Hours after news broke that NBCUniversal will re-reboot “Battlestar Galactica,” an idea colder than a Cylon’s heart, we learn that ’60s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” is getting the sequel treatment from series co-creator Al Ruddy.
The original premise was fun, in a lighthearted ’60s way. Despite valid concerns of “Too soon!” and genuine Nazi atrocities committed mostly against Soviet prisoners, the show worked well enough to run for 168 primetime episodes — and win a bunch of awards in the process. I grew up watching the reruns almost endlessly. Colonel Robert Hogan (Bob Crane) and his heroes were, quickly described, a white guy (Hogan), a black guy (Ivan Dixon as Kinchloe), a nerdy guy (Larry Hovis as Carter), a British guy (Richard Dawson as Newkirk), and a French guy (Robert Clary as LeBeau). Together they derailed German munitions trains, snuck spies or vital information to safety, and generally aided the Allied cause from one of the least likely places imaginable.
The two main German characters, camp commander Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer, a German-born* Jewish actor!) and oafish guard Sergeant Schultz (John Banner), were played for laughs. They were presented as not-terribly-competent German soldiers trying to do their duty as best they could, but mostly trying not to get on the wrong side of any actual Nazis. The only regular Nazi character, Howard Caine’s Major Hochstetter, appeared in maybe a third of the shows, and was outsmarted by Hogan and his crew at every turn.
The ’60s being the ’60s, there was of course Klink’s improbably attractive secretary, Hilda (or was it Gretchen?), played by Sigrid Valdis.
Helga was the other. Bob Crane, who played Hogan, and Sigrid Valdis, who married Hilda, married during the series’ last season.
Like Mel Brooks’s “Get Smart,” which aired during the same years, “Hogan’s Heroes” was really a spy spoof — a genre which flourished in the years after Sean Connery made James Bond into a box office star.
So what about the new show? Well, we don’t know much yet. We do know not to call it a reboot, because it isn’t. In the new show the descendants of the original heroes are scattered all over the world in the present day, but somehow wind up together on a global treasure hunt.
Is this supposed to be “Hogan’s Heroes” or …?
Hell, you’re probably going to be disappointed no matter what. Because as near as I can tell, the new show is the flimsiest excuse for a sequel since “Return to the Blue Lagoon.” Other than featuring an international cast of various accents and colors (plus various sexualities, sexes, and at least three different genders, I’d wager), the new “Hogan’s” has about as much to do with the old “Hogan’s” as Long Island Iced Tea has in common with iced tea.
The new show isn’t a cynical attempt at rebooting a classic. It isn’t even a cynical attempt at making a sequel. The new “Hogan’s Heroes” seems more like a cynical attempt at stretching a beloved brand thin enough to cover something almost entirely unrelated. Boomers are probably getting too old now to care about this stuff, so I think what’s going on here is an attempt to tug at Gen X nostalgia for the reruns we watched as kids. Sheesh, we couldn’t even get a “Family Ties II: Family Tighter.”
But that’s what passes in Hollywood today for originality, so maybe I’ll give it a look when it comes out. Especially if Hilda’s great-granddaughter turns out to be even half as attractive as she was.
So much for those who thought a sitcom set in a German POW camp couldn’t possibly be redone … assuming it is redone.
I don’t remember watching when the series was originally on CBS. I did, however, watch it every chance I got when it was in reruns. “Hogan’s Heroes” was inspired by a black comedy movie, “Stalag 17,” also set in a German POW camp, but, as Green notes, with a few 007 touches.
The most notable thing about the series is its casting. Corporal LeBeau and every major Nazi role were played by Jewish actors. Robert Clary survived a concentration camp. The family of Werner Klemperer, who played Col. Klink, came to the U.S. in 1935. John Banner, who played Sgt. Schultz, was from what now is Ukraine; he was acting in Switzerland when Germany annexed Austria, and decided that would be a good time to head to the U.S. Leon Askin, who played Gen. Burkhalter, was from Austria. (Banner and Askin were both sergeants in the Army during World War II.) Howard Caine, who played Gestapo Major Hochstetter, was an American.
Klemperer said he would only take the role if the Nazis were portrayed as bumbling idiots. That was what the producers had in mind, except for the evil German characters, who usually ended up dead.
