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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Giving Him The Business

I've never seen a call like this in a professional game before in my life. It's hilarious... it reminds me of the call in the old movie "Necessary Roughness". Ron Cherry, an ACC referee, in the game between the University of Maryland and NC State.

10 comments:

  1. But what does "giving him the business" MEAN?

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  2. i don't think so. Check out this comment...

    Definition giving someone “the business”:
    Ah yes, an easy one! “Giving him the business” is an expression I snatched out of pro football history. Back in 1986 during a game between the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills someone committed a rare kind of violent foul. The interesting twist here was that in a sport heralded for it’s harsh physicality, this play involved Buffalo’s quarterback! Of the dozens of different positions one can play in this game only three are granted any kind of significant protection by the rules of the game and quarterback is one of them.

    It would have been the sweetest of irony if the quarterback, Jim Kelly, had been the one commiting the foul but poor Jim was on the receiving end. After being sacked (tackled to the ground),Marty Lyons, the Jets player, began repeatedly punching Jim in the head! Although it’s clearly against the rules there is no specific entry in the rulebook against “kicking that guy’s ass”, so the presiding referee expressed himself in the best way he knew how. He clicked on his mic and told the crowd this:

    “Number 99 of the defense, after tackling the quarterback, was giving him the business down there!”

    Hilarious. The line immediately became part of National Football League history. Why would I choose that for the name of the site? Because all in that one moment you have a curious, awkward, but funny mixture; one guy got mad (Lyons), one guy got hurt (Kelly), one guy was left utterly speechless (Dreith, the referee), but true to the old adage humor was in the eyes of the beholders.

    -E

    Correction: As pointed out by a visitor in the comments area, my reference was a bit off. Marty Lyons wore number 93, not 99 as posted in the quotation I looked up. Number 99 was “the New York Sack Exchange”, aka Mark Gastineau.

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  3. Look up "Giving him the business" on youtube and you'll find a clip of the call after Marty Lyons's attack on Jim Kelly.

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  4. http://youtube.com/watch?v=WMBNH98jmK0

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  5. the above link is a link to the video that i found. couple more corrections to a comment above. the referee said number 99 and not 93 even though indeed it was 93. jim did not get hurt in this play nor was jim getting hit in the head. he was getting hit the the chest pads and shoulder pads but the guy would have been ejected from the game and not recieved a 15 yard penalty. please research before posting and dont mislead people just to make your story look cool or to make it look like you know something that you have no clue about.

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  6. !? Are you talking to me or the anon above?

    Regardless... right around the time the first anon commented someone sent me a clip of the Jets-Bills incident. Really funny; never realized it happened before. Also, that one was a little more flagrant and clearly the ref was mad about what had happened. The one this time was kinda out of the blue.

    Anyway, your last line was completely uncalled for.

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  7. I was watching the Jets/Bills game when it happened almost 20 years ago, and the clip is exactly what happened. Back before the NFL was full of pussies, there wasn't a problem with a little contact as long as no one got hurt too bad. No one was lying to make themselves look good. Get a life.

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