Random Shots - Week 13

Posted 11/28 by Joe Bryant, Exclusive to Footballguys.com

Hi Folks,

We do a lot of really insightful, thoughtful and serious features here at Footballguys with some very smart people thinking deeply for you. This is not one of those features.

This is a few pages of me downloading my goofy and dysfunctional mental hard drive that gets stuffed with way too many random items from 40 hours of watching and re-watching (God Bless TiVO) football every weekend. It's the only way I keep relatively sane. Here's hoping it has a tiny bit of value for you. Let's go.

Random Shots

Here's what happens when you sit an NFL Junkie down in front of multiple big screens with Sunday Ticket and fresh batteries in the remote.

A Twisted Look at The NFL Every Week And All That Goes With It

First things first - Footballguys sends condolences to the Family, Friends, Teammates and Fans of Washington safety Sean Taylor. Very sad story there. Rock on 21. Pretty much puts the rest of this rambling in perspective.

I think maybe A.J. Feeley failed to get the memo he was facing the Greatest Team In The History Of Organized Sports...

Interesting feature on the pregame television broadcast in Dallas interviewing the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. I left with the conclusion: More cheering. Less talking.

Too bad the game didn't turn out to much but the Thomas and Julius Jones angle was a nice story. Good example of how family over rides team. Said Jones, "I don't care if we're losing, if he rips off a 50 yard run, I'll be jumping up and down. I don't care if they get mad."

As usual, the Denver game came down to the last play. The Broncos came up short this time but this was the 5th time this season a Denver game was decided on the final play. They're 3-2 in those for you guys that have to know.

And you wondered why some people were less than excited to put McNair down in favor of Kyle Boller...

Brett Favre reeled off 20 straight completions Sunday if you keep up with that sort of thing. I personally don't. I've never really understood the hype over the "consecutive" records. Favre had a stretch of 21 passes where he was 20 of 21. If he'd thrown 10 completions, one incompletion, and then ten more completions you would have never heard about it. And it's just about the same thing.

Just for comparison, Jets quarterback Kellen Clemens threw ten incompletions in a row as New York punted four times in the first half. Ouch.

And for comparison to that, Cincinnati didn't punt until 6:20 left in the fourth quarter.

Tony Romo hit Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis right in the numbers with a pass Thursday and Revis muffed it. Just another example of the old saying, "If defensive backs could catch, they'd be wide receivers."

NFL officials continue to drop like flies. Back Judge Phil Luckett was unable to finish the Dallas game after an injury. And again, the league won't listen to me and have an alternate to fill in so the crew worked short handed. You've got a zillion dollar business and you can't afford a full crew of officials? Just doesn't make sense to me.

The Cowboys - Jets game was on Thanksgiving, but had an Aussie flair. Both punters, Ben Graham for New York and Mat McBriar for Dallas are from Melbourne, Australia. John Madden should give them a ride in the Outback MaddenCruiser.

The NFL Network kicked off their game broadcasts this week. As expected, they had some kinks to work out. As they came back from commercial break, Bryant Gumbel didn't realize his mic was live and you could clearly hear him joke with someone on the set saying, "You drinking on the job again?"

Sort of a weird start to the Indianapolis - Atlanta game. The Falcons opened with a 19 play drive - the longest of any team this season. The Colts followed with a three and out consisting of an incomplete pass, a 4 yard rush, and a loss of 9 yards on a sack.

How long has Jason Hanson been just solid? Seems like forever. He nailed kicks from 47, 41, 45 and 52 Sunday and made it look easy. Plenty of leg and right down the middle.

I think it was from a couple of weeks ago, but ESPN was running a fantastic highlight of Terrell Owens slam dunking the football over the goal post. He runs toward the post and leaves the ground while his feet are still on the white letters in the end zone. He soars through the air easily dunking over the cross bar. That's not quite Michael Jordan taking off from the free throw line but it's pretty impressive.

Chris Mortensen reported that former University of Southern Cal, Detroit Lion, Oakland Raider and now Tennessee Titan wide receiver Mike Williams showed up in Nashville for his workout at 271 pounds. Seriously, how do you do that?

