Here’s the 49ers taking on slime monsters, SpongeBob and the Cowboys in a wildcard play-off

Last week when we went to play after school with our fake auntie down the street’s kids, the San Francisco 49ers, an overtime touchdown was taking them through to the post-season play-offs, there to meet hated rivals the Dallas Cowboys. The flower-hairy Californians with their sun-dappled tech have always historically met fierce resistance from the ten-gallon Texans and their big oily trucks.

I said this was the play-offs but it was not quite the proper play-offs, it was the wild card play-offs, six games played on wild card weekend to determine who plays in the divisional play-offs, where some teams sat already with their byes. All you really need to know is that one of those teams was the Green Bay Packers, and the 49ers were playing the Cowboys for the right to play them. The winner of that game goes to the National Football Conference Championship game. The winner of that goes to the Super Bowl, to play their equivalent from the American Football Conference. It is all very clear and easy to understand.

The easiest thing to understand is that from their first drive, which is what the teams do when they have the ball, the Niners and their often maligned and recently fuck-thumbed quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo scored a touchdown, that was converted, then they kicked two field goals, all in the first quarter. The Cowcatchers got a touchdown of their own in the second quarter, but with another field goal and best lad Deebo Samuel getting a touchdown back in the third, a 23-7 lead going into the last quarter was giving our Frisky ‘Ciscans an easy night against a side looking barely competent and giving up penalty after penalty. Not even a Dallas field goal for 23-10 was bothering them. That second touchdown was the best, K’Waun Williams making a really cool diving interception to get the ball off the Cowees, Deebo wasting no time on a drive or anything like that, just getting the ball from Garoppolo and running this way and that until he’d beaten all the padding and helmets in sight and was all the way in the ending zone.

"Everything you've got on the line right now!" ????@19problemz was wired for sound in Dallas. Watch the full Mic'd Up powered by @Cisco. pic.twitter.com/p9NKj3TyIR

— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) January 19, 2022

Deebo was mic’d up for this game and seems like a fun chap, chucking a ball around with travelling Niners fans in the stands, hyping the offensive players up by shouting ‘Playmakers on two!’ (somewhere, Pablo Hernandez’s ears were warming, and he was saying ‘Dos!’ out loud to his family’s surprise). Just before that scoring play Deebo is shouting, “Let’s go put the ball in the box right now!”, and then he goes and does exactly that straight away, so that’s great. Then he goes to the sidelines and tells a team analyst, crouching over an iPad, “You’re my type of guy.” He winks at him too and it’s even greater.

But don’t forget the Niners have hitched themselves to the Leeds United funtrain and that means anything play-off related just isn’t going to be that easy. All season 49ers fans have wanted cool young Trey Lance to take over at quarterback from Garoppolo, and next season that just might happen; a play-off subplot is how Jimmy G is playing, with a busted thumb, to extend his 49ers career game by game through this postseason. So why, when all the Niners had to do in the fourth quarter was keep the ball away from their end and run the clock down, did he chuck a boneheaded pass right into the arms of the Cowlads’ Anthony Brown? Six quick plays later Dallas had a touchdown, converted it, the score was 23-17, and the Friscan Monks were sweating under their cassocks.

They just kept giving the ball back to Dallas, and there was a big sign San Frantic’s luck was out when Samuel’s blitzing run to the sidelines came up so close to getting a first down that gridiron’s steampunk version of VAR was brought into play. Someone held a screen in front of the umpire so he could decide where the ball had been when Samuel’s knee or whatever touched the ground, then he went and put the ball on that spot in real life, then he got some guys with two metal poles connected by a clanking chain to measure the distance, and decided Deebo had been an inch or so short. Then Garoppolo messed up the next play for a penalty that left the Niners no choice but punting the ball back to Dallas, with 32 seconds left on the game clock, just enough for those Texans to try getting the touchdown and conversion that would win it.

Gosh, tense! And there wasn’t only a touchdown to aim for, a place in the divisional play-offs to win. No, there was SLIME on the LINE. This game was the second ever to be simulcast on kids’ channel Nickelodeon, meaning that from the first minute the pitch had been awash with slime, dumped from an airship that kept blasting the pitch, chucked everywhere by a slime monster in front of the endzones — or, sorry, the SLIMEZONES, because on Nick whenever the teams scored a touchdown, slime cannons appeared and fired that green goo just all over!

