John Tucker Carney Must Die
Picture it: Atlanta, December 21, 2003. A lovely, prim and proper young lassie from the mean streets of New Orleans finds herself miles away from her homeland and thereby forced to watch her Saints from a sports bar. In those days, the common woman couldn’t afford the luxury of NFL Sunday Ticket and even if she could, her bitchy apartment complex managers wouldn’t let her put up a damn dish without putting down a security deposit like the money grubbing leeches they are…but we digress.
It was during that time that the Saints found themselves at 7-7 and on the cusp of a playoff berth, despite playing like a heap of smoldering crap for most of the season. All they needed to do was beat the Jaguars to get one step closer to 9-7 (which equals greatness in the NFC) and they’d potentially march right into the playoffs. Then came that sunny day in Jacksonville and what would come to be known as the River City Relay…
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=kTGco82JKHo]
The resulting temper tantrum from John Carney’s missed PAT attempt cost me a brand new, short-heeled, black leather Mary Jane shoe and an undisclosed amount of dignity in front of a frightened crowd of sports bar patrons. As fate would have it, the man who was the source of so much pain, is now wearing a Jaguars jersey. We know you got cut from the Saints, but Jacksonville? Et tu, Carney?
While my broken shoes have gone out of style, the pain is still very much in season. Consider Sunday a day of redemption. And remember Carney, revenge is a dish best served black and gold.
Filed under: John Carney Must Pay, NFL Sports News, NFL Week 6, nfl news, nfl week 9
Only you and I would remember something like this going into a game like this.
Nope. ALL of us true dats remember it.
Yep.
I saw it in Warsaw, Poland. People there were about this close to calling the cops, especially after the play that set up the PAT. In fact, I think they have a picture of me in the Warsaw Marriott with a red circle and a line through it.
i command you to send me that picture ashley!!!
Saints Fan Recent Highs
Saints Playoff Win over Philly
Kicking Atlanta’s Ass on 09/25/06
Saints Playoff Win Over Rams
TD from River City Relay
Saints Fan Recent Lows
Saints Playoff Loss to Chicago
The 2005 Season
Saints Playoff Loss to Minnesota
Missed Extra Point after River City Relay
John Carney is the reason for one very bad memory for Saints fans. I will never forget that day or forgive Carney.
So does this mean that if Carney beats New Orleans with a field goal tomorrow, you all will put a hex on the guy? I mean come on, the guy has made 523 of 531 XP in his career, even the best miss them. Blaming the kicker for losing a game that the Saints had no business winning from four years ago is a bit ridiculous.
Not to mention Carney was 23 of 25 kicking FG last year and you let him go, for what, Olindo Mare? How’s that working out in the Big Easy? I would venture that every time he misses, there are fans down there that say, “Carney would have made that.” I mean, 4 of 8 with a long of 34 yards…this is what they traded for?
And we thought Scott Norwood was bad up in Buffalo when he missed a 47 yarder in the Super Bowl. You guys are throwing a guy under the bus for missing an extra point in a regular season game.
1) The Jaguars went 5-10 that season, so the Saints most certainly should have won that game. Granted, winning shouldn’t have come down to a miracle play and an extra point, but that’s the way the cookie crumbled.
2) This wasn’t a 60 yard field goal. IT WAS AN EXTRA POINT ON A CLEAR DAY! And I had this strange notion that he got paid to make those kinds of kicks.
3) Yes, it was a regular season game, and losing that game cost us a playoff berth
4) With that said, we loathe Olindo Mare and would take Carney over him any day. We’d actually put the whole River City Relay thing behind us until he signed with Jacksonville and Jacksonville showed up on our schedule.
5) If he beats us by a field goal tomorrow, we most certainly WILL put a hex on him.
I think that about covers it…
Chris,
I had really almost gotten over the River City Relay thing and grew to appreciate John Carney again. He’s a tough guy and took out quite a few kick return guys preventing them from scoring. But now he’s with Jax and it just brings all the bad memories back.
I do agree with Nolachick, though. I’d take him over Madfoot Maré in a second. And I would also hex him.
