Whiteout Wipeout

It hadn't been the greatest week and so this Sunday I raced through some work in the morning and plopped myself in front of the Alumni Lounge TV for my traditional therapy - sports. Now sports are obviously a risky form of therapy when you're not playing them, because you don't have any control over it. And ever since coming back from studying abroad, I've questioned the role that watching American sports should play in my life. Still though, nothing takes away the past, and in the past I've had so many great memories being lifted by the Patriots, Red Sox or Celtics. I've also had moments, days and years of great sadness and futility imposed upon me by these same entities, and every Red Sox fan older than 10 should understand, and none worse than Super Bowl 42. But the Patriots were playing the 0-5 Tennessee Titans, so I felt pretty good that this game could be a relaxing venture.

Well it only turned out to be the most memorable sporting event I had seen in quite some time. Now in this mid-October day, I had woken up and complained bitterly about the 45 degree DC weather. Way too cold for an early fall day. Well, in Boston, it was snowing. Unbelievable. I'm not a huge fan of snow, because living in slush sucks, but football games in the snow are invariably awesome. There's something about people playing around in fluff that brings out the child within us all. The weather's impact on the play on the field also cannot be overstated. The cold can make it very hard even to get amped for the game and warm up, and slippery terrain changes what kind of routes receivers can run, the ball invariably gets slippy and will mess up some throws, and cold hands make for poorer throws and a ton more drops. Snowy days also tend to come with lots of wind which can also impact passes. I have experienced all these factors first hand through Ultimate, where snow impacts the game even more. You can't imagine how hard it can be to throw in catch when your hands are too cold to tie shoelaces.

So games in the snow tend to be low scoring games of minimal passing - lots of pound the ball forward for two yards and try to get a good punt off. The Patriots played a memorable 3-0 game against the Dolphins in the snow, in which the player of the game was the guy who drove the snowblower that cleared the field for the field goal that accounted for all the points in the game. A game against the Dolphins which I saw, in winter of 2002 or 2003 I believe, ended up 12-0 and had the fans throwing snowballs on the field, creating a fireworks-like effect. Snowgames rarely involve heavy scoring.

Sunday changed all that. The first quarter actually did seem to be any other snow game. The Patriots moved the ball slowly with a significant running game and short passes. They missed a field goal, but the Titans dropped a ton of passes and had difficulty moving the line of scrimmage. One of Tom Brady's longer passes to Randy Moss got hung up in the wind and fell short. Then, it seemed the Patriots got warmed up and the Titans rookie cornerbacks got exposed like no one before. The end result has been covered extensively and 5 touchdown passes in the 2nd quarter and a 59-0 final just about says it all. I attribute much of this to snow. Even though this was the first snowfall of the year, and thus the Patriots had clearly not practiced in it this year, they acted like veteran Eskimos. The Titans on the other hand, had no idea how to run in it. Their cornerbacks seemed afraid to change directions and gave the Patriots wide receivers a lot of room. Brady adjusted his throws and easily hit his massively open targets. His counterpart Kerry Collins though definitely struggled with the snowy ball, and his receivers were even worse, dropping nearly half of his passes, all of which contributed to an epic team passing yardage of -7. The Titans were awful in every respect, including 5 fumbles (3 lost), a shanked punt, and an interception by their backup quarterback Vince Young on his first play. Their only bright spot was Chris Johnson, one of the league's best running backs who still ran like it that day.