Sports Then and Now

The final week of the 2012 NFL season was just as good as the first 16 were. With 16 division matchups on the schedule, it had it all: shutouts, blowouts, third-string quarterbacks, elimination games, records being chased and of course another opportunity for Tony Romo to choke. (He did). For the last time in 2012, your storylines from the week that was in pro football.

Eight would have been great: Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson came up eight yards shy of tying the single-season rushing record, but his Vikings are heading to the playoffs.

Adrian Peterson came within eight yards of tying and nine of breaking the NFL single-season rushing record, but with time running out in the game, Blair Walsh kicked a 29-yard field goal to break the tie  and send the Vikings to the playoffs, ending Peterson’s regular season. Minnesota defeated the Packers, 37-34, for their first win against their division rivals since 2009. The loss also ended Green Bay’s 12-game division winning streak. Peterson did become just the seventh running back to ever rush for 2,000 yards in a season as he concluded the regular season with 2,097 yards on the ground. The Packers had won nine straight regular season finales before the loss. Aaron Rodgers threw four touchdowns in a game for the fourth time this year, including two to Greg Jennings. Walsh added to his NFL record with his 10th field goal of 50-plus yards on the season. Peterson finished the season with seven 150-plus rushing games, tying the NFL record. Minnesota has made the playoffs for the first time since 2009. The Packers, who finished the regular season at 11-5 and the Vikings, who finished 10-6, will play each other on Saturday in the Wild Card round.

The good news: the Colts won their regular season finale. The great news: Chuck Pagano was back on the sidelines to coach it. J.J. Watt failed to get any sacks and finished two shy of the NFL single-season record as the Texans lost to the Colts to fall all the way to the third seed in the AFC, missing the bye they had been in position for all season long. Watt finished with 20.5 sacks on the year. Houston has never won at Indianapolis – now 0-11 all-time with the 28-16 loss on Sunday. A career-long 70-yard TD pass from Andrew Luck to T.Y. Hilton on 3rd & 23 all but sealed the win for the Colts. Deji Karim returned a second-half kickoff 101 yards for Indy, their longest return since 1973. Andre Johnson tied the career record of 10-reception games set by Wes Welker last week with the 18th of his career. Reggie Wayne now has at least three catches in 64 straight games, extending his NFL record. The Colts became the seventh team to improve by nine wins in just one year, going from 2-14 in 2011 to 11-5 in 2012. Houston finished 12-4 after losing three of its last four games and will host the Bengals in the Wild Card round, while the Colts will travel to Baltimore.

The Chicago Bears have made a little history of their own as they became just the second team since 1990 to miss the playoffs after starting the season with a 7-1 record despite beating the Lions, 26-24, in Detroit and finishing with a 10-6 record. They have now missed the playoffs in five of the last six seasons. Matt Forte did rush for 1,000 yards for the third time in his career. The Lions finished a disappointing 4-12, but Matthew Stafford shattered the previous record of 691 pass attempts in a season and finished with 727. Calvin Johnson caught five balls for 72 yards and came up 36 yards short of the first ever 2,000-yard receiving season. It broke his streak of eight straight 100-yard receiving games and four straight 10-catch games, which were both NFL records. He finished the season with an NFL record 1,964 receiving yards. Chicago fired head coach Lovie Smith on Monday after a 3-5 end to the year and that has apparently prompted kick returner Devin Hester to consider retirement.

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Week 16 gave us plenty of gifts right before Christmas including playoff clinching performances, records being set, quarterback controversies and of course a little Tim Tebow. Like always, it was fun to watch and even more exciting for those lucky enough to be in fantasy championship games.

The Falcons became the first team in the league to reach 13 wins as they got the best of the not-so-mighty Lions, 31-18, to open the week on Thursday/Saturday/Monday Night Football. While their performance was certainly appreciated in Atlanta, it was probably overshadowed around the rest of the country as Calvin Johnson broke the 17-year receiving yards record previously held by Jerry Rice with 11 catches for 225 yards on the night. He surpassed Rice’s record of 1,848 yards and now has 1,892 with one game to go and a real shot at becoming the first ever 2,000-yard receiver. On top of that, Megatron also set NFL records with his eighth straight game of 100-plus receiving yards and fourth straight with 10-plus catches. Matthew Stafford set an NFL record for the most passing yards in a game (443) without throwing a touchdown.

No. 1: Calvin Johnson broke Jerry Rice’s record for receiving yards in a season with 225 in his team’s loss to the Falcons Saturday night.

