Official Wild Card Playoff Round - Texans vs. Bills Game Thread, 1/4/2020

[barrett]

Originally Posted by chuck

Go Titans.

I'm perfectly fine with their going for it on 4th down. That was the right call. Not the right play call, but the right call.

I agree. Going for it was right. But I’m putting Watson on the move somehow.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by chuck

I'm perfectly fine with their going for it on 4th down. That was the right call. Not the right play call, but the right call.

I disagree, but I can see how a 4th down conversion wins the game being better than a field goal only guaranteeing you a 6-point lead.

Just given what we had seen of Josh Allen, he did not inspire much confidence to lead the Bills offense on a TD drive to win.

[Arky]

Originally Posted by Keith

34-yard reception to a man in a #34 jersey in Houston.

Eheh, I questioned the Texans for keeping him coming out of camp. They kept him for that one play....

[Arky]

The good news is, they won. The bad news is they won a trip to Baltimore.

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Watson ends up 20/25, 247 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT. Hopkins ends up 6/90.

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I'm guessing the spread is going to be about 12 or so vs. Ravens....

[HPF Bob]

Originally Posted by Keith

I disagree, but I can see how a 4th down conversion wins the game being better than a field goal only guaranteeing you a 6-point lead.

Just given what we had seen of Josh Allen, he did not inspire much confidence to lead the Bills offense on a TD drive to win.

Plus, the Bills were psychologically crushed after they screwed the pooch the previous time down the field. Kicking a FG further dispirits them and puts the boot to their throats. Stopping Watson on 4th down re-invigorated them because now they only needed to advance the ball 50 yards for a game-tying FG.

This was a game we shouldn't have won then shouldn't have lost only to have it go to overtime where they won. Anyway, the L-W-W sequence continues and it will be severely put to the test next weekend on the road.

[barrett]

I was having a hard time rooting for the Titans even if it helped the Texans, but then I saw Vrabel shaved his mustache and it became 100% easier to root for him. He now looks like a human being instead of the grown up version of the bad guy in an 80s teen comedy.

[chuck]

Originally Posted by barrett

I was having a hard time rooting for the Titans even if it helped the Texans, but then I saw Vrabel shaved his mustache and it became 100% easier to root for him. He now looks like a human being instead of the grown up version of the bad guy in an 80s teen comedy.

He had it shaven last week. I don’t remember who they were playing. Maybe I noticed it on SportsCenter.

[Arky]

Well, there's a fine turn of events. Texans heading to KC next weekend and the Titans going to Baltimore.....

Titans pull it off and defeat the Pats 20-13...

[HPF Bob]

Going to Kansas City!
Kansas City, here I come!
Going to Kansas City!
Kansas City, here I come!
They got some crazy lovin' women there
And I'm gonna get me one.

Well, I might take a train.
I might take a plane.
But if I'm gonna go,
I'm goin' just the same.

Going to Kansas City.
Kansas City, here I come!
They got some crazy lovin' women there
And I'm gonna get me one.

=====

Thanks, Titans!

BTW, the Houston-KC rematch will be next Sunday 3:05 pm ET on SeeBS.

[chuck]

So I was certain of two things and as it turned out I was correct about one of them. As I look back on my life, that seems about right.

[chuck]

As for the song, 'pretty little' I think is the lyric, rather than 'crazy lovin,' although, again, looking back at my life, there's not always a lot of space between the two.

[HPF Bob]

Originally Posted by chuck

As for the song, 'pretty little' I think is the lyric, rather than 'crazy lovin,' although, again, looking back at my life, there's not always a lot of space between the two.

The lyric websites say "crazy little" or "crazy lil" but you can listen to the original Wilbert Harrison song from 1959 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8tZO97uhyE

[chuck]

Originally Posted by HPF Bob

The lyric websites say "crazy little" or "crazy lil" but you can listen to the original Wilbert Harrison song from 1959 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8tZO97uhyE

I don't know who the fk Wilbert Harrison is. I do know who Fats Domino is, you know, the dude who made the song famous, and you can listen to HIS song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mypHZmXdU3o

This is as good an example as any of the generational divide between Buford and me. He's Team Wilbert, I'm Team Fats.

[Arky]

Swear I almost posted the Fats Domino version of Going to Kansas City but couldn't find a "live" version. Just some Youtube "collage" versions.....

Man, early line shows the Chiefs opened as 7½ pt favorites and it's already jumped to 8 to 9 in some places....

Chiefs are on a roll but that might be a little high....

[nunusguy]

Originally Posted by Arky

Swear I almost posted the Fats Domino version of Going to Kansas City but couldn't find a "live" version. Just some Youtube "collage" versions.....

Man, early line shows the Chiefs opened as 7½ pt favorites and it's already jumped to 8 to 9 in some places....

Chiefs are on a roll but that might be a little high....

Fats may have had a version but Wibur Harrison is the one who made it famous, made it the classic R&B standard that it is.
The song is actually the product of a couple of East coast Jews.
I'm from the KC area, therefor I know something about that #.

[Arky]

Originally Posted by nunusguy

Fats may have had a version but Wibur Harrison is the one who made it famous, made it the classic R&B standard that it is.
The song is actually the product of a couple of East coast Jews.
I'm from the KC area, therefor I know something about that #.

Oh yeah. Leiber and Stoller, famous songwriting duo who also furnished Elvis with "Hound Dog".

