Week Four Bumps, Bruises and Bow-outs

After all the injuries this season, here is a delightfully short list this week.
Lamar Gordon (ATL) - Injured wrist
Corey Dillon (CIN) - Re-aggravated groin injury
Kris Mangum (CAR) - Sprained ankle
Jim Kleinsasser (MIN) - Abdominal contusion - returned to game

Okay, okay, other than Terrell Owens...

After chronic low scoring the first weeks of the season, week four finally treated us to the long awaited points explosion, concluded appropriately with the Colts 55-21 humiliation of the Saints. Yesterday there were a dozen quarterbacks with at least two touchdowns and six with at least three touchdowns. There were nine different runningbacks that exceeded 100 total yards and they included notables like Brian Westbrook and Correll Buckhalter. For some reason there were no runningbacks that had multiple touchdowns, but there were three receivers that did and that includes Randy Moss (3) and Marvin Harrison (3). Donovan McNabb was good again! The Eagles used Correll Buckhalter!

Gannon was the best quarterback, Tomlinson was the best runningback and Randy Moss and Marvin Harrison were both so good why bother with who did more? It was finally a week that saw those high draft picks pay off (at least more of them) and a weekend that starts with touchdowns everywhere before the cheese on your nachos goes cold is a week we needed to see.

Not so easy when they still care, huh - boy wonder?

Thanks to his elbow stitches, Mark Brunell missed the Houston game and gave Byron Leftwich his first NFL start on Sunday. He had mopped up in the last two games and completed 11 of 13 passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns against no interceptions. The games were already decided and not all players saw his performance since they were already preparing to leave.

In Houston against a team that is getting pretty tired of never being favored in any game, Leftwich did set a franchise record with a 84-yard touchdown throw to Troy Edwards. Other than that wonderful throw, Leftwich completed 16 of 35 passes for 147 yards, no scores, three interceptions and a very badly timed lost fumble which gave the ball back to Houston. Since Jacksonville hosts the Chargers next week, Mark Brunell had better heal up before Leftwich starts to think it is that easy again.

Sign #8 that you are not going to get back into the game

Down only 17-7 with the second quarter only 28 seconds from ending, the Rams had the ball on their own 36 yard line. Since St. Louis was facing Arizona, Marc Bulger did not just take a knee to end the half but instead winged the ball to Isaac Bruce all the way down at the Arizona 5-yard line where it was intercepted.

Oops.

Dexter Jackson ran back to the 35-yard line before he was stripped of the ball. Instead of a momentum changing return, Jackson ended up letting the ball pop out and get recovered by the Rams.

Oops.

With only three seconds left, Jeff Wilkins nailed the 53-yard field goal. Another sign that the Cardinals were not the winning team came after the game when it was realized that they had taken their #1 NFL ranking for converting third downs (59%) and likely damaged it since they never actually converted one in the game.

Oh for the love of... now who is that one?

There were twenty-six teams that played yesterday which means there were, at least in theory, 26 primary rushers. In addition to those 26 primary running backs, there were 45 more backs that took a handoff yesterday and ten others that had no carries but at least one catch. What ever happened to the good old days when Edgerrin James would take every single handoff for his team?

Speaking of the Colts, those fantasy fans who scrambled with the back-up guessing game all were rewarded with a little something for the effort. There was Dominic Rhodes (52 yards, 1 TD), Ricky Williams (74 yards, 1 TD) and even James Mungro (30 yards) just in case you guessed wrong. Fred Taylor only gave up one carry to FB Marc Edwards and Priest Holmes only saw Tony Richardson run the ball once as the only two rushers with minimal sharing. Weren't those the two guys that needed resting the most?

Drama 101 - Somebody has to laugh, somebody has to cry

I practice that. Of course it never actually happens in practice.

The Raiders punter Shane Lechler was asked to come out on fourth and six from the Oakland 26-yard line and earn his paycheck. The punt, which should be immortalized immediately to the right when you enter the Punters Hall of Fame that will never be built, traveled at least fifty yards in the air and was not fielded by the Charger return man. He decided to "let it go" since the punt hit the ground and shot toward the endzone. By the ten yard line it was slowing but not quite enough to stay out of the endzone. At least not until the tumbling trajectory hit the nose of the ball just right on the half yard line and it lazily bounced exactly parallel to the goal line. That made for a 73 yard punt and today was much too good to be talking any further about punts.

It all averages out

LaDainian Tomlinson may have been a disappointment to all those fantasy teams that drafted him with their precious first pick, but he tried to make it up with 187 rushing yards and one score, seven receptions for 24 yards and then he also threw a 21-yard touchdown pass back to Drew Brees. Now if he could just kick field goals too...

Sunday's Couch Commentary

Game-O-The-Week

Winner: Jacksonville 20, Houston 24

The Raider-Charger tilt was a definite contender as an overtime game with big scores and yards. San Diego lost one receiver and suspended the other before the game and yet still made the Raiders sweat like a sumo wrestler at an iron foundry before they could steal the win. But in the end, Houston richly deserves the nod for not only entertaining us, but for giving us a reminder of why we play games in the first place.

