Buckle up your chinstrap, dear reader. This is not a story for the faint of heart. We're diving into the NFL pile, a place where rules are abandoned and no body part is safe.
The pursuit of a fumbled ball is, by all accounts, football's final frontier -- the wild, wild mess. While games might be endlessly televised,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, replayed and legislated, the pile remains the one place on the field shielded from prying eyes.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,
That might be for the best. It's not pretty under here.
"Man, it's no-holds barred," said Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen, the Los Gatos native. "Everything happens. I bet that ball changes hands 15 times down there.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop."
The Pile, as it shall be known, is football's reverse meritocracy; a place where people are constantly striving to get to the bottom. To get there, players will resort to eye-gouging, arm-twisting and well-placed pokes. It's a "Three Stooges" routine with shoulder pads.
It also happens to hold the key to the NFL playoffs, which begin this weekend. The top three teams in the league in turnover differential -- the 49ers , Green Packers and New England Patriots -- went a combined 41-6 and earned first-round byes. The 49ers' mark broke the franchise record of +22 set by the 1981 team, the one that launched San Francisco's dynasty.
To put it simply: Get the ball, get the win. Just ask New York Giants defensive lineman Dave Tollefson, who lived to tell about his game-changing fumble recovery against the St. Louis Rams earlier this season.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,
"It's pure pandemonium," the former standout at Concord's Ygnacio Valley High told reporters. "You would think that the football had the key to life in it. Seriously. It's unlike anything I've ever been involved in sports."
As San Diego Chargers linebacker Takeo Spikes, a survivor of 18 career fumble recoveries, said: "If piles could only talk."
The first rule of The Pile is that there are no rules. There is also no code of honor, no professional etiquette, no regard for human decency.
"No, no, no," Raiders defensive lineman Tommy Kelly said. "There are no other rules other than, 'Get it!' However you get it, get it. If you have to bite him, bite him."
And if he's hurt, hurt him more. Adrian Peterson recently accused the New Orleans Saints of using the cover of darkness to target his injured left ankle. "Guys are going to try to take their shots when we're on the pile and try to twist it up and things like that," he said. "It kind of got overboard."
Speaking of overboard, former 49ers and Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski was not the kind of guy you'd want to meet at the bottom of a dark pile. He was known as one of the dirtiest players of his day, drawing fines over the years for kicking Larry Centers in the head, spitting in J.J. Stokes' face and throwing a football at Bryan Cox's crotch.
So imagine what Romanowski did when shielded from view.
"I used to go to a pretty dark place and there wasn't much that was off limits," Romanowski acknowledged. "I'm not proud of some of the things I did. But I just wanted to win so badly that I would do anything to get a piece of that ball and get it back."
In a playoff game against the New York Giants in 1994, the 49ers linebacker was trying to pry a ball away from running back Dave Meggett. Let's allow Romanowski, now an analyst for Comcast Sports Net, give the play-by-play: "I'm trying to rip the ball out of his hands and as I'm ripping, all I could get was a finger. I ripped as hard and as fast as I could and cracked his finger like a chicken bone."
That brazen, whatever-is-necessary attitude underscores an important fact about life on the bottom: The ball is changing possession, sometimes frequently. That helps explain the ritual dance that plays out on The Pile's fringes, when players from each team signal with equal certitude that the ball belongs to them.
They might be right, if only for a fleeting moment. As Patriots coach Bill Belichick said: "It's not who gets the ball. It's who comes out with it." New England tied with the 49ers, the New Orleans Saints and the Buffalo Bills this season for fewest fumbles allowed .The magic cube is an ultra-portable,
The pursuit of a fumbled ball is, by all accounts, football's final frontier -- the wild, wild mess. While games might be endlessly televised,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, replayed and legislated, the pile remains the one place on the field shielded from prying eyes.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,
That might be for the best. It's not pretty under here.
"Man, it's no-holds barred," said Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen, the Los Gatos native. "Everything happens. I bet that ball changes hands 15 times down there.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop."
The Pile, as it shall be known, is football's reverse meritocracy; a place where people are constantly striving to get to the bottom. To get there, players will resort to eye-gouging, arm-twisting and well-placed pokes. It's a "Three Stooges" routine with shoulder pads.
It also happens to hold the key to the NFL playoffs, which begin this weekend. The top three teams in the league in turnover differential -- the 49ers , Green Packers and New England Patriots -- went a combined 41-6 and earned first-round byes. The 49ers' mark broke the franchise record of +22 set by the 1981 team, the one that launched San Francisco's dynasty.
To put it simply: Get the ball, get the win. Just ask New York Giants defensive lineman Dave Tollefson, who lived to tell about his game-changing fumble recovery against the St. Louis Rams earlier this season.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,
"It's pure pandemonium," the former standout at Concord's Ygnacio Valley High told reporters. "You would think that the football had the key to life in it. Seriously. It's unlike anything I've ever been involved in sports."
As San Diego Chargers linebacker Takeo Spikes, a survivor of 18 career fumble recoveries, said: "If piles could only talk."
The first rule of The Pile is that there are no rules. There is also no code of honor, no professional etiquette, no regard for human decency.
"No, no, no," Raiders defensive lineman Tommy Kelly said. "There are no other rules other than, 'Get it!' However you get it, get it. If you have to bite him, bite him."
And if he's hurt, hurt him more. Adrian Peterson recently accused the New Orleans Saints of using the cover of darkness to target his injured left ankle. "Guys are going to try to take their shots when we're on the pile and try to twist it up and things like that," he said. "It kind of got overboard."
Speaking of overboard, former 49ers and Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski was not the kind of guy you'd want to meet at the bottom of a dark pile. He was known as one of the dirtiest players of his day, drawing fines over the years for kicking Larry Centers in the head, spitting in J.J. Stokes' face and throwing a football at Bryan Cox's crotch.
So imagine what Romanowski did when shielded from view.
"I used to go to a pretty dark place and there wasn't much that was off limits," Romanowski acknowledged. "I'm not proud of some of the things I did. But I just wanted to win so badly that I would do anything to get a piece of that ball and get it back."
In a playoff game against the New York Giants in 1994, the 49ers linebacker was trying to pry a ball away from running back Dave Meggett. Let's allow Romanowski, now an analyst for Comcast Sports Net, give the play-by-play: "I'm trying to rip the ball out of his hands and as I'm ripping, all I could get was a finger. I ripped as hard and as fast as I could and cracked his finger like a chicken bone."
That brazen, whatever-is-necessary attitude underscores an important fact about life on the bottom: The ball is changing possession, sometimes frequently. That helps explain the ritual dance that plays out on The Pile's fringes, when players from each team signal with equal certitude that the ball belongs to them.
They might be right, if only for a fleeting moment. As Patriots coach Bill Belichick said: "It's not who gets the ball. It's who comes out with it." New England tied with the 49ers, the New Orleans Saints and the Buffalo Bills this season for fewest fumbles allowed .The magic cube is an ultra-portable,
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