Author: Anthony Stalter (Page 1471 of 1503)

College Football Players of the Week

September 26, 2006 / Anthony Stalter

Here are your college football players of the week,

Remember, if you feel that another player was worthy of higher honors than the two I chose, post the athlete and let me hear why you think he or they were more deserving.

Remember though, the two athletes I pick are usually going to be on a team that played somebody other than St. Mary’s School of Art.

That’s just how I roll – here are your top performers of the week:

Offensive Player of the Week: Brady Quinn, QB Notre Dame
I’ll be honest, I wish the guy I’ll mention after this won his game on Saturday night, because Quinn’s team should have been beaten by about three touchdowns by MSU and his numbers are inflated with the amount of times he had to throw to get the Irish back into the game. However – 20 of 36 for 319 yards and five touchdowns is hard to argue with.

QB Colt Brennan of Hawaii actually had little bit better numbers than Quinn if you can believe that. But Brennan’s performance was in a losing effort to ranked Boise State, so in my opinion the nod has got to go to Quinn for saving Notre Dame’s season (for the moment). Brennan threw for 388 yards, five touchdowns and completed five more passes than Quinn with the same amount of attempts (25 of 36) in Hawaii’s 41-34 loss to the Broncos.

Defensive Player of the Week: Daymeion Hughes, DB California
What a weekend by the senior defensive back from California. Hughes intercepted two passes in the Golden Bears 49-21 victory over previously ranked Arizona State. Hughes returned his second interception 47 yards for a touchdown to give California a 42-14 lead heading into the fourth quarter and also had 10 tackles (seven solo). He now has five interceptions on the season.

College Football, General Sports

Monday Night Recap: Atlanta at New Orleans

September 25, 2006 / Anthony Stalter

Impressive, remarkable and utter jubilation can only be described in the Saints 23-3 win over the Falcons on Monday night.

ESPN.com certainly did all they could to make sure that the city of New Orleans and what they went through last year was well documented. The best thing that the network did was show how the city is rebounding and rebuilding from tragedy and how much the Saints mean to the Big Easy. For one night, those folks got to take their minds off of Hurricane Katrina and just watch their football team play great football.

As for the game – what an incredible job by New Orleans on so many accounts. A lot of people questioned how good this team really was after beating Cleveland and Green Bay.

After completely dismantling the Falcons – I think we got our answer. Are they a top 10 team in the NFL? I don’t know about that, but it doesn’t matter, because for one night – they were certainly the talk of the league and they clearly exposed how to beat the Falcons.

Lets jump into my quick thoughts about the game:

– How about a blocked punt for a touchdown just four plays into the game for the Saints? Storybook start…

– Speaking of the start of the game – why in the world would Jim Mora choose to receive the ball and put his offense into that emotional state so early in the contest? I completely understand about getting your potent offense on the field first and try to take the crowd out of it. However, football is such an emotional game and especially in a game like this – Mora should have got his defense on the field first and not put so much pressure on his offense to score right off the bat.

– Amazing job by the Saints defense tonight to hold Michael Vick and Warrick Dunn in check for the entire game. The defensive line led by DE Charles Grant, lived in the Falcons backfield and the coaching staff of the Saints really did its homework in defending the option attack that Atlanta runs.

– Drew Brees is not only what New Orleans needs on the football field, but in its city as well. It’s been well documented that Brees has set up shop inside New Orleans and wants to give back to the city that gave him a home. Excellent story.

– Another why for the Falcons in this game – why did Atlanta come out throwing the ball? You have had the best rushing attack for the past two years and have run all over defenses like Carolina and Tampa Bay, so why do you start off chucking the ball down the field?

– The Saints defensive backs stuck like glue to the Falcons receivers all night.

– WR Marques Colston was a steal in the seventh round of April’s draft and he has really stepped up since the team traded away Donte’ Stallworth in the offseason.

– Here’s another brain fart by Atlanta’s coaching staff. Early in the second quarter with the game still in reach at 17-3, the Falcons get a first and goal from the Saints two-yard line. Instead of hammering the ball with Dunn, they call a pass and Vick gets sacked. Then they run the ball from the eight and Dunn gets nothing. On third down, Vick throws an incomplete pass and on fourth the Saints block a FG attempt. Once again – best running team in the NFL, trying to throw to set up plays.