The Texans entered the game 1-2 on the season and still lamenting the fact that Vegas still always considers them as the underdog. No matter that they are at home and facing a winless team that is starting a rookie quarterback who would be throwing the ball to...well... no one actually. Matthew Hatchette, J.J. Stokes, Cortez Hankton, Troy Edwards and Jimmy Redmond couldn't scare a defense with machetes and five hockey masks.

At the half, the Texans led 14-10 and then padded that with a Kris Brown field goal in the third quarter to make the score 17-10. With the ball on their own 16-yard line, Byron Leftwich threw an incomplete. Then on second down, he hits Troy Edwards (yes - that Troy Edwards) at the 31-yard line and Troy does not stop running until he scores the longest touchdown in Jaguars' history to tie the game and force a painful smile from the sidelined Mark Brunell.

Not to be outdone, the Texans take the ball and march down to the JAX 32-yard line where Kris Brown kicks a field goal wide right. Jacksonville takes over.

Using a mixture of Fred Taylor, a few passes and RB LaBrandon Toefield who himself throws two different passes (1-2, 32 yards), Jacksonville finally stalls out at the Houston 2-yard line and takes the go ahead field goal for a 20-16 lead. Yikes! This is not going to play in Vegas very well.

After trading a few punts, the Texans are on the march for the game tying field goal using passes to Andre Johnson and Jabbar Gaffney down to the JAX 21-yard line. Plenty close for that game tying field goal and on second and six, the Houston braintrust decides to copy the Jaguars by having Stacey Mack enter the game and throw a pass at Andre Johnson. The problem with this, beyond the fact that all these halfback passes are getting a bit tedious, is that he threw it to the CB Jason Craft at the 5-yard line. With only 4:35 left to play. And the ball is now on the JAX 13-yard line.

Jacksonville just needs to get some first downs and use up the clock. Fred Taylor runs it for one yard, then Leftwich throws a pass to Troy Edwards for an 11 yard gain and a first down. Clock is running and goes below three minutes. Then Fred Taylor rushes again for three yards. On second down and seven yards to go, with a clock to kill and Fred "I'm still healthy" Taylor in the backfield, Jacksonville decides to pass. But the rush forces Leftwich out of the pocket and instead of throwing the ball away and killing the clock, he wisely takes off running and makes it nine yards down the field before the safety Eric Brown catches up to him and wisely pops the ball out of his hand which is recovered by Houston's Matt Stevens at the JAX 28 yard line with only 2:51 left to play.

On Monday, Leftwich should just loop the Edwards touchdown catch when he reviews the game film.

Stacey Mack was out of the game by now since he had already thrown an interception, fumbled the ball away on a run and then dropped a pitch on the next play. Instead, the rookie Domanick Davis ran the ball four times and had two catches to get the Texans down to the JAX 4-yard line with only 29 seconds left to play.

First and ten. Time for a play or two and if that did not work, the tying field goal.

First down - incomplete to Corey Bradford
Second down - Carr cannot throw and gets tackled at the line but a defensive offsides is called.

Replay second down with only 20 seconds left. Carr throws to Andre Johnson but since he is wearing Fernando Bryant on his back, pass interference is called.

First and goal to go from the one, 16 seconds left to play. Davis runs it for no gain and Houston calls a time-out with only 9 seconds remaining as I make a mental note to never again drink so much Dr. Pepper before the end of a close game. On third and one, from the one yard line with only six seconds left to play, Houston does not take the field goal. You know - kick the field goal on third down. Play it safe - get the tie - what are they doing?

Carr takes the snap and fires the ball right before getting hit and it zips past Jabbar Gaffney for an incomplete. The same Gaffney that has also taken to wearing cornerbacks as capes and and pass interference is again called. Only two seconds are left. And then the unthinkable happens. In a league that has traded leadership for committees and turned head coaches from military commanders to mere game managers, HC Dom Capers makes an astounding choice.

Instead of playing to not lose the game, he has the audacity to try to win it. Outright. Right now. Here. One play.

And with that, David Carr walks to the line, gets under center and before the defense has the obligatory six seconds to shift in response to some complicated formation, Carr takes the snap and leaps over the back of his center, shoving the ball over the goal line while held high in the air like an offensive middle finger for Vegas, and playing it safe and anything else short of playing to win. Here and now. One play. Let's go. Me or you.

That's all it was ever supposed to be.

Not five yard passes on third and nine. Not take a knee with forty-five seconds to halftime. Not look for a flag after every play and cry to the refs. Not play according to the number of years on your contract. Not drive the field, consume the clock and kick a field goal so we can start over. Play the game to win. Play the game to win. Right here. Right now. Play the game to win.

Now get back to work...