timschochet
Footballguy
This is kind of long but very compelling reading:
This NFL season is something altogether different now. Sometime in the middle of Sunday evening it ceased to be the annual carefully constructed exercise in athletic socialism -- in which drafting, scheduling and free agency ensure that many teams, however flawed, can smell the Super Bowl in December -- and devolved into a widely televised and very lucrative game of king of the hill. One team stands at the top, and other perfectly serviceable challengers struggle upward, fruitlessly. Laughably.
It's difficult to pinpoint the telling moment, but this one will suffice: Just before halftime in Buffalo, Tom Brady threw his fourth touchdown pass to Randy Moss, giving the New England Patriots a 35-7 lead over the helpless Bills en route to a 56-10 blowout and a 10th straight win. This was hours after the wounded Indianapolis Colts, the defending Super Bowl champions, had escaped with a desultory 13-10 home victory over the mediocre Kansas City Chiefs. And after the Pittsburgh Steelers, so impressive in winning seven of their first nine games, had fallen to the terrible New York Jets 19-16 in overtime at the Meadowlands.
The Colts (8-2) and the Steelers (7-3) had loomed as roadblocks. Indianapolis, after all, had led the Patriots deep into the fourth quarter just two weeks earlier (before losing the game, and a week later, losing defensive end Dwight Freeney, the franchise's second-most important player). Pittsburgh had looked much like the 2005 Super Bowl champion, with a stout defense and a very solid Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback. Both teams now look distinctly unthreatening.
"We come in here, we've won three games in a row, everybody's saying we're the second-best team in the league," said Steelers veteran wideout Hines Ward after the loss to the Jets. "Then we go out and lay an egg like this. It's humbling. It brings everybody back to earth. There's going to be an adjustment period."
Attention turns elsewhere in search of a team to play the role of Hickory High to New England's South Bend Central. To the NFC, where Dallas has lost only to the Patriots and on Sunday rode the Romo and T.O. Show to a win over Washington. Where Brett Favre and Green Bay won their ninth game on Sunday, a workmanlike demolition of the free-falling Carolina Panthers. Where the New York Giants went to Detroit and handed the Lions their second consecutive loss. Or maybe even back to the AFC, where the Jacksonville Jaguars continued to define winning ugly in a 24-17 victory over the disappointing San Diego Chargers.
Those teams must all grow accustomed to having their performances measured not only on the scoreboard but also, in some larger way, against what New England is doing. Now it is not enough to win; teams must do so in such a way that it inspires belief in the possibility that they can defeat the Patriots between now and Feb. 3. It is that, or tempt irrelevance.
And they all know it. Four days before losing to the Jets, Pittsburgh's All-Pro safety, Troy Polamalu, stood near his cubicle at the Steelers' practice facility and assessed the games to come. "To tell you the truth," Polamalu said, "I don't even know who we play after the Jets."
New England, Dec. 9 in Foxborough?
"Oh, I'm aware of that one," said Polamalu. "But I'm not looking forward to that game. Who would be getting excited about playing them right now?" Yes, Polamalu was smiling, and no, he doesn't fear any football team. But his point is clear. No rush to face a force of nature.
The Cowboys might be excited about it, though. Before there was Super Bowl 41 1/2 -- the Patriots' 24-20 win over Indianapolis on Nov. 4 -- there was a mini-showdown in Dallas on Oct. 14. New England punched in a late touchdown to make a 48-27 victory look more convincing than it was. The Cowboys will remember leading 24-21 early in the third quarter and killing consecutive drives with penalties (including a brutal fourth-and-one holding call), while the Patriots answered with a touchdown and a field goal to take control of the game.
"We made plays on them," says Dallas offensive coordinator Jason Garrett. "We had two series where we could have gotten the lead back or tied the game, and we hurt ourselves both times."
The Cowboys have run off four straight wins since losing to the Patriots, and they lead the Giants by two games in the NFC East (with a season sweep in hand, almost guaranteeing a division title). Their defense has improved with the return to full health of cornerbacks Terence Newman and Anthony Henry and the addition of defensive tackle Tank Johnson. "We're playing much better, and we've got all our guys back," says Dallas linebacker Bradie James.
