Weekend Musings

Thank you to the My Two Cents listeners who reached out through social media on Sunday to congratulate me on calling the Dez Bryant "non-catch" ruling all the way back on Monday of last week.  You can understand how the side judge would have thought it was a catch, seeing as how Bryant caught the ball, took two steps and then lunged for the end zone in what we like to call a "football move".  But incredibly compex, nuanced rules that can only be interpreted by slow-motion replay are "clear"--that was not a catch.  Props to Joe Buck from Fox Sports after the game saying "Common sense would tell you that was a catch--but those aren't the rules."  Anyway, I've got "Unsportsmanlike Conduct--Contact to the Head of the Quarterback" being the controversial call that decides next week's NFC Championship game.

Speaking of rules, look for MORE rules to be added to the books this off-season thanks to plays that happened on Saturday.  First off, "hiding eligible receivers" will be verboten now that New England's Bill Belicheck found that loophole in the rulebook and had "interior linemen" running free for a couple of series in the 3rd quarter after being dominated by Baltimore in the first half.  And then the field goal blocking technique of Kam Chancellor--hurdling the center after the snap--will be banned as well--even though it was the rule against lining up someone over the center that created the "running lane" for Chancellor to do that.  I noticed in the Indianapolis-Denver game one of the Colts tried to do the same thing and the center popped up and chucked him onto one of his teammates--which immediately led to Twitter outrage that "leaping" wasn't called.

On a totally different subject, I've read a number of Presidential autobiographies and memoirs, but I think President Obama's will be the most intriguing.  I really want to know when in his Presidency he stopped caring about the job.  Some would say it was after the Affordable Care Act was passed into law and his "legacy" was secure.  Others think it was after the "final campaign" of 2014--which is really the only thing that interested him--the campaigning.  We got another reminder of how detached the President is this weekend when the US sent NO representative to the Unity Rally in France--even though 44 other countries did (including German Chancellor Angela Merkel who HATES the French).  Attorney General Eric Holder--who has attended the funerals for young, black men killed by police officers here in the US--was IN PARIS this weekend--and still did not attend. 

Politico.com called the snub "Barack Obama's French Kiss-off" and quoted numerous former diplomats who are critical of the President's handling of the situation--along with his muted response to the attacks themselves.  Now this morning, Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted that he would go to Paris on Thursday because "our relationship with France is not about one day"--which serves as a nice shot at those who did attend on Saturday--like they were involved for just one day.  It wouldn't surprise me if the President went to Paris about a month from now to do a couple of photo ops of him looking plaintively at the Charlie Hebdo building or the kosher grocery store--all by himself--just the way he likes it.