– Did I mention how good the Saints defense played tonight?

– Speaking of blocked kicks, how can Joe DeCamillas still have a job? Five blocked field goals and one blocked punt for a touchdown is what his special teams unit has done thus far in three games for the Falcons. Staggering.

– I don’t think it’s out of question what Joe Theisman said about the field tonight. He kept reiterating that the brand new turf wasn’t matted down yet and that was causing the players to lose their footing. Reggie Bush and Vick sure looked like they were running in mud to me.

– Speaking of Bush, I felt bad for him when he didn’t score his first touchdown early in the third quarter from the goal line. You know that crowd would have gone nuts if he were able to score his first touchdown of his career on that stage.

– Tony Kornheiser summed it up best tonight – the Atlanta Falcons were completely overwhelmed with what was going on surrounding this game and the New Orleans Saints beat them in every faze.

Congratulations New Orleans, this was certainly your night.

NFL

You don’t live in Cleveland – you live in Cincinnati!

September 25, 2006 / Anthony Stalter

The Cincinnati Enquirer is reporting that ultra moron and Bengals linebacker Odell Thurman was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol at 3:05 Monday morning.

Riding as a passenger with Thurman was WR Chris Henry, who has already been arrested four times in three states since December. To be fair, Henry wasn’t charged in this situation, but it should be documented that he did throw up outside of the vehicle’s window.

Thurman blew a .17, which is considered a high-tier reading, said Officer Stephen Lawson of the Cincinnati Police Traffic Section. The .17 is more than double Ohio’s legal blood-alcohol limit of .08.
Thurman was released to a sober driver, Lawson said.

This is absolutely ridiculous considering that Thurman was already serving a suspension for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy. The linebacker had only one more week to go before he could rejoin the team, but now his status with the organization is in question again.

How unbelievably dumb can you be? How unbelievably selfish can you be not only to your teammates, but also to Bengal fans that have seen this team dragged through the muck over a better part of a decade in a half and now are starting to see a winner.

Instead of talking about Cincinnati’s huge victory over hated rival Pittsburgh yesterday -we’re talking about how idiotic Henry and Thurman are.

Chris Henry – five catches for 69 yards and two touchdowns against the Steelers on Sunday.

Chris Henry – seven rum and cokes for $36 and one huge vomit out a vehicle window on Monday morning.

Since when did the Portland Trailblazers move to Cincinnati?

Update: Thurman has been suspended one year by the NFL for violating the terms and conditions of his previous four game suspension.

NFL

Weekend Wrap: NFL

September 24, 2006 / Anthony Stalter

So, what did we learn from week three in the NFL?

– The Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts are the cream of the crop in the AFC.

– Ben Roethlisberger is playing like a guy that has been in a horrific motorcycle accident and is coming off of appendectomy surgery. But he has to play to shake the cobwebs out.

– Despite losing Sunday to Chicago, Minnesota can compete in the NFC thanks to Brad Childress.

– I swear Jake Delhomme and Kurt Warner play with butter on their hands – three fumbles lost between the both of them Sunday; Warner now has eight on the year.

– Teams in the NFC better hope that Seattle doesn’t earn home field advantage throughout the playoffs, because the Seahawks are a completely different team at Quest Field.

– The Giants secondary is awful.

– Baltimore has a real good player in DT Kelly Greg.

– Miami and Tampa Bay were possibly the two most over hyped teams in the NFL this offseason, you hear that Sports Illustrated?

Lets recap the top match ups heading into Sunday and then look at some quick shots from the rest of the action in Week 3:

Cincinnati 28, Pittsburgh 20
Not to take anything away from Cincinnati, but the Bengals didn’t outplay the Steelers in this game. Pittsburgh out gained Cincinnati, converted more third down attempts, held the ball longer and almost doubled the Bengals first down output (27-15 in favor of the Steelers).