Chick-A-Dee
*chuckles
Show me a kicker that has NOT missed a kick at a key time that cost their team a game at some point during their career.
Two things about the bitterness toward Carney: first, you guys LET HIM GO. Did you expect him to just hang up the shoes and take up golf?
Second, Jacksonville signed him due to an injury to their own kicker. So until that took place, he wasn’t even on their roster, which means that you had to wait for him to get picked up midseason and then see Jacksonville on your schedule.
As you said Nola, and I have read you at Armchair, the game NEVER should have come down to that. Had New Orleans executed, they would have had no issue winning the game without a gadget play in the dying seconds.
Looking at that 03 season, I see two wins by 3 points, in weeks 9 and 11. I see a sweep by Carolina, a 1-4 start, punctuated by Peyton Manning throwing SIX TD passes in three quarters, and a 14-7 loss to Tampa in week 14.
Couldn’t you just as easily point the fingers at the 3-3 division mark, the 3-5 road record, or the inability to play consistent football (alternating wins and losses the final 7 games of the year) as reasons the Saints were 8-8 and missed the playoffs?
For the record, it was a clear night when Norwood missed that field goal and made him public enemy number one in Buffalo for the better part of a decade.
I will never forget that game… thanks for rehashing it
As for all the other games that got us in the 7-7 hole to begin with, well none of them boiled down to a definitive, mind blowing, history making play. It was the sheer awesomeness of the river city relay that made the missed extra point hurt that much more.
Additionally, every fan has that play or that player that they’ll never forget or forgive. (Just ask some of the Dallas fans who still have a chip on their shoulder about the Romo snap, in spite of all the success the cowboys have had this year.)
Fans of every team can find a scapegoat for something. Philly has T.O., LSU has Saban, Sox fans hated Johnny Damon after he left and signed with the Yanks.
The beauty of being a die-hard fan is that you can choose whatever scapegoat you want for whatever reasons you want, without necessarily needing to justify it. (Although mind you, I firmly believe my bitterness toward carney is justifiable.)
And we certainly don’t have the bitterness for Carney that Buffalo has for Norwood. Needless to say, if I saw Carney on the streets and I were wearing stilettos, I’d be tempted to step on his toe.
That’s just it…we Bills fans DON’T have the contempt for Norwood that you do for Carney. We take into consideration that had the defense made some stops, had Hostetler not recovered his own fumble in the end zone for a safety, and so on, that it NEVER would have come down to a 47 yard field goal on grass.
The same thing takes place here…had New Orleans taken care of things, it never would have come down to Carney kicking an extra point, which, of course, would have only tied the score, there would have been no guarantee you would have won in overtime.
Say Carney DID make that XP, and you lost when Fred Thomas was burned on a 75 yard TD…would you be writing about him now?
As a Buffalo fan, I have witnessed some of the highs (51-3 demolition of the Raiders, the wild card game against Houston) and lows (Norwood, Music City Miracle) that football has to offer. However, I find singling out one individual for their role in what happened is short sighted.
There is a fine line between hardcore fandom and over the top bitterness. I have seen both in my years of reading, watching and now, writing for a living, about sports.
I don’t know what prim and proper Bills fan circles you’ve been rolling with, but the Bills fans I know have a bullet out for Norwood… to this day. And that’s just the way it is.
And as I’ve stated, Had Carney not been apart of the team we’re facing today, we probably wouldn’t be talking about him now. Hell, I even admitted to wishing the guy was still on my team. But he’s not. He’s with the team we’re facing today which just happens to be the same team our miracle play was against those years ago. It’s a plot too thick and a target too easy to pass up.
If Coach Payton asked me (as I’m sure he will one day) to advise him on whether we should keep Mare or take Carney back, I’d say Carney in a heartbeat. Then Payton and I would probably make out like beasts. But, that day ain’t here So, I’m entitled to my anti-carney emotions, whether outside fans feel we Saints fans are entitled to those emotions or not.
I think it’s a little misguided the way Eagles fans want T.O. dead, but hey, that’s their team and their set of issues. So let em have it. We got our own baggage to deal with.
Overall though, I have enjoyed this spirited debate. And over my years of reading, watching, and now writing about sports, I know that it’s a happy day when fans can disagree on something respectfully.
