- Joined
- Feb 9, 2014
- Messages
- 20,922
- Name
- Peter
These are only excerpts from this article. There is no mention of the Rams whatsoever and that may be a good thing. What this article is mainly about is PK's usual butt-kissing of Tom Brady and the Patriots which I will not include most of here. PK probably had tears of joy running down his face while writing this. It's his column and he can do what he wants with it but a sports writer shouldn't be a fan-boy. Maybe he should get it over with and become a columnist for the Patriots.
To read the whole article click the link below.
******************************************************************
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/10/10/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-returns-suspension-nfl-week-5
Tom Brady Does His Job
The Patriots QB returned from suspension and, like a cog in a machine, picked up right where he left off. Plus more from Week 5, including reeling TV viewership, an appreciation of a tough veteran and the weekly awards
By Peter King
Three noteworthy items from Sunday
Rookie Dak Prescott has seven total touchdowns and no interceptions in leading the Cowboys to a 4-1 start this season. Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
• In the immortal letters of Aaron Rodgers, R-E-L-A-X. Cowboys fans find their heads spinning out of control after the first five games of the season because they don’t know if—when Tony Romo is healthy in two or three weeks—the starting quarterback will be Romo or wunderkind rookie Dak Prescott. The owner doesn’t know, the coach doesn’t know, Romo doesn’t know, Prescott doesn’t know. So what? Some things are not knowable right now.
Romo gets an MRI on his back today, Prescott will play a tough defense Sunday in Green Bay, and then Dallas will have the bye, and 20 days from now, when Dallas hosts Philadelphia, Romo’s back should be healed enough for him to play. Prescott’s a 69-percent passer, winner of four of five starts, and hasn’t thrown an interception in 20 quarters. To agonize over who should start when both are healthy is silly, for this reason: The Cowboys, since the end of the Aikman era in 2000, all too often haven’t had one healthy competent quarterback.
Having two should be something to celebrate, not agonize over. I would expect Romo to get his job back, but either way, Dallas will have one of the five best quarterback situations in the league for the second half of the season, assuming Romo can stay upright—never a great assumption.
• Talk about winning a trade. Last spring the Patriots traded their fourth-round pick, 127th overall, to Chicago for the Bears’ sixth-round pick, 204th overall, and tight end Martellus Bennett. The Patriots ended up flipping No. 204 with two other low picks to Miami, in order to move back up for Miami’s fifth-round pick, No. 147 overall. Then New England got an offer it couldn’t refuse from Seattle—dealing the 147th pick to Seattle in a package that netted Seattle’s fourth-round pick in 2017.
So the Pats essentially traded the 127th pick in 2016, plus some low-round filler, for a pick that will be around No. 127 in 2017. And they got the other half of the best tight-end tandem in the league in the process; no teams come close to the dangerous combo of Rob Gronkowski and Bennett. “Pick your poison,” Bennett said after catching three touchdowns from Tom Brady on Sunday. The Patriots win, again.
• Atlanta might have a defense. Three noticeable players from the 23-16 Atlanta upset of the Broncos in Denver: edge rushers Vic Beasley and Adrian Clayborn, and physical safety Keanu Neal. I certainly am spoiled by Dwight Freeney, who had three significant pressures, but those newbies (all acquired in the past 19 months) really stood out.
Paxton Lynch, in his first NFL start, was sacked six times, and the Broncos rushed for just 3.5 yards per carry. It’s true that we’re entranced by the multiplicity of the Atlanta offense, but the Falcons earned their fourth win Sunday because they can finally send rushers after the quarterback who get home.
* * *
Frank Gore: An appreciation
Frank Gore needed 169 games to get to 12,312 career yards; Jim Brown achieved that mark in 118. Photo: Michael Hickey/Getty Images
On Sunday, 33-year-old running back Frank Gore of the Colts passed Jim Brown on the NFL’s all-time rushing list with his 14-carry, 75-yard game. And I did not want the occasion to pass without noting it, and recognizing what a special career Gore has had. He is the sporting combination of Jaromir Jagr, Tim Duncan and Dustin Pedroia, a third-round pick, a metronome, a smart grinder who will quit when he decides he’s ready.
Gore’s career might have lasted only a couple of years because of a dreadful spate of injuries—torn ACLs in each knee while at the University of Miami, reconstructed shoulders (both of them) after his rookie year with the Niners in early 2006. But since 2006, Gore has played 11 years and risen to No. 9 on the all-time rushing list. With two reconstructed shoulders and two reconstructed knees, he’s had 2,779 rushing attempts … and he has no plans to quit. It’s a truly amazing feat.
The Colts got a season-saving 29-23 win over Chicago on Sunday, but afterward there was emotion in the locker room for Gore as much as for the win. Said Andrew Luck: “You won’t find a guy that loves football more than Frank Gore. He is a beautiful teammate. He’s a great football player. He’s a great locker room guy. You get so happy when he has success because he deserves it. To pass Jim Brown, that’s so cool.”
