Hey Busdriver! What Did We Just Run Over?

Whatever happened to airing out your differences behind closed doors? Remember when baseball players used to have the "kangaroo court" and if you made an error or something else detrimental to the team, they would handle it internally? How about the criticism that comes down on a player like T.O. when he publicly criticises the coach or the quarterback for not getting him the ball? Well, on Sunday a situation arose that was a first for me. So let me ask you this one. How about a coach criticizing his kicker for missing two field goals in a game that his team lost by six points? Sounds straight forward enough, but oh, there is so much more to the story.

On Sunday afternoon, the Seattle Seahawks were hosting the Chicago Bears in a game where both teams were 1-1 and you wanted to make sure you didn't get on the wrong side of that record. The teams were battling back and forth all day and on two occasions, the Seahawks got into field goal range only to see their kicker, Olindo Mare miss two field goal attempts from inside 43 yards. I know, I know what a goat. How could he dare miss those field goals? That is what Seahawk coach Jim Mora thought after the game. "You've got make those kicks...Not acceptable....We'll look at making a change everywhere....We're not going to play our asses off and have a field goal kicker go out there and miss two field goals and lose a game!"

Hmmm, I take exception at that last remark. I agree, field goal kickers should make field goals when they are less than 45 yards away. I agree that the difference in the game was six points and the two field goals missed add up to six points. What I don't agree with is the fact that Mare lost the game for them. Last time I looked there were 52 other people on the active roster, not to mention 15 or so coaches. The final score of the game was 25-19 and Mare had FOUR field goals totaling 12 of the 19 points for his team, oh and the one touchdown that Seattle did score, Mare kicked the extra point. That is a total of 13 points for Mare, 6 points for the other 52 guys.

Guess what Mora, don't be pissed off because your kicker scored more points then the rest of your team. Sure it is easy to pick on him because he missed two field goals. It is easier to deflect blame off yourself and put it on a kicker that never gets time in front of a camera to defend himself. What ever happened to there's no "I" in team? You know what though there is an "I" in idiot and Mora, you just redefined the word!

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