My two favorite episodes were when Sgt. Carter did a more-than-passable imitation of Adolf Hitler …
The number one British single today in 1969 wasn’t from Britain:
The number one U.S. single today in 1969 came from a cartoon:
The number one British album today in 1969 was from the supergroup Blind Faith, which, given its membership (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker of Cream and Steve Winwood), was less than the sum of its parts:
A review of the open government practices of Governor Tony Evers, Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, and various state agencies by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found a disturbing departure from best practices as defined in two executive orders issued by former Governor Scott Walker. Without an immediate course reversal, Governor Evers threatens to turn Wisconsin’s proud legacy of transparency in state government into a bureaucratic black box.
The study, authored by WILL’s Libby Sobic and CJ Szafir, can be found here.
The Background: In 2016 and 2017, Governor Scott Walker issued executive orders that directed his administration to implement best practices to bring new transparency and responsiveness to state government. The EO’s directed executive offices and state agencies to respond to records requests in ten business days, keep and maintain an organized tracking system, and develop a dashboard website for the public to monitor how the administration is complying with records requests and best practices.
WILL Research: WILL’s goal was to see whether, and to what extent, the Evers administration is following the best practices outlined by Governor Walker. To test this, WILL submitted identical open records requests to 11 offices and state agencies for tracking documents and records practices. By the end of August, WILL received responses on 9 of the 11 requests and reviewed over 4,000 records. Some of the results:
Office of Governor Evers: The system to track records requests in Governor Evers’ office is disorganized and dysfunctional.
There are scores of missing data making it impossible to know whether the Governor’s office is complying with open government best practices.
1 out of 3 of all open records requests are either unfulfilled or not recorded properly.
Office of Lieutenant Governor Barnes: The Lt. Governor’s office is not doing much better and their response time to records requests far exceeds the 10 day goal.
Despite only receiving 13 requests, it takes his office on average 22 business days to respond to a request.
Walker’s open government website is no longer active: Since taking office, the open government dashboard the Walker administration created to provide the public with metrics and data on transparency practices has gone dark. The public is no longer easily able to determine how the Evers administration is practicing government transparency.
Some state agencies are maintaining the Walker-era best practices: Five state agencies (DATCP, DNR, DHS, DOA and DOR) responded to WILL’s request for tracking documents.
All five agencies are continuing to respond, on average, within ten business days.
But, despite given over 40 business days to respond, the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Children & Families (DCF) have not complied with the request.
The results are mixed for the non-cabinet agencies (DPI and DOJ).
DPI’s response time has slipped from, on average, within 12.5 business days, to responding for the last six months within 15 business days.
DOJ’s Office of Open Government, founded by Schimel, continues to provide unprecedented amount of transparency, including publishing a monthly metric of the department’s open records request responses.
The Quote: CJ Szafir Executive Vice President said, “Unlike his predecessor Governor Scott Walker, Governor Tony Evers is clearly not prioritizing government transparency. This is dangerous because open government is not just an ideal but a critical tool for the public in a democracy to hold their elected officials and public employees accountable. Evers threatens to turn Wisconsin’s proud legacy of transparency in state government into a bureaucratic black box.”
WILL Solutions: In a short time, the Evers administration has done great damage to Wisconsin’s proud tradition of open government and transparency. To correct this, WILL recommends:
Governor Evers should quickly reissue the Walker-era executive orders that define the best practices for open government and revitalize the open government dashboard website. There is no reason this should not be a bi-partisan tradition.
If the Evers administration does not act, the state legislature should consider oversight hearings to determine why the Evers administration is taking Wisconsin backwards on transparency.
The state legislature should require all government offices and agencies to comply with open records laws and create clear and up-to-date tracking systems.
The state legislature should ensure full transparency by instituting low records request fee policies to ensure that all citizens have access to the inner workings of government.
Legislative Republicans were pilloried, correctly, for attempting an end run around the state’s Open Meetings laws during the 2013–15 budget process around, of all times, Independence Day. Some Republicans have not really been open-government enthusiasts when the Open Records Law helped expose signers of the Walker recall petitions, including future political candidates and people in the news media.
Turns out Democrats don’t like open government either, or at least their governor doesn’t.
Who owns the vast wealth of America? Old folks. According to the Federal Reserve, households headed by people over the age of 55 own 73% of the value of domestically owned stocks, and the same share of America’s total wealth. Households of ages 65 to 74 have an average of $1,066,000 in net worth, while those between ages 35 and 44 have less than a third as much on average, at $288,700.