Yet the Redskins ran up 423 yards in offense against the Cowboys in a 28-23 loss on Sunday at Texas Stadium, a terrifying number when contemplating a rematch against the clinical Pats, who scored on their first seven possessions against Buffalo and appeared to be playing flag football. Dallas, however, might be the one team with a true puncher's chance against New England. Quarterback Tony Romo threw four touchdown passes on Sunday, all of them to Terrell Owens, the only offensive player in the league as dangerous as Moss. Owens has caught eight touchdown passes in the last four games.
The Cowboys will first be tested on Thursday night, Nov. 29, at home against the Packers, a potential preview of the NFC Championship Game. Green Bay has enjoyed a sudden and unexpected revival. The Packers were 4-12 two years ago and 4-8 in early December last year (coach Mike McCarthy's first season) before a season-ending four-game winning streak gave the franchise life. They have won five straight this season since losing to the Bears on the first weekend in October, and Brett Favre has restored his game to a Hall of Fame level. On the Thursday afternoon before the win over Carolina, the dressing room at Lambeau Field hummed with a winners' vibe. Second-year wideout Greg Jennings paused his game of dominoes for an interview, and when he mentioned Favre, the graybeard himself came by to listen in.
"When you're losing, people get out of here and go home to get away from the bad emotions," said veteran wideout Donald Driver. "But now, people stick around. They want to be part of it."
Defensive end Aaron Kampman added, "We're just trying to stay under the radar, little old Green Bay. The season is like a poker game; the hands get bigger later in the year."
To hang with Dallas and stay in the running for a shot at New England, the Packers must build a more consistent ground game behind Favre. Jennings is developing into a deep threat, but he is neither a Moss nor a T.O.; Green Bay needs balance. The Packers are 30th in the NFL in rushing yardage at 80.0 yards per game. "Technique and execution, that's all it is," says center Scott Wells. "But once it gets cold, we have to pound the rock." There is reason for optimism in the form of emerging rookie back Ryan Grant, who averaged 91.5 yards over the last four games.
The Giants, who host New England on the last weekend of the season (Saturday, Dec. 29 at Giants Stadium), are the NFC's enigma. After winning six consecutive games, they fell apart late in a 31-20 home loss to Dallas on Nov. 11, evoking memories of last year's second-half meltdown, in which they went 2-6 after midseason. Yet they recovered to beat the Lions on Sunday, putting those comparisons momentarily at bay.
The Giants lead the NFL with 34 sacks; it is their most effective weapon and a plausible one with which to attack the Patriots. "When Indy had Freeney and [Robert] Mathis coming off that edge, I don't care who you have [at wide receiver] and what routes you're running, you've got to account for those two rushers," says one AFC offensive assistant. "The first play [against New England], bang, Mathis came off the edge and hit Brady, and that has an impact." Yet there was grim news on Sunday. Giants pass rusher Mathias Kiwanuka broke his left leg in the Detroit victory and is likely lost for the rest of the season.
Indianapolis is the NFL's ultimate rhythm team, and with several key offensive starters -- linemen Tony Ugoh and Ryan Diem and wideouts Marvin Harrison, plus Harrison's backups Anthony Gonzalez and Aaron Moorehead -- missing all or part of Sunday's struggle against Kansas City, that rhythm is gone. "We need to make it work with the guys that are out there," said quarterback Peyton Manning after the game. Where once a rematch with New England was enticing, it looms as ugly unless the Colts quickly get healthier.
Jacksonville, meanwhile, has quietly crept to within a game of Indianapolis in the tough AFC South. Yet the Jaguars are an unthreatening bunch. They rely on a steady ground game with Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, but quarterback David Garrard isn't exactly Daryle Lamonica in the pocket. Jacksonville has scored more than 28 points just once in 10 games; New England averages more than 41, and as one AFC defensive assistant said, "Scoring points is going to be important if you're going to beat the Patriots."
