4 | OCTOBER 13 • 2022
for openers
A Kick in the Pants
I
’m writing my column
having just witnessed our
beloved and beleaguered
Detroit Lions find yet another
innovative way to lose a close
football game.
(This was written
in advance of
this past Sunday’s
Lions-Patriots
game.)
Instead, this
account is from
the day after the
Lions’ Oct. 2 loss,
which was for the birds, or
rather to the birds, the Seattle
Seahawks by a score of 48-45.
Our team was once again sing-
ing the Honolulu Blues.
Historically, and often hys-
terically, the misery for us
diehard Lion fans usually is
reserved for heart-wrenching
endings to games. However,
the team got off to an early
start when in the first half sub-
stitute Detroit kicker Dominik
Eberle missed both extra point
attempts after two Lion touch-
downs.
The first thing I thought of?
It’s a good thing Eberle wasn’t
in charge of NASA
’s successful
Double Asteroid Redirection
Test (DART) mission, which
on Sept. 26 intentionally
crashed a $330 million space-
craft, traveling 14,000 mph,
into an asteroid 7 million miles
from Earth. There was no
room for a miss to the left or
right by this projectile.
As described by NASA,
“DART was the first-ever mis-
sion dedicated to investigating
and demonstrating one meth-
od of asteroid deflection by
changing an asteroid’s motion
in space through kinetic
impact” … like the swift kick
a snoring spouse receives in
the middle of the night. The
end result is to be able to one
day avoid a dangerous asteroid
from having a cataclysmic ren-
dezvous with Earth. Welcome
news for us; too little too late
for the dinosaurs.
It turns out some asteroids
have already wreaked havoc on
our home planet, as noted by a
list compiled by The Planetary
Society, a group whose mission
is “empowering the world’s cit-
izens to advance space science
and exploration.” The organiza-
tion counts Carl Sagan among
its founders — the late, great
astronomer and cosmologist.
(Who knew Carl did nails?)
The list, titled “Notable
Asteroid Impacts in Earth’s
History,” identified the
Chelyabinsk Event of 2013
as the most recent destruc-
tive asteroid. It exploded 30
kilometers above the city of
Chelyabinsk, Russia, “releasing
the same amount of energy as
500 kilotons of TNT, creating
a shockwave that injured 1,500
people and damaged 7,200
buildings across six cities.”
The Tunguska Event in 1908,
featured a 30-meter-diame-
ter asteroid exploding above
Tunguska, Russia, “Knocking
down approximately 80 mil-
lion trees over an area of 830
square miles.” A living witness
said, “The event was almost as
excruciating as watching the
Lions play football.”
The Sept. 26 DART event
was carried live on TV
, with a
camera attached to the hurling
spacecraft sending back breath-
taking high-definition images,
where, just before impact, you
could make out the asteroid’s
ruddy surface. The same effect
high-def has on news anchors’
faces. The reaction to the direct
hit by those gathered in the
NASA control room was as
exuberant as a winning owner’s
box at the Super Bowl.
The eventual impact mirac-
ulously was only about 55 feet.
from the giant asteroid’s center.
Unlike the Lion placekicker,
you could say the impact of the
DART mission’s spacecraft split
the goalposts.
Which takes us back right
back to where I started from —
field goal kicking. In a strange
twist of fate after the Lion’s loss
to Seattle, that evening I began
catching up on recent episodes
of 60 Minutes.
First, the show that aired on
Sept. 4, which included a story
about, and I am not making
this up … field goal kickers!
And wouldn’t you know it, the
first segment opened with the
replay of Baltimore Raven’s
kicker Justin Tucker’s boot-
ing an NFL record breaking
66-yard game winning field
goal against … the DETROIT
LIONS!
It also featured a game from
last year between Green Bay
and Cincinnati in which both
teams missed a combined five
field goals in the last 10 min-
utes of the game. When asked
how much field goal kicking is
mental, NFL Half Famer and
former Michigan State kick-
er Morten Andersen said: “I
would say 90% of it is mental,
and the last 10% is mental.”
Thankfully, the 60 Minutes
episode spared me further grief
by not including the Saints’
Tom Dempsey’s 63-yard game-
winning field goal against, yes,
the Lions, on Nov. 8, 1970.
Dempsey, famously known as
the kicker born without toes
on his kicking foot! What other
team could possibly lose to a
kicker with a half a foot, right?
I mean, I think the Lions
could actually find a way to
lose even if the opposing team
forfeited.
Weaving football and aster-
oids into the same conversation
reminds me of a long-held
prediction I’ve shared with
many folks over the years. In
a moment of delirium, I said
that the day will come when
the Lions will actually be in the
Super Bowl. The game will be
tied with time running out and
Detroit lining up to kick the
game-winning field goal when
from out of the heavens comes
… a giant asteroid that doesn’t
obliterate the Earth but knocks
the football wide to the left.
Only the Lions.
Visit Alan at laughwithbigal.com,”Like”
Al on Facebook and reach him at
amuskovitz@thejewishnews.com.
Alan
Muskovitz
Contributing
Writer
NASA
PURELY COMMENTARY
A depiction of DART
closing in on the
asteroid.