
On the Bizarre End to Chargers-Saints

Because the London gun fight between the Chargers and Saints lasted beyond 4:15 PM EST, CBS was not allowed the show the few minutes of the game live. James Brown blamed NFL policy. Instead of watching Philip Rivers’ comeback attempt -- SD trailed 37-30 in New Orleans territory -- viewers got to watch the full CBS panel looking up at a bank of screens above the cameramen and dictate the play radio-style. A mere one second later, CBS showed the play. They just could not show it live.
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↵How utterly ridiculous. CBS can only do so much -- it’s an NFL policy. But watching Brown and Bill Cowher staring up at the play and spoiling it a second before letting us see it unfold for ourselves ... so bizare and annoying.
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↵Oh, what actually happened? A 3rd-and-15 pass from Rivers was tipped and intercepted. New Orleans killed as much clock as possible, and faced fourth down from the 25 with half a minute left. Instead of kicking it to Darren Sproles and giving Rivers 20 seconds to work the field, Sean Payton had Drew Brees run back to the end zone and send the ball out the back for a safety. The Saints kicked off to Sproles with eight seconds left. Sproles got to the 50, but burned seven seconds. Rivers’ hail mary was knocked down. Saints win 37-32.
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↵All of that was explained to us through the dulcet moans of James Brown. We didn’t see a second of it live. Beautiful, innit?↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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