Monday, Jan. 7, 2002

Monday Musings

Faulk deserves to be MVP; highlights from Sunday’s games

By Jeff Reynolds, Associate editor of special projects

• Welcome back, Chicago, New England and Pittsburgh. The party starts next week. Goodbye, George Seifert, Pontiac Silverdome, five-team divisions and Seattle Seahawks.

• Rams RB Marshall Faulk is the league MVP, hands down. … Kurt Warner is a close second. … Jets RB Curtis Martin makes the Jets a playoff team; without him they are 5-11. … I am convinced Oakland (after three straight losses) and Tampa Bay (because the Bucs have to win in Philadelphia, in January) will have the playoff longevity of a Las Vegas marriage.

• With multiple NFL teams expected to hang the "Open" sign in the front window Monday morning, don’t be surprised if ex-Florida coach Steve Spurrier is the first hired. Spurrier, a brash, yet highly successful collegiate coach with the Gators, has long been a member of the short list of names on my mud list. While I will never agree with the methods, it is hard not to recognize the results. Carolina, Dallas, Minnesota and Washington are all possible landing pads for the aerial attack Spurrier is sure to reintroduce, though only Carolina and Washington officially had vacancies.

• If you can’t win when it counts, Oakland, you enter the postseason lacking the all-important element of momentum. However, there are several teams riding high entering the weekend of Jan. 12. St. Louis is driving the locomotive, though Chicago, Green Bay, San Francisco and New England finished the season with powerful statements.

• The touchdown celebration of the season was delivered by Jets RB LaMont Jordan, a first-year back from Maryland who got his first rushing touchdown in New York’s playoff-clinching 24-22 win in the Black Hole. Jordan capped his 46-yard run in the third quarter by crossing the goal line and cutting across the endzone toward the goal post, where he pretended to pull an imaginary ignition cord from the football. With the pigskin playing the part of a chain saw, Jordan posed as a lumberjack chopping down the standard labeled R-A-I-D-E-R-S. Best post-score skit I’ve seen since Chargers H-back and TE Al Pupunu pretended to open one end of the football and guzzle libations after a score in a Super Bowl loss to San Francisco in 1994.

• Jordan’s stage act was special, but the highlight of the day came from the NFC Central champion Chicago Bears. In Chicago’s 33-13 win, No. 13 of the season and good for the Central crown, 320-pound DT Keith Traylor made a one-handed interception of a Mark Brunell pass and "sprinted" 67 yards to the Jacksonville nine-yard line. With a caravan of blockers large enough to stop traffic on I-94, the jaunt took nearly 15 seconds, and was, more or less, straight down the sideline.

• Hats off to a pair of record-breakers from Sunday’s action. Giants DE Michael Strahan finally notched a quarterback sack in the fourth quarter of a 34-25 loss to Green Bay at the Meadowlands. That made 22.5 sacks for Strahan, who broke the former mark set by Mark Gastineau. Elsewhere, Dallas RB Emmitt Smith turned another corner with his 11^th straight 1,000-yard rushing season, becoming the only running back to accomplish the feat. Former Lion Barry Sanders did it 10 consecutive seasons.

• San Francisco has played well defensively, but there is no reason New Orleans should be held scoreless with all the weapons at the Saints’ disposal. Coach Jim Haslett saw his club outscored 74-0 in the final seven quarters of the 2001-02 season; good luck building on that in the offseason, Coach.

• On the other side of that coin, the season is over for the Cincinnati Bengals, but coach Dick LeBeau & Co. must be thrilled with the way this young team finished the season. An overtime win over the class of the AFC and division champion Pittsburgh a week ago was followed by a thrilling 23-21 triumph over Tennessee. QB Jon Kitna went over 300 yards passing in both games.

• All season long we’ve seen fourth-quarter shots of a dejected Matt Millen, the Lions’ team president. Sunday, with a chance to secure the No. 2 overall pick in the April draft with a loss, Detroit beat Dallas to move to 2-14. Now that calls for a look of dejection. … But Carolina did not disappoint, dropping its 15^th game in a row vs. New England. The Panthers turned in a season worthy of the No. 1 draft choice, but the Panthers will pick second behind expansion Houston. Memo to Carolina: Get help, and lots of it.

• With Jacksonville expected to be a mobile advertisement of CostCutters next season, I have a suggestion for Tom Coughlin’s gang: Find a new home for RB Fred Taylor. He’s great when healthy, but Fred just can’t find a way to stay on the field. Build on a strong season from RB Stacey Mack and keep the players who want to play, and take second- and fifth-round picks for Taylor.

• It surprises me a great deal that Denver coach Mike Shanahan would leave the Broncos to coach at the University of Florida next season. Published reports cited the link between Shanahan and Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley as reason for speculation. Shanahan has endured a frustrating run since taking back-to-back Lombardi trophies to the Rockies, but there is a world of talent under his nose, enough to be playing on the final weekend of the postseason in 2003.

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2001 - 2002 Season