Pittsburgh is the next major contender to get a shot at New England, after the Steelers -- 5-0 at home and 2-3 on the road -- host winless Miami and the crumbling Bengals. Pittsburgh came to New Jersey on Sunday leading the NFL in total defense by a wide margin, having shrugged off the salary-cap dismissal of linebacker Joey Porter by plugging in fifth-year pro James Harrison, a 6-foot, 242-pound effort machine who outplays his measurables (in addition to being short, he ran only a 4.88 40-yard dash as a senior in college) on every snap and then goes home to watch old-school Looney Tunes cartoons on television.
Harrison is one of the Steelers who was charged by first-year coach Mike Tomlin with helping the team improve on last year's 8-8 record. "He called me in and told me I'd be playing a big role," says Harrison of the youthful Tomlin. "That's motivation, because Coach Tomlin is one of us."
On Sunday evening Tomlin was an angry one of them. "In all three phases of the game, we fell well below the line of what's acceptable today," he said. Roethlisberger, who had been sacked fewer than three times per game this season, was taken down seven times by the Jets. Key passes were dropped, the running game never got rolling, and the overall effect was to scrape some of the fresh luster off Roethlisberger, whose 2005-style play had been central to Pittsburgh's start.
Still, the Steelers should have put away the Jets. Playing in a stadium ringed with fans waving Pittsburgh's familiar Terrible Towels, the Steelers came back from a 10-0 first-quarter deficit to lead 16-13 with 8:46 to play. On two subsequent possessions, with a chance to finish off the win, they failed to get a first down. "A good team finds a way to hold on to the ball in the last five minutes," said Ward afterward. "We didn't do that. We let them hang around, and they beat us."
This is honorable rhetoric, in that it doesn't offer up excuses for a miserable performance. But the Patriots have shown no indication that they will perform poorly for any reason. And they will ruthlessly dispose of any team that does.
Pittsburgh, and all of the contenders, now turn to the calendar for solace. "Still a lot of football to play," says Steelers linebacker James Farrior. "It's early." There are six games left in the season. It is, in fact, no longer early, and the gap grows wider by the week.
This NFL season is something altogether different now. Sometime in the middle of Sunday evening it ceased to be the annual carefully constructed exercise in athletic socialism -- in which drafting, scheduling and free agency ensure that many teams, however flawed, can smell the Super Bowl in December -- and devolved into a widely televised and very lucrative game of king of the hill. One team stands at the top, and other perfectly serviceable challengers struggle upward, fruitlessly. Laughably.
It's difficult to pinpoint the telling moment, but this one will suffice: Just before halftime in Buffalo, Tom Brady threw his fourth touchdown pass to Randy Moss, giving the New England Patriots a 35-7 lead over the helpless Bills en route to a 56-10 blowout and a 10th straight win. This was hours after the wounded Indianapolis Colts, the defending Super Bowl champions, had escaped with a desultory 13-10 home victory over the mediocre Kansas City Chiefs. And after the Pittsburgh Steelers, so impressive in winning seven of their first nine games, had fallen to the terrible New York Jets 19-16 in overtime at the Meadowlands.
The Colts (8-2) and the Steelers (7-3) had loomed as roadblocks. Indianapolis, after all, had led the Patriots deep into the fourth quarter just two weeks earlier (before losing the game, and a week later, losing defensive end Dwight Freeney, the franchise's second-most important player). Pittsburgh had looked much like the 2005 Super Bowl champion, with a stout defense and a very solid Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback. Both teams now look distinctly unthreatening.
"We come in here, we've won three games in a row, everybody's saying we're the second-best team in the league," said Steelers veteran wideout Hines Ward after the loss to the Jets. "Then we go out and lay an egg like this. It's humbling. It brings everybody back to earth. There's going to be an adjustment period."
Attention turns elsewhere in search of a team to play the role of Hickory High to New England's South Bend Central. To the NFC, where Dallas has lost only to the Patriots and on Sunday rode the Romo and T.O. Show to a win over Washington. Where Brett Favre and Green Bay won their ninth game on Sunday, a workmanlike demolition of the free-falling Carolina Panthers. Where the New York Giants went to Detroit and handed the Lions their second consecutive loss. Or maybe even back to the AFC, where the Jacksonville Jaguars continued to define winning ugly in a 24-17 victory over the disappointing San Diego Chargers.
