THROWING A FLAG ON HOCHULI REVISIONIST HISTORY

Since we praised ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown in our most recent post, we now need to balance things out by twisting tails. In the most recent edition of the show, Chris Mortensen reported that Ed Hochuli’s crew won’t be working Sunday night’s game between the Broncos and the Chargers. Mort said that the schedule was set in June, and that Hochuli’s crew drew Titans-Colts for Week Seventeen. But even in the unlikely event that the same crew would have been assigned to work two games between the same two teams, V.P. of officiating Mike Pereira surely would have reshuffled the deck, given Hochuli’s much-publicized blunder at the end of the Week Two win by the Broncos. The nit we’re picking on this one, however, relates to the perception espoused by the likes of Chris Berman that Sunday’s winner-take-all showdown between Denver and San Diego absolves Hochuli of his error. Wrong. As a reader pointed out, and as we’ve confirmed via inspection of the standings, if Hochuli hadn’t screwed up, the Chargers would have clinched the AFC West crown on Sunday, and even a win by the Broncos in Week Seventeen wouldn’t have changed the outcome. As it now stands, a win by the Chargers will give the two teams an 8-8 record, and the division crown via the second tiebreakers -- division record. [Editor’s note: In a prior version of this post, we said it would come down to the third tiebreaker. We apologize for the error. It was an attempt at humor. (Hey, if it worked for Rob Parker, it works for us, too.).]