NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, in a stunning announcement late Saturday night, said the league will follow the example of the NBA and replay a portion o####ame.
Citing the precedent set by NBA Commissioner David Stern yesterday when he upheld a protest filed in December by the Miami Heat after Shaquille O'Neal was incorrectly ejected from a game after five fouls rather than the required six, Goodell announced the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers will replay the final 56 minutes of Saturday's 42-20 win by the Packers at snowy Lambeau Field.
When asked what call or non-call, specifically, was the reason for his controversial decision, Goodell replied, "Oh, there were no egregiously bad calls by our officials that we are trying to make up for, it's just that Seattle obviously only came to play for four minutes and then took the rest of the game off.
"We here at NFL Headquarters take very seriously the teams' obligation to provide a competitive game for the fans, therefore I've made the difficult decision to replay the game from the time Seattle scored to take a 14-0 lead and followed that up by disappearing from Lambeau Field and perhaps the state of Wisconsin entirely."
It was pointed out to the commissioner that no one in Green Bay seemed particularly bothered by the fact that the Seahawks took most of the game off; in fact they seemed quite pleased with the outcome. He responded, "We think it's pretty obvious that the Packers somehow caused that snow to start falling heavily after they fell behind. It didn't seem to bother their guys one bit, and the Seahawks started acting like they had never seen snow before.
"Since the actions in Green Bay constituted a clear attempt to maintain an unfair competitive advantage, I was left with no choice but to come to this decision. It's one thing to pipe crowd noise into your stadium to confound the opposition, but when you start controlling the elements like Mike McCarthy and Brett Favre did, that's just going too far."
The commissioner was then asked what proof he had that the Packers causedthe storm. "Proof? Didn't you see Favre running around out there like a little kid? Throwing snowballs and stuff? Try and tell me he didn't know it was going to snow. Meanwhile, Seattle's players were slipping and sliding like your grandmother trying to shovel her driveway. The whole situation just stinks to high heaven. We must have a replay."
No word yet on whether Goodell will be calling for a replay in New England also, where he is rumored to be looking into allegations the Patriots somehow stuffed Fred Taylor into a Laurence Maroney suit and turned him loose on the Jaguars. Stay tuned for further updates.
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