Patriots and Giants Prevail: Lessons From A Classic NFL Championship Sunday

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A Super rematch is set: the New England Patriots will play the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, on February 5th in Indianapolis. New York Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes (9) and holder Steve Weatherford (5) celebrate with teammates after Tynes kicked the winning field goal against the San Francisco 49ers in overtime

A Super rematch is set: the New England Patriots will play the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, on February 5th in Indianapolis. (Four years ago, the Giants ruined New England’s bid for a perfect season, as they upset the heavily favored Pats 17-14). If we’re lucky, the big game will come close to matching the drama that unfolded on Sunday.  If anything, the championship games taught us that there’s a reason pro football is the most popular sport in America right now. Despite slightly confusing overtime rules that took referee Ed Hochuli about a half-hour to explain before the coin toss in the Giants-San Francisco 49ers NFC championship game, the NFL kind of rocks.

Here are three more lessons from a classic championship Sunday:

1. Goats Galore. You’ve got to feel horribly for two people this morning: kicker Billy Cundiff of the Baltimore Ravens, and punt returner Kyle Williams from the San Francisco 49ers. In the AFC championship game, all Cundiff needed to do was make a chip-shot, 32-yard field goal with 11 seconds left to send the Ravens-Patriots game into overtime. In the last two years, Cundiff was 16 out of 16 on fourth quarter field goals. But Cundiff hooked it to the left of the goal post, sending the New England crowd into hysterics. “I think we can just keep things simple,” Cundiff said afterwards. “It’s a kick I’ve kicked a thousand times in my career. I just went out there and didn’t convert. That’s the way things go. There’s really no excuse for it.” New England held on to win, 23-20.

After the game, Tom Brady, who threw two interceptions and no touchdown passes, and missed several open receivers throughout the day, told a national television audience that he “sucked.” That’s not totally true. His fourth quarter sneak, in which he hurdled over the offensive into the end zone before the Ravens defense nearly cracked his back, was a gusty, athletic move that gave the Pats the game-winning score.

In the NFC championship game, Williams’ miscues set up two New York scores. With San Francisco leading 14-10 in the third quarter, and having captured the game’s momentum, a punt grazed Williams’ leg, making it a live ball: New York’s Devin Thomas picked it up and ran towards the end zone. Though the Giants couldn’t advance the muffed punt return, the replay confirmed that Williams mishandled it, and the Giants were awarded the ball on the turnover. New York took advantage:  Eli Manning ripped a 17-yard touchdown pass to Mario Manningham on third-and-15, putting the Giants on top, 17-14.

In overtime, the Giants punted after failing to score on their second possession of the extra session. Williams caught the ball, and ran it back five yards before New York’s Jacquain Williams punched it out of his hands: the Giants recovered the fumble at the San Francisco 24-yard-line. Five plays later, New York’s Lawrence Tynes, whose 47-yard overtime field goal in Green Bay four years ago sent the Giants to the Super Bowl, ended another NFC  championship game with a 31-yard strike through the uprights, pretty much the same distance from which Cundiff missed. The Giants won 20-17.

(MORE: Is Eli Now The NFL’s Main Manning?)

2. A Sterling Swipe. Sterling Moore, welcome to New England sports lore. With under a minute left in the fourth quarter, the Ravens had the ball on the New England 14-yard-line, trailing 23-20. Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco took a shot at the end zone, to win the game outright before overtime. His pass sailed into the arms of receiver Lee Evans, who seemed to have the ball, and the Ravens’ Super Bowl trip, secured. But just as his second foot touched the ground, Moore, a Patriots cornerback, whacked the ball out of Evans’ hands. Incomplete pass. After Cundiff missed the game-tying field goal, some commentators took Evans to task for not holding on to the pass. But you have to give Moore, an undrafted rookie free agent cut earlier this year from the Oakland Raiders practice squad, credit. His strength saved the day.

(MORE: Is This The Year The New England Patriots Get Fun?)

3. Harbaugh Hell. The Harbaugh brothers, San Francisco coach Jim and Baltimore coach John, not only both lost in heartbreaking fashion, and came tantalizingly close to coaching against each other in the Super Bowl but they didn’t even get the traditional consolation prize. Until two years ago, the losing coaches in the conference championship games got a trip to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, where they would coach the AFC and NFC All-Stars. But the NFL now schedules the Pro Bowl before the Super Bowl, and gives coaching “duties” to divisional round losers.

NewsFeed suggests that the Harbaughs crash the Pro Bowl party. If anyone deserves to drown their sorrows poolside, over Mai Tais, in Honolulu, they do.

Source TIME

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5 Political Lessons of the Economic Downturn

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President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have now thrown down their respective gauntlets on the issue of the economy. Last week, when the president unveiled his new jobs plan to a joint session of Congress, the fiery tone felt at times more like that of a campaign speech than a policy pitch. And when House Speaker John Boehner released his jobs plan this week, he swung back at the president's policies, broadly criticizing "a government that offers short-term gimmicks" to encourage growth and "offers confusion to entrepreneurs and job creators." Politics are inextricably bound up in the nation's grave economic situation, and while Americans learn how to live with less, politicians have carried out their duties in a new landscape marked by frustrated voters and hyperpartisanship. Below are five important lessons that lawmakers are learning from the nation's chronic economic problems.

Unemployment Is King

Even after unemployment had climbed back above 9 percent, the policy fight of the summer wasn't about how to create jobs but whether or not America would pay its bills. That fight eroded public opinion of America's political leaders and helped illustrate the point that the public sometimes holds different priorities than lawmakers in Washington. Gallup data indicates that the economy in general and unemployment were more important problems to many Americans than the federal deficit or debt throughout the summer. "Policymakers have learned just how much unemployment resonates. It is joblessness, not the budget, inflation or other wonkiness that matters," says Justin Wolfers, associate professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School of Business, in an E-mail to U.S. News.

Read about how Social Security can be reformed.

Social Issues Are a Sideshow

The race for the GOP presidential nomination has generated lot of buzz about Michele Bachmann's views on HPV vaccine and Jon Huntsman's belief in climate change. But according to Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business, these sorts of concerns fall off the radar once a candidate enters the White House, particularly in times of economic troubles. "The bottom line in all this, I think, is that social issues matter if you're running for president and you're trying to get nominated. And once you become president, what really matters is economic issues, because you own the economy," he says.

Don't Overpromise

There is ample evidence that the president's stimulus plan added substantial numbers of jobs, helping to save the country from an even deeper and longer recession. But when the plan was unveiled, the White House had predicted that it would create nearly 3.7 million jobs, bringing unemployment down to well below 7 percent by now, and to around 5 percent by 2014. Clearly, those projections were overly optimistic, and the idea that the stimulus was a "failure" has by now become a matter of fact for the president's opponents. The Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, for example, have started a "Signs of a Failed Stimulus" initiative, in which constituents can send in photos of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signs marking stimulus projects.

See what's in the president's jobs plan.

Results Are Important, but So Is Blame

In the absence of a healthy economy, politicians are trying to gain political points by blaming the other party for the nation's troubles. Republicans blame the president for having failed to fix the economy. And some Democrats, like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, have accused Republicans of rooting against economic growth in the hopes of political gain.

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