Snark break... introducing the Poz Button

As you were renewing your subscription to The Daily Growl ...

The next step in the interactive sports-viewing experience will be the Poz Button.

Suppose you're watching a game and a team clearly outsmarts itself in a critical situation and gets smacked around by the sports deities -- as was the case with the Buffalo Bills yesterday. You'd hit the Poz Button and if enough people are like-minded, then something adverse will happen to the coach or manager, like a mild electric shock or having a bucket of green slime dumped on him, like in the old kids' show You Can't Do That On Television.

It wouldn't be for garden-variety physical errors. A pitcher hanging a curveball or a quarterback overthrowing a receiver is everyday. It would be reserved especially for when a team clearly avoided making a logical choice (and in this case, the Bills' coach for not much longer, Dick Jauron, overruled his offensive co-ordinator on the play call).

This idea first took root back in the spring. Joe Posnanski wrote a post about then-Jays manager John Gibbons intentionally walking one of the worst hitters in baseball, in order to set up a lefty-lefty matchup and a double play. (The next two hitters promptly got run-scoring hits to put the game out of the Jays' reach -- although granted, they were losing by one run in the eighth inning, so it probably was already.)

For anyone who needs a rehash since the other early NFL games available to most of Canada (Seahawks-Rams, 49ers-Dolphins and Lions-Colts) enthralling than the Bills-Jets games, Buffalo had the ball and a three-point lead just ahead of the two-minute morning.

Most teams call a running play there, make the other team use up its timeouts. Marshawn Lynch had been having his way with the Jets much of the afternoon, yet the Bills elect to trust J.P. Losman, the the shakiest gun in the AFC East, on a college-style rollout pass. He gets blindsided by a blitzing safety, Abram Elam, the ball bounces into the hands of the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets' Shaun Ellis who returns it for a touchdown. There is Brett Favre is on screen thrusting his hands heavenward like he actually had something to do with the game-winning play.



Dick Jauron deserved to get the green slime for that one. Please, make the Poz button happen. It would also come in handy when:

• ... An opponent of the Raptors hits a three-pointer off the inbounds play following a timeout (the Sam Mitchell Memorial Special).
• ... A NHL team gives up a short-handed goal after using one of its forwards as a point man on the power play.
• ... A baseball team doesn't score a run after laying down a sacrifice bunt. Actually, this should be any time a team sac-bunts except when it's tied in the ninth inning or later.
• A starting pitcher loses the lead after his manager lets him throw more than 110 pitches (another Gibbons specialty).
  
• A football coach goes for a two-point conversion before the fourth quarter.

On to the fairly obvious, not overly funny jokes

The Arena Football League is all but dead, but it says it's not. How is Ottawa not trying to get into this league?

Former President Bush (start saying it now), after that shoe-throwing incident, said, "The war is not over, it is decisively on it's way to being won." Please note that he didn't say which country.

Best text message to send to a friend who cheers for one of the Minnesota Vikings' rivals: "The Bears could use a receiver like Bernard Berrian."

If Diogenes was around today, he'd wander the earth trying to find a Boston-area sportswriter who isn't going to vote for Jim Rice for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima ran in the Honululu Marathon on the weekend. He finished in six hours 10 minutes, about the same length of time of the average game started by Steve Trachsel.

Headline from the Serious Sports News Network: "Former college journalism major furious with fantasy football leaguemates due to lack of appreciation of weekly newsletter."

Last but not least, please pass the hat around for New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon. He might not be able to afford that ivory back-scratcher.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Please spare a thought for Whitby Dunlops defenceman Don Sanderson (a former Trenton Sting player), who struck his head on the ice during a fight in a senior hockey game Friday in Brantford and is in critical condition in Hamilton hospital.
• Women's Professional Soccer scored a big sponsorship deal, which should buoy some spirits.