A socialist might see injustice in that inequality. But seniors know this wealth gap is the difference between the start and the finish of a career of work and thrift, making the last mortgage and retirement payments rather than the first. Seventy-two percent of the value of all domestically held stocks is owned by pension plans, 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts, or held by life insurance companies to fund annuities and death benefits. This wealth accumulated over a lifetime and benefits all Americans.
That means it’s your life savings on the line—not the bankroll of some modern-day John D. Rockefeller—when Democrats push to limit companies’ methods of enriching their shareholders. Several Democratic congressmen and presidential candidates have proposed to limit stock buybacks, which are estimated to have increased stock values by almost a fifth since 2011, as well as to block dividend payments, impose a new federal property tax, and tax the inside buildup of investments. Yet among all the Democratic taxers and takers, no one would hit retirees harder than Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Her “Accountable Capitalism Act” would wipe out the single greatest legal protection retirees currently enjoy—the requirement that corporate executives and fund managers act as fiduciaries on investors’ behalf. To prevent union bosses, money managers or politicians from raiding pension funds, the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act requires that a fiduciary shall manage a plan “solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries . . . for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries.” The Securities and Exchange Commission imposes similar requirements on investment advisers, and state laws impose fiduciary responsibility on state-chartered corporations.
Sen. Warren would blow up these fiduciary-duty protections by rewriting the charter for every corporation with gross receipts of more than $1 billion. Every corporation, proprietorship, partnership and limited-liability company of that size would be forced to enroll as a federal corporation under a new set of rules. Under this new Warren charter, companies currently dedicated to their shareholders’ interest would be reordered to serve the interests of numerous new “stakeholders,” including “the workforce,” “the community,” “customers,” “the local and global environment” and “community and societal factors.”
Eliminating corporations’ duty to serve investors exclusively and forcing them to serve political interests would represent the greatest government taking in American history. Sen. Warren’s so-called accountable capitalism raids the return that wealth provides to its owners, the vast majority of whom are present or near retirees. This subversion of capitalism would hijack Americans’ wealth to serve many new masters who, unlike shareholders, don’t have their life savings at stake in the companies that are collectivized.
After dividing retirees’ rightful earnings eight ways to serve the politically favored, the Warren charter goes on to require that “not less than 2/5 of the directors of a United States corporation shall be elected by the employees.” With a mandate to share profits with seven other interest groups and 40% of the board chosen by non-investors, does anybody doubt that investors’ wealth would be quickly devoured?
At best, every U.S. company with gross revenues over $1 billion would be suddenly coerced into operating like a not-for-profit. But unlike legally recognized Benefit Corporations, the companies would be redirected to multiple competing purposes. A new Office of U.S. Corporations would decide—and lawyers would sue to determine—whether those interests are satisfied, and only then would retirees receive the remaining crumbs. Only in Sen. Warren’s socialist heaven would workers continue to sweat and sacrifice while their rewards go to publicly favored groups.
It is the fiduciary responsibility of every investment adviser, pension fund, 401(k), IRA and life insurance company to tell its clients what would happen to their investments under Sen. Warren’s bill. Her plan would devastate the income-generating capacity of every major company in America and decimate their market value in the process.
If the bill were passed, retirement plans and investors could attempt to sell their stocks and find new investments where their money would still work for them. They could sell their shares in the large companies subject to Sen. Warren’s dispossession and buy into smaller companies with receipts below the $1 billion threshold, or look for investments abroad.
The problem is that everybody else would be trying to do the same. Investments built over a lifetime would be sold in a fire sale, with limited alternatives purchased in panic buying. While no econometric model could give a reliable estimate of the wealth destruction, no knowledgeable observer could doubt that an economic cataclysm would follow such a policy. “Accountable capitalism” would hit present and near-retirees first and hardest, followed by American workers and the rest of the economy.
Sen. Warren would roll back the economic Enlightenment that gave us private property and economic freedom, and plunge us back into the communal world of the Dark Ages. Like the village, guild, church and crown of yore, government-empowered special interests would once again be allowed to extort labor and thrift. When capital is no longer protected as private property and is instead redefined as a communal asset, prosperity and freedom will be the greatest casualties.