No one will call Frank Gore a Jim Brown, because Jim Brown is the best running back who ever lived. But I find it a monument to the human spirit that Gore has passed Thurman Thomas, Franco Harris, Marcus Allen, Edgerrin James, Marshall Faulk and Brown this year … and is 372 yards from passing eighth-place Tony Dorsett.
Gore’s stream of consciousness, via phone from Indianapolis, after the game:
“It’s a blessing. It’s all a blessing. To pass Marshall and Jim Brown, it’s big. So big. Coming out of college with two ACLs, the knock on me was I’ll never stay healthy. Third-round pick. The 49ers reached. As a matter of fact, I knew when I got to San Francisco I had to get my shoulders done, but I didn’t want people to say that about me—injury-prone. So I played my rookie year, then I had the right one done, waited a couple of weeks, then had the left one done. I was ready to play the next year.
“I remember when coach [Mike] Singletary brought Jim Brown in to talk to the team one year, I knew who he was, but I didn’t know everything about him. I learned. Then he talked to us, and I was surprised he called my name. He said, ‘I love the way you play.’ He told the team, ‘You got a horse. You got a great back.’ Wow. Blessed. Just blessed. I had to learn to trust my knees again after the surgeries, but I did.
“I just attack the game. I attack every day.
(Now a little emotional)
“When I passed Jim Brown, the guys were all like, ‘Congratulations, man!’ I said, ‘Come on! Let’s play football! Let’s get this win!’ That’s the way I was raised. And it’s the way I’ll always play. After the game, they gave me the game ball, and [owner] Mr. [Jim] Irsay said to me, ‘I am so happy you’re a part of the horseshoe.’ All the guys, so good to me. Andrew Luck … Man, all the money in the world, and he’s all football. All football. I love that.
“I don’t think about how much longer I’ll play. I just play. The man up above will let me know when it’s time.”
* * *
Quotes of the Week
“When you lose Adrian, that kind of changed things a little bit. You’ve seen more spread. You’ve seen more of the gun runs. You’ve seen more of quick-gain passes from the shotgun.”
—Minnesota quarterback Sam Bradford, on the difference in the Vikings offense, and a big factor why they’re 5-0. They’re not dedicated to making one player, the injured Adrian Peterson, the focal point of what they do.
“He’s not coming out. You can ask me a hundred times. He’s going to be in there the rest of the season.”
—Miami coach Adam Gase, on the underachieving Ryan Tannehill, the 21st-rated quarterback in the league, after a dispiriting home loss to Tennessee on Sunday.
* * *
The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Tom Brady, quarterback, New England. At 39 years, 2 months and 6 days old, coming off his four-game Deflategate suspension and playing for the first time in 37 weeks, Brady had one of the best games of his 256-game (regular season and playoffs) career. He completed 70 percent of his throws (28 of 40), for 406 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Masterful, to the surprise of no one.
David Johnson, running back, Arizona. The second-year back from Northern Iowa continued to buttress a rising-star reputation Thursday night in the 33-21 win at San Francisco on a day when the running game had to be dominant as Carson Palmer (concussion) sat. Johnson rushed 27 times for an NFL season-high 157 yards and two touchdowns, and added 28 receiving yards.
“He is the catalyst,” said Larry Fitzgerald. “When he starts getting his groove, teams start coming down to the box. It gives us opportunities to make some plays behind the defense in the passing game. Some of the cuts and some of the things he’s able to do on the field, you just don't see that too often.” That’s what I see too.
LeSean McCoy, running back, Buffalo. A different back under new coordinator Anthony Lynn (see below), McCoy continued his renaissance with an 18-carry, 150-yard performance in the 30-19 win at Los Angeles. Running with the instinct and great cutting ability that made Rex Ryan deal for him with the Eagles when he got the Bills coaching job in early 2015, McCoy was the key element in keeping the chains moving as much as Buffalo could against one of the great fronts in football. Pretty huge accomplishment, averaging 8.3 yards per attempt against the Rams.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Calais Campbell, defensive end, Arizona. At an age (30) many edge players are going downhill, Campbell ascended Thursday night. In the win over San Francisco, he sacked Blaine Gabbert twice, once for a safety. His biggest play was an interception of Gabbert just before halftime when San Francisco led 7-0 and could have salted away the time before half and entered the intermission with an unlikely lead. But Campbell’s pick at the Niners 21 led to the tying touchdown before the half.
Vic Beasley, outside linebacker, Atlanta. For a first-round pick—and purported pass-rush savior for the Falcons—who had just five sacks in 20 career games entering Sunday’s fray at Denver, Beasley took a huge step in the Falcons’ victory. He sacked Denver quarterback Paxton Lynch four times (he got credit for 3.5, including a shared sack with Dwight Freeney that looked an awful lot like Beasley’s alone) and had seven tackles. Rushing from Lynch’s right all day, Beasley consistently beat the Denver right tackle—Ty Sambrailo, then Michael Schofield—with speed. Great time for a breakout game.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Jakeem Grant, punt returner/wide receiver, Miami. Bad times for the Tennessee special teams. A punt return for touchdown last week contributed to special teams coach Bobby April getting fired after four games. And on Sunday, Grant weaved through the beleaguered Titans punt unit for 74 yards, breaking or evading four players with good chances to tackle him. A terrific return by Grant, a 5'7" sixth-round rookie from Texas Tech.
