Pain. Both of our Bay Area NFL teams fell last Sunday, beneath the weight of a precious few key plays falling to the opposing teams' favor.

For our San Francisco 49ers, the game against the New York (American football) Giants was reasonably within reach, but for a few big plays. Had these panned out differently, things might have been closer: The Lloyd catch (covered below); the Shockey 4th down "forget - it - I'm - gonna - reset - the - Playstation - if - this - play - doesn't - work" touchdown catch; the bomb to Plax in double coverage; and Manning's blitz-killing long lob to a single-covered Toomer, which enabled super-sized RB Brandon Jacobs to waltz into the endzone for the second time. That put the game out of reach at 24 - 6, and in the replay, you could even see a couple in the crowd lean together to discuss whether they should head out to get a jump on the traffic.

Under two minutes to go in the first half, Brandon Lloyd made one of the most beautiful catches that any field has ever seen. On a long, long pass from Pickett, Lloyd reached back behind his head, fighting against his body's momentum, and with one hand snatched the ball from the air. The crowd roared. The cut-rate TV announcers fell all over themselves attempting to find the words. Inside the twenty, Lloyd grinned as he rose with the pigskin. And the refs brought the ball back because backup left tackle Anthony Clement had been called for holding on the play. After that, an incompletion and two more penalties followed by an force-it interception. The Niners never got close to the end zone again.

SFist Christopher Rogers, contributing