In case you were busy coming up with a fun portmanteau to describe your post-holiday diet, here’s what you missed in sports last weekend:
- The Seattle Seahawks came back from an early 14-0 deficit with 24 unanswered points to eliminate the Washington Redskins, 24-14, at FedEx Field. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll was his typical subdued self in the postgame press conference, shouting, “YEEEEEEHAWWWWWW WOOOO WOOO WOOO PETE CARROLL PETE CARROLL PETE CARROLL!” before running around the room until he tired himself out and took a nap under the podium.
- In what could have been Ray Lewis’s last game, the Baltimore Ravens used a strong second half to beat the Indianapolis Colts, 24-9. The turning point came at halftime when Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh decided to stop “sucking for Luck” when he learned that strategy had been a tactic teams used to jockey for draft position last season, and not a way to exploit Indianapolis quarterback Andrew Luck’s tendency to feel bad and take it easy on inferior opponents.
- The Houston Texans topped the Cincinnati Bengals, 19-13, and will advance to face the New England Patriots in the AFC Divisional round. Tom Brady appeared to provide some bulletin board material for the Texans, saying he was pleased with the matchup, but went on to explain he was only happy to avoid a matchup with the Bengals, who bring with them the smell of Cincinnati, a mix of bad chili and stagnant river water, that clings to his puffier garments for weeks.
- The Green Bay Packers handily defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 24-10, after an elbow injury sidelined Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder. Packers fullback John Kuhn scored two touchdowns, as the home fans booed him ferociously every time he touched the ball.* “It is what it is,” said Kuhn after the game, “and apparently there’s nothing I can do about it.**”
- *Some context for non-Green Bay residents: the Kuhn family, founders of the B’Gosh overalls empire, have long been a prominent family in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Since 1932, the Kuhns have used their wealth to fund the annual Dunking of Green Bay. Though the event started as a fun way to break up the doldrums of the Great Depression by dunking the Green Bay mayor in Lake Michigan, over the years it has become increasingly vicious, making the position of mayor in Green Bay undesirable to all but the strangest denizens of the city. This led to the election of “Weird” Pete Charmin, who ran unopposed in 1972. Charmin instituted a number of unpopular policies, including a recession-inducing bratwurst tax and a ban on having odd numbers of pets, which led indirectly to the introduction of a large number of invasive species. The Kuhn family is still blamed, a fact they resent. The vicious dunkings continue to this day.
- **It should probably also be noted that John Kuhn is not related to the Kuhns from Oshkosh, and is from York, Pennsylvania, which he states in a full-page ad he takes out every Sunday in the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
- Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel led the Texas A&M Aggies to a 41-13 victory over the Oklahoma Sooners in the Cotton Bowl. Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops promised his team would learn from this experience, explaining, “This was a tough loss for us, as we expect to be losing in much bigger bowl games. But we promise our fans that next year when they travel to watch us lose in a bowl game, we will be losing in the BCS National Championship, or we will lose trying.”
- Marquette topped Georgetown, 49-48, in a matchup of current Big East and future “Catholic 7” foes. The game, unfortunately, will have to be replayed, as the teams played without a shot clock to conform to what turned out to be a wild misinterpretation of the Papal Bull of 1493, which did not prohibit the use of secondary timers in games involving nets but instead divided South America between the Portuguese and the Spanish.
- In Friday night NBA action, the Lakers, playing an away game in their own arena, lost to the Clippers, 107-102. Unemployed person Phil Jackson said his team would need to play together and show a little more cohesion if they wanted to start winning, yet it was unclear which team he was referring to, or whether anyone had invited him to the postgame press conference.
- On Saturday, Lakers center Dwight Howard gave the media his take on his team’s current struggles, saying, “It really starts off the court. I think you have to have that relationship and that chemistry off the court for it to really blossom on the court.” The previous night, Phil Jackson was seen outside the locker room giving Howard the little known self-help book Making Friends With Your Co-Workers Through Passive Aggressive Behavior, explaining that he just loves to see the talented players on his team, the type who deserve the ball more often in the post, reading good books. He also gave a grateful Howard a pack of Post-It notes, explaining that Kobe Bryant loves getting notes in his locker with tips on how to improve his game.
- Liverpool topped non-league side Mansfield Town, 2-1, in the third round of the FA Cup, with a controversial Luis Suárez goal proving the difference in the match. Not one to be outdone, Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli was seen constructing homemade grenades, along with innocuous T-shirts with menorahs on them. When asked why, Balotelli explained, “I’m planning to teach that Suárez fellow a lesson on the real meaning of controversy, and also Hanukkah.”
- The NHL and NHLPA have reached a tentative agreement to end their lockout, and begin an abridged season. Both sides are said to have gotten what they wanted out of the lockout, with the owners having unnecessarily alienated their customer base, and the players having gotten a few months off from being hit in the face with hockey pucks.