http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/teams/san+diego+chargers/nfl.t.24
Adventures in Officiating: Chargersâ?? Garay, Seahawksâ?? Brock get same $15K fines for very different hits0-2 isnâ??t a curse, but for some teams, itâ??s even worseThe NFLâ??s new replay review rules are becoming a debacleSundayâ??s five least valuable players, Week 2Afternoon inactives: Broncos decimated by injuries in Week 2The best moments from Part 1 of â??Bill Belichick: A Football Lifeâ??â??Safety First!â?? is the smart call for modern defensesOn the Corner Podcast: Episode 2The Shutdown Corner Week 2 Preview Podcast: Greg CosellQualcomm Stadium server trips, loses $1,000 â?¦ and Chargers fans give it all back
Adventures in Officiating: Chargersâ?? Garay, Seahawksâ?? Brock get same $15K fines for very different hits0-2 isnâ??t a curse, but for some teams, itâ??s even worseThe NFLâ??s new replay review rules are becoming a debacleSundayâ??s five least valuable players, Week 2Afternoon inactives: Broncos decimated by injuries in Week 2The best moments from Part 1 of â??Bill Belichick: A Football Lifeâ??â??Safety First!â?? is the smart call for modern defensesOn the Corner Podcast: Episode 2The Shutdown Corner Week 2 Preview Podcast: Greg CosellQualcomm Stadium server trips, loses $1,000 â?¦ and Chargers fans give it all back
On Thursday, two defenders â?? San Diego Chargers defensive tackle Antonio Garay and Seattle Seahawks defensive end Raheem Brock â?? were each fined $15,000 for their below-the-knee hits on marquee quarterbacks. Garay's hit was on New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, and it came with 13:45 left in the third quarter of the Patriots' eventual 35-21 victory. Despite the hit, Brady threw for 423 yards and three touchdowns, becoming the seventh quarterback in NFL history to throw for over 400 yards in back-to-back weeks.
The Garay hit is pretty simple â?? he gets blocked out by the center and goes to the ground. While his momentum seems to take him into Brady's lower legs, he's also got enough room to make what the zebras call "a football move," or a step in the direction he's already going, before contact. So it's interesting that there was no flag on the play, especially since he wasn't specifically blocked into Brady at all.
"I'm glad I had a knee brace on," Brady told Boston radio station WEEI in his weekly appearance.
"Those are scary when you've been through those ones before. He got me in a good spot and I'm glad the knee brace took the brunt of the force. Why I never wore a knee brace before, I have no idea --why every quarterback doesn't wear one on their left knee I have no idea. It's just so unprotected."
Of course, Brady lost most of the 2008 season when Kansas City Chiefs defensive back Bernard Pollard went into his knee and caused major ligament damage. That hit led to what is now known as the "Brady Rule," which is supposed to put game officials and the league in a position to be hyper-vigilant about these kinds of hits.
Specifically, in March of 2009, the NFL's Competition Committee made a clarification to the current rule that specially prohibits a defender who hasn't been blocked, pushed, or otherwise fouled into the quarterback from lunging or diving at or below Mr. Quarterback's knees.
That's a very important point of order for Brock's hit on Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, because it looks very much like Brock gets leg-whipped into Roethlisberger by right guard Marcus Gilbert. Brock put an outside move on Gilbert, executed an insideÂ spin move to perfection, and the overmatched Gilbert did what most linemen would do â?? he put out his leg and hoped to prevent a sack.
At the very least, this should have been offsetting penalties, because last time I checked, tripping was illegal. Nonetheless, Brock was flagged for being fouled into Roethlisberger. Fortunately, Roethlisberger was able to finish the game, and it's not like a sack would have helped the Seahawks in the 24-0 shellacking they took at Heinz Field. But when I talked to Brock about the fine on Thursday, he was still unhappy.
"It cost me a sack, and I'm pissed off about it [laughs]. So, I'm really upset. It could have been a sack, caused a fumble, changed the game. But instead, I get fined â?? tripped up and fined."