Atlanta did clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with the win. Their two big targets, Roddy White and Julio Jones combined for 15 catches, 224 yards and three touchdowns. White had 100-plus yards and two TD catches in the 1st half alone – the second time he’s done that in his career. Jones now has at least five catches in five straight games and has a touchdown catch in four out of five. Matt Ryan continued his dominance at home as he threw four TD passes and set a new career-high with 31 on the year, tying the Falcons single-season record. He completed his first 12 passes of the game and dating back to last week, had completed 22 straight – a Falcons record – while also tying another career-high with the four touchdown passes. With one reception, Tony Gonzalez has caught a ball in 194 straight games. The Falcons improved to 13-2 and the Lions fell to a disappointing 4-11.

Steven Jackson entered Sunday’s game against the Bucs needing 91 yards for his eighth straight 1,000-yard season, but only got 81 as the Rams won the game 28-13. Rookie Janoris Jenkins returned another interception for a touchdown – his third of the year, which tied the rookie record set back in 1981. Josh Freeman tied the Bucs’ career record for TD throws with 77, but also threw four interceptions in his second consecutive game. He also now holds the Bucs’ single season passing yards record with 3,843 through Sunday. Sam Bradford was not sacked at all for the first time in 31 games. St. Louis improved to 7-7-1 and Tampa fell to 6-9 with their fifth straight loss.

Greg McElroy made the first start of his NFL career as the Jets hosted the Chargers in a battle of disappointing AFC teams. It was the first time since 2009 that Mark Sanchez had not started a game for New York and they looked pretty good on offense to start, driving for two early Shonn Greene touchdown runs. San Diego would come back, however, behind two touchdown passes from Philp Rivers, including one to Antonio Gates, who now stands alone as the Chargers’ all-time leader in touchdown catches with 82, and hand the Jets the loss, 27-17. San Diego sacked McElroy 11 times in the win – the most by a team since 2007. McElroy was the second quarterback since the merger to be sacked 11 times in his first start. The Jets fell to 6-9 and Chargers improved to 6-9 with the win.

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Buccaneers’ rookie running back, Doug Martin, had a day for the ages on Sunday, rushing for 251 yards and four touchdowns in Tampa Bay’s 42-32 win over the Raiders.

In case anyone forgot why we love this game so much, here are a few incredible achievements, outcomes and performances to remind us all.

Tampa Bay rookie running back, Doug Martin had perhaps the performance of the year in the Bucs’ 42-32 win over the Raiders on Sunday. Martin ran the ball 25 times for a franchise-record 251 yards and not one, not two, not three, but four touchdowns. He was responsible for 24 out of Tampa Bay’s 42 points and 220 of those yards came in the 2^nd half. The 251 yards was good fir the third-most all-time by a rookie behind Demarco Murray and Adrian Peterson. If you don’t know Doug Martin, now you know.

Not surprisingly, this performance gave him the top spot in fantasy football leagues this week, as he racked up 51, yes 51, points in standard ESPN leagues. He became just the third Tampa running back to ever rush for 200 yards in a game. He also became the first Buc to rush for 130 yards in consecutive games. More importantly, the Bucs won just their fourth ever game in the state of California.

Wow. Talk about Andrew Luck or RG3 being offensive Rookie of the Year may just have to be put on hold as Martin has combined for 386 yards and five touchdowns in the past two weeks. He has a total of 794 yards on the year, is the top rookie runner in the league after nine weeks and is second overall, trailing only Peterson, who incidentally had a huge day himself on Sunday, running for 182 yards and two scores on just 17 carries.

Chicago’s Brandon Marshall and Detroit’s Mikel Leshoure also had huge days in wins by their respective teams. Marshall caught nine balls for 122 yards and three touchdowns in the Bears‘ 51-20 drubbing of the Titans and Leshoure ran 16 times for 70 yards and three scores of his own as the Lions bested the Jaguars 31-14. It was the first time since 2008 that a Lions player had scored three rushing touchdowns in a game. Matthew Stafford reached 10,000 career passing yards in his 37^th career game and became the 2^nd-fastest to ever do it behind Kurt Warner, who did it in 36 games.

In that Bears win, Brian Urlacher picked off a Matt Hasselbeck pass and returned it 46 yards for a touchdown. This marked the seventh interception return for a touchdown by the Bears D this season, just two shy of the all-time NFL single-season record. The 51 points the Bears scored are their most since they scored 61 against the Packers in 1980. Titans running back, Chris Johnson, scored on an 80-yard run in the 4^th quarter. Two weeks ago, Johnson ran for his fourth career score of 80 yards or more, breaking an NFL record. His fifth adds to his own record.

