1. The Prodigy
We at On Fire would like to salute Jayden Scott.
Have you not heard about him? He is an eight-year-old running back, and he is sick. Nasty. Dirty. Raw. The truth.
He is currently the star of a YouTube video that has a grand total of 429 hits. The quarterback gets the snap and immediately pitches the ball to Scott. Scott gets hit in the backfield and proceeds to run into his would-be tackler like a truck, knocking him to the ground.
Scott then breaks another tackler and runs through the outstretched arms of two others. He manages to turn the corner and start running downfield and gains a solid 15-20 yards.
If things ended there, we at On Fire would be slightly impressed. But things are just beginning.
In the video, Scott disappears behind a referee. We see a defender dive into the space blocked by the ref where Scott presumably is, and subsequently fall to the ground. Scott then appears out from behind the ref and is set upon by four more tacklers.
He is clearly done for. He has leveled two defenders and beat two others. We at On Fire send our congratulations and consider the 15 seconds spent on YouTube to be time well-spent.
But Scott is not done. He breaks the tackle – all four of them! He is pushed back five yards but refuses to go down, and by the time he breaks free, he is able to trot the final 20 yards into the endzone.
The players on the opposing team were wearing uniforms that looked suspiciously like those of the Raiders. Coincidence? We think not.
Jayden Scott, we at On Fire salute you.
2. Not to Say I Told You So…
Believe it or not, the NFL’s replacement referees messed up. The Cowboys were in the midst of massive comeback (well, it was in the fourth quarter, and they were down by 13, and the Seahawks had the ball, but anything could have happened) when Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate blind-sided Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee while he was pursuing scrambling Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (any readers out there who are wondering who this mysterious Russell Wilson person is and why they have never heard of them are in the exact same boat as us at On Fire).
This was a crucial, game-changing play. The Cowboys had the Seahawks at second and twelve on the Seattle twenty-yard line. If they had stopped them there, they could have gotten the ball back with good field position and a change to get within a touchdown.
To be completely honest, the odds of the Cowboys scoring twice in the same quarter are slim, and the odds of them doing this while holding their opponent to zero points are none, but it is a nice thought.
All that is beside the point. The point is that no foul was called, Wilson got a first down and the Seahawks went on the score and won. It is not even completely true that no foul was called – one was called on Dallas on the play!
But even that information is beside the point as well. The replacement referees messed this one up. They failed to call a foul on a hit which not only took away Dallas’ last chance of a comeback, but resulted in a $21,000 fine.
And even that is beside the larger, more important point. Among this team of replacement referees was the female ref who the loyal readers of On Fire will recall reading about several weeks ago.
That, friends and countrymen, is the point. Women should not be referees in the National Football League. Admittedly, this play took place on the other side of the field from where she was calling the game. But that is irrelevant. Her mere presence dragged the whole crew down – that is the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn.
Why would her presence do this? It could be that the other referees were distracted by her sex appeal – it is well known that some men like their women to wear whistles and black-and-white-striped polo shirts.
But the far more likely explanation: by virtue of her womanhood, she upset the delicate balance of what the testosterone-to-estrogen ratio should be on a football field – namely, 100 to 0. She had no business being on that football field. This little debacle should erase any doubts still persisting.
From all of us here at On Fire, we told you so.
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
