Newsgroup: it.sport.americani
Titolo: La voce del Patriot:-) (lungo)

Quale unico tifoso Patriot del saloon, mi sembra doveroso intervenire sullo
snow Bowl dell'altra notte.
Per cominciare, vi invito a dare un'occhiata all'articolo a fine post: è il
commento del Boston Globe, e credo sia più che sufficiente a capire la
mentalità che regna dall'altra parte dell'oceano.
Ciò premesso, avrei dato anch'io fumble, sia prima che dopo il replay; solo
la rilettura della regola e la spiegazione data in TV dal capo degli arbitri
NFL mi fanno pensare che non si è trattata di una intepretazione così
sballata come sembrava a prima vista. Quello che più mi ha sorpreso è stata
la decisione dell'arbitro di ricorrere al replay.
Sui Patriots, posso solo dire che si tratta di uno di quei periodi dove non
"possono" perdere: la combinazione di bravura, coraggio, fortuna, decisioni
controverse, errori altrui, assenza di infortuni negli ultimi due mesi è
oserei dire irripetibile. Gli ultimi anni di sofferenza sono stati più che
ripagati da questa banda composta in gran parte da veterani poco
considerati. Tutto questo per dire che per raggiungere il Superbowl servirà
un altro miracolo, ma a questo punto sognare è lecito....
Alla Raider Nation faccio solo notare che, se non avessero perso le ultime 3
gare, non sarebbero dovuti andare a Foxboro, ma sarebbero rimasti in
California (è quello che è successo ai Niners, che, perdendo a Dallas alla
penultima giornata, si sono giocati la possibilità di giocare in casa il
wildcard).
Chiudo infine ringraziando degli "auguri" Giorgio (..... ho già cominciato
con gli scongiuri di rito!!).
Saluti
Nicola
On football
Ruling keeps it from being just a win, baby
By Ron Borges, 1/20/2002
OXBOROUGH - It took 25 years but now they're even.
Forget Ben Dreith. Forget the great debate over whether Ray Hamilton clubbed
Ken Stabler in the neck in 1976 and roughed him up after tipping his pass,
giving the Oakland Raiders just enough life to beat the Patriots in an AFC
playoff game New England thought it had won on that same play, until Dreith
intervened to turn a fourth down into a first down as time was running down
on what would end up being a Super Bowl season for the Raiders.
Whether he was right or wrong that day, forget that whole affair for
evermore. Forget it and remember a new name. Remember Walt Coleman and thank
St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, that he was sent to Foxborough to
referee last night's AFC playoff game because he made up for Dreith's call
and any past officials' sins against the Patriots.
Coleman had to be the only man with eyes in his head who watched the replay
of Tom Brady's fumble with 1:43 left in regulation and concluded his arm was
coming forward, a call that turned a season-ending fumble into an incomplete
pass, and a new chapter in the Cinderella story of Brady and the Patriots.
That included Dreith, who was watching at home in St. George, Utah, and knew
what he saw.
''That was a fumble!'' Dreith bellowed. ''He brought the ball in and his
left hand touched the football. That may be a technical point, but that made
it a fumble. It's a fumble if he's bringing the ball down, and he was.
''He had the ball tucked close to his body when he got hit. The referee made
the right call on the field. Then the replay official calls him and they
come back and say he was throwing the ball. Like hell he was!''
Five plays later, Adam Vinatieri would mis-hit a 45-yard field goal and
still get it over the crossbar to tie the game, 13-13, with 27 seconds to
play. When New England then won Coleman's coin flip at the start of
overtime, you knew it was over for the Raiders, just the way the Patriots
knew it was over for them 25 years ago the instant Dreith turned a fourth
down and long into a first and 10.
What was to follow already had been written in the stars just like what
followed Dreith's call has been written and rewritten 100 times, including
about a dozen times during the last few days leading up to last night's
game.
But now they can forget that because when the buzzer went off from replay
official Rex Stuart and Coleman answered it, all Dreith's sins were
forgiven. Coleman, a referee the Raiders likely will remember as long as the
Patriots have remembered the 77-year-old Dreith, peered into the television
monitor for a long time, and he saw what you often see on television.
He saw fiction.
''Obviously, what I saw on the field, I thought the ball came out before his
arm was going forward, but when I got over to the replay monitor and looked
at it, it was obvious his arm was coming forward,'' Coleman said after the
game.
''He touched the ball and they just hooked it out of his hand. His arm was
coming forward and that makes it an incomplete pass. He would have had to
have brought it all the way in and then it comes out. Then it would have
been a fumble.''
The latter seemed clearly to be what happened. The more you watched the
replay the more it became clear that Brady pump-faked, pulled the ball down,
and put both hands on it as Charles Woodson nailed him on a corner blitz and
the ball flew out of his hands for the 14th time this season. It appeared
for a moment it would be his last fumble of this season, but then Coleman
strode out to midfield and announced, ''The quarterback's arm was coming
forward.''
No one heard what else he had to say because it did not matter. The Patriots
were still alive, resuscitated by Coleman's astigmatism.
Raiders coach Jon Gruden went wild, demanding time and again an explanation
from someone. He got it, and when he did his lips mouthed a barnyard epithet
that involves bulls and other things, but words meant nothing anymore
because the glass slipper still fit.
Raiders linebacker Greg Biekert, who recovered the fumble that suddenly had
been transformed into a forward pass, stood near midfield staring a hole
through Coleman. Coleman, like Dreith, believed he was right. Woodson
believed he'd just committed larceny, stealing a game and the rest of the
postseason from the Raiders.
''It was a [expletive] call,'' Woodson said. ''They put in instant replay
and still can't get it right.''
Usually instant replay does get it right. Last night it appeared to again.
But Coleman borrowed Dreith's glasses and what he got was a chance to settle
an old score for the Patriots, who have sung the sad ballad of Ben Dreith
for 25 years now.
They don't have to sing it anymore, though, because once the Patriots were
awarded the ball on second and 10 at the Raiders' 42, all past debts were
paid when the inevitable followed and Brady delivered a 13-yard completion
to David Patten for a first down to set up Vinatieri's tying field goal.
The debt was paid again when the coin toss went to the Patriots and they
marched 61 yards with Brady completing eight passes to set up Vinatieri's
winning 23-yard field goal that sent them into the AFC Championship game
next Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers or Baltimore Ravens.
Brady's arm and Vinatieri's instep propelled the Patriots into that game,
but Coleman's eyesight was just as important. More important, really,
because had he seen what everyone else saw when they watched that replay
over and over and over again in the long minutes it took him to arrive at
the wrong decision, there would have been no tying kick, no coin toss, no
overtime, no winning kick, no preparing for the AFC title next Sunday, no
exorcism of Ben Dreith.
''I think the Lord's looking down on us right now and helping us out,''
Vinatieri admitted.
He might be, but he wasn't as helpful last night as Walt Coleman.