Brock said that he and his agent have already appealed the fine. "I hope I'll hear something today. I think my agent sent [the appeal] out yesterday, so I hope to hear something today."
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The 2007 New York Giants won Super Bowl XLII despite an 0-2 start, but that team proved to be the exception rather than the rule. When the G-Men defeated the previously undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, they were playing against type, and not just as underdogs in that game.
Since 1990 , teams that get off to an 0-2 start have just a 12 percent chance of making the playoffs, while 64 percent of teams withÂ 2-0 starts have managed to make the postseason. The Giants proved that anything can happen once you get there, but for seven teams this season, getting there will be much tougher because of their winless beginnings. The Miami Dolphins, Indianapolis Colts, Kansas City Chiefs, Seattle Seahawks, Minnesota Vikings, Carolina Panthers and St. Louis Rams are all in the same hole, with different levels of realistic hope when it comes to getting out.
Chiefs head coach Todd Haley has quipped that "the season will not be canceled, as far as I know," but in reality, it might as well be for his team. When you lose your best offensive player (running back Jamaal Charles) and your best defensive player (safety Eric Berry) to season-ending injuries in the first two games of the season, it's hard to know where to go, especially after the Buffalo Bills made Kansas City's pass defense look like a joke after Berry went out in the first quarter of the first game.
Coaching may or may not be the issue, but according to Yahoo's Mike Silver , it's the perception that coaching is the issue that may spell the end for Haley. Silver reported on Monday that the divide between Haley and Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli is wide and very well-known, and if there is a sword to fall upon for the defending AFC West champions, it most likely won't belong to Pioli. Silver also hypothesizes that Pioli could cast a net for his old New England buddy Josh McDaniels as a replacement, which could lead to an entirely new level of dysfunction.
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The Seahawks are another team decimated by injuries; they've lost valuable free agents (receiver Sidney Rice and left guard Robert Gallery) for undetermined lengths of time, and their call to bank on the NFL's youngest offensive line has not paid the dividends they expected. Still, head coach Pete Carroll has done his best to stay positive. When asked about what previous slow starts taught him about motivation, Carroll said that all a coach can do is to try and navigate his team out of the mess.
"It's real similar to my first year at USC and what it felt like there," Carroll said on Wednesday. "We really struggled to find ourselves and the players that would emerge. So, we just had to maintain hope and keep our eye on the target, and also stay with the mentality that every day is so important. That you keep going back to the focus that you can control, which is the one right in front of you. That's exactly the message that we're on right now and when we bust out, we bust out. Until then, we keep stepping and marching toward getting right. I have to be great at it. I have to make sure that I'm consistent and that our coaches are consistent and that's the only message that we know. It's the only chance we have."
If that sounds like a semi-desperate coach trying to put the best spin on the bad situation … well, you'll find that a lot among the current 0-2 teams. Minnesota's Leslie Frazier, whose team blew fourth-quarter leads to the San Diego Chargers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers to find themselves in the wrong end of the wins column, is now contending with an offense that has scored exactly three points total in four quarters of second-half football.
Minnesota's concerns go beyond injury to current personnel and the correct usage of players. Despite the fact that receiver Percy Harvin is the team's best remaining playmaker in the passing game, it was recently revealed that Harvin has been on the field in less than half of the Vikings' snaps through two games, despite no obvious injury concerns and the fact that Minnesota has scored just 30 points all season. Quarterback Donovan McNabb, the team's primary offseason acquisition, is floundering as a result.
"We know what Percy is capable of doing," Frazier recently said . "He's a big-time playmaker, whether it's on kickoff return or playing wide receiver. It's just a matter of our using his strengths for our greatest advantage, for our team's greatest advantage, picking our spots when we do that. I think we're taking the right approach with Percy, with his reps and the packages we use him in. It's the right approach."
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When it was announced that all scoring plays would be reviewed by a booth official, the biggest concern was that too many touchdowns would force a trip under the hood and games would be unnecessarily delayed. Yet a far bigger problem has emerged through two weeks of the NFL season: Replay officials aren't buzzing referees enough. Twice on Sunday, questionable touchdowns went unreviewed by the booth, and coaches who might have challenged these calls last year but are unable to do so this season were left powerless to do anything about it.