As I said, I have been a Buffalo fan since the early to mid 80s, and seeing that members of my family are season ticket holders, and that of course some go back to the Bills inception in the old AFL in 1960, I have been to what was then Rich and now Ralph Wilson Stadium more times than some people go to the mall.
The majority of Buffalo fans, and I say this with authority, as I have been guest host on enough sports talk shows back in Buffalo on WGR 550 and the old 107.7 WNSA before the Rigas scandal torched that, Empire Sports, and nearly the Sabres, don’t single out Norwood for that game. By that token, you would have to single out Thurman Thomas in Super Bowl XXVI, the whole team in XXVII, and probably Thurman again in XXVIII.
Just like the River City Relay, Buffalo had ample chances to put the Giants away in that game. Norwood had never hit from 47 on grass in his CAREER. Pinning the blame on him when the offense had the ball for all of 19 plus minutes is foolhardy. So odds are the Buffalo fans that you speak of were of the bandwagon variety…they weren’t there before Kelly, Thomas and Reed, and they weren’t there when we suffered through Todd Collins, Rob Johnson, Alex Van Pelt, Kelly Holcomb, Drew Bledsoe, and now the saga with J.P. Losman and Trent Edwards at QB.
Well of course not all Bills fans blame Norwood. Just as I’m sure you can find many Saints fans who have no ill-will toward Carney.
As for the Bills fans I know, I certainly wouldn’t characterize them as bandwagons by any stretch of the imagination. While I don’t think being a season ticket holder qualifies someone as a die-hard, I can tell you that the Bills-heads I’m referring to were born and raised in Buffalo and supported the team long before you guys commanded the AFC in the early 90s. In fact, some of the them will still talk trash about Leon Lett for getting the ball stripped during that Super Bowl fumble return against the Cowboys. (talk about needing to let it go) Despite how much the bills suck now, they’re bold enough to wear their red and blue proudly to this day. (I had to console a few of them after what happened a few monday nights ago against Dallas as I suspected they might be ready to take their own lives)
Point is, this is a “to each his own kind” of issue. Just as Cubs fans will always hate Steve Bartman, even though their world series hopes shouldn’t have boiled down to that play, some of us Saints peeps might always have an inkling to kick Carney in the crotch. That’s just the way it is.
For the record, I was born and raised just south of Buffalo as well, and my family has been there since before President McKinley was assassinated there in 1901.
We all wear the red and blue proudly, even myself despite living in St. Louis now. As I stated in my earlier comments I was a Bills fan well before the run in the early 90s as well.
As for the Cubs and Bartman, I am a Cubs fan, have been since Leon Durham booted a ball in the 84 NLCS. People blame him for interfering in the field of play more than they do for costing the Cubs the game.
Well, their family has been there since Dinosaurs roamed the earth so that makes them the authority on everything Buffalo.
As for the Bartman fiasco, it again depends on who you talk too. There’s a lot of venom for Bartman in much of the Cubs nation because some fans still believe he cost them the game.
P.S. Did you happen to note that the Saints won on Sunday? Oh Happy Day!
I didn’t watch the game, since Kansas City/Green Bay was the FOX game here, and San Diego/Minnesota was the CBS game. I flipped between those, but had the Buffalo/Cinci game on via internet radio and listened to that. I had a new widget I downloaded active so I could continuously rotate through the games and see what went on.
That game worked out fine for me. I picked New Orleans to win, part of my 12-2 week and 34-7 the past three, Maurice Jones-Drew had that kickoff return for a score to help his fantasy numbers, and David Patten put up a TD for me as well starting in place of an injured Harrison.
Of course, I was much happier to see the Bills rack up 479 yards and 33 points, given their offensive struggles this year…but hey they are 4-4, on a three game win streak, and get Miami next week. Not to mention that NBC picked up the New England game, which means I can watch them, even if it is a slaughter, on TV instead of using Sopcast. lol
[...] You finally found a way to overshadow John Carney’s missed extra point after the River City Relay in Jacksonville as one of the dumbest, most infuriating plays in our team’s history. And it [...]