Watching the Sunday Morning Countdown pregame show on ESPN. Why are they talking about Green Bay vs. Dallas already when the Week 12 Sunday games haven't even kicked off yet?

I understand the NFL Network feels it needs to mention their game broadcasts every 18 seconds. But give it a rest during the Sean Taylor stories.

Reporter Scott Hanson had this Tuesday evening: "Redskins owner Daniel Snyder said he feels that the funeral will probably take place sometime early next week. That'll be sandwiched in between two games for the Redskins. They have a game on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills and then a Thursday night game here on NFL Network next week."

Then a few minutes later, Fran Charles said, "Owner Daniel Snyder will fly the team to Sean Taylor's funeral early in the week. Keep in mind, there is a scheduled game next Thursday on NFL Network. The Redskins will take on the Chicago Bears."

We get it.

Falcons coach Bobby Petrino is apparently a Random Shots reader. "I'm going to stay with Joey," Petrino said on Monday. "I think right now he understands everything that we are working (with)."

Petrino still got it wrong though. This has nothing to do with Harrington understanding what he's working with. Nothing has changed there. This has everything to do with Petrino realizing what HE'S working with in Byron Leftwich. I predict Petrino will be back to working the sidelines on Saturdays in the not too distant future.

Good news for Bears fan: "Good Rex" was in full effect for the end of the Denver game. Nice.

Does it seem to you like it's been a long time since Tampa Bay running back Cadillac Williams was a factor? It does to me. Time moves fast.

Non football / political thought for the week - Running for President of the United States of America is serious business. I'm good with that. But I got a kick out of this new ad from Mike Huckabee. Should be an interesting 2008.

Falcons fans should be ashamed. There were tons of empty seats and the cheering for Indianapolis seemed almost as loud as it was for the Colts. Why can't Atlanta support a pro team?

Bigger question - Why was rookie cornerback Chris Houston trying to cover Reggie Wayne at the goal line?

Bright spot for Atlanta though - One of the classiest players in the league, Warrick Dunn, became just the 22nd running back in league history to tally 10,000 yards. Along the way, he's also helped 73 single mother households obtain a house. Hats off to Mr. Dunn.

Second in line for being ashamed are Jaguar fans. Your team is 7-3 in the thick of the playoff hunt and you can't sell enough tickets to lift the local blackout?

College Football Note Of The Week: University of Connecticut, that's about what I thought.

College Football Note Of The Week II: I'm making my annual plea for the NFL to wake up and switch their overtime format to what the NCAA uses. Between LSU - Arkansas and Tennessee - Kentucky Saturday, it just seems like a no brainer. I know that not all of you are with me. But you should be...

College Football Note Of the Week III: How bad is Stanford if they couldn't beat Notre Dame? Over this past Holiday, I hope Charlie Weis gave thanks for the Pac 10.

It's still pretty early and Herm Edwards doesn't give me warm fuzzies when it comes to quarterbacks but I think Brodie Croyle has a shot to be a real NFL QB. I wasn't thinking that this summer.

Note to Kansas City kicker Dave Rayner: You might want to hold off on putting that new pool in. Rayner missed two field goals two weeks ago and missed a 33 yarder Sunday. With the game on the line, the Chiefs opted to bypass a game tying 41 yard kick and go for the win.

Carolina lost at home. Shocker there.

The good news: Three of Eli Manning's passes to TE Jeremy Shockey resulted in touchdowns.

The bad news: They were all Minnesota defensive touchdowns.

Great example of why the highlight shows are a terrible way to get your information: Everyone saw Jacksonville running back Maurice Jones-Drew ramble in for a 17 yard touchdown. Reality was that Jones-Drew was sitting on negative rushing yardage until 1:43 left in the game. He finished with a whopping 10 yards rushing.

Note to the NFL Schedule Makers - Do whatever you have to in order to avoid this color combination in the future. Thank you.