One of these plays came in the New England Patriots vs. San Diego Chargers game:
This looks like a catch to me. Then again, so did Calvin Johnson's (notes) touchdown last year as well as countless other replays in recent seasons that have been dubiously overturned with evidence deemed "indisputable." You're telling me that there's not at least a 35 percent chance the ref would have looked at this, seen something you or I didn't or applied some arcane rule of which we were previously confused or unaware, and ruled this an incompletion? If I were Norv Turner, I'd have been willing to take that bet. (And knowing Turner's history with challenges, you know he'd have taken that bet.)
The Chargers coach couldn't challenge, though, because all scoring plays are now in the hands of the same replay official who determines which plays should be reviewed after the two-minute warning. In terms of scoring plays, the coaches' challenge is dead. If the replay official doesn't see it, there is no challenge, no matter what the coach thinks.
Turner may not have won that challenge. Over in New Orleans, Lovie Smith certainly would have won his, if it had been allowed. In the Chicago Bears game against the New Orleans Saints , running back Darren Sproles (notes) clearly stepped out of bounds on his way to the end zone. Officials on the field ruled it a touchdown, even though replays showed the Saints running back step out of bounds on the 1-yard line.
Had Smith been able to challenge, the ball would have been marked at the 1. Without a buzz from the replay official, the Saints instead lined up for an extra point.
The NFL needs to figure out what it wants from replay. Taking major challenges out of the coaches' hands goes against the purpose of instant replay, which is to get all calls correct. Hurrying up the game is important but not at the sake of making the proper rulings. (Why even have coaches challenges if they're taken away during major points of the game? Why not go to a college system where every play is eligible for review via the replay official?)
Replay delays are fine if they're meaningful. The problem isn't that the game stops too much it's that it stops for too long when it does. The NFL doesn't need to analyze replays like the Zapruder film; it should only take 15 seconds and three camera angles to determine if the ruling on the field was incorrect. Anything longer than that and the ruling on the field should stand. If you have to look that hard for evidence, chances are it's not going to be indisputable.
Neither of these plays ended up mattering too much in the result of the games. One week soon, a non-reviewed touchdown will and could swing the balance of a game. The NFL will then have a major new problem to handle, one of its own creation.
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[ Set your lineup anywhere with Yahoo! Sports' Fantasy Football app ]
5. Matt Giordano (notes) , Free Safety, Oakland Raiders .
I gain more appreciation for Buffalo running back Fred Jackson (notes) every week, but he's still Fred Jackson, and he still shouldn't be able to make a safety look like Matt Giordano looked on this play . Not that Giordano was the only member of the Raiders secondary who struggled a bit on Sunday -- Ryan Fitzpatrick (notes) threw for 122 yards in the fourth quarter against them. I can't pinpoint responsibility on this one, but there was a complete breakdown in the secondary leading to Buffalo's game-winning score.
4. Mike Tolbert (notes) , Running Back, San Diego Chargers .
Mike Tolbert did a lot of really good things on Sunday, but there was one play I can't get past. In the fourth quarter, down seven and driving against a New England defense that hadn't forced a punt in three-plus quarters of game play, Tolbert stopped at the line of scrimmage, and then, well, things got weird. It's odd that this needs to be said, but at this level, you aren't supposed to run backwards and then fumble. It was one more example of how the Chargers couldn't stop groin-punching themselves all day long.
[ Set your lineup anywhere with Yahoo! Sports' Fantasy Football app ]
3. Matt Cassel (notes) , Quarterback, Kansas City Chiefs .
Any time you lose 48-3 and throw three interceptions, you've had a pretty rough day. How could it get worse? Well, you could lose your backfield-mate Jamaal Charles to an ACL injury that will apparently sideline him for the season . Add him to the list of key Chiefs that are already done for the year, including Tony Moeaki (notes) and Eric Berry (notes) .
