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.

Read the rest of this entry →

In the future Jake Ballard could be making catches for, instead of against, the Patriots.

You can generally rely on the New England Patriots and Head Coach Bill Belichick to spring a surprise and create talking points for the football betting community to discuss, and that’s just what they did recently when he claimed New York Giants tight-end Jake Ballard ‘off waivers’, which prevented the Giants from slipping him onto the reserve list.

Some may say that this is a form of revenge for the Patriots who were shocked by the Giants in last season’s Super Bowl. The Patriots may waive him with the ‘failed physical’ designation, exposing him to waivers and likely setting the stage for the Giants (or someone else) to claim his contract.

Otherwise, the Pats will have to carry Ballard, who won’t play in 2012 after tearing an ACL in the Super Bowl, on the 90-man roster until the first wave of cuts in late August. Read the rest of this entry →

Junior Seau 1969-2012

Hearing about the death of former Chargers, Dolphins and Patriots linebacker Junior Seau yesterday was just tragic and incredibly sad. Seeing his mother devastated and screaming out to take her instead of her son was absolutely heartbreaking. So instead of wallowing in the sadness of his passing, let’s celebrate his life.

Let’s remember his smile.

Let’s remember everyone’s “Buddy”.

Nothing encapsulates the man Junior was than this video from Versus’ “Sports Jobs”. Junior visits the TD Garden’s Bull Gang prior to a Bruins game.

Love how he was poking fun at the Boston accent.

Here is a great tribute from USC with Junior singing and playing the ukelele.

Read the rest of this entry →

Belichick knows the value of special teams. He signed Nick Koutouvides in week 9 to sure up the Patriots coverage units.

When analyzing a football game like this one it’s all too easy to forget about the impact of special teams. We all seem to acknowledge big special teams plays after the fact, but by the time the next week rolls around the pundits are right back to talking about offensive and defensive match-ups. Maybe it’s a simple numbers game. There just aren’t many special teams plays in any given game, and the kickoff rules instituted this year have turned a significant number of those plays into non-plays.

And then a week last week comes along and reminds everyone just how important special teams are. Danny Woodhead’s fumble on the kickoff following a Raven scoring drive that gave them the lead for the first time in the game seemed to seal the Patriots’ fate. Instead New England battled back to take a three point lead, a lead that kicker Billy Cundiff had every opportunity to erase. The 32 yard try should have been trivial for Cundiff, but he missed, and New England punched their ticket to Indianapolis.

Read the rest of this entry →

It's been a frustrating year for Sebastian Vollmer, but his return could bolster an improved Patriots running game.

In Super Bowl XLII Tom Brady attempted 48 passes. In the week eight meeting between these two teams Brady attempted 49 passes. It is easy for fans, media types, and even coaches to become overly enamored with the Patriots passing attack, and it’s hard to blame them. But against a Giants team whose hallmark remains the ability to generate pressure with only a four man rush it’s damn near suicidal to drop back that many times. The Giants pass rush is too good to give them that many opportunities to get after the quarterback.

To keep Brady clean the Patriots must be able to run the ball. The Giants are exceedingly likely to dare New England to run. In their first three playoff games defensive coordinator Perry Fewell has called for a rush of four or fewer men over eighty percent of the time, and given their past success using four-man pressures against Brady there’s little reason to believe this strategy will change.

The Giants front four of Justin Tuck, Jason Pierre-Paul, Osi Umenyiora, and Chris Canty are the best pass rushing unit in the league, but they lack a true run-stopper. They simply don’t have the beef on the interior of the line, and their aggressive up-field rushes leave a lot of the run responsibilities to their linebacking corps, the weakest unit on their defense.

Read the rest of this entry →

Previously, we touched on the unknowns of Rob Gronkowski’s ankle injury, but there are some things we know about these teams for sure. The Patriots secondary is very bad, and the Giants wide receivers are very good. The single largest mismatch in this game belongs to Eli and the G-Men, and if the Patriots are to win their secondary will have played no small part.

For a lot of Patriot fans that declaration may be disconcerting, but let’s not forget the first meeting between these teams in 2011. Their week eight match up was deadlocked at zero at the half, and the Giants entered the fourth quarter of that game with all of ten points. Granted the Patriots had only scored three points, but that’s beside the point. A shutdown defensive performance just isn’t in the cards for Belichick’s gang, but they proved capable of slowing Eli Manning in that game.

Manning completed just over 50 percent of his passes on the day, and the Patriots limited him to 250 yards through the air. Such a yardage total is not normally something to write home about, but when you consider the talents of Manning and the talent he has it’s a little more encouraging.

Read the rest of this entry →