The Beatles also had a peppy version of "Kansas City"...

[HPF Bob]

Who knows how some things get stuck in my cranium? According to Wikipedia, the original "Kansas City" that was also released as "KC Loving" had this line:

"They got a crazy way of lovin' there, and I'm gonna get me some"

but Harrison, whose version was the #1 Billboard hit in 1959 for seven weeks, changed it to "They got some crazy little women there and I'm gonna get me one".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas...d_Stoller_song)

Virtually every R&B act with a recording contract released versions of the song during or after the song's mega-hit run while Harrison's version was facing legal challenges.

Another historical side note was that, during the late '50s, white "cover versions" of R&B songs often outsold the original black R&B version. The white versions often cleaned up lyrics considered too sexualized for the larger radio audience. Harrison, a black artist from North Carolina, appeared to have cleaned up the lyrics as a pre-emptive strike against cover versions and it appeared to work because it was his version that became the million-seller, not somebody like Pat Boone.

Anyway, I don't want the thread to have more posts about a 60-year-old song than about a playoff victory.

[chuck]

Originally Posted by HPF Bob

Anyway, I don't want the thread to have more posts about a 60-year-old song than about a playoff victory.

Well, I do.

I used to play in an R&B band led by this lunatic called Doctor Hot Pepper. I met him randomly after having stood outside a bar he and his band was playing in Arlington, Virginia, totally agog at what I was seeing through the window. I went in and watched the last of his set, introduced myself, and he said, sagely, We should get a pizzur an' eat it in the woods and talk about music!

Right on, I said.

Quite some while after that I went to see him again, in that very same spot, and when he spotted me he demanded that I play with him that night. You bess go home an' gecho GUItar, he said.

With Doc, you more or less did what he told you to do, so I dutifully returned to the club with my gear and thus began a fairly long an very fruitful musical relationship, at least for me, and a very significant friendship, surely for both of us. I really learned to love that nutcase, and he and I were close friends for quite some time. He passed many years ago, and I miss him today as much as ever.

He was from Kansas City.

One night he invited me to take him to a Christmas party at a sort of art gallery where he was well known. We get there and begin to mingle. There's a band of four or five fellows on the stage, playing relatively inoffensive, jazzy versions of Christmas standards, just totally minding their own business. There are plenty of people, festive in the holiday spirit. Speaking of spirits, it turns out that this is a dry party, which is a source of some considerable consternation for Doc. I'll never know whether he knew in which desk drawer in the office area to look or whether he looked until he found it, but he turned up a bottle of peach schnapps I think it was. After a few restorative belts, and then after a few more, he was ready to face the public.

Next thing I know he's marched up onto the stage and waved the poor band into silence.

I should say that Doc habitually wore a red silk cape, a boatman's cap, something akin to a prizefighter's belt buckle, rhinestone rings on every finger... He was a noticeable presence.

He huddles with the band while the members of the crowd murmur nervously among themselves. He emerges from the conference with a look of satisfaction and suddenly the band launches into a sort of shuffle - ba dadadaDADA, ba dadadaDADA! Goin'ta Kansas City! Kansas City here I come!

Well. He brought the house down. I mean, I played a hundred gigs with this nutcase. Sometimes he was far too drunk to be out on his own. Sometimes he was too morose to be much good. Sometimes he was right in the zone where he needed to be, and, if by some miracle that night he had a good band behind him, well, who knows how good things could get. He had guys on call who had played with Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, James Brown, you know, guys who knew what they were doing. And me. And if the good guys showed up and Doc was in the right frame of mind, we could turn a place upside down. That, sadly, was not uniformly the case.

I had never really seen him do this to a big crowd, but truly, he brought the house down. Then he scampered off the stage and out a side door that I already knew he'd be headed to, and we hurried off into my Honda Civic.

He sat there for a while decompressing. I sat there thinking, You know, Doc is delusional AF but there is definitely a there there, you know? Eventually he gave the order to depart, and we did.

The other notable thing that happened that night, and I obviously have a million stories like this but I'll spare you, telling you this one only because it happened that same night - we pulled into a light next to the Department of the Treasury. A stretch limo slid up next to us to our right. Doc was still in his world and hadn't noticed. I didn't know what would happen, but I knew I had to find out. I nudged him and sort of indicated with a nod of the head the limousine next to us. He shouted, Thass my lifestyle! and rolled down the window.

He thrust half of himself out the window and started waving wildly. The driver rolls down his window, bemused, and sort of raises his eyebrows in expectation.

I usually travel in wunna them! Doc shouts. The driver looks on dispassionately.

You know why I'm not in wunna them tonite?! Again, Doc is halfway out the window, waving his arms around frantically. At this point the windows of the passengers start to lower so they can find out just what in the hell is going on.

The driver raises his eyebrows a bit in anticipation. Doc answers, Cause I don' wanna be RECONIZED!

The driver looks at Doc for a beat and finally says, Good call!

The light changes and everyone drives off to their individual destinies.

If the Texans win next week maybe I'll buy a pint of peach schnapps in his honor, if I can find one. Maybe I'll drink it in the woods and think about music.

[HPF Bob]

Since 2013, the home team has gone 19-5 in the division round, roughly 1 upset per year. This was used by the dude at CBS Sports to justify picking the Titans over the Ravens. I marvel sometimes how these clowns draw a paycheck.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by chuck

Well, I do.

Long-form chuck is why message boards still exist.