Kickers "Acting" Up... or Down as the case may be. Joe Nedney, kicker for the Tennessee Titans (who will be beaten this week by the Raidas in the AFC championship game) made a comment after the Titans win over the Steelers, that sent the city of Pittsburgh into conniption fits. Here's how it played out.

Time running out in overtime... Field goal unit on the field... just before the play starts the Steelers call timeout to "ice" the kicker. However the center snaps the ball anyway and Nedney kicks it thru the uprights. We'll call that a "practice run". However, during the timeout, some idiot sets off the fireworks setup for "if-we-win-the-game". Talk about the ultimate "ice" job... Pittsburgh couldn't have asked for better... Now the whole city who isn't at or watching the game hears, or sees, the fireworks, and thinks that the Titans have won the game.

Timeout is over... play starts... center snaps the ball... holder sets it down... Nedney totally SHANKS it... misses by a mile. The worst has happened! This is a nightmare... the fireworks have gone off... BUT HE HAS MISSED THE FIELD GOAL! Holy crap... can it get any worse? Apparently so...

In the heat of the play, some over-zealous defensive player who is trying to block the kick (embarrassingly unsuccessfully) runs into Nedney who is in his "follow-thru-oh-sh*t-I-shanked-it" pose. Nedney hits the turf as any self-respecting kicker would do... the referee throws a "roughing-the-kicker" flag. 5 yard penalty... do it all over again... this time Nedney kicks it right down the middle... end of game.

Now comes the controversy. In the press conference after the game Nedney jokingly says something like... "After my football career, I may take up a career in acting." Meaning that, yeah the guy ran into me, but I took a dive. Uproar ensues.

Okay... so I have two, maybe three, points to make:

1) The rule says you can't touch the kicker. period. So technically there is no controversy here. Was the kicker touched? YES. End of story. I don't care if you accidentally snagged a hang-nail on the guy as you were walking to the locker room, and he takes a dive and starts into the, "Say Hello to my lill' friend" monolouge from Scarface... DID YOU TOUCH THE KICKER? YES? END... OF... STORY!

2) Everyone always accuses the kickers of acting anyway... so when one of them jokingly says that, hey yeah, I took a dive... you aren't allowed to then get mad at them! HELLO! We all know they are acting, we all say they are actors, we all totally mock them for being wimps... so... what are you saying? One of them can't acknowledge that he knows that we know?

3) Putting this all into a world-sports-big-picture-scenario... Compared to the "acting" that goes on by "kickers" in the World Cup Soccer tournament... this was SMALL potatoes! Nedney is an amatuer compared to the elite of the greatest sport in the world. I mean seriously... I've seen top-notch athletes hit the turf as if their leg was ripped from their bodies in a most heinous manner causing unspeakable amounts of pain, rendering them useless to the world in any role other than a door matt... only to jump up and score the winning goal on a penalty kick, and proceed to run around the stadium. And we think NOTHING of it. (Well... okay... we think they are the biggest a**holes in the world, and we all know this is the main reason that the US can't take soccer seriously) but even so... we acknowledge that it is part of the game... So what's the difference with the NFL??

In conclusion, my adivce to Pittsburgh, is the same advice that everyone threw in the Raiders face last year... You shouldn't have let yourself get into that situation in the first place. If you were the better team, you would've proved it earlier on in the game. And we all know that WAS A FUMBLE last year. Damnit! IT WAS A FUMBLE!! F-U-M-B-L-E!!