Sports Then and Now

Drew Brees celebrates with teammate, Devery Henderson after he threw a record-breaking touchdown pass on Sunday. Bress now has a TD pass in 48 straight games – breaking the record set by Johnny Unitas.

As always, it was another exciting week in the NFL with records being broken, upsets being recorded and Tim Tebow leading the Jets to a win. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Nevertheless, it was still another very exciting week in football that made us fans all grateful that we get to watch the game every week – and that the replacement referees are gone for good.

Now’s the part when I reminisce about both the good and the bad that the games had to offer.

First and foremost, Saints quarterback, Drew Brees threw a touchdown pass in his 48th straight game – a new NFL record. The previous record was 47 held by Johnny Unitas. The record-breaking pass was one of four for him on the night and came in the 1st quarter to Devery Henderson from 40 yards out. More importantly, the Saints picked up their first win of the season, 31-24 over the Chargers.

Five teams did not allow a touchdown in their Week 5 games. It’s not surprising that three of them were the Ravens, 49ers and Bears. It is surprising, however, that the other two were the Rams and the Chiefs. The Chiefs were the only team to not allow a touchdown and lose the game. The Ravens beat them, without scoring a touchdown, 9-6.

Two teams – the Bears and the 49ers won by more than 38 points. The 49ers beat the Bills 45-3 and the Bears crushed the Jaguars 41-3.

The Cardinals suffered their first loss of the year, falling to the Rams 17-3 on Thursday night.

San Francisco set a franchise record with 621 yards of total offense in their win against Buffalo. It was also the most yards that the Bills have ever given up. Alex Smith threw for 303 yards and three TD’s. The Bills also became the first team to allow 550+ yards of offense in consecutive weeks since 1950.

The Bears recorded an interception return in their third straight game for the first time in their history. Charles Tillman returned a Blaine Gabbert pick 36 yards in the 2nd quarter to make the score 13-3 Bears.

The Patriots scored 3+ rushing touchdowns in consecutive games for the first time since 1978. Touchdowns were scored by Shane Vereen, Stevan Ridley and Tom Brady. Brady also threw a touchdown pass in his 38th straight game – remaining ten behind Brees for the all-time record.

Green Bay blew an 18-point halftime lead to the Colts and lost the game 30-27. Andrew Luck threw two touchdowns and Reggie Wayne had 212 yards receiving as the Pack blew their largest halftime lead since 1957.

In case you were wondering, the Browns are still winless. They fell to 0-6 after blowing a 14-0 lead against the Super Bowl Champion Giants. Dating back to last season, Cleveland has now lost 11 straight which is tied for the longest losing streak in its franchise history. On the bright side, rookie running back, Trent Richardson, recorded  a rushing touchdown in his fourth straight game.

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K.C. Chiefs Lineman Eric Winston deserves EVERYONE’s RESPECT after his post-game RANT. He called out 70,000 Chiefs fans for cheering, yes CHEERING when his quarterback Matt Cassel was knocked out of the game due to a concussion.

Wow, this is just SHAMEFUL and Eric Winston is RIGHT. These players are PEOPLE like you and me.

They BLEED like us.

They get HURT like us.

And they have FEELINGS and EMOTIONS like us.

Sports sometimes rips the HUMANITY out of people and just as Winston said brings us back to the days of the Romans cheering as the Christians getting thrown to the lions.

Hats off and much RESPECT goes to Eric Winston, I just became his BIGGEST fan because of his BRAVERY to speak out and DEDICATION to his teammates/brothers.

H/T Goes To The Sports Grid!

The final game of the 1999 regular season did not mean a whole lot to the Oakland Raiders, but meant everything for the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Chiefs entered the game with a 9-6 record and needed to defeat the Raiders plus have the Seattle Seahawks lose to win the AFC West title (The Seahawks owned the tiebreaker because they won both of their meetings with the Chiefs).

Even though a loss to the Raiders would keep them out of the playoffs, the Chiefs had to be very confident as they had lost to Oakland twice during the entire decade of the 1990s and had not lost to the Raiders at Arrowhead Stadium since 1988.

Kansas City was under first-year head coach Gunther Cunningham, who had replaced Marty Schottenheimmer after a decade in which he led the Chiefs to nine playoff appearances, and quarterback Elvis Grbac.

Grbac had spent the previous two seasons in Kansas City in a quarterback controversy with backup Rich Gannon, as Gannon had filled in nicely for the starter and won 10 of his 16 starts during the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

After the 1998 season, Gannon left the Chiefs and signed as a free agent with the arch rival Raiders, where he was named the starting quarterback for head coach Jon Gruden who was entering his second season as the Raiders’ head coach.

Oakland entered the game at 7-8 and were eliminated from playoff contention, but a victory of the hated Chiefs to prevent them from moving on to the postseason, would make the season for the Raiders. Read the rest of this entry →

A miscue by Dwayne Bowe late in a December 14, 2008 game had a ripple effect on NFL history.

The National Football League is a league rich in history.

There are many events over the course of the years that have changed the league’s history forever.

For example, consider back in the early days when Lamar Hunt was denied an NFL franchise. Therefore, he created the American Football League which later merged with the rival league.

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