Sports Break. Did the Buccaneers get robbed against the Dolphins?

It was interesting following the articles and outrage following the Miami Dolphins' 25-23 win over the Buccaneers yesterday.

I realize I'm biased as a Dolphins fan, but at the same time, I try to call them as I see them.  I did some searching and found this interesting article, with video.  The issue surrounds a receiver catching a ball, hitting the ground, and the ball coming out.

It seems to me many Buccaneer fans, and even some Dolphins fans, are confusing the rules concerning a fumble with those concerning a completed pass.  As we know, the ground cannot cause a fumble.  Presumably the idea here is that Running Back who gets tackled, touches a knee to the ground or lands in such a way that causes the ball to come out will not be assessed a fumble.  But here's the thing:  A running back has already HAD the ball in his possession from the time it was handed to him.  He's not attempting to gain control of it from a third party (in this case, the air!).  So he doesn't have to prove he 'owns' the ball.  It was his at the beginning.  So as long as the required parts of his body hit the ground before the ball comes out, it's a dead ball, and no turnover.

The rules regarding a completed pass seem rather different, and are more demanding:

If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone.

Note the "after" with regarding touching the ground.  This makes a completion harder than a carry.  If you're carrying the ball, and the ball comes out after you touch the ground, no fumble.  But if you catch the ball, and even if both feet are down, and you hit the ground, the ball has to stay under your control after you hit, or it's an incomplete pass (which was as was ruled on the field until the officials noticed the ball never hit the ground and therefore Jason Taylor could intercept it).

So, if we can all rally around the fact that, like it or hate it, the rules are much tougher on receivers than running back where hitting the ground is concerned, the question then becomes: "how long does the receiver have to control the ball after hitting the ground in order for it to be a catch?"  Is it a second?  Two seconds?  Three Seconds?  If the whistle hadn't blown, and 3 seconds go by, and the guy drops the ball on the ground, is it an incomplete pass?  This seems to be the gray area in which the trouble is found.  We can jettison the complainers who don't understand fumble vs. reception rules, but we cannot so easily dismiss those who are wondering, just how long "after" the player hits the ground does he have to control the ball?

The replay makes it harder because right after he hits the ground, a Dolphins player blocks our view of him.  In slow motion, it might seem he had landed and some time passed before the ball was forced out of his grip.  At full speed, we are talking under a second.  I think the NFL needs to clarify just how long "after" the player hits the ground he has to demonstrate control.  Does he have to get back up onto his feet while still holding the ball after the play is whistled dead?  Is the whistle itself a sign he can put down the ball?  This, I think, needs clarification.  Otherwise, "after" goes on an indefinite period of time, and certainly at SOME point any sane person would agree it's silly not to call it a completion.

At any rate, the officials ruled it an incompletion, and needed to see whether the ball hit the ground or popped up to Taylor without doing so.  The only way the Buccaneers keep that reception is if there is indisputable proof to show that he possessed the ball long enough "after" hitting the ground to award him the completion.  Without positive visual evidence showing exactly how long after hitting the ground he lost the ball, and without any knowledge of how long the NFL says he must maintain that possession, we are left with no choice but to uphold the call of a potentially incomplete pass, and award the ball to Taylor based upon the fact that it didn't hit the ground before he caught it, but could not advance it because the play had been ruled incomplete at the spot.

Buccaneer fans may feel, with some reason, that they were robbed and are bitter, and I understand that.  This would have been my reaction had it gone the other way.  However, it is not as clear cut as these fans think.  Obviously the NFL requires possession to be maintained after the player lands and (probably) until the whistle blows, which didn't happen.

If nothing else, this should serve notice to NFL receivers to not put down the ball or let it get taken away from them until the play has been ruled dead and they have gotten back up.  Only when all doubt is eliminated should they part with that football!

I look forward to seeing if the NFL releases and official analysis of the replay.

What AT&T is REALLY afraid of

Many articles have been written chastising AT&T for going after Verizon's ads with an army of lawyers.  AT&T claims they are afraid that those poor gullible viewers will mistake those big blank areas for NO coverage instead of NO 3G coverage (in spite of the large words under the maps that make it clear that 3G coverage is what is being mapped).

But I thought today that perhaps the real purpose of the lawsuits is not to improve their image with customers, but with Apple.  After all, if you take away the iPhone, what does AT&T have, really?  Pretty much you have an inferior network with a smaller coverage area, horrid customer support and many unhappy customers.  If you cannot address these problems for whatever reason, you have to hang on tightly to the ONLY advantage you have:  the iPhone.