When your quarterback is playing scared and you turn the ball over five times, however, you’re not going to win. Give credit to the Bengals though, because Hines Field is a tough place to play in and they had to battle through a lot of emotion off of last year’s playoff loss. With the Steelers now at 1-2 and Cincinnati at 3-0, for a moment the Bengals can start concentrating on Baltimore and leave Pitt in the dust.

Most impressed with: Carson Palmer and Willie Parker. Palmer led four scoring drives for the Bengals and even though he was picked off twice, he threw for close to 200 yards and four touchdowns. Palmer won the game despite RB Rudi Johnson (19 carries for 47 yards) having a tough time running against the Steelers front seven.

Like I said in the introduction, if it weren’t for Parker the Steelers wouldn’t have scored today. Parker ran for 133 yards on 31 carries and when you get that type of production out of your starting back, you should win the game.

Least impressed with: Roethlisberger is hurt and isn’t getting much on his deep ball. He has happy feet in the pocket and just doesn’t look like himself.

Chicago 19, Minnesota 16
Sloppy game, but the Bears don’t care. They get a division victory on the road in a hostile environment and now have a two game lead (with the head to head victory) over the overachieving Vikings in the NFC North.

Rex Grossman threw for 278 yards and had a touchdown, but he did throw two costly interceptions (one was taken back for a touchdown by CB Antoine Winfield) and came back down to earth a bit. Muhsin Muhammad and Bernard Berrin proved to be solid targets all day long for Grossman and combined for 15 catches and 188 yards.

Most impressed with: Neither team played over its head, but Lovie Smith has this team believing they can compete when they’re behind in games now. Smith is getting no production out of his run game, but his confidence in Grossman to throw late in games is being rewarded with W’s in the win column.

Least impressed with: As noted up above, the Bears have no running game. Thomas Jones – 18 carries for 54 yards against a defense that was giving up an average of 100 yards per game just won’t cut it. At some point this season, Smith is going to have to get something out of his run game or teams are going to start dropping seven into pass coverage and smother Chicago’s receivers.

Indianapolis 21, Jacksonville 14
Outstanding win by the Colts today. I know that the Jaguars were coming off a short week, but Jacksonville has got to beat these guys if everybody is going to consider them as a Super Bowl contender.

Peyton Manning was able to find holes in Jacksonville’s defense for scores and even scored on a two-yard touchdown run himself. Indy’s defense wasn’t overly impressive – in fact it wasn’t impressive at all – but they did enough not to lose the game.

Most impressed with: Maurice Jones-Drew from Jacksonville. This kid was all over the place on offense for the Jaguars. He carried the ball 13 times for 103 yards and caught four passes for 32 yards and a touchdown. He was fun to watch and at times, the rookie was QB Byron Leftwich’s only weapon.

Least impressed with: The Colts running game is back to having question marks (65 total yards on the ground by Dominic Rhodes and Joseph Addai). However, Jacksonville is so tough to run on, so we’ll give Indy another reprieve.