Adam Vinatieri, kicker, Indianapolis. Amazing. A week after hitting a 53-yarder and a 49-yarder in a loss to the Jags, Vinatieri was five-for-five in a narrow win over the Bears, hitting from 54, 53, 26, 41 and 46, the last one his career-record 38th consecutive made field goal. The man is unreal. At nearly 44 years old, he’s made nine straight from 50 or farther.
COACHES OF THE WEEK
Bill Belichick, coach, New England. So routing the Browns by 20 in Cleveland isn’t the biggest win of his life. It’s not his biggest win of the last month. But it allowed Belichick to reach a heck of a milestone. He became the fourth coach in history to win 250 games (regular season and playoffs), and he did it in 22 years.
Belichick, even with that shaky first five years of his career in Cleveland, is averaging 11.7 wins per year (counting this year as three-tenths of a season, seeing that we’re five games into the year). The other three coaches to exceed 250 win in their career—Don Shula, George Halas and Tom Landry—reside in Canton, where Belichick surely will be five years after he retires.
Anthony Lynn, offensive coordinator, Buffalo. Since Rex Ryan fired Greg Roman as coordinator and appointed long-time aide Lynn to run the offense, Buffalo’s running game has become one of the league’s most feared. The Bills ran for just 75.5 yards a game under Roman in 2016; that number has skyrocketed to 178.3 per game under Lynn—and Lynn has reinforced the fact that Buffalo will be a strong running team first and second, then a throwing team third. Excellent job so far by the understated Lynn, who has the respect of his players.
Kyle Shanahan, offensive coordinator, Atlanta. Returning to his childhood home, where he often accompanied his father (longtime Denver head coach Mike Shanahan) to work on Saturdays, Shanahan had the best game of his 12-year NFL coaching career. With Denver one of three NFL unbeatens entering Sunday, and with the best defense in football, Shanahan used multiple weapons in a 23-13 statement win for the Falcons. Atlanta gained 372 yards and kept Matt Ryan relatively clean with a good, diversified game plan.
GOATS OF THE WEEK
C.J. Mosley, linebacker, Baltimore. With Washington leading 13-10 midway through the third quarter, Mosley stepped in front of a Kirk Cousins pass and made an interception at the Washington 13-yard line. Mosley rumbled to the 1 and tried to stretch out the ball over the goal line … and promptly fumbled the ball into the end zone, where it went out of bounds. Touchback.
Washington took the ball at the 20, drove for a field goal, and there was no more scoring. Washington won, 16-10. So instead of having the ball first-and-goal at the 1-yard line midway through the third quarter, trailing by three, Baltimore turned it over to Washington and blew the golden scoring chance that very well could have changed the outcome of the game. Terrible decision by Mosley.
Drew Kaser, holder/punter, San Diego. Another ridiculous way to lose a game for the Chargers. With two minutes left in the fourth quarter, down three, the Chargers had a makeable field goal … except that the holder, rookie Kaser, missed a snap that was right in his hands, a perfect snap, the kind of snap that in The Great Snaps of NFL History would have its own chapter.An absurd way to lose, befitting San Diego’s season.
* * *
Factoid That May Interest Only Me
Arizona actually will have two bye weeks this year. The Cardinals are in the midst of their first one. Coach Bruce Arians gave the Cardinals five days off after the 33-21 win at San Francisco last Thursday night. The Cards don’t play until next Monday night, so giving the players Friday through Tuesday off makes sense; it still gives Arizona six days to prepare for the next game. The real bye week comes precisely in midseason—in Week 9.
The first half of the Cards’ season, in terms of fits and starts, is one of the stranger ones I’ve seen. Detailing it:
• Five games in the first 26 days.
• No games in the next 10 days.
• Three games in the next 14 days.
• No games in the next 13 days.
The weirdness culminates with five road games in the final seven weekends.
* * *
Things I Think
1. I think these are my one-sentence truths of Week 5:
a. If I could pick one running back for the next five years to center my running game around, it’d be David Johnson of the Cardinals.
b. Blaine Gabbert (42 career games, 56.1 percent career completions) is too inaccurate to be trusted to be a starting quarterback.
c. Please, please, please, Colts: Keep that roof open. It makes a lovely tableau for football games in Indianapolis.
d. There’s no quarterback in football throwing the deep ball better than Ben Roethlisberger, and I mean no one.
e. Bill O’Brien cannot be sleeping well, with the lack of quarterback production he’s getting from Brock Osweiler (70.2 rating, 29th in the league) through a very shaky five-game start.
f. After watching a good chunk of Tennessee-Miami, I would like to announce that the reports of the demise of DeMarco Murray have been greatly exaggerated.
g. Of course you should be smitten with the Raiders at 4-1, but no team can give up four touchdowns a game (27.4 points, to be exact) and not have that come back to bite them, and soon.
h. It’s entirely possible the best element of the 2016 Packers through four games, stunningly, is the front seven.
i. The Jets are a very tough watch right now, and there may be no more shocking statistic after five weeks than this one: New York’s opposing passer rating is 118.6.
j. It is a mark of the craziness of the National Football League that Denver Broncos fans are waking up this morning muttering: “Hope Trevor Siemian’s healthy enough to play QB Thursday night against the Chargers.”