If Apple decides that AT&T is now a liability and not an asset, and decides that having a Verizon-based iPhone will solve the problem, the only compelling reason for AT&T for an iPhone user would be simultaneous voice+data connections (when you are in that smaller coverage area).  A Verizon-based iPhone would pretty much destroy AT&T, and they KNOW it.  Verizon would have the two best Smartphones on the planet, the Droid and the iPhone, satisfying pretty much both kinds of customer (the Droid owner who wants to do more with their phone, and the iPhone owner who love their phone for what it says about them).  AT&T's marketshare would plummet.

Now that Verizon has an answer to the Smartphone problem, AND a better network, AT&T can only pray that Apple doesn't decide not to renew their exclusivity agreement next year.

The Ad that Verizon should Air

Apple employee sitting at desk with a stack of applications on desk.  A big rubber stamp in hand.  Scene opens, and Apple employee picks up each application, looks at it briefly, and stamps down on it while saying "Denied!" A sign overhead says "Apple iPhone Application Review Board".

A hip looking developer carring an iPhone walks in.

(enthusiastically)
Developer:  Hi, I'm an iPhone developer and I have this great app I'd like to get approved!
Apple: Fantastic! Tell me about it.
Developer:  It's this great new app that lets you know when you have a new podcast by putting up shiny chat bubbles....
Apple: DENIED!!
Developer:  But...why?
Apple: None of your business.
Developer:  Uh, okay, well, okay, I'll change that.  But anyway, what it does, is, is update your podcast lists and download them, even the password-protected ones...
Apple: DENIED!!!
Developer:  But...
Apple:  Podcasting is OUR job.  Butt out!
Developer:  Well, okay, well, I have another app then.  It is a superfast web browser that downloads image heavy pages many times faster than Safari...
Apple (apoplectic with fury): DENIED!  GET OUT!!!
Developer: but....
Apple (gestures): TALK TO THE HAND!
Developer (sad):  Well, I guess I'll just have to find a more open phone for these awesome apps.

Verizon guy walks on with a Droid (Droid sound effect).  Smiles in his "verizon-guy-way" as he hands it to the developer.  Developer smiles , tosses the iPhone over his shoulder and walks out with the Droid.  Verizon guy looks at Apple employee, shakes his head sadly, and leaves.

AT&T's misleading ads. Two can play

In the latest round of AT&T's Lawsuit against Verizon, requesting they not be allowed to continue running the famous "There's a Map For That" ads, AT&T alleges that "while technically true", the Verizon claim of 5x 3G coverage is misleading because it's in miles, not population.

Well, as long as we're going to get technical, AT&T and Apple, how about your "there's an app for that" ad.  The MISLEADING implication is that for anything I'd want to reasonably do on a smartphone, "there's an app for that".  Really?

1.  I want to download syndicated radio programs as podcasts over the air.  These are password protected podcasts from Premiere Radio Networks.  THERE IS NO APP FOR THAT.  Apple will not tolerate competing podcast apps, and the iPhone's Mobile iTunes doesn't support it.  You have to do it on the desktop and sync.  Tied to your computer, indeed.

2.  I want to browse the net very fast, and I want to use Opera Turbo to do it, so it pre-squeezes the data so it comes down lightning fast.  Ooops, there's no app for that, because Apple will not tolerate a competitor to its much-slower Safari.

3.  I want to aim my phone at the sky and see what star I'm looking at, or find a star or constellation with guidance from an on-board compass and GPS.  Is there an app for that?  Such as Google Sky Maps?

So, I allege that Apple and AT&T are misleading customers by bragging about their 100,000 apps by saying "there's an app for that" and implying that for the three items above:  There's an App for That.  LIARS!

How's that for "misleading", guys?

The problem with saying "we were better" when you lost

After seeing the Dolphins come up short on every meaningful stat except the final score in their 30-25 win over the New York Jets, it was interesting to see the comments from their side.  Rex Ryan is talking about how great their team was, and how "it doesn't make sense" that the Dolphins won.  It's funny, but I don't remember hearing those comments when Miami dominated every statistical category against the Colts, and yet still barely lost, because they couldn't stop one or two big plays.

The sad truth, Rex, is that football is more than just 'standard' offensive and defensive plays from scrimmage.  Your team called the wildcat "nonsense", a few weeks back, but I don't recall you having any issues with running two fake punts.  If it works for you, it's solid play, but if it works for the other team, it's nonsense?

Same thing today.  New York got burned not once, but twice, by Ginn on the special teams play.  They also got stuffed for a loss, stripped of the football, and watched Jason Taylor roll in for another TD.  And finally, when the game was on the line, they watched the Dolphins drive methodically down and make a much-needed score.  So yes, all the numbers in the world can look great for you, but the fact is, if you are letting big plays happen in one or more facets of the game, then you can not act like you should somehow have been gifted with a win for having those numbers.  Miami wasn't given the win against Indy for owning the ball for more than 45 minutes of the 60 minutes of play, nor for all their rushing yards or other stats.  You are given credit for scoring touchdowns and field goals.  How you do it is your business.  Do it any way you want.  Do it with the wildcat, do it with fake punts, do it with turnovers, or do it with returns.  HOWEVER IT WORKS, IT COUNTS.  And if your team cannot stop ALL the ways that the other team can score, then you simply DID...NOT....DESERVE...TO...WIN.