2. Reggie Bush (notes) , Running Back, Miami Dolphins .
So, it was what, about two weeks before we were able to put the whole "Reggie Bush as a featured back" thing to bed? Bush carried just six times for 18 yards on Sunday, and rookie Daniel Thomas (notes) stepped in and took his place with 18 carries for 107 yards. Bush wasn't a threat in the passing game, either. He managed just one catch for 3 yards.
1. Luke McCown (notes) , Quarterback, Jacksonville Jaguars .
Luke McCown's quarterback rating was only short of Tom Brady's (notes) by 133.9 points. All told, he had almost as many interceptions (four) as completions (six). On his 19 attempts, if he'd have simply dropped back and spiked the ball off of Brad Meester's (notes) heiney 19 times, McCown's quarterback rating would have been 21 times better than it actually was. I realize that David Garrard (notes) wasn't playing well when he was released just before the season started, but surely, he had something more to offer than this.
See Sunday's five most valuable players here .
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While many fantasy football players will be disgruntled by the absence of Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant (notes) , the team most affected in the reality sweepstakes in the afternoon games is the Denver Broncos . When they take the field against the Cincinnati Bengals , Denver will be without RB Knowshon Moreno (notes) , WR Brandon Lloyd (notes) , WR Demaryius Thomas (notes) , DE Elvis Dumervil (notes) , DT Marcus Thomas , LB D.J. Williams , CB Champ Bailey (notes) .
In a word, yikes. Here are the afternoon inactives, with a happy hat tip to Mac's Football Blog for the info:
4pm ET Games
Dallas Cowboys at San Francisco 49ers
Dallas : QB Stephen McGee (notes) , WR Dez Bryant, G Bill Nagy (notes) , G David Arkin (notes) , DL Clifton Geathers (notes) , CB Terence Newman (notes) , CB Orlando Scandrick (notes)
San Francisco QB Scott Tolzien (notes) , WR Michael Crabtree (notes) , OL Mike Person (notes) , OL Daniel Kilgore (notes) , NT Ian Williams (notes) , DL DeMarcus Dobbs (notes) , S Dashon Goldson (notes)
Cincinnati Bengals at Denver Broncos
Cincinnati : WR Ryan Whalen (notes) , TE Donald Lee (notes) , G Otis Hudson (notes) , DE Robert Geathers (notes) , LB Dontay Moch (notes) , S Robert Sands (notes) , S Taylor Mays (notes)
Denver : RB Knowshon Moreno, WR Brandon Lloyd, WR Demaryius Thomas, DE Elvis Dumervil, DT Marcus Thomas, LB D.J. Williams, CB Champ Bailey
Houston Texans at Miami Dolphins
Houston : QB T.J. Yates (notes) , RB Derrick Ward (notes) , WR Kevin Walter (notes) , TE Garrett Graham (notes) , T Derek Newton (notes) , G Thomas Austin (notes) , CB Brandon Harris (notes)
Miami : FB Charles Clay (notes) , WR Roberto Wallace (notes) , TE Will Yeatman (notes) , OL [Ryan Cook]e|/nfl/players/7800 (notes) , DE Tony McDaniel (notes) , LB Ikaika Alama-Francis (notes) , S [Chris Clemons]e|/nfl/players/6704
San Diego Chargers at New England Patriots
San Diego : RB Jordan Todman (notes) , WR Patrick Crayton (notes) , WR Vincent Brown (notes) , DE Luis Castillo (notes) , LB Darryl Gamble (notes) , LB Jonas Mouton (notes) , CB Shareece Wright (notes)
New England : QB Ryan Mallett (notes) , RB Shane Vereen (notes) , WR Taylor Price (notes) , OL Ryan Wendell (notes) , C Dan Koppen (notes) , DE Mike Wright , LB Gary Guyton (notes)
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For those who didn't see Part 1 of the transcendent NFL Films documentary, "Bill Belichick: A Football Life," we have compiled a few highlights below. The show, which premiered Thursday evening on the NFL Network, is the result of a crew following the New England Patriots head coach all the way through the 2009 season â?? the 50 th anniversary of the franchise, and the return of Tom Brady after the franchise quarterback missed most of the 2008 season with a knee injury. It's a must-watch, and here's why…
Feet up on his fishing boat
Part 1 starts with Belichick heading out on his fishing boat, grabbing a bit of relaxation before the new season begins. "This is serenity," he says while staring out at a lighthouse. "You're not worried about third-and-long out here." But then, it's time to pull the boat in and head back to Foxboro. "Players come in tomorrow, training camp starts, and I'll be ready for them."