2. I think there’s no logical reason for Chip Kelly to not play Colin Kaepernick on Sunday in Buffalo, unless Kaepernick is hurt or Kelly thinks Christian Ponder has passed Kaepernick on the mental depth chart.
3. I think I will always wonder if Larry Fitzgerald, with a competent quarterback for most of his career, could have challenged Jerry Rice’s all-time record for catches (1,549) or receiving touchdowns (197). Probably not. And Fitzgerald told me last month: “His records are unattainable.” But Fitzgerald, who is 33, is 500 catches and 95 touchdowns away from Rice.
And seven of the 13 quarterbacks who he’s caught touchdowns from are: Shaun King, Richard Bartel, Max Hall, Brian St. Pierre, John Navarre, John Skelton and Matt Leinart. Six of Fitzgerald’s 13 years have been spent, mostly, with quarterbacks not named Kurt Warner or Carson Palmer. What would Fitzgerald’s numbers have been like with even, say, a middling quarterback for half of his career?
4. I think if I were an NFL owner, and I knew the Tom Brady legal fight sapped my team of $359,000, I’d be furious right now. Livid. How’d I get that number? Darren Rovell of ESPN revealed that the legal battle between the NFL and Tom Brady over his four-game suspension and subsequent court battle cost an estimate $23 million. Say that figure is true, or close. And say it got split down the middle between the league and the Players Association (though it probably cost the league more, because of the Ted Wells investigation).
That means the owners in the NFL, effectively though not directly, each had a $359,000 stake in the legal action against Brady. I’d be telling Roger Goodell right about now: Please send a strongly worded letter and a $25,000 fine the next time, unless you’ve got overwhelming evidence that the public confidence in the game has been irrevocably harmed.
5. I think this is what a mobile, confident quarterback will do for you: On the first Buffalo touchdown drive of the game at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Tyrod Taylor had 6.12 seconds, a lifetime for a quarterback, to look and look and scramble left and look some more and fire a strike to Justin Hunter in the end zone for a touchdown. Beautiful patience and execution and decision-making by Taylor.
6. I think Brian Hoyer (.714 completion rate, 108.5 rating) is a great example of a quarterback who should have a job for a long time in the NFL—just not as a starter.
7. I think what I love about Matt Ryan’s game right now is that he’s not mesmerized by the notion that he has to get the ball to Julio Jones X number of times in a game, but rather simply passes to the open guy.
Three men—Tevin Coleman, Devonta Freeman and Mohamed Sanu—each had more catches and more receiving yards than Jones in the 23-16 upset of the Broncos, and knowing Jones, he absolutely did not care. He knows his time will come next week, or the week after. Or maybe both weeks. Atlanta’s got such an egalitarian offensive society.
8. I think, not to overdo a story that has gotten far too much attention already, I have to say one thing about offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan of the Giants implying that there is something unmanly about a defensive player who will not play Odell Beckham straight up without using mental games: It’s ridiculous. “If a defender is very confident, if he has complete belief in his own abilities and if he’s a true competitor, why does he want to tip the scales?” Sullivan asked last week.
“Doesn’t he want Odell to be at his best? … Why are they trying to rattle him?” Because that’s sports! If Mike Sullivan thinks it's somehow unfair or non-sporting to take advantage of a hothead on the other side of the field, he’d be the first coach I ever heard of who felt that way.
9. I think this was Jenny Vrentas’ reaction to the new stadium in Minnesota—I’m a bit of a stadium junkie, and I have not been to U.S. Bank Stadium yet—after I asked her to write a few lines about it Sunday because she was on hand for the win over Houston:
“Sunday afternoon was the perfect showcase for the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium. The MMQB hadn’t been up here for a regular-season game yet, though Emily Kaplan got a tour in the summer, and this week happened to be the Vikings’ first afternoon game in their new building. The futuristic stadium design works exactly as intended. The sunlight poured in through the transparent ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) roof, basking down on the field and half the stands.
The five giant hydraulic doors that open toward the downtown skyline were pivoted open three hours before kickoff—probably for the last time this season, given that the Vikings aren’t home again until November, and well, the weather probably won't be so nice by then. The indoor-outdoor feel here is perfect for this city.
For those who visited the old Metrodome, it’s a little surreal to see an uber-modern structure nearly double the size on virtually the same footprint. Your ears don’t pop when you walk inside, but the new 66,000-seat stadium certainly feels just as loud as the dome was, and perhaps even louder. In a wildly unscientific sample, a decibel app on my phone recorded noise levels around 100 decibels on a couple third downs—and that’s just sitting in the press box, high up in a corner and behind the stands.
