DVR Danger, or How I Missed "The Helmet Catch"

This Sunday will mark the first time that my New York Giants have played against the New England Patriots (not counting preseason) since the Giants pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history less than four years ago.  While New York won the game on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress, the play from that game that has burned itself into the minds of sports fans is Manning's desperate heave to backup receiver David Tyree, now known (affectionately in New York and disgustedly in Boston) as "The Helmet Catch."

Every Giants (and Pats) fan can tell you exactly where he was when Tyree made his improbable grab, and can describe exactly how he felt while watching it live.  Every Giants fan, that is, except for me.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I didn't catch (no pun intended) Tyree's grab live.  Instead, I fell victim to the dangers of DVR and, with the Giants once again set to take on New England in an important (but admittedly much less significant) match-up this Sunday, I want to issue a few words of warning to NFL followers everywhere.  While DVR seems to provide us with great opportunities to pause live action, re-watch critical plays and subsequently blow through commercial breaks, Digital Video Recorders are far from all fun and games.

I watched the Giants-Pats Super Bowl with some coworkers at a house in Beverly Hills.  Periodically while watching, we'd pause the action to let someone go grab another beer and some food or to let someone use the bathroom, or we'd rewind to take another look at a nice catch or a big hit.  The Super Bowl was scheduled to run for four hours (including pregame and halftime), but any NFL fans knows that the Superbowl always runs long - unfortunately, Adelphia Cable wasn't aware of this seemingly obvious fact.  By the time the fourth quarter rolled around and Manning was preparing to launch his wobbly pass towards Tyree, the scheduled run time for the Super Bowl was set to expire, and in fact did so just as Manning released the pass.

Or so we thought.  You see, when our DVR'ed broadcast reached the moment just before "The Helmet Catch," we were probably 30 seconds or so behind the live broadcast.  What happens when you reach the end of a scheduled broadcast on some DVRs?  The TV jumps immediately to live programming - in our case, 30 seconds ahead to what was scheduled as the Super Bowl post game show, but what turned out to be the moment immediately following Tyree's grab.  All we saw while watching was Manning spin and fire the ball - then a weird break as the TV jumped to live programming - and then the Giants celebrating down field and the announcers going crazy.  Or course, shortly thereafter we saw dozens of replays of the catch (and I've seen it hundreds of times since), but the truth is that I never saw it live.

I've seen "The Helmet Catch" from every vantage point but one: The live video broadcast.

The message here is that the next time you choose to watch a live sporting event on delay using your DVR, be careful.  As much as we wish it wasn't so, the DVR doesn't know you're watching one of the most significant sporting events of your lifetime at the most significant time.  All it knows is that when a program is scheduled to end, it's time to jump to the start of the next show, regardless of what David Tyree might be doing at the time.