Rex Ryan's act is great entertainment, and as a first year coach he's going to be given some latitude, and yes he's brought excitement and hope to New York, but many of his players are acting utterly classless, and acting like they are still somehow a better team than the Dolphins even though they've now been swept.  Here's a clue for you, Coach Ryan:  Winning teams find a way to win.  Stats or no stats, ugly or pretty.  Winning teams find a way to put more points on the board than their opponent.  That's how the game works.  I say this as a Miami Dolphins fan who has watched Miami deal with 'shoulda woulda coulda' all year.   So congratulations for figuring out how to shut down the wildcat for most of the game.  But when the game was on the line, you did NOT.

So tell your players to shut up with all the trash talking, show some class for once, and own up to the fact that the better team DID win today.  Just because they didn't do it the way YOU think they should have, doesn't change what the scoreboard says, nor does it diminish the respect you owe them for having beaten you twice in a season.

Now, move on.

Need for Speed Shift. I've been had....again.

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for any simulation with my RX-8 in it, particularly one with a great interior driving view. I love my car. Mazda makes cars for driving enthusiasts, and when I get the chance to race in it, albeit virtually, I am already more than halfway towards forking over my hard-earned cash for it.

On the other hand, I'm also a racing enthusiast, and appreciate the art of racecraft. This has never been one of EA's strong spots, and is an area where even the superstars of video gaming get it wrong. The Forza and Gran Turismo series, for all their virtues, always miss the essential art of racing, and ultimately I am always left feeling empty by their games.

Need for Speed Shift enters the fray a month earlier than the highly anticipated Forza 3, and I believe this is no accident. EA's product management team knew they needed to squeeze as much cash as possible out of the window between their release and that of Forza. This is particularly true because Need for Speed boasts some extremely sweet graphics. You may have seen their commercials. The game just flat out looks great.

What I do not know for sure is whether they knew the game would ultimately fall to earth against Forza, and rushed it out to get what they could out of it, or whether the game COULD have been so much better, but again, Forza fear caused them to rush the release.

I must add I am EXTREMELY disappointed in the game reviewers who went gaga over this title. I trusted IGN with its 9 out of 10 score. I should have known better. The guys at IGN are good guys. I've known some of them and wrote a nice handful of PC racing simulation reviews for them, from the viewpoint of a more hardcore PC Simulation enthusiast. The console titles never came my way for review. Honestly, this is largely due to the fact that you need special machines to play pre-release titles, and console games also have not been the types that you tend to outsource. But I also know that the guys doing the console racing game reviews are often the same guys playing first person shooters and other genres. They aren't necessarily big on racing. Therefore, they are perfect targets for games like Need for Speed Shift, where longevity isn't the key. The goal for this title is to win the reviewers on the presentation, and make it fun just long enough to make the review deadline. After that, the battle is won. Customers part with their cash, and no one really cares where they are with the game several weeks later. So, yes, I'm a little irritated with IGN and other review sites that gave this game such high marks, but not at individuals, nor at their competency, as much as irritated that the game review world has become a 'game' in itself, and EA won this round, having figured out how to get what they wanted out of the reviews and thus maximize sales in the short term.

So, with all this preamble....why am I unhappy with the game? Well, first of all, it's not necessarily that the game physics are 'relaxed' for more casual gamers. That's all well and good. You can have various assists that you can turn on and off, and you don't want the game to be too hardcore to pick up and play.

However, EA released a title that is, quite frankly, buggy in its car physics, not just relaxed. Cars don't just drift around every corner. You wouldn't want them to! You'd burn off the tires in no time. In addition, when you're in a pack of other cars, drifting all together, you tend to have a lot more collisions. What you want is clean, smooth precise handling that's easy on the car and feels great for the driver. You do NOT NEED TO DRIFT AROUND A CORNER TO GET A BUZZ! EA doesn't get that. Consequently, you'll see that in replays, your car is the only one kicking up tire smoke around every corner. Most of the AI cars don't. It's not like you MEAN to be doing it, but you try to drive the default handling setup around a corner as perfectly as if Skip Barber himself were scoring your line, and you will usually still end up sliding the tail out. It's extremely annoying.

EA added a 'quick and dirty' setup screen where you can change the handling of your car. Ironically, it's backwards. If you set it to max oversteer, your handling will start to act more like a car should. Consequently, this is really the only way to play the game unless you are a 12 year old with ADHD guzzling energy drinks and twitching like a maniac. Unfortunately, you cannot change the car tuning for the cars that are provided for you in manufacturer challenges. If they give you the car, you drive it as is, and you're back to the stupid default handling.

