Overshadowing Caraun

TigerBlog didn't see Caraun Reid's touchdown on Monday Night Football as it happened.

Actually, he didn't watch any of the game played Monday between Reid's Detroit Lions and the Seattle Seahawks. It wasn't until he woke up yesterday that he was greeted with a text message from his colleague Craig Sachson that said that Reid had scored.

Craig's text came at 11:10. At 11:28, he had posted a story on goprincetontigers.com, complete with a like to the video. That's a pretty good effort.

TigerBlog met Reid a few times but doesn't know him well. What he does know that is that he's easy to root for and that he's an incredibly impressive young man.

Reid came into the Office of Athletic Communications one day, and TigerBlog's first reaction was "that's the same kid who is such a force when he plays football?" Hey, look at the picture Craig used with the story about the touchdown. Reid looks a bit vicious,  no?

Reid is soft-spoken, and his glasses and demeanor make him look more like a teacher - or a minister, which is the family business.

When TigerBlog read Sachson's text about Reid, it made him wonder who the last Princeton player to score a touchdown in the NFL was. He would have guessed Keith Elias and wouldn't have been surprised if it had been Zak Keasey.

As it turned out, it was neither of them. It was Bob Holly, who scored for the Washington Redskins 30 years ago yesterday.

It's a shame that Reid's TD didn't get him more attention, the way it would have had Detroit actually won the game, the way it probably should have.

So yes, there appeared to be a different story from the game other than Reid's touchdown, though, at least for non-Princeton fans.

You might have heard that Detroit sort of got robbed by the back judge. Calvin Johnson had the ball stripped by Seattle's Kam Chancellor just before the goal line as he headed in for what probably would have been the winning points. K.J. Wright then slapped the ball out of the back of the end zone.

Only you're not allowed to intentionally bat the ball out of the end zone. It should have been half the distance to the goal, which would have made it 1st-and-goal inside the one with 1:45 left in the fourth quarter. Instead it was called a touchback.

Seattle was given the ball on the 20 and was able to run out the clock on a 13-10 win. On the other hand, the only two players in the game to score touchdowns were Reid and Seattle's Doug Baldwin, who caught his 17th career TD pass.

As the world of fantasy sports continues to spiral out of control, there were probably long odds against Reid and Baldwin as your touchdown scorers from that game.

And don't get TigerBlog started on the world of fantasy sports, something TB has never once played, nor ever will. Just go with "it's gambling" and leave it at that.

There are two things that are infuriating to TigerBlog about the Lions-Seahawks game. The first is that Reid's touchdown got overshadowed.

He'll just have to score another one this week, against the Cardinals.

The other torturous thing is the whole replay situation.

TigerBlog hates the use of replay in games, but if it's going to be used, can it be used to correct something like what happened at the end of the game? Isn't that the whole point, to correct egregious errors? 

Yes, it's a judgement call. So what? Isn't the placement of the football a judgement call? Isn't a judgement of whether or not a player got two feet inbounds or had possession of the ball? Those get reviewed all the time.

NFL replay is a disaster. It takes forever as refs analyze microscopic differences from camera angles that can actually distort what was reality. And destroy the flow of the game as they do it, though not nearly as bad as in basketball, which is 100 times worse.

And yet something as clear as day here at the end of the Monday night game can't be reviewed?

NFL teams play 16 games. Each one is hugely important.

Detroit almost surely would have won the game had the right call been made. It had no chance when the wrong call was made.

Why can't a judgement call be reviewed? Afraid to hurt the back judge's feelings that his judgement was proven to be awful on that play? TigerBlog can't imagine there's anyone who would rather have gotten that correct than the ref who blew it.

Anyway, it's not to be. And Detroit lost.

At least Caraun Reid scored.

That was a good Princeton moment. By one of Princeton's best young alums.