I'm ready! I'm ready! The #49ers offense back out for their first series of the 2nd half. @SpongeBob @Nickelodeon pic.twitter.com/f1OPQxoLE5

— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) January 16, 2022

Then the replays showed actual fire and trails of slime behind the running players, whose stats were put up on screen compared to, say, Sonic the Hedgehog (Ezekiel Elliot of the Cowboys’ top speed: 21.8mph, Sonic: 761.2mph) along with cool trivia (49ers’ Kyle Juszczyk’s favourite emoji is ????). More in-depth analytical replays were supplied by recreating match action using the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who danced when they scored while the sky filled not with slime, but pizza. Then there were the field goals, when SpongeBob’s face appeared between the uprights to show what he thought the chances were of making it: thirty yards out, he’s smiling, easy! Fifty yards? Bob “looked a little suspect” about that, which told you all you needed to know about the chances of making it. The advice from the commentators, all presenters from Nickelodeon, was clear: “Aim for the SpongeBob and get ready for the slime!”

Skeptical at first, Spongebob approved of this @49ers field goal. #NickWildCard
pic.twitter.com/IptT97hngM

— Last Night's Game (@LastNights_Game) January 16, 2022

Since this game, I’ve encountered Martin Keown miserably stating the obvious at every moment of a drab Premier League match, and how I wished for slime monsters to wash him away, leaving only enthusiastic cheering and turtles for when the players do cool stuff, and SpongeBob’s frown to communicate the importance of the action. I don’t know whether it’s praise for how Nick covered the game, or a reaction to the dismal stuff TV usually serves, but a lot of people including me agree getting kids’ presenters to commentate and some animated slime cannons would be a cool way forward for more games.

Imagine doing this to Sean Dyche. There’s literally no downside.

Nickelodeon didn’t have to do this ????#SFvsDAL pic.twitter.com/CPutpR4EsL

— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) January 17, 2022

Who could explain the end of this game, though? For twenty of the seconds left, the Cowboys played a blinder, and even a little bit of rugby (it’ll never catch on), throwing the ball around to get up the field as fast as they could, and out of bounds to stop the clock before their next play. With fourteen seconds left they had forty yards to go, and the Niners changed their defence, crowding out wide and leaving a big gap up the middle. And the Cowheads fell for it! Their quarterback, Dak Prescott, ran into that space and as the grown up commentators on CBS gave in to their inner kid instincts — shouting, “Woah, I don’t think this is gonna work out!” — Prescott was tackled, and had to get the ball down for the next play with the clock still running. Eight seconds! Seven! They put the ball down! Six! Five! What’s that umpire doing? A magpie streak had run forty yards and was trying to force his way through the crouching Cowboys! Four! Three! Check the rules! You can’t just put the ball down yourself, an umpire has to do it! Two! One! He’s got the ball, he’s plonked it down, but he can’t get out the way! Zero! Time up! What just happened? The referee is on the mic! “That’s the end of the game!” he declares, the voice of the stadium god echoing around stunned Arlington, Texas!

¡What a way to end the game! #SuperWildCard#NFL #SFvsDAL

pic.twitter.com/kdoywHQZxy

— Victor Hasbani (@VictorHasbani84) January 17, 2022

The Niners were through, and it’s becoming clear to me that if they have one thing in common with Leeds United, it’s that they don’t make things easy. But on this occasion the Dallas Cowboys went totally stupid and that definitely helped.

This is perfect television. This is prestige TV. I could watch this for hours. pic.twitter.com/wLXxPILNG1

— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) January 17, 2022

And here was ESPN pundit Stephen A Smith, although not a Niners fan himself, giving a very Leedsy coda to the game, by pointing, hooting and howling with laughter through a montage of very sad Cowboys’ fans. This sort of thing might be even too childish for Nickelodeon, but it’s what the little kids can look forward to growing up into, and I’m all for it. ⬢