Still High

Packers 31 - Lions 24

Brett responded to the naysayers last Sunday. Wow. A couple of the more impressive numbers: He had his 400th (and 401st and 402nd) TD pass and completed passes to ten different receivers. It brought to mind a certain game in which he completed passes to a dozen.

Something has been bugging me all week, though. There was one hurry-up play we called with about eight minutes left in the second quarter, when we were tied at 14. When Brett called "hut," we were set on the line and Detroit was running around, trying to get set. We were in the red zone and it was third down. Had the refs allowed the play, we'd have easily had a first-and-goal (Herron had basically wound up in the end zone with the ball). But a flag was thrown and a whistle blew and the play was stopped. Then, this:

Green Bay substituted on the play. Therefore, by rule, the defense is not charged a penalty for twelve men on the field.

WHAT?!!

I've looked at the play several times. FOX didn't have a great cameral angle on it because they were caught off guard like the Lions were, but you can clearly see that the Packers were set on the line and when the ball was snapped and the camera pulled back, a Lions player was still running off the field at the bottom of the screen (so on the Packers' side of the ball). That, to me, seems pretty clearly like too many men on the field. What Walt Anderson said, though, makes no sense to me. The fact that we substituted should have no bearing on what the defense does. If it does, then every defense would always be throwing an extra guy or two out on the field every time the offense has a substitution. If they get an interception or some other great defensive play out of it, rock on. If they get called for it, they just reference the Walt Anderson Rule from September 24th, 2006 and they replay the down.

The NFL's official play-by-play has absolutely no mention of this having occurred, BTW. I guess any penalty that gets waved off doesn't make the cut on that summary.

I heard Tausch interviewed by Steve "The Homer" True on the radio late this week, and they were both just as confused by the call as I am. That (and this blog post) is the only thing I've heard about it since the game, though, so either the rule makes sense to everyone else in the world, I'm not as good at searching with Google as I thought, or it's a conspiracy. You be the judge.

A couple of days after the game, Favre was voted Offensive Player of the World (it may be "...of the Week" but I'm not bothering to do the research right now). I'm looking forward to some more record-shattering by Brett in the coming weeks. Marino's got to be shaking in his flip-flops. I heard Bob Costas say that Brett got his 400th TD in the exact same number of games played as Dan Marino got his 400th: 226. 19 more and Favre surpasses Marino in total number of TD passes in his career. I'll give him three more games to get that done.

More importantly, nine more wins will push Brett over Dan in career wins as a starting QB. If it doesn't happen this season (and I'm not saying it won't), he's got next year, too.

This Monday night, it's the Eagles. I've already heard "fourth and twenty-six" five times this week, and that's sixteen times too many. Go, Pack. Go!