Baseball has walk off home runs. Basketball has buzzer beating shots. However, this past Sunday football gave us a buzzer beating, walk off play that we very rarely see. We do get field goals to win the game as time expires, but the Minnesota Vikings beat the New Orleans Saints to advance to the NFC Championship game in a way that surely is not a common occurrence.
When Case Keenum and Stefon Diggs connected for a 61 yard touchdown pass as the clock ran out, I can say that it was arguably the most improbable ending to a game I have ever seen. I'll still say that the Tennessee Titans beating the Buffalo Bills thanks to the "Music City Miracle" is the most unfathomable ending to a game that I have ever seen, but if you wanted to argue that Sunday's game takes over that top spot, you would have a damn good rebuttal to my argument.
As Stefon Diggs was on his way to the end zone and time was expiring, I could not believe what I was seeing. Fans in Minnesota were going wild, and fans in New Orleans were stunned with disbelief. It was a true example of why sports is the best reality television that there is. Diggs breaking down in tears during an interview only minutes after he scored the biggest touchdown of his life was proof of just how great the game of football can be. However, there were two teams out there on the field, and with the elation of the Vikings came absolute heartbreak and devastation for the Saints, and in particular for Marcus Williams.
I didn't truly realize how much devastation that play would cause for Williams until I saw the replay of what had just happened. In real time I was focused so closely on Diggs making the unbelievable catch and run that I didn't really realize what Williams had done, or more frankly, failed to do.
Former athletes lament the way that their sports are currently played all the time. The "get off my lawn" and "back in my day" complaints get old very quickly, but on Sunday, I'm sure there were a whole lot of former defensive backs stunned and ashamed by what Williams did, and they were right to make that assumption.
All the Saints had to do was not get beat on a deep pass. There was likely not enough time for the Vikings to get two plays off, so New Orleans just needed to make one stop. But it didn't happen. And who was to blame for it not happening? It was Marcus Williams. He put his head down and dove for Diggs' legs, completely missed, and that was it. A still shot of Diggs going up to make the catch, and Williams not even looking at him while trying to throw a shoulder and make the tackle will be a picture that lives on forever in the minds of everyone who saw it.
I know that games are not won and lost on one single play. New Orleans played bad in the first half. They were down 17-0 at halftime, so Williams' missed tackle didn't play into that terrible start for the Saints. However, his missed tackle was what ended the game, and when epic games like that end, we tend to try to put the blame on one player when in reality football is the ultimate team sport. The Vikings didn't beat Marcus Williams. They beat the New Orleans Saints. But that isn't what many fans wanted to focus on. They wanted to focus on one person to blame for the loss, and Williams was the person they chose.
I'm sure there were probably plenty of expletives hurled his way by Saints fans all over the country, but what I want to focus on is what was hurled his way on social media. Following the game, Williams disabled his comments sections on Instagram and Twitter because he was getting nothing but hate from Saints fans. All you have to do is Google search the messages people were sending him before he disabled those comments and you can read what was being said to him and about him. What all of those comments did was show how social media can sometimes be a gift or sometimes be a curse.
The gift is all of the positive messages that Stefon Diggs received after the game. The gift is all of the positive messages that Ryan Shazier received after he was injured in front of millions of people on national television. However, the curse of what social media can be was exemplified by the messages that Marcus Williams received. Hiding behind a computer screen and a keyboard can enable people to believe that they have a whole lot of muscle that in reality they do not have.
Out of all the hateful messages that Williams received, I'm sure that at maximum about one percent of those people would have the guts to confront him face to face. It is the exact reason that social media and the intimacy it provides is often times unbelievably bad. While there were some messages of support for his mistake, the overwhelming majority of the messages were extremely negative, and reason for him to disable all comments on his accounts.
Did Williams make a bad play? Yes. In all honesty, it was a terrible play. However, does it warrant death threats by angry fans? No. It absolutely does not. What it was though, is a chilling example of how the age of social media has changed the way that fans look at, and interact with, the people we watch on television and often times aspire to be.
Before Twitter and Instagram, fans could write handwritten letters to these people and only hope to get a response weeks later. Now, we can instantly connect with them, and even if we don't get a response, we know that at least they have the ability to see what we say to them and think of them.
Williams is only a rookie, and his season overall was pretty good for such a young player. However, it is going to be hard for him to overcome such a huge failure in the eyes of the football public. Maybe it will happen, and maybe it won't. As of today though, Williams has quite a mountain to climb in order to gain redemption and erase that missed tackle from the minds of football fans everywhere.
I could not comprehend sending the hateful messages that he received to any athlete ever, but I do know that if I were a Saints fan, I would not be happy with Marcus Williams today. Here is to hoping that he can re-write his legacy in the eyes of Saints fans everywhere, because right now that game-winning touchdown on Sunday will go down in history, and every time it is shown, people will wonder how he could make that mistake on that play in that game.
Daily Giants Update: It isn't official yet, but all signs point to Pat Shurmur becoming the next head coach of the Giants. I am not exactly thrilled with this hire, but I am more than willing to give him a chance to prove he deserves the job. His previous head coaching experience was with the Cleveland Browns, and all you need to do is ask Hue Jackson how unreasonable it is to expect any sort of success coaching that team.
Daily Rangers Update: The Rangers followed up and ugly 7-2 loss to the Islanders with another ugly 5-2 loss to the Penguins. After two home games, the team will head out west for a stretch of six of seven games against Western Conference teams, so here is to hoping that the Rangers can make it to the All-Star break still within shouting distance of a somewhat good seed in the playoffs.
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Arizona was able to reach arbitration deals with multiple important pieces of a team that made the playoffs last season including Jake Lamb and Robbie Ray. Spring training is getting closer and closer, and expectations will surely be higher than they were going into last season. The NL West is going to be very tough this year, and it will be interesting to see how the team responds to loftier expectations in what I believe to be the best division from top to bottom in all of baseball.
Daily NBA Update: The defending champion Warriors beat the Cavaliers last night and the Cavs are in the midseason crisis mode that they seem to go through every year before righting the ship and reaching the Finals once the playoffs roll around. Russell Westbrook is also putting up big numbers again on an Oklahoma City team that has not met expectations up to this point in the season. I like Westbrook, but my opinion of him is changing a bit watching him and his team this year, and I will have to get in to that some time in the near future.
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