5. Montreal Alouettes 28, Saskatchewan Roughriders 27; the 97th Grey Cup [CFL]: 55-yard lines, endzone goalposts, legal forward motion, 3 downs and out…and 13 MEN ON THE FIELD!?!
HIGHLIGHT
The anti-Arena Football League (R.I.P.), with its vast expanses of 110-yard fields and 20-yard endzones, 18-game seasons, 3-down possessions, 1-point scores on punts, and 12-man teams, the CFL is vastly under-appreciated in the US. Though the reality that many of its players are simply the cast-offs and never-weres of the NFL is unshruggable, the league is a superb filler as we wait for American football to start in those last heated weeks of the summer.
Of course, when this filler is a back-and-forth brawl of a comeback upset like the 2009 Grey Cup was (the CFL's championship match, equivalent in consequence to the NFL's Super Bowl), one shall hear no complaints about the lack of star power. When heavy favorite Saskatchewan went up by two scores in the first, Montreal, which was a Buffalo Bills-esque 0-4 in their Grey Cup history heading into the game, the Alouettes' (French, meaning lark) was forced to again turn to all-continent QB and three-time league Most Outstanding player Anthony Calvillo for an answer.
Calvillo, fourth on the all-time list for professional league passing yards and who once tossed over 6,000 yards in a season, rose to the call of duty, passing and rushing his Alouettes back to within 2 immediately after a TD pass. When Montreal missed a FG as time expired, the season seemed over, but...
...well, see the highlight.
4. Indianapolis Colts 35, New England Patriots 34; regular season [NFL]: Even the best decisions cannot account for Peyton Manning
HIGHLIGHT
Mozart composed his Requiem, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, and Peyton Manning plays American football; genius assumes many forms.
Down by a three-possession 17 points in the fourth quarter, Manning, in vintage fashion that is truly only his, led his Colts to within 6 points in the closing moments of this Week 10 Sunday night thriller. What followed on 4th & 2, with New England in possession inside both their own 30 and the 2-minute warning, provided for the most audacious and downright correct coaching decision of the NFL regular season.
Coach Bill Belichick's choice to try the fourth-down conversion, while ultimately fruitless, provoked and fueled debate on coaching conventions, led to his further exultation by the football blogosphere stat geeks, and, while possibly the product of arrogant self-absorption, further wrote his legend. Of course, we remember the denouement as such that Manning hit Reggie Wayne on the double-move slant with :16 on the clock...
