<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Ladies and Gentlemen, God taught me a lesson today. <\/span>Frustrated with NFL football this year (you read my whiny column last week about how the Niners and Bolts are doing, right?) and hoping to witness history, I went to the LBSU Big West Championship today, assuming I’d see our soccer team win its first ever conference title. <\/span>Instead, I saw a demoralizing penalty kick loss, and missed a hefty chunk of the Bolts game to do so. <\/span>I’ve learned my lesson; forgive me, football? As always, today’s column features uncredited and unappreciated wit and wisdom from Ryan “Leaky Pipes” Thies, JJ “Salty Salty” Fiddler, and Shar “My Wife” Higa.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n 1. So I got to see the end of the game, and can I just say: wow. <\/span>I heard from people watching the game that there was a lot wrong with us, but how good did it feel to stop the Chiefs on that two point conversion? <\/span>That broken up pass was about one spit’s distance from where the Panthers stole the opening week victory—maybe this is a signal close games won’t universally fall in the other direction for the duration of the season. <\/span>Or maybe Tyler Thigpen just sucks.<\/span><\/p>\n 2. I hate the 2PC call there. <\/span>Hindsight is 20\/20 and all those other chestnuts, but seriously—extend the game. <\/span>I know you’re on the road, I know your defense is tired, but putting 60 minutes of football on one five second play seems almost as heartless and absurd as deciding a conference championship on penalty kicks. <\/span>Just saying.<\/span><\/p>\n 3. In the last two weeks, the Chargers didn’t record a single sack, or force a single turnover. <\/span>I see that today we improved that, by notching…one sack. <\/span>I know management is happy with their decision to replace Cottrell with Ron Rivera at D. Co, but like I said last week: Ron can’t bring outside pressure himself.<\/span><\/p>\n 4. Thigpen looks like a god against us. <\/span>Also, I think Thigpen is probably the name of a Norse god.<\/span><\/p>\n 5. Just caught the highlights on my DVR and The Blitz, but it looks like both LT and Gates are continuing to come around on their injuries. <\/span>It also still looks like neither of them are 100%–I still don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad. <\/span>On the one hand, it’s good that they’re not playing to full potential right now. <\/span>On the other hand…if they haven’t healed now, when’s that going to happen?<\/span><\/p>\n 6. If you watched the game, please answer this question: HOW WAS THIS GAME SO CLOSE? <\/span>We gained 400 yards of offense, but only put up 20 points? <\/span>We had three receivers over fifty yards, and we only scored two touchdowns? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 7. The fact that a muffed XP cost the Chiefs this game reminds me: the gap between high school and pro football is sometimes narrower than we think.<\/span><\/p>\n 8. So far this season we’ve Lost, Lost, Won, Won, Lost, Won, Lost, Lost, Won. <\/span>At 4-5, with 7 games left, we need to get on a run here, something to help us compete with the Broncos for first in the division, or move up in the Wild Card chase. <\/span>Unfortunately we’ve got Steelers, Colts, and Falcons in our immediate future. <\/span>Pray for us, world—and pray that my football sacrilege today doesn’t have long term negative effects…<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We pulled off the narrowest of victories this week, but can the Bolts keep rolling?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}