Brett Favre told SI.com’s Peter King that he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to play against the Packers yesterday because of a groin injury. Favre claims he suffered the injury last week in practice and then re-aggravated it in pregame warm-ups.
“I told T-Jack [backup Tarvaris Jackson] and [offensive coordinator] Darrell Bevell I may not be able to do it,” he said. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to drop back very well. After I aggravated it, there was no way I was going to be able to move around in the pocket very much. We never called one bootleg the whole game. But we made it through OK.”
And now, I wondered, how was the groin four hours and a lot of lost adrenalin later?
“It’s throbbing right now,” he said.
Oh…come…on. Look, I don’t doubt that Favre injured himself in practice (he is 60 years old after all) and then re-injured himself during pregame warm-ups. I also don’t doubt that he told Jackson and Bevell that he was hurt and might not be able to play.
But I don’t buy for a minute that he was going to hold himself out. He wasn’t going to allow a groin injury to get in the way of beating the Packers at Lambeau and if anything, I’m willing to bet that he wanted people to know that he was hurt just so he could build the moment up even more.
Some are going to look at this as the “gritty” Brett playing through pain; I’m sure ESPN is already salivating thinking about the story. But I think this guy has a lot of people fooled.
Maybe I’m being to cynical and over thinking this, but it’s Brett’s comments that bug me the most. If King asked him how he was feeling and Brett said, “Well Pistol Pete, I’m a little sore because of a groin injury I suffered last week,” then I wouldn’t question him because the comment would have been more fly-by.
But no, Brett made damn sure to note that he might not have been able to play. To me, that’s just another prima donna move by one of the more underrated prima donna athletes of all-time.
The Vikings’ 38-26 win over the Packers wasn’t even an hour old yet and I got an e-mail from my partner in crime here at The Scores Report, John Pauslen, who happens to be a huge Green Bay fan and is/was an active Brett Favre supporter.
I won’t share what John wrote in case there are women and children reading, but he wasn’t kind to Brett. And I can’t imagine that John is the only one who feels angry with Favre after what transpired on Sunday.
Brett walked into Lambeau Field, a place where he was known for being a legend, a hero and an icon, and essentially burned the place down. He completed 17-of-28 passes for 244 yards and four touchdowns, while also spending most of the game pumping his fists wildly in celebration of his accomplishments.
Many people still want to blame Ted Thompson for why Favre currently wears purple and white. But the fact of the matter is that there are 32 teams in the NFL and he wanted to be a Viking. If he just wanted to play football, he could have returned to the Jets. Hell, if he wanted to play football, he could have returned to the Packers two years ago because they said yes to him twice. It was the one “no” that has fans blaming Thompson, yet they should blame Favre for his indecisiveness and his desire to play in Minnesota before blaming the GM that eventually committed to Aaron Rodgers and decided to move forward.
I hope that Brett is satisfied with the outcome from today, because while he once again got his revenge on Thompson and the Packers, he also torched a lot of loyal Green Bay fans in the process. There will always be people that player worship and will root for Favre no matter what color jersey he wears, but there no doubt are many who watched the game today and said, “You know what? To hell with Brett Favre.”
The funny thing is, Brett’s true fans will always be in Green Bay. Unless he helps the Vikings win a Super Bowl, Minnesota fans will forget about him the moment he’s done playing for them and you’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise. So while he may feel good about the way things have transpired so far this season, he’s hurting his legacy in the long run by accomplishing exactly what he wanted in beating the Packers.
If the Ravens were going to knock off the undefeated Broncos on Sunday, they would need their defense would have to step up and play inspired.
Baltimore has struggled defensively the past couple weeks, but held Denver to only one score in a 30-7 rout in Week 8. The Raven defense harassed Broncos’ quarterback Kyle Orton for much of the contest and limited him to 23-of-37 passing for 152 yards and no touchdowns.
The Ravens’ secondary has struggled all season, but was great today. Part of their success came from Orton’s inability to stretch the field vertically, but credit Baltimore’s defensive backs for not allowing the big play. They also benefited from a relentless pass rush, which produced two sacks and five QB hits.
If the Ravens are going to make the playoffs this season, how they played Sunday is how they’ll have to play every week. They don’t have the defensive talent like they had in years past, so perfect execution is a must and that’s how they won today. Plus, while he didn’t set the stat sheet on fire, quarterback Joe Flacco was efficient and kept the chains moving all game.
