Day Fourteen

Dear Readers,
      I love football.  The fact that it is playoff football makes it so much better.  I know I am going to probably bore half of my audience tonight, but I don't care.  I have grown up and still am a die hard 49er fan and it has been a miserable nine years.  Until today.  This season has been so much fun to be a 49er's fan.  Especially for someone like me who just loves defense.  I am still a firm believer that defense wins championships.  Today's game was a testament to that.  Not to mention the NCAA National Championship game, which was an awesome show of defense by Alabama.  You just don't see defense like this in the NFL anymore.  Everything is just so focused on the offense.  I get it though, offense and scoring sells tickets and gets people to watch games.  Personally, I would rather watch are hard fought defensive struggle with hard nosed plays and harder hits.  There were some grand hits in today's game.  Donte Whitner was a beast, forcing one fumble with a massive hit and almost stripping another one later in the game.  I swear I saw snot bubbles coming from Pierre Thomas' nose after getting his world rocked.  Justin Smith is just a force of nature as well.  That was amazing the way he just bulled rushed the left tackle, pushing him back into Drew Brees and then reaching over the left tackle to grab Brees and keep him from making his throw.  I haven't seen a defensive geared up and playing like this since the Ravens won the Super Bowl back in 2001.  Maybe we did get a little taste of an awesome defense when the Bucs beat the Raiders in 2003 when the picked off Rich Gannon a record five times.  Or it could just have been that Gannon was that bad.  Again, i love defense.  I am pretty sure I heard Patrick Willis quote the famous Alvin Mack in the huddle saying "Kill em all, let the paramedics sort em out".
      Watching that football game today was such an awesome time.  There was highs and lows.  I am pretty sure I lost a couple years of my life from the stress.  A game like that will make you feel like you have gone to heaven with elation and then tear you back to reality when they blow the late lead.  Then they take you right back up and leave you there, for at least a week.  That is what I love about sports.  It's a hard fought for victory that is a testament to hours upon hours of training and self discipline.  Every little thing can mean something.  They say that football is a game of inches and when Kevin Dyson was tackled one yard short of the goal line in the Super Bowl in 2000.  Inches is the difference between a championship and going home empty handed.  Between a game winning home run and game saving catch at the wall.  Between a three point shot that could have tied the game and stepping on the line, making the shot, only to be one point short still.  Ever seen a "photo finish"?  Inches is all that is between first place and first loser.  When you break it down, inches is what separates all winners and losers.  If he had just made that tackle, if he had just made that free throw, if he had just made that catch.  Those are all phrases, and others like them, we have either said or heard someone say after just about every game across all sports.  All I know, is that the 49ers haven't made me this happy in a very long time and I am going to relish this moment.  I am just praying that my Dodgers will follow suit and give me something to cheer about too. (Good riddance Frank McCourt) 
                                             Who's got it better than us? Nobody!!!!

Thanks again Brandon for my new lucky 49ers shirt

Aquaman grew a beard and then cut off his hand and replaced it with a spear for supreme coolness

Here come the snot bubbles. (And a fumble)