Those teams must all grow accustomed to having their performances measured not only on the scoreboard but also, in some larger way, against what New England is doing. Now it is not enough to win; teams must do so in such a way that it inspires belief in the possibility that they can defeat the Patriots between now and Feb. 3. It is that, or tempt irrelevance.
And they all know it. Four days before losing to the Jets, Pittsburgh's All-Pro safety, Troy Polamalu, stood near his cubicle at the Steelers' practice facility and assessed the games to come. "To tell you the truth," Polamalu said, "I don't even know who we play after the Jets."
New England, Dec. 9 in Foxborough?
"Oh, I'm aware of that one," said Polamalu. "But I'm not looking forward to that game. Who would be getting excited about playing them right now?" Yes, Polamalu was smiling, and no, he doesn't fear any football team. But his point is clear. No rush to face a force of nature.
The Cowboys might be excited about it, though. Before there was Super Bowl 41 1/2 -- the Patriots' 24-20 win over Indianapolis on Nov. 4 -- there was a mini-showdown in Dallas on Oct. 14. New England punched in a late touchdown to make a 48-27 victory look more convincing than it was. The Cowboys will remember leading 24-21 early in the third quarter and killing consecutive drives with penalties (including a brutal fourth-and-one holding call), while the Patriots answered with a touchdown and a field goal to take control of the game.
"We made plays on them," says Dallas offensive coordinator Jason Garrett. "We had two series where we could have gotten the lead back or tied the game, and we hurt ourselves both times."
The Cowboys have run off four straight wins since losing to the Patriots, and they lead the Giants by two games in the NFC East (with a season sweep in hand, almost guaranteeing a division title). Their defense has improved with the return to full health of cornerbacks Terence Newman and Anthony Henry and the addition of defensive tackle Tank Johnson. "We're playing much better, and we've got all our guys back," says Dallas linebacker Bradie James.
Yet the Redskins ran up 423 yards in offense against the Cowboys in a 28-23 loss on Sunday at Texas Stadium, a terrifying number when contemplating a rematch against the clinical Pats, who scored on their first seven possessions against Buffalo and appeared to be playing flag football. Dallas, however, might be the one team with a true puncher's chance against New England. Quarterback Tony Romo threw four touchdown passes on Sunday, all of them to Terrell Owens, the only offensive player in the league as dangerous as Moss. Owens has caught eight touchdown passes in the last four games.
The Cowboys will first be tested on Thursday night, Nov. 29, at home against the Packers, a potential preview of the NFC Championship Game. Green Bay has enjoyed a sudden and unexpected revival. The Packers were 4-12 two years ago and 4-8 in early December last year (coach Mike McCarthy's first season) before a season-ending four-game winning streak gave the franchise life. They have won five straight this season since losing to the Bears on the first weekend in October, and Brett Favre has restored his game to a Hall of Fame level. On the Thursday afternoon before the win over Carolina, the dressing room at Lambeau Field hummed with a winners' vibe. Second-year wideout Greg Jennings paused his game of dominoes for an interview, and when he mentioned Favre, the graybeard himself came by to listen in.
"When you're losing, people get out of here and go home to get away from the bad emotions," said veteran wideout Donald Driver. "But now, people stick around. They want to be part of it."
Defensive end Aaron Kampman added, "We're just trying to stay under the radar, little old Green Bay. The season is like a poker game; the hands get bigger later in the year."
To hang with Dallas and stay in the running for a shot at New England, the Packers must build a more consistent ground game behind Favre. Jennings is developing into a deep threat, but he is neither a Moss nor a T.O.; Green Bay needs balance. The Packers are 30th in the NFL in rushing yardage at 80.0 yards per game. "Technique and execution, that's all it is," says center Scott Wells. "But once it gets cold, we have to pound the rock." There is reason for optimism in the form of emerging rookie back Ryan Grant, who averaged 91.5 yards over the last four games.
