty might slightly reduce one of the Pats scoring records; but not all fans are so lucky. As we see in the second, most notable, and most game changing, pass interference screw up, which occurred in the Giants - Bills game. Now the NFL.com doesn’t put blown calls on their play-by-play recap of the game (Conspiracy? I think so.) so I can’t tell you what time it was, and to be honest I don’t even remember which team was which, but in a close game a receiver got nearly TACKLED on a deep pass while the ball was in the air, and no flag was thrown. This is a clear example of when replay could have been utilized to make the correct call in a game changing situation. And lets face it, both the Buffalo and New York quarterbacks can use any help they can get. Which brings me too…

Eli Manning - New York fans, you need a new quarterback, and I’m sorry but you’re probably not gonna get one. One of the highlights of my job is that I frequently get to talk to people in NYC and hear them bitch about Eli. All indications are that I will have this to look forward to for years to come, as the Giants seem committed to making him their franchise quarterback. The most telling moment this weekend from the game was when I came to the realization that the younger Manning looks a lot like Cpl. Upham, the guy who screws everyone over in Saving Private Ryan. Having since looked at pictures in a side by side comparison, I have come the conclusion that they in fact do not look nothing alike, which to me means the association in my head was made purely on suckiness; not a good sign for Eli. The Giants should trade him while he still has some value, but they won’t, New Yorkers will probably be stuck with him for the next 10 years.

Pats-Giants 12/29 - A lot of people I’ve talked to have been concerned that they won’t get to see the game this Saturday as it is exclusively on the NFL Network. While this is technically true, the game will be broadcast in the Boston area on Ch. 5, in case you hadn’t heard already. Those who don’t live in the Boston area may still be out of luck. If only John Kerry had been elected President in 2004 we could have avoided all this. Why didn’t he tell everyone back then that this was part of his platform?

Roger Clemens - I will have much more on this in future posts, as I’m sure Patrick will as well, but I will say right off the bat that, although I want to give Clemens the benefit of the doubt, I am inclined to believe McNamee’s accusations simply because he has no motivation to lie. Why lie about a friend when you risk jail time only if you don’t tell the truth? If you haven’t already I urge you to read at least the Clemens section of the Mitchell Report which appears beginning on page 167 (page 215 of the pdf). This article, which is linked to on Curt Schilling’s blog, is also a valuable point of view on McNamee’s credibility. You can view Roger Clemens’ video, in which he vehemently denies the accusations, here.

Alright, that’s it for now, I hope that steroid talk has everyone in the Christmas spirit. Time to sneak a bite of Santa’s cookies and then it’s off to bed for me. Happy Holidays everybody!