Before the game, ESPN’s Ed Werder reported that the Vikings actually have been practicing with simulated crowd noise for home games. In their first three games at U.S. Bank, the Minnesota offense has picked up seven false-start penalties, so this is something to which they’re still adjusting. Of course, any NFL owner who has opened a new stadium would agree on the best attribute of the Vikings’ new home: A 5-0 team.”
To read the whole article click the link below.
******************************************************************
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/10/10/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-returns-suspension-nfl-week-5
Tom Brady Does His Job
The Patriots QB returned from suspension and, like a cog in a machine, picked up right where he left off. Plus more from Week 5, including reeling TV viewership, an appreciation of a tough veteran and the weekly awards
By Peter King
Three noteworthy items from Sunday
Rookie Dak Prescott has seven total touchdowns and no interceptions in leading the Cowboys to a 4-1 start this season. Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
• In the immortal letters of Aaron Rodgers, R-E-L-A-X. Cowboys fans find their heads spinning out of control after the first five games of the season because they don’t know if—when Tony Romo is healthy in two or three weeks—the starting quarterback will be Romo or wunderkind rookie Dak Prescott. The owner doesn’t know, the coach doesn’t know, Romo doesn’t know, Prescott doesn’t know. So what? Some things are not knowable right now.
Romo gets an MRI on his back today, Prescott will play a tough defense Sunday in Green Bay, and then Dallas will have the bye, and 20 days from now, when Dallas hosts Philadelphia, Romo’s back should be healed enough for him to play. Prescott’s a 69-percent passer, winner of four of five starts, and hasn’t thrown an interception in 20 quarters. To agonize over who should start when both are healthy is silly, for this reason: The Cowboys, since the end of the Aikman era in 2000, all too often haven’t had one healthy competent quarterback.
Having two should be something to celebrate, not agonize over. I would expect Romo to get his job back, but either way, Dallas will have one of the five best quarterback situations in the league for the second half of the season, assuming Romo can stay upright—never a great assumption.
• Talk about winning a trade. Last spring the Patriots traded their fourth-round pick, 127th overall, to Chicago for the Bears’ sixth-round pick, 204th overall, and tight end Martellus Bennett. The Patriots ended up flipping No. 204 with two other low picks to Miami, in order to move back up for Miami’s fifth-round pick, No. 147 overall. Then New England got an offer it couldn’t refuse from Seattle—dealing the 147th pick to Seattle in a package that netted Seattle’s fourth-round pick in 2017.
So the Pats essentially traded the 127th pick in 2016, plus some low-round filler, for a pick that will be around No. 127 in 2017. And they got the other half of the best tight-end tandem in the league in the process; no teams come close to the dangerous combo of Rob Gronkowski and Bennett. “Pick your poison,” Bennett said after catching three touchdowns from Tom Brady on Sunday. The Patriots win, again.
• Atlanta might have a defense. Three noticeable players from the 23-16 Atlanta upset of the Broncos in Denver: edge rushers Vic Beasley and Adrian Clayborn, and physical safety Keanu Neal. I certainly am spoiled by Dwight Freeney, who had three significant pressures, but those newbies (all acquired in the past 19 months) really stood out.
Paxton Lynch, in his first NFL start, was sacked six times, and the Broncos rushed for just 3.5 yards per carry. It’s true that we’re entranced by the multiplicity of the Atlanta offense, but the Falcons earned their fourth win Sunday because they can finally send rushers after the quarterback who get home.
* * *
Frank Gore: An appreciation
Frank Gore needed 169 games to get to 12,312 career yards; Jim Brown achieved that mark in 118. Photo: Michael Hickey/Getty Images
On Sunday, 33-year-old running back Frank Gore of the Colts passed Jim Brown on the NFL’s all-time rushing list with his 14-carry, 75-yard game. And I did not want the occasion to pass without noting it, and recognizing what a special career Gore has had. He is the sporting combination of Jaromir Jagr, Tim Duncan and Dustin Pedroia, a third-round pick, a metronome, a smart grinder who will quit when he decides he’s ready.
Gore’s career might have lasted only a couple of years because of a dreadful spate of injuries—torn ACLs in each knee while at the University of Miami, reconstructed shoulders (both of them) after his rookie year with the Niners in early 2006. But since 2006, Gore has played 11 years and risen to No. 9 on the all-time rushing list. With two reconstructed shoulders and two reconstructed knees, he’s had 2,779 rushing attempts … and he has no plans to quit. It’s a truly amazing feat.
The Colts got a season-saving 29-23 win over Chicago on Sunday, but afterward there was emotion in the locker room for Gore as much as for the win. Said Andrew Luck: “You won’t find a guy that loves football more than Frank Gore. He is a beautiful teammate. He’s a great football player. He’s a great locker room guy. You get so happy when he has success because he deserves it. To pass Jim Brown, that’s so cool.”
No one will call Frank Gore a Jim Brown, because Jim Brown is the best running back who ever lived. But I find it a monument to the human spirit that Gore has passed Thurman Thomas, Franco Harris, Marcus Allen, Edgerrin James, Marshall Faulk and Brown this year … and is 372 yards from passing eighth-place Tony Dorsett.