Socialism always destroys wealth; it doesn’t redistribute it. Unfortunately, this great truth is far from self-evident. Whether current and near-retirees will stand up and fight for their retirement savings will effectively gauge the survival instinct of our country, and our willingness to preserve the economic system that built it.
Mr. Gramm, a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Solon is a partner of US Policy Metrics.
We begin with the National Anthem because of today’s last item:
The number one song today in 1961 may have never been recorded had not Buddy Holly died in a plane crash in 1959; this singer replaced Holly in a concert in Moorhead, Minn.:
Britain’s number one album today in 1971 was The Who’s “Who’s Next”: (more…)
After the New York Times published their latest smear of Brett Kavanaugh, the left began foaming at the mouth, claiming that the article proved that Brett Kavanaugh lied during his confirmation hearing, that he is a proven rapist, etc., etc., etc. Those of us who actually read the article saw it for what it was: another unsubstantiated smear. Well, it looks like even the New York Times is admitting their article was fake news.
The article, “Brett Kavanaugh Fit In With the Privileged Kids. She Did Not” was adapted from The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation, the forthcoming book from Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly. Most of the article focused on Deborah Ramirez’s accusation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and attempted to make it sound corroborated, even though it has not been. But, the most significant part of the article was the revelation of a new accusation by Max Stier, a former classmate of Brett Kavanaugh. Stier claims he saw Kavanaugh “with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”
Soon after the story was published, Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, who has an advanced copy of the book, noted the article failed to mention a critical detail that, quite literally, undermined the entire accusation.”The book notes, quietly, that the woman Max Stier named as having been supposedly victimized by Kavanaugh and friends denies any memory of the alleged event,” she tweeted. John McCormack of National Reviewcalled the omission of this fact from the article “one of the worst cases of journalistic malpractice in recent memory.”
It wasn’t until late Sunday evening that the New York Times, updated the article to include this crucial piece of information. Here is the relevant paragraph, with the update in bold:
A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier; the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say she does not recall the episode.
An Editors’ Note was also added at the bottom:
Editors’ Note: Sept. 15, 2019
An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book’s account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article.
Despite the update, the damage has been done. Several 2020 Democrats jumped on the bogus allegations and called for Brett Kavanaugh’s impeachment. How many of them will backtrack now that the New York Times has conceded the accusation in the article was even weaker than Elizabeth Warren’s claim to be Native American?
The only real beneficiaries of this fake news scheme are Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, who are sure to have sold a lot of books because of the misleading article. The book itself was panned by the New York Times Book Review, but most of the people who bought the book during the media frenzy of the article likely won’t know about the rather important correction, and the rest won’t care. They just want to be told what they want to hear and tune out everything else.
Had the crucial details of the Max Stier accusation been included in the original article, it’s safe to say that the hype surrounding the article would have been much less. But the point was to sell some books and spark calls for Kavanaugh’s impeachment. The New York Times can’t make up for their egregious decision by posting an update after the damage has already been done. Perhaps President Trump is right, and Justice Kavanaugh should sue them for libel.
Pollack became an outspoken advocate for school safety since the Parkland shooting, and he has now written a new book detailing his own investigation into the events that led to the massacre.
“I wanted to look into it, I wanted to honor my daughter to see what happened, and how it could happen that I put my daughter in a school, in a nice neighboorhood, and then I’m never going to see her again,” Pollack said. “I wanted to know the facts. I didn’t just listen to mainstream media, I didn’t jump on that bandwagon — and I found out that there was a multitude of failures and policies that lead up to my daughter getting murdered, that the mainstream media didn’t want to cover.”
Pollack argued that new gun control laws are an ineffective solution to the school shooting epidemic, in part because current laws are not being enforced. For example, the Parkland shooter had a violent record, but he was not arrested and therefore able to obtain a weapon legally.
“To me, gun control would’ve been if they arrested him for punching his mother’s teeth out and he got a background,” explained Pollack. “Democrats put these policies in place that don’t believe in holding kids accountable or arresting them while they’re juveniles…so if they don’t arrest them and they don’t get a background, then they’re able to purchase weapons legally and a background check is useless,” he said.
In an interview with “Fox & Friends” Monday, Pollack said that banning guns is not the solution, and he encouraged people to look at the “underlying causes for these shootings.”
“They’re not addressing mental health…or arresting these people when they make threats…those are the real issues,” he explained.