On the other end of that spectrum, Jamal Lewis and the Browns looked outstanding in their 1950's Throwbacks. Nice. "It's kind of my time of the year to run the football," said Lewis. This is NOT what opposing defenses want to see on a cold Cleveland Sunday.

The announcers in the Seattle game were kind of harsh as the Seahawks attempted a field goal: "Kick is up and Josh Brown is no good".

Other end of that spectrum: Robbie Gould's game winning overtime kick for Chicago would have been good through uprights that were three feet apart.

Six months ago, how many Steve Smith owners would have been, wishing for Vinny?

I'm thinking the Citizen watch people might want to reconsider their commercial where Eli Manning takes a snap and the announcer guy voice says, "Unstoppable".

The announcers Sunday referred to Rams WR Isaac Bruce as "Future Hall Of Famer Isaac Bruce." Don't do that. Isaac Bruce may well get in one day. But he's a long ways from Canton right now.

I like Denver but I don't feel the least bit sorry for a team stupid enough to repeatedly kick the ball to Devin Hester. Not even a little bit.

Sign I would have put up if I'd been at the game.

One word for Frank Gore: Wheresitbeen?

How does an NFL team with an available time-out take a delay of game penalty on a 27 yard field goal in overtime that should have won the game? Ask Arizona.

Don't look now but Browns quarterback Derek Anderson has 22 TD passes. That's the most since Bernie Kosar threw 22 in 1987. And while I'm at, wide receiver Braylon Edwards has 11 touchdown receptions.

Weird Sunday in Las Vegas. Patriots were 22� point favorites. Cardinals were 10 point favorites. Both failed miserably to cover.

I'm a Vince Young fan. Everyone has to respect the young man's physical talent. But I love the attitude. There's not a lot of sugar coating with him. After the tough loss Sunday, he was asked what he was thinking.

"Thoughts, man, just thoughts, trying to see what's going on, what's the problem, what we need to do to get back to where we need to be at," said Young, who was limited by a bruised thigh and a strained ankle. "Why is this all of a sudden happening to us, going back to that bad feeling that we had last year with getting our butt whooped?"

Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson went off with three touchdowns. And couldn't resist drawing a 15 yard penalty for celebrating. His team mates didn't seem to mind though.

"He deserved it," defensive captain John Thornton said, approving of Johnson's celebration. "He's been working hard. I told him to keep it up. I told him if he needs a penalty to get himself going, go ahead."

I'm no defensive coordinator but quick note to the Ravens: If you leave Antonio Gates uncovered, that's almost always going to be a bad thing.

I'm not a fan of athletes being disrespectful towards sports writers. But some of these reporters bring it on themselves. Eli Manning played terribly. Everyone knew that. Peyton Manning was in attendance for the game and afterwards, Eli was asked, it was tougher to play that poorly in front of his brother. The younger Manning just winced and said, "It doesn't make any difference."

I guess I'm a sap, but I love the National Anthem before the games. Thursday in Dallas, Ashanti absofrigginlutely knocked it out of the park. Fantastic job.

Minnesota DB Darren Sharper intercepted a pass, fell to the ground, scrambled to get up and scored.

"I got up and I was a little discombobulated," Sharper said. "I didn't know where to run. I'm glad I didn't go the wrong way like Jim Marshall did."

You don't get a lot of "discombobulated" in today's NFL. We need more William and Mary grads in the league...

Andre Hall Hard Luck Awards

If you follow this section at all you know sometimes there are more "Hard Luck" plays than others. This is one of those weeks where lots of guys just barely missed scoring.

