Don't Hate the Player...

I just watched the Tuck Rule game from the 2002 AFC divisional round on NFL Films Greatest Games.  I imagine I don't need to say much about the game; it's pretty infamous.  I hate the Pats and am indifferent to Jon Gruden, but it's a hell of a game to watch.

Right up until the end.  In this particular rehashing of the game, NFL films spent a lot of time getting reaction comments from the players involved, and one of them made me fly off the handle.

Eric Allen, then Raiders cornerback, argued something like (and I'm paraphrasing here) when you battle the game out for four corners in the cold and snow, and then you send an important, game-changing decision like that upstairs, to people who've ever played the game, sitting in their air-conditioned booth, away from the field that's just wrong.  It makes me so angry I could puke right on your head, sir!

This is moronic.  You decided to play the game!  This ruling about the tuck being an incomplete pass was not a new rule!  In fact, it cost that same Patriots team a win earlier in the year when Vinny Testaverde did the exact same thing Brady did.

And don't argue against instant replay: that wasn't new either.  Instant replay was instituted prior to the start of the 1999 season.  No surprises that in the AFC Divisional Round a very close call would automatically go to the booth with less than 2 minutes remaining.

Arguing that going to replay was imprudent is fucking pathetic.  It's the exact same thing the Gore camp pathetically argued about the Electoral College when they lost.  It's tantamount to complaining your controller is broken when you clearly just suck at Madden or FIFA.

Am I going too far to equate this to the Dred Scott ruling?  "Not only are you not not free right now, D-Scott, you don't even have a right to be in this court right now, homeslice.  You lose.  Twice."

Grow up, Eric Allen.  Don't hate the player, hate the game.