Again, this might be fun for a reviewer tailsliding around a few corners and oohing and ahhing at the nice tire smoke, but does NOTHING to convince anyone that this has any resemblance to real racing.

Then there is the 'precision vs. aggression' aspect of the game. You get points whether you're punting people into the weeds or smoothly passing them without contact. It doesn't matter how you drive, you get points. What the heck????? Why try to drive with precision when it makes no difference HOW you pass?

Then they SET YOU UP for shenanigans by saying. "here you are, you're starting 10th and you have 3 laps. Have fun!". At any sufficiently high level of AI, you're not going to get your way to first place unless you barge through on every corner, getting lots of 'dirty pass' points in the process. How many real races are 3 laps? I do more than that at my local go-kart track!

Racing is about reeling someone in, lap after lap, figuring out where they are slow, where they are fast, and finally timing your pass. A pass is something that is set up over time. It is NOT a "oh crap the race is only 3 laps I'm just going to dive underneath them and use them as my brake through the turn". That's NOT RACING! That's just stupid. I can play Burnout if I want that (Oh wait, that's also an EA game).

And now we get to the AI. There's nothing worse than watching a field full of Lamborghinis act like their drivers have just popped into the local bar for a few before taking the track. These guys move over on you down the straights, chuck you into walls, are incapable of maintaining any semblance of the racing line, and just basically turn every race into a wreck-fest. There's no "I" in the AI here. So, again, you have 3 laps to beat them all, with a dodgy handling car that likes to do tank slappers down the straights, against cars that will hit you for no particularly good reason at all, and you actually call this RACING?

Now, EA could certainly patch this game. The oversteer/understeer bug could be fixed, the AI could be tuned, and some options for longer more believable races could be added. Am I holding my breath? Nope. I believe EA is in this for the quick cash influx. They do not particularly care if you still like the game one month later. The PC team might fix some bugs because that audience has come to expect it, but I seriously do not expect EA to ever admit they did anything wrong on this game. After all, they got their sparkling reviews, they got their $60 game sold as much as possible to desparate people impatiently waiting for Forza 3, and now it's time to move on.

I DO expect to see more cars and maybe tracks added to the game, along with the corresponding charge in Microsoft points, to see if they can milk a few extra bucks out of the title before moving on to the next quick hit.

Honestly, I'm also angry at myself. I should have known better. I have seen this enough times before that I DO know better. But I'm human, and the prospect of my RX-8 pounding out laps on the Nurburgring Nordschleife is enough to make me ignore the small warning voice telling me that I'm about to be had. I guess as long as EA can make me forget how abysmal their racing games tend to be, they have no incentive to change.

Congratulations EA, you out maneuevered the reviewers and even racing enthusiasts who know better. I'll keep watching to see if you patch this title on the 360 & PS3, but I'm not optimistic.

Another thing the iPhone still can't do

I am in a community theater production, so I decided to peek at the App Store on iTunes to find an app that might help me memorize my lines. I figure there should be something there.

Sure enough, there is an App called HollywoodHelper that will do just that. Looked great. I didn't see any reviews, but the screenshots looked promising.

I downloaded it, and then realized my mistake. By not reading carefully the language in the description, I missed that it needed to share files with your computer via Wi-Fi, and that the host application they created for this only works on a Mac. They are hopeful to have a Windows version soon, but two things are wrong here, in my mind.

First, why does every Apple App developer have to make their own transfer system for the iPhone? For all the crowing about the superiority of the phone, Apps don't share files! Each one gets its own area, and therefore you cannot just download a generic file downloader program and use it with different applications. Unless I've missed something, this is horribly inconvenient. Of course, the Cult of All-Things-Apple will probably continue to talk about what an awesome device we have here, but consider that if this were on, say, my G1, I could just download the files to the SD card, either by plugging my phone into my computer the standard USB connection, or put the card into any card reader. All apps can read the storage. Not the iPhone.

Second, again, had this been an Android Market application, my "oops" moment wouldn't have cost me money. I could just get an immediate refund from the store at the touch of a button. But now I'm at the mercy of this app developer's timeline for developing a Windows file transfer program. No refund for you! All Sales Are Final in Apple's grand vision.

Now, it is also only fair to point out I could not find a similar application at all on Android, so unless I want to write it (I'm considering it), I'm out of luck entirely, but not because of any failure on Google's part to write a decent operating system with a shared file storage system.

Oh well, time to open Eclipse and write some code. I wonder if I can write the app for my G1 before this developer re-invents the wheel of file sharing code for Windows over a wi-fi connection?