IND QB Manning 9 yard pass to WR Wayne to the 5 (Manning to Utecht TD)
GB QB Favre 19 yard pass to WR Driver to the 5 (Grant TD)
GB QB Favre 10 yard pass to TE Lee to the 2 (Crosby FG)
GB QB Favre 43 yard pass to WR Robinson to the 4 (Favre to Jennings TD)
GB RB Grant 31 yard rush to the 5
GB RB Grant 2 yard rush to the 3 (Favre to Martin TD)
GB QB Favre 41 yard pass to WR Driver to the 4
GB RB Grant 2 yard rush to the 2 (Crosby FG)
DET RB Jones rush for minus 4 yards from the 2 (Kitna to Johnson TD)
PIT RB Parker 1 yard rush to the 5 (Reed FG)
PHI QB Feeley 9 yard pass to WR Brown to the 1 (Westbrook TD)
NE QB Brady 9 yard pass to RB Faulk to the 1 (Evans TD)
NE QB Brady 4 yard TD pass to WR Moss nullified by penalty
NE QB Brady 10 yard pass to WR Welker to the 4 (Maroney TD)
DEN RB Hall 8 yard rush to the 3
DEN RB Hall rush for minus 2 yards to the 5 (Elam FG)
DEN QB Cutler 65 yard pass to RB Hall to the 4
DEN RB Hall rush for no gain from the 4 (Elam FG)
DEN RB Hall 23 yard rush to the 2
DEN RB Hall rush for minus 3 yards to the 5 (Sapp TD)
CHI QB Grossman 1 yard pass to TE Gilmore to the 4 (Peterson TD)
CHI RB Peterson 3 yard rush to the 4
CHI RB Peterson 1 yard rush to the 3 (Grossman to Berrian TD)
BAL QB Boller 23 yard pass to WR Mason to the 1 (McGahee TD)
SD QB Rivers 4 yard pass to RB Tomlinson to the 5 (Rivers to Chambers TD)
SF QB Dilfer 5 yard pass to TE Davis to the 3
SF RB Gore 1 yard rush to the 2 (Nedney FG)
ARZ QB Warner 8 yard pass to TE Pope to the 1 (Shipp TD)
ARZ RB Shipp 5 yard rush to the 3
ARZ RB Shipp 1 yard rush to the 2 (Rattay to Patrick TD)
ARZ QB Warner 30 yard pass to WR Bryant to the 1 (Rackers FG)
CIN RB Dorsey 7 yards to the 5 (R. Johnson TD)
CIN RB R. Johnson 6 yard rush to the 4 (Palmer to C. Johnson TD)
TEN RB White 2 yard rush to the 4
TEN QB Young pass for minus 1 yard to RB White to the 5 (Bironas FG)
TEN RB White 3 yard TD rush challenged and reversed
TEN RB White rush for no gain from the 1
OAK QB Culpepper 6 yard pass to WR Curry to the 4 (Janikowski FG)
STL QB Frerotte 11 yard pass to WR Bruce to the 1
STL RB Jackson rush for no gain from the 1
STL RB Jackson rush for minus 4 yards to the 5 (Wilkins FG)
STL QB Frerotte 2 yard rush to the 4
STL QB Frerotte 2 yard pass to WR Bennett to the 2
STL RB Jackson 1 yard rush to the 1
WAS QB Campbell 6 yard pass to RB Portis to the 5
WAS QB Campbell 1 yard pass to WR Caldwell to the 4
WAS RB Portis rush for no gain from the 4
JAC QB Garrard 4 yard pass to WR Wilford to the 4 (Scobee FG)
JAC RB Jones 3 yard rush to the 4
JAC RB Jones-Drew rush for minus 1 yard to the 5 (Scobee FG)
JAC QB Garrard 8 yard pass to TE Lewis to the 2 (Scobee FG)
NO RB Stecker 4 yard rush to the 1
NO RB Stecker rush for minus 4 yards to the 5
NO QB Brees 4 yard pass to RB Stecker to the 1 (Brees to Moore TD)
NO QB Brees 19 yard pass to TE Johnson to the 4
NO RB Bush 3 yard rush to the 1 (Brees to Miller TD)
NO RB Karney 2 yard rush to the 4 (Brees to Colston TD)

Sometimes it's better to just not know...

That'll do it for this week, Folks. Thanks to Footballguys Kyle Lebeda and Keith Overton for the help on this one. If you've got a Random Shot of your own, shoot me an e-mail at bryant@footballguys.com.

Thanks for playing along. I hope you have a gas with whatever you're doing in your life. Here's to Football.