It’s a brand new year! The NFL regular season is officially behind us, and the postseason is about to flare up in earnest. Soon, we’ll be dealing with the dog days of basketball and waiting for pitchers and catchers to report for spring training. And of course, we shan’t be watching hockey, because hockey has never existed and never will. What the hell is “hockey?” I don’t like when you tell fibs, everyone. Shame on you.
The Week in Worst: Not with a bang, but a crapfest
It sure was the last week of the 2012 NFL regular season. Tony Romo, take a bow.
Rob Carr
Bill Hanstock is a writer, author and Emmy Award-winning producer. He began writing for SB Nation in 2011.
Week 17 was, of course, a fairly inopportune week for much of the NFL, with most of the intrigue wrapped up in Sunday's nightcap between the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys. There was a brief flurry of intrigue that the New York Giants might sneak their way into the postseason, but then they didn't! Wheeee! There was plenty of crud to go around once again, so we've collected it in a series of GIFs that you might chuckle at briefly and then forget about forever. Happy New Year!
Here are the worst NFL plays for the week of Dec. 26-31.
Worst Interception
Player: Tony Romo
Date: Dec. 30
Tony, clearly, has a problem. It’s a problem he’s had for years. He has a debilitating condition known as throw an interception in a key situation-itis. You could set your watch by it, if that was how watches worked. The saddest thing about this play that ended the season for the Cowboys and handed the division to the Redskins is that, before the snap, the announcers were talking about this quasi-two-minute drill and opining that Romo “could finally solve this Rubik’s Cube” that was the Redskins defense by tying the game or taking the lead on this drive. Instead, with the words scarcely out of the mouths of NBC’s crack squad of analysts, Tony Romo proved that, nope, the Rubik’s Cube will win once again. It will always win. Every time Romo tries to solve it, the Cube will fly out of his hands and end up with a trio of siblings, bringing them happiness and magical adventures. And the Cowboys will lose. Kind of sad, honestly.
Worst Touchdown Celebration
Player: Chris Johnson
Date: Dec. 30
The Jaguars and the Titans. You're unlikely to ever find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. A four-win team playing a two-win team in Week 17 of the NFL season. So when you score a touchdown, it's of course a perfect opportunity to flounce around like you're Butt-head watching a Deee-Lite video. Or Humpty, pronounced with an "umpty." Let's all party! We scored a touchdown! We're the Tennessee Titans! We've still got this logo and color scheme! We tip well at Waffle House!
Worst Missed Field Goal
Player: Alex Henery
Date: Dec. 30
Kicking a football is hard. Just ask Charlie Brown. Kicking a football at the professional level with any degree of accuracy is a fairly elite skill-set. Why don't you try it sometime, tough guy? Yeah, that's what I thought. The kicker has the most thankless job on the field most of the time.
Having said all of that: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Worst Call
Date: Dec. 30
A bunch of officials looked at this play, which was called a fumble on the field, and said “NOPE, INCOMPLETE PASS.” Despite the fact that the ball was also traveling backward. No fumble, no penalty, no nothing. Here’s a list of other special exemptions Luck has been given:
- Neckbeard reclassified by American Follicular Society as “Luck-ian Full Resplendent Beard”
- Reporters forced to refer to Luck’s voice as “deep, sonorous and booming”
- Supreme Court demands Russell Wilson henceforth be referred to as "Not-Andrew Luck"
Worst Dropped Pass
Player: Greg Jennings
Date: Dec. 30
There are at least three separate moments in this GIF where Jennings could have caught and/or secured the ball, but instead opted to fling it out of bounds like Kevin McAllister with his brother’s pet tarantula. A touchdown would have been cool! Whatever the hell ... this ... was was not very cool.
If you want to see the full video and audio of the play, please click here. Trust me; click there.
Worst Fight
Date: Dec. 30
If the Raiders and the Chargers get in a fight in Week 17 of the 2012 NFL season, does it make a sound? Takeo Spikes in involved in this, which is sort of amusing, but really this is an existential thought experiment. Forget the Turin horse, this fight is was drove Nietzsche to madness. The Chargers and Raiders are fighting. Do we care? Should we care? This is the AFC West; the place where Norv Turner lived for six years. The place where they PAID Norv Turner to be Norv Turner. One of Norv Turner's final acts was standing on the sideline, playing with his turkey neck where a brouhaha erupted. What were they fighting for? There couldn't have been pride involved; this is the Chargers and Raiders. They should know the score by now.
It’s like anti-matter and anti-matter colliding: There’s no explosion, it’s just stupid.
Worst Fake
Player: Tony Romo
Date: Dec. 30
Tony Romo is an elite quarterback. It's true! He's easily one of the top 10 NFL quarterbacks in the whole world right now! This is a pretty good fake. It would have probably been better if it had been in the direction of any living human being, but beggars can't be choosers. Tony Romo faked to no one and Robert Griffin III led his team to the postseason. This is probably one of those -- whaddayacall'em -- metaphors or something.
Worst/Best Being Tackled By A Punter
Game: Redskins vs. Cowboys
Date: Dec. 30
Punters, like kickers, have a very thankless job. When your team’s punter is the only one who can stop the opposing team from returning a punt for a score, you just sort of hold your breath. When the game is a winner-take-all affair for the division, you probably poop yourself a little. I dunno, I’ve never been in that situation!
But Redskins punter Sav Rocca took the opportunity to not only make the tackle, but straight-up nearly murder two Cowboys players in the process. First he tries to give Sterling Moore a Steven Seagal-style broken-neck thrust and strongarms him the hell out of there, then snatches Dwayne Harris by the FACEMASK AND HAIR and gives an inverted-Chris Jericho-bulldog leap to fling him to the ground and probably come dangerously close to legit ending his life. Sure, Rocca earned the Redskins a facemask penalty, but HOLY HELL you guys; Sav Rocca.
