If possible, I will PVR the game and start watching about an hour after it really started. This is just so I can skip the commercials and anthems and half time analysis. I try not to see the score before I start watching but it doesn’t really bother me if I do it.

When I watch the Winnipeg Jets (NHL) or the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (CFL) I usually watch it on PVR and I like to know if the Winnipeg has won before I start watching. They have let me down too many times for me to waste my time watching another poor effort.

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I forgot that it was announced as a prayer, but perhaps that put the stomp in my walking. Why is wrong to kneel during the national anthem but okay to boo a prayer? And one for justice. In the city where Freddie Gray died.

I don’t like much about the Ravens but I thought they were making an attempt to allow the players to make a statement and the “respect the flag” crowd to feel they’d gotten their due. Hence the anger at the booing. It seemed to underline for me that the anger was not about disrespect for the flag at root.

But I won’t say any more than this. I married into a family in which being career military is the norm. (Not my spouse, though) Perhaps they’re all good at their jobs. I don’t know. I see them as rarely as possible and avoid all conversations, having found none are safe. They are unapologetically racist, sexist and every other kind of bigoted in important and unimportant ways, but they make clear they believe themselves better Americans than the rest of us. I spend a lot of time with teenagers, few of them white. I sometimes think of them out in the world and feel a lurch of fear at what might happen to them,at what sometimes has almost happened to them. I would like to believe it is also their flag, their country and their anthem but I don’t think we’re there yet.

Earthling–who acts like AB with a water cooler after logging into WordPress

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I’m impressed with your memory–not only when but where and why Ben was gimpy.

The 2015 schedule was still hanging on a refrigerator in my barn. That year, 5 games were at 8:30. Weirdly, the Ravens game in Pittsburgh was listed as 8:25 but I’ve included it anyway. 🙂 9 games were scheduled for 1 p.m. and 2 for 4:25. That weird time again. It must mean something.

I don’t have the energy right now to do more counting but I’d guess they’re about 50/50 most years. It’s my memory of afternoon games as a kid that make me find all the others extraordinary.

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And as I think about it, it is surprising this game wasn’t a late game. Steelers-Ravens is always good television, and it seems like it would be more fair to the Ravens, who were just coming back from London, to give them a few extra hours of rest. I’m glad they didn’t get them, though : )

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Funny that the run of 8:30 games seems extraordinary to you. I’m always surprised when they play five weeks in a row at 1 pm, as they are doing this season.

When I have a chance I will definitely check out the Ben game-time thingy. Offhand it might explain the teams’ typically poor performance on the West Coast, which turns a 1 pm game into a 10 am game. (I will certainly except the Candlestick Park debacle when Ben played with a high ankle sprain.)

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I have upon rare occasions watched the game when I already knew the outcome. There is a certain peacefulness about this. There is less tension at the bad parts if you know they are going to win and a sort of resignation if you know they are going to lose. Oddly, one of the few times I’ve done that was after the Pasting in Philly last year. I had been out all afternoon, was on my way home to watch it, and couldn’t help peeking at the score. I honestly didn’t believe my eyes at first. I’m afraid I fast-forwarded through a lot of it. It was quite painful…

And I do mostly prefer to watch by myself. Well, not by myself, because Cato, my faithful Lucky Steelers Cat, is generally by my side. He almost left during the third quarter but fortunately stayed the course. (He left early in the Chicago game and I had a bad feeling about it.)

I shouldn’t like having goats knowing I had boasted without cause. Rather like John Harbaugh declaring to Michelle Tafoya before the game that they were going to win, because they were a better team. Hmm, who was the goat in that scenario?

As for the boos before the game, given that the PA announced it as a prayer, I find it quite incredible anyone could boo, much less a substantial number of fans, booing THEIR OWN TEAM. (Although you are almost certainly correct that they were joined by Steeler fans.) But this issue is so divisive. Yesterday my daughter and I found ourselves yelling at each other over Facetime, despite the fact we are in substantial agreement about almost all of the issues. This apparently hits people at a really deep level.

