Mangenius just iced the kicker in a preseason game

Because, until tonight, I had never seen football in HD from the comfort of my own La-Z-Boy.

 

[shaking head]

 

$10 bucks, going with some old friends, going to be very, very drunk. Those are my only excuses.

 

The drunk part is reason enough for me.

 

Holy great point, Batman.

 

Not to pick on TV folks, but the "ice the kicker" thing always struck me as something that was probably true once or twice, but then it became an easy thing for announcers to assume, and everyone started assuming it and saying it, and then it just became a reflex. Timeout before a kick? Icing the kicker.

And I think we've all -- fans, print media and announcers who can't or don't have an original thought -- bought it without questioning it. As Batman said, it's a good enterprise piece waiting to be explored and written.

 

Hey don't pick on me! ;D

It would make a great story, and now that it's been posted here, I'm sure it will be.

 

You know I'm not picking on you, Lugz. I edited my post, though, to clarify I'm talking about announcers. I'm still a bit groggy this morning.

Hire yew??

 

Guuud - hire yew!?

 

Fiiiiiine, thanks.

 

I wonder how many times "icing the kicker" actually works.

I'm sure the good people at Elias could figure out the field goal conversion rate after timeouts in the final minute of a game over the last 15 years.

 

"And they're going to make (insert kicker's name here) think about it."

Which, as someone said, is not always a bad thing. I've seen kickers come in quickly, line up, kick and miss. I've seen them miss after timeouts.

A miss or a make might have nothing to do with it, even if Elias turns up stats that might make us think otherwise. Sometimes stats don't tell us what we think they tell us. I know a writer or two who are way too quick to say something like "Tech is 0-and-3 when a team brings in a left-handed reliever to close out the ninth." Well, Tech is also 0-and-20 when it enters the ninth trailing on the scoreboard.