[Sport] Looking back at the NFL season

As the NFL regular season draws to a close and we enter the playoffs, I thought it would be interesting to discuss some of the vagaries of what’s been a rather interesting season.

(Credit: NFL.com)

Lets start with the rookie quarterbacks. Three have led their teams to the playoffs this year, a situation which no one expected at the start of the season. However Andrew Luck (Indianapolis Colts), Robert Griffin III (Washington Redskins), and Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks) have all be very impressive. The Colts turned from the worst team in the NFL into a playoff team thanks in a large part to Luck’s leaderships and fearlessness, but were helped by having something to play for, namely their coach’s battle with leukaemia. The Redskins were a bit of a sleeper in the first half of the season, but after their bye week they haven’t lose a single game. Not one. RG3 has given their attack a new lease of life, and has the best fake handoff I’ve seen in ages. However those two were the top two draft picks of 2012, so were expected to do amazing things, if not as quickly as they have. Wilson is, to me, even more impressive. He was taken much lower in the draft, and took some time to get into his stride, but has been mighty in the last few weeks of the season as he’s matured. The Seahawks are tenacious, and almost impossible to beat at home, and Wilson’s ability and confidence have visibly improved over the season.

Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, and Robert Griffin III have all performed amazingly

well this season. (Credit: voxxi.com)

Then there were the replacement referees. I thought that they did an admirable job given the incredibly high pressure that they were under. Those ladies and gentlemen weren’t professionals, weren’t used to the speed of the professional game, and were having their every move scrutinised. Yes, they made mistakes. But so have the regular referees since their return. I think that the replacements did the best that they could in the circumstances, which is all that anyone could have asked.

Those big stories aside, it’s been a funny old season. Two major players have come back from serious surgery to be MVP contenders. Teams that seemed to always be losing have made it the playoffs, while teams that seemed to dominate week after week somehow fell apart. It’s been hard to get a handle on who’s been good, although the bad has been very, very obvious; oh dear Kansas City Chiefs. And lets not talk about the circus that was the New York Jets. At the other end of the scale the Atlanta Falcons seemed dominant, but lost inexplicably a couple of times. The Houston Texans seemed great, but fell apart at the end of the season and missed out on what seemed a certain first round-bye. The San Francisco 49ers were dangerous, and “the team no one wanted to face”, but managed to draw a game against the St Louis Rams and lost their fearsome edge. Aaron Rodgers seemed to spend more time on the floor than he did running around, yet the Green Bay Packers still won enough to get the playoffs. As I said, weird.

The poor replacement referees didn't really get a fair shot. They were quite far out

of their depth, but tried their best. (Credit: wtam.com)

Ah well. Lets see what the playoffs bring.