As for the Broncos, this loss will serve Josh McDaniels’ squad well. Good teams learn more from losses than they do wins, so now we’ll see what McDaniels and his coaching staff is made of. The Broncos host the Steelers (who will be fresh coming off their bye) next week on Monday Night Football and if they can produce a win, it would go a long way in proving that McDaniels and his crew can make adjustments when their team needs them.
While he claims it wasn’t just a statement made in the heat of the moment, nobody would blame Lewis if it were. Lewis is 30, has seen his play drop quite a bit this year and he’s stuck on a morbid franchise. So why stick around?
I honestly don’t know how the Browns have won a game this year. Their defense is bad, but it pails in comparison to how atrocious Derek Anderson and the offense is, which turned the ball over five times on Sunday. Chicago’s secondary has been shredded at times this season, yet Anderson found a way to only complete 6-of-17 pass attempts for a measly 76 yards. Oh, and he also threw two interceptions and fumbled once.
I’m sure someone will raise the question of whether or not Brady Quinn should resume the starting spot over Anderson next week. But Quinn has already shown that he’s just as incapable of running the offense as Anderson is, so does it really matter? If I were a Cleveland fan (and I just threw up a little at the mere thought of that), I’d rather see Brett Ratliff given a chance to start before Quinn is given a second opportunity.
About the only reason to watch the Browns these days is to see whether or not defensive coordinator Rob Ryan will get in a fight with anyone on the sidelines. He and Jay Cutler went at it (verbally, of course) on Sunday and it was the only entertainment Cleveland provided all day.
For much of his short career, Dolphins’ receiver Ted Ginn Jr. has been a ghost. While he remains a threat to take it to the house every time he gets his hands on the ball, the problem is that he can’t get open. He can’t beat jams off the line, he doesn’t have good enough technique to shake defenders and despite his speed, he’s slow getting in and out of his routes.
But for at least one game, Ginn found a way to be useful.
Ginn failed to record a single reception and was targeted just once, but he returned two kickoffs for touchdowns to spark the Dolphins in their 30-25 win over the Jets in Week 8. His 299 total kickoff return yards rank him second behind Tyrone Hughes (who compiled 304 yards in a 1994 game for the Saints) for the most return yards in a single game in NFL history.
Ginn’s first touchdown came after the Jets had taken a 6-3 lead early in the third quarter and the second came after Mark Sanchez had cut Miami’s lead to 17-13 with a 1-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter. He set the Dolphins up with great field position as Miami went on to score 27 points in the second half.
As for the Jets, I think this is the team many expected them to be with a rookie quarterback and a first year head coach. There’s a lot of season left, but this is probably a .500 team at best and there’s nothing wrong with that. Under Ryan, they’ve played with more of a swagger and the defense has been more aggressive. Sanchez has a long way to go in his development, but he has flashed promise in his rookie year and has proven on some levels that he can handle being a franchise quarterback.
Both the Dolphins and Jets will remain competitive throughout the year, but the playoffs seem unlikely for both teams. They just don’t have enough overall depth to challenge the top teams in the AFC.
But hey, at least Miami found where Ted Ginn has been hiding. He remains a massive bust, but a bust that has electrifying return abilities.
With their 31-10 win over the Bills in Week 8, the Texans won their third straight game to improve to 5-3 on the season. But as ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports, Houston lost tight end Owen Daniels for the season due to a knee injury.
Daniels suffered the injury on a play in the first quarter of Sunday’s win. He racked up 39 receptions, 497 yards and five touchdowns coming into Week 8 and was emerging as one of the NFL’s best tight ends, if not the best.
Joel Dressen and rookie James Casey will try to fill the void left by Daniels in Houston’s offense. Casey caught two passes for 14 yards on Sunday, but won’t be nearly as effective as Daniels was for quarterback Matt Schaub.
Although Daniels’ injury certainly puts a damper on things, the Texans have to love heading into the second half with a winning record. But next week is huge, as they play in Indianapolis before taking their bye in Week 10. After their bye, Houston has winnable games against the Titans, Jaguars, Seahawks and Rams, although they do play the undefeated Colts twice, as well as the Dolphins and Patriots.
During the Giants’ five-game winning streak at the start of the season, Eli Manning didn’t have a QB rating lower than 93.5. In the Giants’ current three-game losing streak, Manning hasn’t had a QB rating higher than 61.0, which includes his 55.7 mark in New York’s embarrassing 40-17 loss to the Eagles in Week 8.
