Darrell Jackson, stone hands or butterfingers? The debate rages on

Originally posted on "Is It Sports?" by Ryan. It's funny to think that our 5th post ever was about such an insignificant player in an insignificant playoff game.

Ryan (3:36:36 PM): im interested in the rams-seahawks game... its going to be a train wreck
Ryan (3:36:59 PM): both teams are going to choke, and i dont know how thats possible
Steve (3:39:07 PM): maybe they will just repeatedly fumble their kickoffs
Ryan (3:39:59 PM): but then the ball will be in good field position for the other team... what then?
Steve (3:40:50 PM): they'll throw INT's that will be returned for TD's
Ryan (3:41:58 PM): theyll through it right into the numbers of the opponents, but those throws will be dropped, field goals missed
Steve (3:46:29 PM): this might be like 7 OT's
Ryan (3:46:44 PM): my prediction - Rams 9-6
Steve (3:47:50 PM): well I think they'll score a lot
Steve (3:48:16 PM): so I'm gonna say Rams 36-34 when they win in the 7th OT on a safety

1st half, Seattle versus St. Louis. Dick Vermeil would roll over in his grave if he had watched the first half of this game. If he were dead. As it is, he’s probably weeping about something or other in Kansas City. Never has sports intuition served me better than in this game. It’s like watching the 8-9 game in the NCAAs. You have to know if Utah St. can beat Butler, but at the same time you just know they will lose to Kentucky by forty in a matter of days. The biggest thing I’ve gleaned from the first half is that Darrell Jackson is the leading candidate for the Todd Pinkston Award for Playoff Inefficiency in a Wide Receiver. This guy is stiffer than the Space Needle and with worse hands. How is he a started for a playoff team? How did he get drafted? Hell, how did he get a scholarship to play football at Florida? In a series of about two minutes he had some of the most god awful showings I’ve seen since high school. First, Matt Hasselbeck hit him right in the hands. Probably the best throw Hasselbeck has thrown all game. Jackson, overwhelmed with the prospect of receiving Hasselbeck’s first throw in the playoffs decides to share the wealth and dropped it right into the waiting arms of Travis Fisher. Travis Fisher plays for the Rams. Fortunately, Marc Bulger is a mediocre quarterback on average and tossed it back to the Seahawks. About three plays later, Jackson is going on a pleasant Saturday afternoon jog, apparently forgetting he’s playing football in the playoffs. He was visibly startled when the football went flying past him. Darrell Jackson is making about a million dollars more than me, and totally phoning it in. This is a description used mostly for Keith Olbermann in his final days at ESPN. Fortunately for Darrell Jackson, he isn’t the only person on the field that totally sucks today, just as Steve and I predicted. The game is still in hand for both teams, but that doesn’t mean anything good for football fans. We’ll see how the second half goes.

2nd Half Vindication! Darrell Jackson can catch. He even scored a touchdown! My wrath, though well deserved, moved to the commentators. In the first half, I was with Paul Maguire. He was laying into D-Jack, one of the few times that Maguire actually can get away with that type of activity. But then they spit out these chestnuts. Maguire: “We always seem to get great playoff games, every year.” This was a – close – playoff game. To have a great playoff game, you need tension. You need people to think that, hey, when St. Louis inevitably wins, they won’t get decimated by the Eagles. These were not great teams and this was not a great game. It was like Episode I from Star Wars. Nobody wanted to watch it. We couldn’t turn away. Theismann: “I just don’t understand why he [Hasselbeck] isn’t completing more than sixty percent!” Where was he in the first half?! Wasn’t he watching this game? It doesn’t matter if you throw it right at a receiver if they drop the ball worse than the Boulder police. It’s unfathomable that a HOFer doesn’t see this obvious conclusion to the conundrum right in front of him. Needless to say, the ‘Hawks lost when Bobby Engram dropped the game tying touch down pass. I cant believe this game was even on TV - Ryan