Seahawks QB Hasselbeck’s Leg Must Hurt

I can’t remember who it was that laid the hit on Matt Hasselbeck on Saturday, as he was running with the ball, but I do remember that the helmet of the Redskins defender hit Matt’s right quad, directly in the meaty part of the leg, hard enough to spin the quarterback around in mid air. In slow-mo, you could see all the flesh move from the front of Matt’s leg, around the femur and almost spurt out the back of his leg before the combination of skin and uniform held everything intact so it could reverse back around the femur and settle in front of his leg once more.

At the time, Cris Collinsworth remarked that he’d been hit like that before and, although he’d come back to play the rest of that game, the bruising on his leg got so bad in the days to come that he ended up in the hospital. Collinsworth says some silly things, but don’t be surprised if Hasselbeck at least misses a day or two of practice this week, football fans.

The early Yardstick for the Seahawks at Green Bay game is calling for a six-point win for the home team Packers, but that could grow substantially if Hasselbeck is indeed hurt in any way. A deep tissue bruise is nothing to shake a stick at, but the cold weather might actually help keep the swelling down. Of course, any associated muscle stiffness would be worsened, I would think. Then again, I’m no mathamocologist.

BCS Title Game: Ohio State vs. LSU

When the Ohio State Buckeyes play the LSU Tigers tonight in New Orleans, the Tigers will have as close to what could be considered home-field advantage as possible in a national championship game. Probably to do with this, many are picking the Tigers to win, but not all.

Will LSU be able to take advantage of the ‘home’ crowd? To do so with maximum effect would be to jump out to an early lead, as not only would the crowd go crazy, but there would be the added effect of reminding the Ohio State players of last year’s debacle when Florida beat them in this same game. If the Tigers can get into the heads of those players whose psyches are still damaged from last year, it could be the difference in the game.

Last year, Florida used four and five wideout sets to spread the Buckeyes defense out and then executed a perfect game plan to perfection in beating the zone defense schemes that coach Tressel had his team playing. Florida did not win simply because they were faster, they won because QB Chris Leak played a very accurate passing game and hit his receivers almost flawlessly in the soft zones of the coverage. While Tigers QB Matt Flynn is more mobile than Leak was, he does not possess the same accurate arm and we’ll probably see Tigers coach Les Miles use backup quarterback Ryan Perrilloux at times (especially in the red zone) to keep the Buckeyes defense on their toes.

The Yardstick for the BCS National Championship game calls for a five-point Tigers victory. Join FanYard now and become a piece of the Yardstick for this game today.