Eleven and a half men

This original draft of this post was lost. (I am writing this on 10/30/11.)

I composed it before sunrise in the business center of a Holiday Inn Express in Pinetop, AZ, during a family vacation. After spending more than an hour researching and writing the piece, I hit "Publish Post." I felt good; I had just completed an above-average blog post while the rest of the family slumbered, without interfering with their vacation fun.

My satisfaction turned to horror when I saw that the only thing published was the title of the essay. The text of my lengthy and erudite post had somehow vanished. Normally, Google saves the text of the blog as you write it in a drafts folder, but not this time, perhaps because the hotel's settings on their public computer forbade it.

Family and social obligations required that we be on the road when the Seahawks played the Giants. This was the first time since 2005 that I could not watch a Seahawks game live. It was the first time since 2002 that I did not see the game the same day. It was remarkably easy, however, to remain oblivious to the game's outcome for the rest of the week. I watched the game the following Saturday, after we returned home.

I apologize to my reader(s) for failing to post on the Falcons and Giants games in a timely fashion.

I never wrote a Giants post, but these were the main points of the Falcons post:

1. A sound defensive scheme must account for a future Hall of Famer like Tony Gonzalez. When one of the game's greatest receivers goes in motion, your scheme should not require a linebacker to cover him, and certainly not a rookie linebacker. Even Julian Peterson at the peak of his career could not cover Gonzalez. You need to assign a defensive back to cover an All-Pro tight end.

2. Why did our defense fail to provide backside containment on Atlanta's cutback touchdown run? Was it a failure of scheme, or a failure of execution? (Now I know. It was the latter. Good riddance, Aaron Curry.)

3. The 12th Man is not worthy of the name when any opposing team can run an audible-based no-huddle offense with success in Seahawks Stadium. That was embarrassing.