To say that Manning hasn’t been good lately would be an understatement. In the loss to Philadelphia, he was 20-of-39 for 222 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. And given how inaccurate he was most of the day, he could have been intercepted at least two more times.
In his last three games, Manning has thrown six interceptions to just three touchdowns. The mistakes he’s made aren’t typical of a veteran quarterback that has a Super Bowl ring – they’re more akin to a first year starter with little to no experience. He looks like a player with zero confidence and he doesn’t appear to trust his own decision-making.
While the Giants have more issues than just Eli (the secondary has also played poorly and the team continues to struggle with injuries), they have to be concerned with his play. New York has needed him to put the team on his shoulders and carry them to victories and he hasn’t. And based on the way he’s played the past three weeks, there’s serious doubt he’ll be able to break the Giants out of their funk without a lot of help from his defense and running game.
That said, it’s only been three games and while he has looked horrible in those three outing, he looked great in the first five games of the season. The problem is that the Cowboys were the only team with a winning record that the Giants have beaten this year. Eli’s impressive numbers have come against teams like the Redskins, Bucs, Chiefs and Raiders, while he has struggled against tough opponents in the Saints, Cardinals and Eagles, respectively.
With David Carr listed on the depth chart behind Manning, the Giants won’t consider a QB change. But the entire team better start picking up their play before the season starts to slip away from them, and it all starts with Eli.
You could have heard writers in Tennessee and Indianapolis pound away at their keyboards at halftime of the Monday Night Football game. They were writing things like, “The Colts are back” and “The Titans won’t be able to win without a passing game.”
After one half of football, Indy had led the Titans 7-6 and their usually Swiss-cheese front seven was surprisingly stuffing the Titans’ powerful running attack. Veteran quarterback Kerry Collins has been lauded for his game management skills this year, but essentially criticized for not making enough big plays in the passing game.
But that all changed in the second half as Collins found open receivers in the second half and killed the Colts secondary with timely passes on big third down plays. The Titans managed to score 25 second half points in rout to a convincing 31-21 win, which is not only significant because they remain the only undefeated team in the league, but also because they got the proverbial monkey that is the Indianapolis Colts off their back.
Anyone who is still waiting for the Titans to crash down to earth can put those opinions to rest. They’re clearly the best team in the AFC and while it’s still hard to believe they won’t lose a couple games this year, they should have one of the top two playoffs spots locked up eventually. (Especially with the Pats, Colts and Chargers down this year.)
As for the Colts, I don’t know what Tony Dungy was thinking going for it on 4th and 1 at midfield early in the second. The game was tied 14-14 and Tennessee’s defense was starting to tighten up. I realize he has all those offense weapons at his disposal and should be able to pick up one yard, but why go with a run up the gut then? It completely shifted the momentum in the Titans’ favor and that proved to be the difference in the game. The Colts are pressing and worse, they’re in a ton of trouble.
Outstanding. Somebody needs to light a fire under Vernon Davis’ ass and there might be no one better than Singletary. That team needs passion and something to play for after Mike Nolan was fired and I’m glad Singletary is getting a shot, although that was an ugly start to his interim career.
Not that the Jaguars have been that impressive this season, but the Browns 23-17 win in Jacksonville might have been the best upset of Week 8.
Without tight end Kellen Winslow, Derek Anderson still managed to throw for 246 yards and a touchdown, amassing 168 yards in the first half alone. He hit for big plays all afternoon including a of 51-yard completion to Steve Heiden on a fourth down play, a 43-yard strike to Braylon Edwards that set up a field goal, and a 53-yard connection with Syndric Steptoe in the fourth quarter to set up a Phil Dawson field goal with less than five minutes remaining.
Cleveland has now won three of their last four games and were close to coming away with a win last week in Washington. With the Steelers losing to the Giants, the Browns are far from dead and have shown signs of life since starting the season 0-3.
The Jaguars might be the hardest team to figure out in the NFL. They started off 0-2, but showed some mettle in close wins over the Colts and Texans to get to 2-2. But they weren’t sharp in a loss to the Steelers in Week 5, then followed that performance with an impressive win over the Broncos in Denver. Now they sit 3-4 after their loss to the Browns.
Are the Jags are a playoff team lying in the weeds or are they underachievers that would be lucky to finish 9-7? One thing is for sure, this team isn’t running the ball anywhere close to what they had been in previous years and the passing game simply isn’t good enough to overcome it.
