Monday Night Football

Did anybody watch Monday Night Football on ESPN this week? I did for no other reason than I wanted to get the taste of the 62-7 shellacking Indianapolis suffered at the hands of the New Orleans Saints on Sunday night out of my mouth. That and I wanted to see Baltimore's Joe Flacco and Ray Rice tear into Jacksonville. This game accomplished neither goal.

Jacksonville's defense was superb, holding Baltimore off the scoreboard until the fourth quarter and from attaining a first down until sometime in the third quarter. They forced Rice to fumble--twice. And for a guy who hadn't put the ball on the turf in over 500 carries that says a lot. (Rice finished the night with just 8 carries for 28 yards--terrible!)

Sure, the Jaguars' offense was nearly as inept as their defense was excellent, but they managed to eke out the win thanks to four field goals by Josh Scobee from 54, 54, 22, and 51 yards. I hope he got the game ball.

The first half showed three very teams on the field: the Jags' offense, the Ravens' offense and the officials. Both offenses fumbled away chances (Maurice Jones-Drew fumbled twice for the Jags including one on the 1-yard line going in), at one point Flacco put the Ravens in a fourth and 43 situation--fourth and 43!--and the officials had FOUR calls overturned after challenges--two on each side. Now that's something you don't see every week--thank goodness.

Yeah, I watched until I could stomach the comedy of errors and then switched full time to the Rangers-Cards World Series Game 5. There was more scoring and tension in that baseball game than there was in the football game.