Come On Man!

What was lost in tonight's preseason game between the Jets and Texans was how annoying John Gruden was in the broadcast booth. While I usually enjoy his commentary, tonight was not one of his better nights. There were two things he commented on that really angered me. One was his view on the new replay rules and the other was his hype regarding Texans fourth string halfback Chris Ogbonnaya.
When Texans rookie receiver Lester Jean hauled in a pass and then was tackled into the endzone. The ruling on the field was a TD. The play was reviewed, not by a coach's challenge, but by way of the new rules that state every scoring play will be looked at and controversial ones will be reviewed further. On replay, it was clear that Jean had been down a half-yard short of the goal line and that it should be 1st and Goal for the Texans at that spot. However, during the review, Gruden voiced his opinion that the referee #78 had the best look at it and we should go with his call. He also went on to say that he didn't like the new rule saying that it slows down the game. I'm paraphrasing him but he basically said that we should just let the call be wrong and make the game go faster because that's what the referee is paid for. Referee's can get it wrong, and if he was on the sideline's in a meaningful game, he would want the call to be right. I just can't see how you can argue the replay when it so blatently shows the call on the field was wrong.
Now regarding Ogbonnaya. The Texans starting halfback for the game tonight was Derrick Ward but he left early in the first quarter with an injury. That allowed Chris Ogbonnaya out of Texas to get the bulk of the carries the rest of the way through. He had a nice game with 2 TD's (one receiving) but truth is, he had 67 yards receiving and only 37 rushing...on 17 carries. That's 2.2 yards a carry. How exactly is that impressive? And to even further this curious love affair with Ogbonnaya, he did most of his work against the Jets' reserve and third-string defense! I'm not taking anything away from the kid, but it is extremely unnecessary to be gushing over his play when it wasn't against any starting players...or even many players who will be on the team come September. Like I said, I usually enjoy Gruden's commentary but tonight I wish he would have been more reasonable and less annoying.