In an effort to recover from the Tennessee Titans' epic collapse against the San Diego Chargers on Sunday, I decided to attempt the pass, punt and kick challenge that reader Joe Tucker e-mailed about on Friday. To reiterate the challenge -- begin at one goal line and cover 110 yards via a pass, a punt and a made field goal. Your yardage for each attempt is determined not where the ball finishes rolling but where it initially lands.
After I wrote about this in All That and a Bag of Mail I couldn't stop thinking about it. On Friday night while we were out at the bar, I asked Tardio whether he could accomplish the feat. Without skipping a beat, he replied, "No question. I can throw it 55 and after that it will be cake. Easy."
Usually Tardio downplays his chances on anything. Girls, sports, you name it. But occasionally, out of nowhere, he's supremely confident in something. This was one of those cases. Tardio was so confident it made me think I was exaggerating the difficulty of this challenge.
So just after the Patriots put away the Steelers midway through the third quarter, I call Tardio and tell him we're going to attempt the contest in 10 minutes. By the time I arrive at his place, Tardio is clad in shorts, T-shirt and is debating whether or not he should wear cleats. I toss Tardio my football and immediately trouble ensues.
"This ball's not going to work," he says. "It's too flat."
"Too flat?" I take the ball back and squeeze it. "The ball doesn't seem that flat to me."
"Too flat," Tardio says with authority. "It's not going to go anywhere when we kick it. We'll lose lots of yards." He pauses for a second or two then adds, "Air pressure."
"Really?"
Tardio scoffs. "Yards," he says with Solomonic gravity.
For the next 10 minutes Tardio looks for his own, presumably non-flat, football. He finds it buried in the closet, squeezes the ball, and shakes his head, "Double flats. We have to get a needle to pump these up."
So we go to Target. This is completely true, it's 75 degrees today in Nashville. By now at night, we have the windows down and it feels like July. Winter is not coming.
At Target I decide I can go ahead and knock out my wife's grocery store request. Earlier when she shockingly declined to come watch the pass, punt and kick contest I made the mistake of asking her if she needed me to pick up anything while I was gone. She did. Her request?
"I need frozen meatballs," she said.
