There's a very real chance that -- one million years from now -- former Redskins kicker Shaun Suisham will be a famous historical figure-----like, one of the guys you learn about in your fifth grade American History class (e.g., Eli Whitney). This is because he missed an easy field goal towards the end of regulation that would have dealt the New Orleans Saints their first loss of the season.
If Suisham nails the field goal, the Saints simply become another good team, which also means they won't be a subject in futuristic textbooks, either.
And I know you think you know where I'm going with this. You think I'm going to flip the switch on you and explain why Shaun Suisham -- assuming the Saints win the Super Bowl and finish the season undefeated -- will benefit a great deal from his embarrassing mishap. You think I'm going to tell you why he will enjoy a lifetime of riches as a motivational speaker. And you think I'm going to tell you why -- again, assuming the Saints run through the postseason with an unblemished record -- it will be awesome to be Shaun Suisham, because, for the rest of his life, he will be incomprehensibly desirable to female Saints fans.
But then you'd be wrong.
Because I hate Shaun Suisham, and I kind of hope he gets polio.
Just a few weeks back, while I was absorbing the beating of a lifetime in Vegas, that idiot had the nerve to miss a kick that would have earned me eight-hundred dollars. Again: EIGHT-HUNDRED GODDAMN DOLLARS! CAPS LOCK! ANGER!
Without explaining long-shot parlays to those of you who look down at the ancient art of sports gambling, let me just fast forward to the juicy details of my disastrous weekend in the desert: I made a $20 wager that would pay me 40/1 if I picked the correct side of four separate NFL games. Three of those games had a point spread, and I banged home everyone of them. The fourth -- the game that was mostly responsible for jacking the odds up to 40/1 -- was the Redskins money line over the Cowboys. This means that, although the Redskins were double-digit underdogs, I wasn't taking the points; I was betting the Redskins to win outright.
Which they almost did.
Which they would have done had Shaun Suisham not missed his first two kicks of the season, including one late in the fourth quarter that would have given the Redskins an essentially insurmountable 9-0 lead.
Upon missing the kick that would have given the Redskins a relatively comfortable advantage, Tony Romo led the Cowboys down the field, and -- with a little more than two minutes remaining -- connected with receiver Patrick Crayton for the game's only touchdown.
Final score: Cowboys 7, Redskins 6.
Shaun Suisham will never be forgiven. Not in my house, he won't
Suisham only missed three field goals all year-----and one of those misses might go down as the second or third most famous miss in NFL history. And maybe I'm alone on this, but I happen to think, despite the historical implications of that one miss -- the one that kept the Saints' miracle season alive -- Shaun Suisham was responsible for two greater blunders in the winter of 2009 alone.
American History was an overrated subject, anyway.
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For the nonbelievers...
Pass the dynamite!
-Brad Spieser (Brad@TwinKilling.com)
12/9/09