Porbabilmente hanno pagato i problemi interni allo spogliatoio che si sono
venuti a creare.
Ciao
Sonny

 Quindi...
Sonny,
non credo che ci sia da sfatare nulla. Agli americani, come agli italiano e
a ogni abitante di questo pianeta, non piace perdere e se si sentono
defraudati di qualcosa lo fanno sapere. La differenza è che negli States
dopo 24 ore e' tutto finito senza interrogazioni parlamerntari, scontri di
piazza e promesse, poi spesso mantenute, tra tifosi di farsela pagare a
vicenda alla prossima occasione.
Carlo

 vicenda alla prossima occasione.
C'e' da aggiungere poi, che almeno negli USA le varie federazioni, dopo
episodi di questo genere, non fanno promesse (non mantenute) di cambiare le
cose.
Ricordate le varie polemiche dopo il gol non dato all'Empoli in Empoli-Juve,
stagione 1997-1998?
Subito dopo Nizzola e quant'altri promisero solennemente che errori di
questo genere non si sarebbero mai piu' verificati, che lui stesso aveva
interpellato "scienziati del CNR" per trovare una soluzione sicura al
problema della "palla oltre la linea", e che entro un paio di stagioni gli
stadi sarebbero tutti stati attrezzati in questo senso.
Buffonate all'italiana, as usual.
Ecco, grazie a Dio 'ste str..upidaggini gli americani ce (e soprattutto se)
le risparmiano.
Ciao
Luca
P.S.: perdonate la divagazione calcistica, ma il paragone mi sembra
calzante.

 wildcard).
Considerazione Giusta
 Romo

 snow Bowl dell'altra notte.
Siamo in due, anche se non sono un "tifoso sfegatato" come te. Mi sono 
appassionato ai Patriots fin prima dei tempi della sconfitta contro i 
Green Bay Packers.
Christian

Christian
A me invece i Patriots ricordano
l'ultimo SB vinto da Chicago, con Dent, Singletary, McMahon e Payton: una
"discreta" squadretta.
Ah, che anni!!!
Kicco
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://usenet.iol.it