The Giants and Steelers played an exciting one in East Rutherford as Pittsburgh, trailing 20-10 entering the 4^th quarter, scored the game’s final 14 points to win 24-20. For a change, Ben Roethlisberger, and not Eli Manning, led his team to a 4^th quarter comeback. Sorry, I don’t have a stat that says how many 4^th quarter leads Manning has blown. Steelers running back, Isaac Redman ran 26 times for 147 yards and a TD as both Rashard Mendenhall and Jonathan Dwyer were out with injuries. With their 35 rushing attempts in the game, Pittsburgh improved to 17-1 under Mike Tomlin when running the ball at least 35 times in a game. Due to Hurricane Sandy, the Steelers only got to New Jersey on Sunday morning.

Out west, maybe they are who we thought they were, as the Cardinals have lost their fifth straight game after a 4-0 start. Without Kevin Kolb, they are forced to start John Skelton, who is 0-4 in four starts since Kolb went down. They fell 31-17 to the Packers at Lambeau Field and still have never won a game there (0-6).

Elsewhere, the aforementioned Luck, has the Colts over .500. They beat the Dolphins, who had won three straight, 23-20 on Sunday for their third straight win. After reaching the 4-3 mark last week, Indy is over .500 for the first time since the end of Peyton Manning’s last season in 2010. Luck became the second rookie in NFL history with four 300-yard passing games in his first year. The other? Manning. Luck finished with 433 passing yards on the day – a new rookie record. He also has four 4^th quarter or overtime game-winning drives through eight games. The four other rookie QB’s have combined for four among them. And if that wasn’t enough, Luck’s 2,404 passing yards through his first eight games are the most ever by a rookie.

Cowboys tight end, Jason Witten tied and broke the team’s all-time receptions record in Sunday night’s loss to the undefeated Falcons as he caught seven balls for 51 yards to bring his career total to 754. He passed Michael Irvin, who was the Cowboys’ leader with 751, for the honor. The Falcons did get the win and improved to 8-0 as the last undefeated team left in the league. Six of the last 14 teams to open a season 8-0 have won the Super Bowl. Matt Ryan improved to 30-4 in his career at home, the best home win percentage (.882) by a quarterback since the merger. Tony Gonzalez became just the second player ever to register 15 50-reception seasons. The other is Jerry Rice.

The Panthers finally got their second win of the season as Cam Newton’s squad got the best of Robert Griffin’s, 21-13. Griffin did outperform Newton both in the air and on the ground, however as he and running back, Alfred Morris, became the first pair of rookie teammates to each rush for 500 yards in a season since 1976 and it is the first time ever that this has happened with one of the rushers being a quarterback. Interestingly, the Redskins have not won their last game before Election Day since 1992.

The Bills fell 21-9 to the Texans as defensive tackle, Mario Williams, made his return to Houston. He led Buffalo with seven tackles (two for a loss) and recorded one of their two sacks. For the first time in five weeks, the Bills allowed less than 175 rushing yards as they only surrendered 118.

The week started off with the Chargers scoring 21 4^th quarter points to beat the Chiefs 31-13 in a battle of struggling AFC West teams. Kansas City has lost five in a row and still has not led at any point in their eight games this season (1-7). This is the first time since 1929 that has happened, according to Elias.

San Diego had lost three in a row after beating the Chiefs 37-20 in Week 4. Antonio Gates caught his 79^th career touchdown, leaving him two behind the Chargers all-time record of 81 set by Lance Alworth. Though they only gave up a single touchdown to San Diego, the Chiefs have now been outscored 61-6 in the 1^st quarter this season. Philip Rivers threw his first red-zone interception of the year, but also set a Chargers record by completing 90% of his passes (18-20).

The Broncos beat the Bengals 31-23 and improved to 5-3 atop the AFC West. The Bengals fell to 3-5. Eric Decker caught eight balls for 99 yards and two touchdowns. He now has a TD catch in five straight games, one shy of the franchise record. Trindon Holliday returned a kickoff 105 yards for a touchdown and claimed the longest touchdown in Broncos history.

Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, threw a touchdown pass in his 51^st straight game on Monday night against the Eagles. Brees extended his own record with the throw. Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, had a bye in Week 9. The pass went to Marques Colston and it was the 54^th time those two have hooked up for a score, tied for the 11^th most in NFL history.

Patrick Robinson picked off a Michael Vick pass in the red-zone and returned in 99 yards to give the Saints a 7-0 lead in the 1^st quarter. The Eagles have scored a grand total of seven points in the 1^st quarter this season after being shut out on Monday night. After a lackluster previous three games, however, LeSean McCoy broke out for 119 yards, but just 17 of those came in the 2nd half.

New Orleans has now won eight in a row on Monday night, the second longest streak all-time and the longest active. This ties the Eagles’ longest losing streak under head coach, Andy Reid, and the first time that all four NFC East teams lost in the same week since Week 13 in 2011. Vick was sacked seven times for 46 yards and took many more hits as he tried to scramble to make something happen. The Saints have won 12 straight games in the month of November.

Some information taken from ESPN Stats & Info.

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