Responding to a recent video featuring 2020 Democratic candidates promoting tighter gun control as a safety precaution in schools, Pollack said it made him “ill.”
“My daughter paid the ultimate sacrifice because of those Democratic policies and I’ve been hurt by the Democrats more than anybody in this country — and I hold them responsible,” Pollack said.
Pollack met with President Trump five times, he explained, and applauded the President’s initiation of a federal school safety commission to investigate what steps need to be taken to ensure safety in schools across the country.
In his new book, Pollack said he wanted to create a guide for parents to spot warning signs of potential shooters and to explain that Meadow’s death was avoidable.
“[The book is] like a manual or a guide for parents and grandparents to read it and actually look at what happened in Parkland and compare it — these policies are throughout the whole country,” Pollack told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto in an earlier interview.
“Uncovering all of this,” said Pollack, “it did a lot for me so other parents now can learn from it and that’s what brought me to this book. And the book started as just an investigation, but there was so many jaw-dropping failures that I had to educate other parents.”
Discussing the book, Cavuto “dared” viewers to “read this book without a box of tissues,” calling it “stunning and raw.”
Pollack is just getting started, he explained. He is committed to educating parents across the country on being alert and responsive to potential dangers surrounding their children, so no parent has to experience the pain and grief that continues to haunt him more than a year later.
“Every time that there’s a mass shooting,” he explained, “I think about these victims. Like the ones in Walmart or the ones in Virginia at the building where these animals are coming through and they’re shooting … and I picture my daughter being a victim.”
Today in 1931, RCA Victor began selling record players that would play not just 78s, but 33⅓-rpm albums too.
Today in 1956, the BBC banned Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rockin’ Through the Rye” on the grounds that the Comets’ recording of an 18th-century Scottish folk song went against “traditional British standards”:
(It’s worth noting on Constitution Day that we Americans have a Constitution that includes a Bill of Rights, and we don’t have a national broadcaster to ban music on spurious standards. Britain lacks all of those.)
Today in 1964, the Beatles were paid an unbelievable $150,000 for a concert in Kansas City, the tickets for which were $4.50.
Thanks to the NFL schedule and the Packers’ suddenly developing a defense, blog readers get to examine another Packer win over an archrival from the archrival’s media point o’ view.
But first, here’s the sound of Vikings retreating:
Now start with the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Chip Scoggins:
The long list includes the Vikings’ horrendous start, Stefon Diggs’ overturned TD, a million penalties, OPIs galore, Dalvin Cook’s brilliance, the defense’s 180 and Kirk Cousins’ turnovers.
Cousins’ mistakes were killer, especially his final interception in the end zone with the Vikings in position to take the lead late in the fourth quarter.
Throwing into double coverage on first down was either a panicky or overly daring move that shouldn’t happen with a veteran quarterback in that critical situation.
Here are other key decisions that created an eventful game:
Scenario 1: Green Bay’s game plan early
Decision: Aaron Rodgers used play-action on the first play of the game to hit a wide-open Davante Adams for a 39-yard catch.
Reaction: Xavier Rhodes had coverage on Adams but released him so not sure if this was busted coverage/miscommunication or what. But it was the start of Rodgers’ masterful first half in which he exploited the Vikings’ thin secondary in building a 21-0 lead.
The Vikings were without nickel corner Mackensie Alexander and Mike Hughes, forcing Jayron Kearse to start at slot/nickel. Kearse gave too much cushion on a 21-yard completion to Adams on the second possession, which caused Mike Zimmer to insert Nate Meadors at nickel. Rodgers promptly went at him on a 12-yard TD catch by Geronimo Allison.
Rodgers completed eight of his first nine passes (the lone incompletion was a throwaway) for 119 yards and two touchdowns. …
Scenario 3: Cousins INT
Decision: Late in the first half, with the Vikings gaining some momentum, Cousins forced a throw to Diggs in the middle of the field with four Packers defenders around him. Four! The ball was deflected and then intercepted by linebacker Preston Smith, giving the Packers the ball back around midfield.
Reaction: That can’t happen. Period. Bad decision by Cousins. …
Scenario 5: Cook’s OPI
Decision: Stefon Diggs scored on a 3-yard TD catch at the end of the first half, but it was overturned when a booth review signaled Cook for pass interference at the goal line.
That pushed the Vikings back 10 yards and they settled for a field goal, cutting the halftime deficit to 21-10.