Here's also Belichick playing golf in jeans ... somebody really needs to help him out with this. The Hoodie is one thing, butÂ this is just wrong .
Training camp soundbites
Always a personal favorite in training camp, especially when coaches start verbally abusing the players. The show has Belichick talking to Jon Bon Jovi about then-new Jets head coach Rex Ryan, getting tough with his players about situational football "whether you're involved or not!," and putting the pressure on tackle Sebastian Vollmer â?? if he can catch a punt, no curfew for the team that night. "Seabass" nails it, and the team goes wild. Belichick didn't expect the kid to catch it, and fares far worse with his own return abilities.
Father to son
The moments with son Brian are nice as well â?? the younger Belichick gets a primer on the situational aspects of the game, serves as an assistant to his dad on the sidelines, and receives tips on how to throw the ball with fewer hitches in his delivery (maybe the Broncos should trade Tim Tebow to the Patriots…).
The definition of a coach
Though he has offensive and defensive coordinators in name most seasons, it could be argued that there isn't an NFL head coach more in tune with every aspect of his team than Belichick. In that regard, he's a throwback to the old-school guys like Don Shula, who didn't partition everything into enormous positional subgroups. The way Belichick leads quarterbacks coach Bill O'Brien through the need to make opposing defenses respect the Patriots' quick counts is but one example of the all-seeing eye.
"We can't spend all day on shifting and motion on every play â?? we're not doing that," he tells O'Brien and Tom Brady. "I don't want to be talking about that during the game â?? saying my piece on that now â?? but don't worry if we have to make an adjustment on it. These guys need to be able to do that."
The meeting rooms
As team owner Robert Kraft is honoring the 50 th anniversary team, Belichick has his guys in the room, getting ready for the opener against the Buffalo Bills. "There's nothing wrong with being excited when you make a play. Look at all the work you put into it. All the time and practice you've spent and put into it. And then go out there in a game and execute it well and competitively and make a play … you should be excited about that!"
Then again, he also talks about how the team bleeped around for the first quarter of the 2008 season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs, so it isn't all sweetness and light. And there were no insistences that the team head out for a "g-damn snack," much to my disappointment.
The inner sanctum
As an X's-and-O's junkie, the best part of Part 1 was watching Belichick and Brady talk about the upcoming game with the Baltimore Ravens in Belichick's office. They go over the full offensive game plan and then drill down to one of the main issues faced by any team opposing the Ravens â?? how to deal with Ed Reed.
"I think we know about Ed," Belichick says.
"Ed Reed is Ed Reed," Brady responds. "He covers up a lot of stuff."
Belichick concurs. "Everything he does, he does at an exceptional level. He looks like he's guessing more than he ever has. But boy, does he have a burst â?? he's crouching down low back there, and playing really low. But he changes it up â?? you can't …I mean, it's just so obvious when he's reading the quarterback. Those receivers will run right past him, and he never flinches. Â He doesn't even acknowledge them. He's just reading the quarterback."
"He's always moving," Brady responds. "Playing against Ed, you're always so aware of where he is. It's not like he sneaks up on you â?? We played him in the rain here five years ago, and every time they break the huddle, he's what you're looking at. You're not saying, 'OK, let's just snap the ball and go,' it's more like, 'Where's he at?'"
Brady and Belichick then watch an All-22 cut of San Diego Chargers receiver Vincent Jackson running right by Reed, and Reed refusing to be fooled.