Gore’s stream of consciousness, via phone from Indianapolis, after the game:
“It’s a blessing. It’s all a blessing. To pass Marshall and Jim Brown, it’s big. So big. Coming out of college with two ACLs, the knock on me was I’ll never stay healthy. Third-round pick. The 49ers reached. As a matter of fact, I knew when I got to San Francisco I had to get my shoulders done, but I didn’t want people to say that about me—injury-prone. So I played my rookie year, then I had the right one done, waited a couple of weeks, then had the left one done. I was ready to play the next year.
“I remember when coach [Mike] Singletary brought Jim Brown in to talk to the team one year, I knew who he was, but I didn’t know everything about him. I learned. Then he talked to us, and I was surprised he called my name. He said, ‘I love the way you play.’ He told the team, ‘You got a horse. You got a great back.’ Wow. Blessed. Just blessed. I had to learn to trust my knees again after the surgeries, but I did.
“I just attack the game. I attack every day.
(Now a little emotional)
“When I passed Jim Brown, the guys were all like, ‘Congratulations, man!’ I said, ‘Come on! Let’s play football! Let’s get this win!’ That’s the way I was raised. And it’s the way I’ll always play. After the game, they gave me the game ball, and [owner] Mr. [Jim] Irsay said to me, ‘I am so happy you’re a part of the horseshoe.’ All the guys, so good to me. Andrew Luck … Man, all the money in the world, and he’s all football. All football. I love that.
“I don’t think about how much longer I’ll play. I just play. The man up above will let me know when it’s time.”
* * *
Quotes of the Week
“When you lose Adrian, that kind of changed things a little bit. You’ve seen more spread. You’ve seen more of the gun runs. You’ve seen more of quick-gain passes from the shotgun.”
—Minnesota quarterback Sam Bradford, on the difference in the Vikings offense, and a big factor why they’re 5-0. They’re not dedicated to making one player, the injured Adrian Peterson, the focal point of what they do.
“He’s not coming out. You can ask me a hundred times. He’s going to be in there the rest of the season.”
—Miami coach Adam Gase, on the underachieving Ryan Tannehill, the 21st-rated quarterback in the league, after a dispiriting home loss to Tennessee on Sunday.
* * *
The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Tom Brady, quarterback, New England. At 39 years, 2 months and 6 days old, coming off his four-game Deflategate suspension and playing for the first time in 37 weeks, Brady had one of the best games of his 256-game (regular season and playoffs) career. He completed 70 percent of his throws (28 of 40), for 406 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Masterful, to the surprise of no one.
David Johnson, running back, Arizona. The second-year back from Northern Iowa continued to buttress a rising-star reputation Thursday night in the 33-21 win at San Francisco on a day when the running game had to be dominant as Carson Palmer (concussion) sat. Johnson rushed 27 times for an NFL season-high 157 yards and two touchdowns, and added 28 receiving yards.
“He is the catalyst,” said Larry Fitzgerald. “When he starts getting his groove, teams start coming down to the box. It gives us opportunities to make some plays behind the defense in the passing game. Some of the cuts and some of the things he’s able to do on the field, you just don't see that too often.” That’s what I see too.
LeSean McCoy, running back, Buffalo. A different back under new coordinator Anthony Lynn (see below), McCoy continued his renaissance with an 18-carry, 150-yard performance in the 30-19 win at Los Angeles. Running with the instinct and great cutting ability that made Rex Ryan deal for him with the Eagles when he got the Bills coaching job in early 2015, McCoy was the key element in keeping the chains moving as much as Buffalo could against one of the great fronts in football. Pretty huge accomplishment, averaging 8.3 yards per attempt against the Rams.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Calais Campbell, defensive end, Arizona. At an age (30) many edge players are going downhill, Campbell ascended Thursday night. In the win over San Francisco, he sacked Blaine Gabbert twice, once for a safety. His biggest play was an interception of Gabbert just before halftime when San Francisco led 7-0 and could have salted away the time before half and entered the intermission with an unlikely lead. But Campbell’s pick at the Niners 21 led to the tying touchdown before the half.
Vic Beasley, outside linebacker, Atlanta. For a first-round pick—and purported pass-rush savior for the Falcons—who had just five sacks in 20 career games entering Sunday’s fray at Denver, Beasley took a huge step in the Falcons’ victory. He sacked Denver quarterback Paxton Lynch four times (he got credit for 3.5, including a shared sack with Dwight Freeney that looked an awful lot like Beasley’s alone) and had seven tackles. Rushing from Lynch’s right all day, Beasley consistently beat the Denver right tackle—Ty Sambrailo, then Michael Schofield—with speed. Great time for a breakout game.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Jakeem Grant, punt returner/wide receiver, Miami. Bad times for the Tennessee special teams. A punt return for touchdown last week contributed to special teams coach Bobby April getting fired after four games. And on Sunday, Grant weaved through the beleaguered Titans punt unit for 74 yards, breaking or evading four players with good chances to tackle him. A terrific return by Grant, a 5'7" sixth-round rookie from Texas Tech.