Reaction: Two thoughts: 1) I honestly didn’t know a PI could be called on a booth review in that situation; 2) I don’t agree with the call.
My colleague Mark Craig is the pool reporter and will get explanation from referee John Hussey after the game on the penalty.
Scenario 6: Diggs’ celebration penalty
Decision: Diggs caught a 45-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter on a beautifully thrown pass by Cousins. One problem. Diggs took his helmet off to celebrate. The penalty moved the extra point back, and Dan Bailey’s kick was blocked, putting the score at 21-16.
Reaction: I hate the rule, but it is a rule.
Scenario 7: Cousins’ INT
Decision: With the Vikings at the Green Bay 8 on first down, Cousins scrambled to his right and floated a pass to Diggs into double coverage in the corner of the end zone. Packers cornerback Kevin King made a leaping interception with 5:10 remaining.
Reaction: Another poor decision by Cousins.
About the offensive pass interference call (one of four in the game, the most I have ever seen in a game), the Strib’s Mark Craig describes what happened:
The confusion began with John Hussey’s open mike catching the referee asking the league office in New York, essentially, “What the heck’s going on?”
“Can you tell me why we’re stopping the game?” Hussey said after Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs with 1 minute, 8 seconds left in the second quarter of Sunday’s 21-16 loss at Lambeau Field.
Diggs clearly caught the ball. And he clearly crossed the goal line to presumably move the Vikings to within a touchdown of a Packers team that led 21-0 after 16 minutes.
But this is the NFL in 2019. Assume nothing. Delay jumping for joy or punching a wall. And put no points on the board until Alberto Riveron, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, checks to make sure there are no no-calls to be called.
When Hussey huddled in front of the replay monitor longer than usual, you knew Alberto had spotted an infraction.
“We saw clear and obvious visual evidence that No. 33 [Dalvin Cook] significantly hinders the opponent [safety Darnell Savage] while the ball is still in the air,” Riveron told this pool reporter after the game. “Therefore, we negate the score and call offensive pass interference here from New York and penalize them 10 yards.”
The Vikings settled for a field goal and a 21-10 deficit. Throw in Dan Bailey’s missed 47-yard field goal and a blocked point-after attempt from 48 yards — compliments of Stefon Diggs’ 15-yard personal foul for selfishly removing his helmet after a touchdown catch — and, well, the Vikings would have been leading with 5:10 left. And, who knows, Cousins probably doesn’t throw his second horribly forced interception of the day on first-and-goal from the 8.
But …
Don’t blame Riveron. Cook did help clear a path when he blocked Savage while the ball was in the air.
It was offensive pass interference, one of three on the Vikings and four in the game. And the new rule, adopted on a one-year trial basis, is PI calls and no-calls are reviewable from the booth when there’s a turnover, a score or the game is in the final two minutes of a half.
If you’re grumpy about the call, blame the Saints for getting hosed out of a Super Bowl trip on the mother-of-all no calls in last year’s NFC title game.
Coaches, of course, have been complaining about offensive pass interference on the goal line for years. As Star Tribune sports columnist Patrick Reusse points out, nobody complained more bitterly and regularly about pick plays on the goal line than Vikings Hall of Fame coach Bud Grant.
Sunday, the league office and the game officials weren’t shy about calling OPIs. Besides Cook, Diggs and Adam Theilen both were flagged.
“I feel like it was a point of emphasis this game,” said Diggs, who had an animated conversation with field judge Allen Baynes coming off the field at halftime. “I feel like they went the extra mile trying to emphasize it as a whole, so we’ve just got to watch the tape and figure out what’s what.
“I don’t know the call. I haven’t seen it on tape. I asked him at halftime. He said, ‘You can’t close [your] fist, use your shoulder. You can’t extend at all.’”
After the game, coach Mike Zimmer still wasn’t clear what happened on the negated touchdown. He said it was his understanding that it wasn’t on Cook but rather “the second guy that came through.”
But New York made it clear that it definitely was Cook. And that was news to Cook in the locker room after the game.
“That was the play call, we got out and I don’t know [what happened],” he said. “I can’t tell you. I didn’t even know it was on me, to be real. So I can’t respond. I can’t describe it.”
Welcome to the NFL, 2019. If you think you’ve gotten away with pass interference, just remember. Alberto is watching your every move from New York.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 