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Here’s the significance of that NFL.com field thing vs. streaming comment. In the future as a drive or even a play or a review is under way, it’s going to be very difficult for me to refrain from just looking it up on their website to find out what happens 4 minutes into the future of the game I’m watching. But that seems so cheap. And cheating somehow.

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A friend told me that the later in the day a game is, the better Ben plays. I glanced at the schedule and all the 8:30’s jumped out as me as hopeful.

If it’s true, I’m with Ben on this. If I’m on the West coast, which I often am, 10 a.m. games aren’t really a lot of fun. And if I’m Europe which I sometimes am, it’s been much easier for me to watch games in the middle of the night than the middle of the day.

Plus that run of 8:30 p.m. games seems extraordinary.

Earthling

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I walked away the first time after fans booed the Ravens for kneeling. * Before* the NA. Really?? Because they wanted to make a statement about justice and equality? How unbearable is that! (Those spoiled millionaire players! Many of whom grew up in families who couldn’t have afforded to take them to an NFL game if they’d sold their every belonging,so who’s really spoiled, but let’s not confuse the narrative of the self righteous.) The Ravens pandered to them in every other possible way–the trio in uniforms, the bombs bursting in air, the players all standing. But they couldn’t bear to see the players kneeling for 60 seconds?? Who did that disrespect? I’ve never been so ashamed to be a football fan and I didn’t console myself by believing they were all Ravens fans. I’m sure there were Steeler fans right alongside them with their mouths wide open. I was so hopping mad I had to walk away from my tv and walk (stomp) around my house.

(I too noticed Flacco talking and looking around, and thought it was odd. I almost like him for it. Everyone else was doing their best to look ostentatiously patriotic. I’m surprised we didn’t see some of them weeping as they clutched their hearts.)

When I came back, the Steelers looked good and I felt smug for a while. Earlier in the week, I’d announced to anyone who would listen (a tiny “crowd,” and maybe no one if I can’t count chickens and dogs and goats) that the Steelers would have no problem with the Ravens. The Ravens stink this year and the Steelers don’t and they rebound well. The smugness continued to the end of the first half. Plus, Shazier was being fabulous after being not fab last week, and I announced to the same crowd that he’d correct his over runs this week. Which he mostly did.;

I spent too much time outside at halftime–sunny day, chickens, dogs (they were all agog at how on the money my predictions were). I came in late and there was Weddle standing around looking happy while a play was under review. I can’t remember why I dislike him so much but I do, so after the miserable ruling and a few more plays when the Steelers were starting to look like their lovely lead might evaporate, I fled. I couldn’t bear to see all the wonderfulness of beating the Ravens disappear. Or maybe I couldn’t bear to be wrong after all that prognosticating and arrogance. Dogs are big forgivers but the chickens…and the goats. I probably bragged to the goats about my football savvy and they’d never stop laughing at me.

I can’t remember what I did outside but it took me exactly a quarter because when I walked back into the house, the fourth quarter started. On the nose. (A newly discovered talent?) And I enjoyed the rest of the game, smug again. When I looked up the stuff about the third quarter on NFL.com, I found out their own streaming is almost 4 minutes behind what they put up on that little field with the arrows going back and forth. I wonder if you know what I mean. For years, before cable and streaming and blogs, it was the only way I could follow games. As awful as it is, it used to be a lot worse. (Those words are said quite often and they console no one.)

I am worried about Ben. I say things to myself like: he’s missing something right now. Or: he’ll pick up in a game or two. I can’t even describe what it is about him that seems different and wrong and makes me feel a bit sorry for him. I never felt sorry for Ben before even when he was Bad Ben. Now he seems a little diminished and it strikes me as sad. I hope I’m completely wrong and in a game or two I’ll yell at him with the old fury. Actually, I don’t really yell at him but I often watch games with someone who does. “Why, Ben? WHY?” he wails. I find this hilarious. It means I never get mad at Ben because it’s so entertaining when he’s a blockhead. But he doesn’t feel like a blockhead so far this season. Just smaller maybe.

Too long, I’m sorry. I spent too much time this week with farm animals.

Earthling

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A win in Baltimore is huge (YUUUGE!). Hopefully we can take care of Bortles and the Jags next week.

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