Adam Vinatieri, kicker, Indianapolis. Amazing. A week after hitting a 53-yarder and a 49-yarder in a loss to the Jags, Vinatieri was five-for-five in a narrow win over the Bears, hitting from 54, 53, 26, 41 and 46, the last one his career-record 38th consecutive made field goal. The man is unreal. At nearly 44 years old, he’s made nine straight from 50 or farther.
COACHES OF THE WEEK
Bill Belichick, coach, New England. So routing the Browns by 20 in Cleveland isn’t the biggest win of his life. It’s not his biggest win of the last month. But it allowed Belichick to reach a heck of a milestone. He became the fourth coach in history to win 250 games (regular season and playoffs), and he did it in 22 years.
Belichick, even with that shaky first five years of his career in Cleveland, is averaging 11.7 wins per year (counting this year as three-tenths of a season, seeing that we’re five games into the year). The other three coaches to exceed 250 win in their career—Don Shula, George Halas and Tom Landry—reside in Canton, where Belichick surely will be five years after he retires.
Anthony Lynn, offensive coordinator, Buffalo. Since Rex Ryan fired Greg Roman as coordinator and appointed long-time aide Lynn to run the offense, Buffalo’s running game has become one of the league’s most feared. The Bills ran for just 75.5 yards a game under Roman in 2016; that number has skyrocketed to 178.3 per game under Lynn—and Lynn has reinforced the fact that Buffalo will be a strong running team first and second, then a throwing team third. Excellent job so far by the understated Lynn, who has the respect of his players.
Kyle Shanahan, offensive coordinator, Atlanta. Returning to his childhood home, where he often accompanied his father (longtime Denver head coach Mike Shanahan) to work on Saturdays, Shanahan had the best game of his 12-year NFL coaching career. With Denver one of three NFL unbeatens entering Sunday, and with the best defense in football, Shanahan used multiple weapons in a 23-13 statement win for the Falcons. Atlanta gained 372 yards and kept Matt Ryan relatively clean with a good, diversified game plan.
GOATS OF THE WEEK
C.J. Mosley, linebacker, Baltimore. With Washington leading 13-10 midway through the third quarter, Mosley stepped in front of a Kirk Cousins pass and made an interception at the Washington 13-yard line. Mosley rumbled to the 1 and tried to stretch out the ball over the goal line … and promptly fumbled the ball into the end zone, where it went out of bounds. Touchback.
Washington took the ball at the 20, drove for a field goal, and there was no more scoring. Washington won, 16-10. So instead of having the ball first-and-goal at the 1-yard line midway through the third quarter, trailing by three, Baltimore turned it over to Washington and blew the golden scoring chance that very well could have changed the outcome of the game. Terrible decision by Mosley.
Drew Kaser, holder/punter, San Diego. Another ridiculous way to lose a game for the Chargers. With two minutes left in the fourth quarter, down three, the Chargers had a makeable field goal … except that the holder, rookie Kaser, missed a snap that was right in his hands, a perfect snap, the kind of snap that in The Great Snaps of NFL History would have its own chapter.An absurd way to lose, befitting San Diego’s season.
* * *
Factoid That May Interest Only Me
Arizona actually will have two bye weeks this year. The Cardinals are in the midst of their first one. Coach Bruce Arians gave the Cardinals five days off after the 33-21 win at San Francisco last Thursday night. The Cards don’t play until next Monday night, so giving the players Friday through Tuesday off makes sense; it still gives Arizona six days to prepare for the next game. The real bye week comes precisely in midseason—in Week 9.
The first half of the Cards’ season, in terms of fits and starts, is one of the stranger ones I’ve seen. Detailing it:
• Five games in the first 26 days.
• No games in the next 10 days.
• Three games in the next 14 days.
• No games in the next 13 days.
The weirdness culminates with five road games in the final seven weekends.
* * *
Things I Think
1. I think these are my one-sentence truths of Week 5:
a. If I could pick one running back for the next five years to center my running game around, it’d be David Johnson of the Cardinals.
b. Blaine Gabbert (42 career games, 56.1 percent career completions) is too inaccurate to be trusted to be a starting quarterback.
c. Please, please, please, Colts: Keep that roof open. It makes a lovely tableau for football games in Indianapolis.
d. There’s no quarterback in football throwing the deep ball better than Ben Roethlisberger, and I mean no one.
e. Bill O’Brien cannot be sleeping well, with the lack of quarterback production he’s getting from Brock Osweiler (70.2 rating, 29th in the league) through a very shaky five-game start.
f. After watching a good chunk of Tennessee-Miami, I would like to announce that the reports of the demise of DeMarco Murray have been greatly exaggerated.
g. Of course you should be smitten with the Raiders at 4-1, but no team can give up four touchdowns a game (27.4 points, to be exact) and not have that come back to bite them, and soon.
h. It’s entirely possible the best element of the 2016 Packers through four games, stunningly, is the front seven.
i. The Jets are a very tough watch right now, and there may be no more shocking statistic after five weeks than this one: New York’s opposing passer rating is 118.6.
j. It is a mark of the craziness of the National Football League that Denver Broncos fans are waking up this morning muttering: “Hope Trevor Siemian’s healthy enough to play QB Thursday night against the Chargers.”
