Since the Pats/Colts game was the Game of the Millennium on Sunday, I guess I should start with my comments on that game. First of all, it is hardly unusual for the visiting NFL team to collect more penalties than the home team. I haven’t done the counting in the past for every weekend, but it happens more often than not by a comfortable margin. If my counting is correct, last weekend the visitors in NFL games cumulatively drew 29 more penalties than did home teams for a difference of 285 yards. But the calls in the Pats/Colts game were outrageous. There were two horrible pass interference calls against the Pats and a few non-calls for the same infraction against the Colts in that game. If the NFL were paranoid, they would check to see if any of those officials had ever had contact Tim Donaghy in their lifetime. I had no money on the game; I had no “dog in the fight”. That game was horrendously officiated.
You must not overlook Wes Welker as an important ingredient in the Pats’ success this season. Welker is an excellent return man, an aggressive blocker for running plays and screen passes and he makes big catches when the ball is thrown his way. His catch on third-and-six late in the fourth quarter actually iced the game for the Pats.
Did you hear enough about the Pats/Colts game being “Super Bowl 41 ½ “? I sure did. These teams are at least an even-money bet to meet in the AFC playoffs and I want to call a moratorium now and forever on naming that game “Super Bowl 41 ¾ “ before it happens.
Remember when Charlie Weis left the Pats as offensive coordinator to go to Notre Dame. Some folks were worried about how that might hamstring the Pats offense. Have you noticed who no one is hearing from those voices of doom about now?
Last weekend, the Detroit Lions clobbered the Denver Broncos by 37 points. That’s right, the Lions beat the Broncos; and if you had Denver plus 5 TDs, you lost. The Lions remain undefeated at home and the vast majority of NFL teams cannot make that claim. The Broncos aren’t going anywhere this year, but if they have to play Patrick Ramsey as their QB for a significant part of the rest of the season, then they are over, done, out-of-it, finito. Oh, by the way, if Jay Cutler is able to come back and start at QB, there is a trend play for NFL wagerers. Jay Cutler is now 2-12 against the spread in games he’s started at QB for the Broncos. In wagering – as on Wall Street – the trend is your friend.
Will the Lions’ resurgence make Mike Martz a hot commodity when the NFL Head Coaching Sweepstakes happens come January/February 2008? Possibly, but GMs on the look for new coaches ought to take a close look at how things ended for Martz in St. Louis. Here’s the Cliff Notes version:
It did not end prettily.
Last weekend, nine players returned punts/kickoffs/interceptions/ fumble return/failed field goal tries/ whatever for TDs. But the Vikes’ Antonio Cromartie’s return of a missed field goal 109 yards for a TD is a record that will stand forever. It’s just not possible – given the NFL standards for measuring yardage – for that record to be broken. It can be equaled one of these days, but never surpassed – - unless the NFL goes to the Canadian Football League size fields in the future.
The Vikings took care of business against a good Chargers’ team that seems to be having difficulty focusing this year. Maybe they were looking ahead to their meeting with the Colts this weekend? In any event, the Chargers only got LaDanian Tomlinson 40 yards in 16 carries and a total of 42 yards rushing as a team. Going into the game, the Chargers’ defense had ranked 7th in rushing defense in the NFL. On Sunday, Adrian Peterson set an NFL record by rushing for 296 yards against the Chargers – about 250 of those yards coming in the second half. Here are some items for perspective for you with regard to Peterson’s accomplishment last weekend:
Emmitt Smith, Tony Dorsett and Bo Jackson – a trio of pretty damned good running backs – each managed to gain 200 yards in a single game exactly once in their careers.
Peterson had 224 yards against the Bears a couple of weeks ago; so, he’s now passed the 200 yard mark in a single game twice in an 8-game career.
Remember that six NFL teams passed on Peterson in the draft last spring; the Vikes got him with the #7 pick.
Jamal Lewis had held the single-game rushing record until Sunday. On the day his record was broken, Lewis also had a productive day in terms of scoring if not yardage gained. Lewis gained a total of 37 yards rushing on 20 carries last weekend; normally that would be a disastrously bad day. But he managed to score 4 TDs in the game against the Seahawks. Those four TD runs covered a total of 6 yards.
The Bengals lost to the Bills over the weekend and looked very bad doing that. It’s been almost 20 years since the Bengals have beaten the Bills and this team, which announced itself as the new AFC North powerhouse two seasons ago, has now lost nine of its last eleven games. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton always lecture people about how things have to be viewed through the prism of race. So, let me ask this:
If Marvin Lewis were white, how likely would he be to keep his job?
After watching Pittsburgh disassemble the Ravens on MNF, I think it is fair to say that Steve McNair’s career is about at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute. He’s taken a huge beating over his career and now he can no longer run nor can he escape effectively in the pocket and his arm does not allow him to stretch the field anymore. He had a good run, but Father Time has caught up with him – - and no one escapes Father Time’s grasp.
Speaking of the Steelers, they have a schedule set up that ought to have them poised at 10-2 when they travel to Foxboro to play the Pats in early December. Absent a rash of injuries on both/either squads, that will be a really good game to watch.
Nationally renowned columnist, Jason Whitlock, continues to call for his high school teammate, Jeff George, to get a tryout/look from an NFL team. Vikes’ coach Brad Childress suggested George go to a fantasy camp. The Panthers – needing an off-the-street QB badly – scoffed at the idea of giving George a workout. Then the Panthers actually did give Chris Wehnke a workout. Anyone who has watched more than 20 minutes of NFL football and has seen film of George and Wehnke throw the ball knows with certainty that George’s arm is many-fold better. Yet he gets no interest from NFL GMs; how big a locker room chemistry problem reputation do you think George has to have had to amass to make that happen?
In the world of quarterbacking, it sure seems as if Mike Nolan and Alex Smith are having trouble “communicating” in SF. In fact, it’s almost starting to look in SF the way things looked last season in Oakland between Art Shell and his Raiders’ team. For purposes of clarity, that is a really bad thing…
Starting the season the Jaguars’ QB situation was David Garrard and Byron Leftwich. They cut Leftwich and Garrard is now injured; so, now they have Quinn Gray, Todd Bauman and “Sleepy the Wonder Sloth” playing QB there. I’ve read where Democratic Presidential hopeful, Dennis Kucinich, says that he once saw a UFO whilst staying at Shirley MacLane’s home. That statement by Kucinich raises two important questions:
1. Was that sighting in this life or in some previous life where Kucinich was a liver fluke floating in the Nile River?
2. Is that claim of a “UFO sighting” any more incredible than the claim by the Jaguars’ coaching staff that they can see an actual NFL QB on their active roster at the moment?
Finally, Greg Cote had this to say in the Miami Herald:
“Parting thought: Detroit is No. 1 in The Sporting News’ latest list of best American sports cities. The positives for those fans include the winning Pistons, Tigers, Red Wings and WNBA Shock. The one negative outweighing even the Lions? Having to live in Detroit.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…