By the way, the show also displays that Brady isn't exempt from criticism from his head coach â?? In that season opener against the Bills, he calms an understandably excited Brady down and gets him back in the game.
His "Scoreboard, Baby!" moment with Derrick Mason
During that game, Ravens receiver Derrick Mason decided to start jawing at Belichick on the sideline after catching a quick out and being tackled right by the coach.
Belichick's response:
Yep. That's a good one (You can see the moment at 5:20 into the video above). And the Pats won the game, 27-21. Scoreboard, baby.
The unexpected joker
Whether he's telling Wes Welker that he's Wally Pipp to Julian Edelman's Lou Gehrig, or saying to then-Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco that "We're double-covering you, so you can take the night off," Belichick does have a goofy side … well, maybe more sardonic than goofy, but he does use the needle at times.
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SEATTLE, Wash. -- It's becoming increasingly obvious that the safety position is more important than ever to NFL defenses. Once a positional purgatory for those "tweener" players not good enough to cover as cornerbacks and not big enough to tackle like linebackers, the modern safety must possess several different skills â?? sometimes all of them on the same play. No other player in a defenseÂ is asked to crash down on a blitz from 20 yards deep, or fake that blitz to read run or coverage, and all with a sharpshooter's eye and a daredevil's guts. The modern safety could be seen as a new type of defender; one that we haven't seen with consistency before the last few years.
On July 27, the San Diego Chargers agreed to a five-year, $40 million contract with free safety Eric Weddle. Weddle had been the Chargers' best defensive player over the last two seasons, but this was the biggest contract ever given to a veteran safety, and it was only beaten in sheer dollars by the five-year, $60 million rookie deal given to Eric Berry of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Berry tied with the late Sean Taylor as the highest-drafted safety of the new millennium when he was taken fifth overall by Kansas City in 2010. Turner was taken second overall by the Browns in 1991, but that was an outlier year, with Stanley Richard taken by the Chargers with the ninth pick the same year. Every other safety taken in the top 10 since 1990 was taken after 2000 â?? Roy Williams in 2002, Sean Taylor in 2005, Michael Huff and Donte Whitner in 2006, and LaRon Landry in 2007.
The Weddle contract was the gold standard as far as veteran safeties getting paid, but everyone knew that Pittsburgh's Troy Polamalu was set to benefit from Weddle's deal more than anyone else. A possible free agent in 2012, Polamalu agreed to a four-year, $36.5 million contract extension on Sept. 10. That's a lot of scratch for a guy who missed 13 regular-season games total in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, but it's also None that since he was selected with the 16th overall pick in the 2004 draft, Polamalu has been the one defensive constant -- and the player that Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau allows to freelance more than any other he's ever coached.
More now than at any other time in the game's history, safeties can (and must) serve as the epicenters of their defenses. Surprisingly, Tomlin pointed to the increased complexity of the NFL's passing game â?? not the influence of players like Polamalu and division-mate Ed Reed -- as the main reason for this change.
"I think the nature in which offenses attack defenses has redefined that position," Tomlin said on Wednesday about safeties in general. "I think the day of the box safety is dead. I think they have to be multi-faceted, multi-talented people. They've got to be able to play in the box and be intricate parts of the run game. They've also got to be able to play on the back end and play against receivers. I just think that's the evolution of today's football. Troy, of course, has been the appropriate athlete at that time, but I think it's more about what offenses do, as opposed to about the physical characteristics of the men themselves."
When asked if he and the Steelers are now looking for safeties with more cornerback skills, Tomlin was succinct. "I don't think it's just me -- I think everyone is."
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll started looking for those safeties when he came back to the NFL in January of 2010 after a decade at USC, where Polamalu was one of his standout players. In the 2010 draft, Carroll took Texas safety Earl Thomas with the second of his two first-round picks. In the fifth round of that draft, Carroll and general manager John Schneider picked up Virginia Tech strong safety Kam Chancellor. Now, Thomas and Chancellor comprise the youngest starting safety tandem in the league. Chancellor is just starting to establish his reputation as an enforcer in the intermediate area of the defense; Thomas already made his name with Berry last year as one of the new breed of defenders that fit Tomlin's job description.