2. I think there’s no logical reason for Chip Kelly to not play Colin Kaepernick on Sunday in Buffalo, unless Kaepernick is hurt or Kelly thinks Christian Ponder has passed Kaepernick on the mental depth chart.
3. I think I will always wonder if Larry Fitzgerald, with a competent quarterback for most of his career, could have challenged Jerry Rice’s all-time record for catches (1,549) or receiving touchdowns (197). Probably not. And Fitzgerald told me last month: “His records are unattainable.” But Fitzgerald, who is 33, is 500 catches and 95 touchdowns away from Rice.
And seven of the 13 quarterbacks who he’s caught touchdowns from are: Shaun King, Richard Bartel, Max Hall, Brian St. Pierre, John Navarre, John Skelton and Matt Leinart. Six of Fitzgerald’s 13 years have been spent, mostly, with quarterbacks not named Kurt Warner or Carson Palmer. What would Fitzgerald’s numbers have been like with even, say, a middling quarterback for half of his career?
4. I think if I were an NFL owner, and I knew the Tom Brady legal fight sapped my team of $359,000, I’d be furious right now. Livid. How’d I get that number? Darren Rovell of ESPN revealed that the legal battle between the NFL and Tom Brady over his four-game suspension and subsequent court battle cost an estimate $23 million. Say that figure is true, or close. And say it got split down the middle between the league and the Players Association (though it probably cost the league more, because of the Ted Wells investigation).
That means the owners in the NFL, effectively though not directly, each had a $359,000 stake in the legal action against Brady. I’d be telling Roger Goodell right about now: Please send a strongly worded letter and a $25,000 fine the next time, unless you’ve got overwhelming evidence that the public confidence in the game has been irrevocably harmed.
5. I think this is what a mobile, confident quarterback will do for you: On the first Buffalo touchdown drive of the game at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Tyrod Taylor had 6.12 seconds, a lifetime for a quarterback, to look and look and scramble left and look some more and fire a strike to Justin Hunter in the end zone for a touchdown. Beautiful patience and execution and decision-making by Taylor.
6. I think Brian Hoyer (.714 completion rate, 108.5 rating) is a great example of a quarterback who should have a job for a long time in the NFL—just not as a starter.
7. I think what I love about Matt Ryan’s game right now is that he’s not mesmerized by the notion that he has to get the ball to Julio Jones X number of times in a game, but rather simply passes to the open guy.
Three men—Tevin Coleman, Devonta Freeman and Mohamed Sanu—each had more catches and more receiving yards than Jones in the 23-16 upset of the Broncos, and knowing Jones, he absolutely did not care. He knows his time will come next week, or the week after. Or maybe both weeks. Atlanta’s got such an egalitarian offensive society.
8. I think, not to overdo a story that has gotten far too much attention already, I have to say one thing about offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan of the Giants implying that there is something unmanly about a defensive player who will not play Odell Beckham straight up without using mental games: It’s ridiculous. “If a defender is very confident, if he has complete belief in his own abilities and if he’s a true competitor, why does he want to tip the scales?” Sullivan asked last week.
“Doesn’t he want Odell to be at his best? … Why are they trying to rattle him?” Because that’s sports! If Mike Sullivan thinks it's somehow unfair or non-sporting to take advantage of a hothead on the other side of the field, he’d be the first coach I ever heard of who felt that way.
9. I think this was Jenny Vrentas’ reaction to the new stadium in Minnesota—I’m a bit of a stadium junkie, and I have not been to U.S. Bank Stadium yet—after I asked her to write a few lines about it Sunday because she was on hand for the win over Houston:
“Sunday afternoon was the perfect showcase for the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium. The MMQB hadn’t been up here for a regular-season game yet, though Emily Kaplan got a tour in the summer, and this week happened to be the Vikings’ first afternoon game in their new building. The futuristic stadium design works exactly as intended. The sunlight poured in through the transparent ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) roof, basking down on the field and half the stands.
The five giant hydraulic doors that open toward the downtown skyline were pivoted open three hours before kickoff—probably for the last time this season, given that the Vikings aren’t home again until November, and well, the weather probably won't be so nice by then. The indoor-outdoor feel here is perfect for this city.
For those who visited the old Metrodome, it’s a little surreal to see an uber-modern structure nearly double the size on virtually the same footprint. Your ears don’t pop when you walk inside, but the new 66,000-seat stadium certainly feels just as loud as the dome was, and perhaps even louder. In a wildly unscientific sample, a decibel app on my phone recorded noise levels around 100 decibels on a couple third downs—and that’s just sitting in the press box, high up in a corner and behind the stands.
Before the game, ESPN’s Ed Werder reported that the Vikings actually have been practicing with simulated crowd noise for home games. In their first three games at U.S. Bank, the Minnesota offense has picked up seven false-start penalties, so this is something to which they’re still adjusting. Of course, any NFL owner who has opened a new stadium would agree on the best attribute of the Vikings’ new home: A 5-0 team.”