Quick Shots:
Who was luckier to get a win this weekend: Baltimore or Notre Dame? If the Browns had any offensive firepower in the second half of their 15-14 loss Sunday, they would have clinched their first win of the season. QB Charlie Frye’s interception in the end zone with just over three minutes to play in the game was such a crucial moment in the game. If Cleveland could have at least gotten a field goal to make the score 17-12, I just don’t see the Ravens marching all the way down the field for a touchdown (which they would have had to do to win) the way their offense had been playing. Instead, Matt Stover (clutch-o-matic) nails a 52-yard FG with 24 seconds left to keep Baltimore undefeated…The Dolphins might be the worst team in the AFC East – no joke. Nice job beating the hopeless Tennessee Titans 13-10 on your own field Miami, especially when you were 10.5-point favorites…Somebody woke up Washington’s offense on Sunday! 31 points? Oh, it was against Houston? Never mind – although Mark Brunell going 22 of 22 before his first incompletion is quite remarkable…Brett Favre destroys the Lions for about the 1,000th time in his career. Three touchdowns, 340 yards passing and Green Bay sends Detroit to 0-3 after a 31-24 shoot out at Ford Field…Don’t look now, but the NY Jets are 2-1 and are playing extremely tough under rookie head coach Eric Mangini. The Jets have no running game, but QB Chad Pennington is playing great and has a touchdown to interception ratio of 5:1. J.P. Losman threw for a shocking 328 yards in the Bills 28-20 loss, but I’ll have to check the tapes to see if the Jets were actually on the field when this feat took place…All is right again in Carolina after WR Steve Smith returns in a 26-24 victory over Tampa Bay. Smith caught seven passes for 112 yards, but the real story was WR Keyshawn Johnson lighting up his former team for seven catches for 97 yards and two touchdowns (one was on a reverse). Stick a fork in the Bucs and get one ready for the Panthers, because they still aren’t playing good football – their defense gave up 24 points to a team that came into the game without a touchdown? Yikes…Oh, no! Get out the way – Seattle romped the Giants 42-30. Forget the score, the Seahawks jumped out to a 42-3 lead before Eli Manning made the game somewhat respectable. Seattle at home is almost unbeatable…The Eagles bounced back nicely with a 38-24 win over the 49ers, but San Francisco exploited Philly’s defense a couple of times in the loss. Something just isn’t right about the Eagles defense, but the good news is that QB Donovan McNabb is playing like an M.V.P. candidate and is keeping his team in contention…St. Louis desperately held on to a 16-14 win in Arizona. The Rams were set to cough up the win when the Cardinals scored to cut the lead to 16-14 after St. Louis lead most of the contest 16-7. Marc Bulger fumbled on the Rams ensuing possession and Arizona took over on the Rams 34 yard line with two minutes left to play. Kurt Warner, however, graciously gave the ball back to St. Louis with a fumble of his own and Arizona missed a chance to go 2-1 on the young season. Despite the loss, the Cards duo of Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald at receiver is just sick to watch when Arizona’s offense is in unison…In other NFL news, the Raiders lost to the BYE 34-3, which still leaves Oakland without a touchdown this season.

Sunday night match up:
Boy, New England might be the least impressive 2-1 team in the NFL right now. The Patriots had to come from behind to beat the Bills in the opener, then they had to hang on for dear life last week against the Jets and then they look totally uninspiring Sunday night in a 17-7 loss to Denver.

QB Tom Brady was fine, but Denver just completely shut down the Patriots run game. It didn’t help losing Corey Dillon so early in the contest, but rookie Laurence Maroney didn’t look like the back with burst from New England’s first two games. I mean, 18 yards on 12 carries?

I’m sure the Broncos are feeling much better about themselves after QB Jake Plummer showed he had a pulse in throwing for two touchdowns and 256 yards. RB Tatum Bell and WR Javon Walker stole the show with their performances, however.

Bell ran for 123 yards on 27 carries and showed head coach Mike Shanahan what he could do with a full workload. Walker on the other hand, made two phenomenal touchdown catches and finished with 130 receiving yards on just three receptions.

So, after three weeks the New England Patriots and New York Jets are tied atop the AFC East at 2-1 (although the Patriots hold the edge in the head to head tiebreaker right now).

Didn’t see that one coming.

Still left on the Week 3 docket:
New Orleans reopens the Superdome against division rival Atlanta on Monday Night Football tomorrow.

General Sports, NFL

Notre Dame 40, Michigan State 37: Unbelievable comebacks, a complete collapse and jerk coaches

September 24, 2006 / Anthony Stalter

If I could barrow a saying from the late, great Harry Caray: hoooly cow.

Notre Dame’s improbable 40-37 comeback over the Spartans in East Lansing Saturday night will be talked about in South Bend for years to come. That was simply amazing to watch an Irish team that had no momentum or push in the first half, snatch a win like they did in the third and fourth quarter of this contest.

Lets be honest though – what a nightmare loss for Michigan State. I haven’t seen a choke job like that since six days ago when the Eagles blew a 24-7 lead to the Giants in the fourth quarter of Philadelphia’s 30-24 overtime loss.

The Spartans had a 24-7 lead too…and a 17-0 lead…and a 31-14 lead… and a 37-21 lead, all before fifth year senior QB Drew Stanton decided to make the game interesting and crumble like a Peyton Manning playoff performance.

