| Part of the fun of NFL football is that a game
is never over until the final gun sounds. Sure, it’s a cliché, but it was as true as
ever Sunday afternoon. Both the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints looked done for
in the second half of their games vs. San Francisco and St. Louis, respectively, but they
kept clawing and fighting until they had done something special. Let’s start with
the Bears, who may have proven themselves to a lot of critics with their 37-31 overtime
win over the 49ers. Chicago battled back from a 19-point deficit in the fourth quarter to
knock off San Francisco, and it was an unlikely hero, QB Shane Matthews, who led the way.
Yes, that’s the same Shane Matthews who was benched earlier this season and was
waived by Chicago in the past month before being re-signed.
But when starter Jim Miller went down with a bum hip in the first half (more on him
later), Matthews stepped into the lineup and calmly led his team to victory. Of course, he
had a lot of help from a pair of rookies, RB Anthony Thomas, who went for 127 yards and
scored a game-tying two-point conversion with just seconds on the clock, and WR David
Terrell, who had two touchdown catches in the comeback. But for Matthews to take the reins
of the team and stage such a stunning comeback says a lot for his drive to win.
Matthews wouldn’t have gotten his chance to shine if it weren’t for
Miller’s knack for getting banged up. Miller took a hit during the second quarter
that knocked him out of the game with a bruised left hip, and the biggest reason Miller
suffered the injury was that he didn’t protect himself. He jumped to complete a pass
and was nailed as he was in the air. One of the reasons some quarterbacks are more durable
than others is that they know how to take a hit. They don’t put their bodies in a
dangerous position, and it’s obviously something Miller has yet to learn.
The other team that was impressive was the Saints. Their game vs. the Rams looked as if
it were over by halftime when St. Louis held a 24-6 lead. However, a 25-point third
quarter, which was spurred by turnovers and big plays on defense, allowed New Orleans to
send the Rams to their first defeat of the season.
QB Aaron Brooks didn’t try to do too much when his team was behind and simply
tried to capitalize on St. Louis’ mistakes and put his team in a position to win. You
can’t ask for more from a leader than that, and the Saints’ defense really
rallied to get its team the win.
It’s official. The Minnesota Vikings are a mess, and there doesn’t seem to be
much that can set their season right. Yeah, the team is just one game under .500 and the
season isn’t yet halfway over, but it doesn’t look as though Minnesota has the
discipline to right the ship. In-fighting on the sideline has been the rule rather than
the exception this season for the Vikes, and Sunday was no different. WR Cris Carter had
to be separated from teammates on the sideline during a 41-14 loss to Tampa Bay, and
Minnesota’s defense couldn’t stop Mike Alstott & Co. from running roughshod
over the Vikings. The not-so-vaunted Buccaneers offense rolled up 439 yards of total
offense and left Minnesota looking like a team that quit.
Vikes head coach Dennis Green appears to have lost control of his team, and he has a
lot of work to do to get his club on the same page. Minnesota has suffered through a lot
of adversity this season, and you would expect the ballclub to be very tightly knit both
on and off the field. The opposite has been true, however, with players pointing fingers
at each other and the Vikings generally looking like a team in disarray. They still can
regroup to make the playoffs, but the recovery better come soon.
It might take the Joker’s surgeon to remove the smile from Doug Flutie’s face
this week. The San Diego quarterback led his team to an impressive 27-24 win over his old
team, the Buffalo Bills, and you can bet that this one was sweet for the little engine
that could. Flutie may have thrown for fewer yards than his Bills counterpart, Rob
Johnson, but he proved once again something that I’ve believed throughout his career:
Flutie doesn’t put up big numbers every time out; he simply wins.
Whether it’s with his arm or his feet, Flutie simply beats his opponents by
finding a way to win. His calm and cool under pressure is a trait that can’t be
taught, and that’s why I’ve never understood why Buffalo decided to stick with
Johnson instead of re-signing Flutie. Johnson may be younger and have a stronger arm, but
Flutie wins, and that’s the bottom line in the NFL or any league. San Diego is
thrilled that Buffalo decided to go in that direction, and the Chargers and Bills also
appear to be going in different directions on the football field.
The New York Giants also appear to be pretty inconsistent these days, and one of the
reasons is that the team isn’t running the ball very well. The Giants ran for just 42
yards in a 35-21 loss to Washington, and they gave up on the ground game pretty early in
the second half. QB Kerry Collins threw the ball 52 times for 342 yards and three
touchdowns, but New York couldn’t move the ball with RBs Ron Dayne and Tiki Barber,
and that was their strength last season.
Barber and Dayne combined for just 33 yards on 15 carries, and that kind of production
won’t cut it in the NFL or any other league. But I was surprised to see New York
coach Jim Fassel throw in the towel on the running game so early. A big reason he turned
his back was because his runners weren’t producing, but it seemed as though Fassel
panicked a bit and allowed the Redskins to sit back and wait for Collins to throw the
ball.
When you have a pair of weapons like Dayne and Barber, there’s no reason to take
the ball out of their hands when you aren’t facing a huge deficit. This was a huge
loss for New York not only because it was a game that it should have won, but also because
Fassel appeared to lose faith in his runners. That doesn’t bode well for the future
of a team that looked so promising just a couple of weeks ago. |
