Yesterday’s Sunday Night NFL game was really quite extraordinary. Heroics being acted out right before our eyes. The Las Vegas Raiders playing the Los Angeles Chargers with the fate of both teams (regarding the play-offs) as well as of the Pittsburgh Steelers depending on the outcome.
It was astonishing to see the way the Chargers kept avoiding defeat, converting on a series of 4th down plays (including more than one 4th and 10s). Somehow managing to make up a fifteen point deficit without there being any lack of quality performance on the part of the defense.
One could only applaud both teams, when regulation was over and the two teams were tied. Which meant going into Overtime.
This being the last game of the season, the significance of the outcome was completely known: Whichever team wins the Overtime gets to the playoff, while the loser goes home. However, if there were a tie, then both teams would make it to the playoffs.
A tie would also mean that the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won their own nail-biter earlier in the day, would be done for the season, missing out on the playoffs (and have it turn out that the future Hall of Famer Steelers’ long-standing star quarterback, at 39 years of age, had just had his career ended).
The Overtime saw each team get a field goal, and so they were still tied. But, with time running out, the Raiders had moved the ball within range of their outstanding field-goal kicker. The Raiders had a choice:
- They could take a knee and run out the clock, so that both of those heroic teams would have a future. (They’d be crying in Pittsburgh, but the Steelers were not on stage in Las Vegas.) Or,
- They could bring in their field goal kicker which likely meant winning the game, and thereby putting an end to the Chargers’ season.
They went for the win. And they got it.
On the web, I saw some commentary expressing fury with the Raiders for refusing to go for the win-win that the tie would have entailed, a tie right there for the taking by just letting time run out.
But I am with the Raiders’ decision. It would dishonor the game: the agreement in the game is that each team is going to do its best to prevail. That’s the contest that makes the whole thing meaningful, and worth watching.
We wouldn’t want anyone shaving points in order to enrich outside gamblers. The forces determining the outcome of the game should be all out there on the field of competition. Not gamblers corrupting the game, nor play-off rules and standings that also stand outside the rightful field of play.
If the Raiders would have gone for the field goal in every other situation — and of course they would — honoring the game requires they do so in last night’s situation as well, letting the play-off chips fall where they may.
I, too, feel sadness for the noble Chargers. What they accomplished in the 4th quarter belongs among the epic tales of the ancient world. They must go home, but they can go home proud.
And what they are suffering is simply the same thing that every other losing team will suffer from now until after the Super Bowl has been played: it’s a matter of win or go home. It’s just that the Los Angeles Chargers have suffered that fate a week before the first official play-off games.