Lets get right to some random thoughts – although I want to apologize if this seems jumbled, but my head is still spinning from actually watching the Irish players pull a horse shoe so far from out of their…ahh, forget it.

– Brady Quinn has played only one complete game this season and that was against Penn State in the second week of the year. Five touchdowns, 319 yards passing and he still looked like dog crap for three quarters against MSU. Amazing.

– The Spartans offensive line opened up dump truck-sized holes all night for Jehuu Caulcrick and Javon Ringer. But man did those back to back holding penalties early in the fourth quarter kill an important drive for MSU. Not too mention the false start penalty before the two holding calls. Coach John L. Smith can look at those penalties as a starting point for his team’s collapse – and then move quickly on to Stanton’s lack of a brain.

– Two catches for only 20 yards for WR Matt Trannon against that secondary for Notre Dame is just ridiculous.

– Jeff Samardzija had a fabulous night (seven catches for 114 yards and two touchdowns), but he was outdone by Rhema McKnight’s two tiptoe catches in the end zone. I’ll go out on a small limb now and say McKnight will be the better NFL player.

– By the way, Samardzija is a punk – just like Charlie Weis and the rest of his coaching staff.

Follow me here:

Stanton has a run in the first half where he gets hit late out of bounds on Notre Dame’s sideline. Trannon and the rest of MSU’s offense head over to the sideline while Trannon checks to see if is quarterback is okay.

In the meantime, one of the members in Weis’ fun-bag party starts grabbing the Spartan players that are near the sideline by the back of the collar and pushes them out of the way. Then said coach walks behind Trannon, grabs him by the back of the collar as well and shoves him away from the Irish sideline while Stanton is still laying on the ground. Trannon stumbles back, regains himself and then goes after the coach.

The result? A big scuffle breaks out and Trannon gets flagged of course – which offsets the late hit call on Stanton.

I can certainly understand a coach wanting to keep opposing players off of his sidelines. But the play carried those players over there and it wasn’t like the Spartans were trying to start anything – they were just checking on Stanton. There was absolutely no reason to grab and shove players at that moment.

Fast forward to halftime where Weis is being interviewed by Lisa Salters. As the interview is wrapping up, Salters asks Weis a question about switching to the no-huddle offense at the end of the first half, which Weis responds too. Then innocently, Salters ask Weis if we can expect to see the no-huddle again at the start of the second half.

Weis’s response? He looks at her as if she may possibly be one of the mistresses of Saadam Huessin and then says: “We’re down by 17,” and walks away from her as to say ‘hey, you should know the answer to that question – little woman.’

Hey Weis, if your team’s defense didn’t play as soft as oatmeal in the first half, Salters wouldn’t have had to ask that question, now would she?

Oh, and Samardzija? He was the first person in Stanton’s ear hole talking trash when Stanton threw his first inexplicable interception (if you’re wondering why Samardzija would be on the field at the same time as Stanton, it’s because he’s the holder on extra points).

I guess Samardzija can act like Tommy tough guy after his team had to come all the way back from being pummeled the entire game by a program that isn’t even ranked.

– CB Terrail Lambert battled some major demons Saturday night. One week after being embarrassed by Michigan’s Mario Manningham, Lambert had two interceptions in the final minutes of the game (one he returned for the winning touchdown and the other was handed down from Jesus himself after the ball bounced off of every player on the field, every fan in the crowd, several people in the parking lot and then straight into Lambert’s arms).

The kid deserves praise – he manned up and bounced back after a trying situation last weekend.

– Has anybody seen RB Darius Walker? I’m starting to get concerned about his whereabouts.

– I told everybody to watch out for DE Ervin Baldwin in my College Game of the Week on Wednesday didn’t I? Baldwin picked off Quinn in the second quarter and returned it 19 yards for a touchdown.

– Okay, so I also told everybody that MSU would win 35-31 in my preview too. Hey, can’t win them all, right? Or even some of them in my case. Miami, LSU and Michigan State have been three out of my last four Game of the Week picks.

I can give a prediction that is bound to come true, however: USC is going to wax this Notre Dame team by about 40 points unless the Irish can sprout a defense sometime in the next couple of weeks.