The Giants, who host New England on the last weekend of the season (Saturday, Dec. 29 at Giants Stadium), are the NFC's enigma. After winning six consecutive games, they fell apart late in a 31-20 home loss to Dallas on Nov. 11, evoking memories of last year's second-half meltdown, in which they went 2-6 after midseason. Yet they recovered to beat the Lions on Sunday, putting those comparisons momentarily at bay.
The Giants lead the NFL with 34 sacks; it is their most effective weapon and a plausible one with which to attack the Patriots. "When Indy had Freeney and [Robert] Mathis coming off that edge, I don't care who you have [at wide receiver] and what routes you're running, you've got to account for those two rushers," says one AFC offensive assistant. "The first play [against New England], bang, Mathis came off the edge and hit Brady, and that has an impact." Yet there was grim news on Sunday. Giants pass rusher Mathias Kiwanuka broke his left leg in the Detroit victory and is likely lost for the rest of the season.
Indianapolis is the NFL's ultimate rhythm team, and with several key offensive starters -- linemen Tony Ugoh and Ryan Diem and wideouts Marvin Harrison, plus Harrison's backups Anthony Gonzalez and Aaron Moorehead -- missing all or part of Sunday's struggle against Kansas City, that rhythm is gone. "We need to make it work with the guys that are out there," said quarterback Peyton Manning after the game. Where once a rematch with New England was enticing, it looms as ugly unless the Colts quickly get healthier.
Jacksonville, meanwhile, has quietly crept to within a game of Indianapolis in the tough AFC South. Yet the Jaguars are an unthreatening bunch. They rely on a steady ground game with Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, but quarterback David Garrard isn't exactly Daryle Lamonica in the pocket. Jacksonville has scored more than 28 points just once in 10 games; New England averages more than 41, and as one AFC defensive assistant said, "Scoring points is going to be important if you're going to beat the Patriots."
Pittsburgh is the next major contender to get a shot at New England, after the Steelers -- 5-0 at home and 2-3 on the road -- host winless Miami and the crumbling Bengals. Pittsburgh came to New Jersey on Sunday leading the NFL in total defense by a wide margin, having shrugged off the salary-cap dismissal of linebacker Joey Porter by plugging in fifth-year pro James Harrison, a 6-foot, 242-pound effort machine who outplays his measurables (in addition to being short, he ran only a 4.88 40-yard dash as a senior in college) on every snap and then goes home to watch old-school Looney Tunes cartoons on television.
Harrison is one of the Steelers who was charged by first-year coach Mike Tomlin with helping the team improve on last year's 8-8 record. "He called me in and told me I'd be playing a big role," says Harrison of the youthful Tomlin. "That's motivation, because Coach Tomlin is one of us."
On Sunday evening Tomlin was an angry one of them. "In all three phases of the game, we fell well below the line of what's acceptable today," he said. Roethlisberger, who had been sacked fewer than three times per game this season, was taken down seven times by the Jets. Key passes were dropped, the running game never got rolling, and the overall effect was to scrape some of the fresh luster off Roethlisberger, whose 2005-style play had been central to Pittsburgh's start.
Still, the Steelers should have put away the Jets. Playing in a stadium ringed with fans waving Pittsburgh's familiar Terrible Towels, the Steelers came back from a 10-0 first-quarter deficit to lead 16-13 with 8:46 to play. On two subsequent possessions, with a chance to finish off the win, they failed to get a first down. "A good team finds a way to hold on to the ball in the last five minutes," said Ward afterward. "We didn't do that. We let them hang around, and they beat us."
This is honorable rhetoric, in that it doesn't offer up excuses for a miserable performance. But the Patriots have shown no indication that they will perform poorly for any reason. And they will ruthlessly dispose of any team that does.
Pittsburgh, and all of the contenders, now turn to the calendar for solace. "Still a lot of football to play," says Steelers linebacker James Farrior. "It's early." There are six games left in the season. It is, in fact, no longer early, and the gap grows wider by the week.