Carroll echoed Tomlin's thoughts about the new nature of the safety position -- since he last coached in the NFL in the mid-to-late 1990s with the New York Jets and New England Patriots, offenses have dictated radical changes in what's required. Teams are running more four- and five-wide sets, right ends are playing more multiple roles, blocking systems are more complex, and slot-to-seam receivers will show a nearly infinite series of schematic challenges. The Chiefs found that out the hard way in their season opener against the Buffalo Bills, when Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick was able to rip apart the Kansas City defense after a first-quarter knee injury took Berry out of the game â?? and out for the season. Not only are these types of safeties extremely valuable â?? they're also just about irreplaceable.
"The spread out offensive attacks do eliminate that [box safety] for the most part," Carroll said. "There is more throwing game, and there's a broader acceptance and willingness to throw the football.Â It's all over high school football, college football â?? everybody that plays the game is really going to a different level of throwing the ball.Â The NFL is no different. So, the safety position is guys that can cover guys outside, guys that can move around and play one-on-ones when you need them to.Â Guys that can cover a lot of space are really valuable.Â Earl is exactly that kind of guy.Â So we were really fortunate.Â He can play corner as well.Â He does a lot of corner stuff for us at times.Â Those guys are most valuable because everybody's looking for matchups.Â Everybody's looking to get the fast guy on the slower guy.Â So you need guys that have versatility [and] can handle that and he's one of them."
As the only person to coach Polamalu in college and Thomas in the pros, Carroll said that while Polamalu is obviously far ahead of the game, there are some serious similarities between the two players.
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This week, Chris Sedenka and I are talking about various NFL issues of the day, including the leaguewide trend toward unstoppable passing offenses in Week One. What's more valuable: the league's 10th-best quarterback, or the league's best running back? Is 400 yards passing the new 300 yards passing? Can Tom Brady (notes) stay on pace for 8,272 yards passing this season?
We also get into Tedy Bruschi (notes) vs. Chad Ochocinco (notes) a little bit, and discuss Tedy Bruschi's place alongside Silky Johnson, Buc Nasty and Pit Bull as the greatest haters of all-time. We touch on the fans purchasing Tebow billboards in Denver, and why Tebow is sort of like a Ryan Leaf who goes to church?
We also recap my shameful performance in last week's picks segment, and my plans to get back in the winner's circle by picking these games this week:
Chicago Bears +7 @ New Orleans Saints
Philadelphia Eagles -2.5 @ Atlanta Falcons
Kansas City Chiefs +9 @ Detroit Lions
Cleveland Browns -2.5 @ Indianapolis Colts
San Diego Chargers +6.5 @ New England Patriots
Current Picks Segment Standings:
Danks: 2-3
MJD: 0-5
If you've got suggestions for future podcasts, be they format suggestions, things you'd like us to discuss, things you'd like us to stop discussing, or questions you'd like answered -- football-related or not -- find me on Twitter. @themightymjd .
Left-click the link below to listen, and right-click it to download. iTunes links coming soon.
On The Corner - 09.15.2011
Once again, it's time to preview the week's NFL games with the foremost game taps maven out there â?? Greg Cosell. As you may already know, Greg has worked at NFL Films since 1979, and he's been the executive producer of ESPN's "NFL Matchup" since 1984. He watches as much coach's tape than anyone not in an NFL front office, and it's that perspective we appreciate when talking to him in our weekly spot.
This week, we review a few important Week 1 points â?? Cam Newton 's performance, the Eagles' run defense, what happened to Pittsburgh's front seven, and Tony Romo's (notes) inexplicable interception to Darrelle Revis (notes) â?? before moving on to all of the Week 2 matchups.
We cover everything, including all the bigÂ games â?? the Chicago Bears at the New Orleans Saints , the San Diego Chargers at the New England Patriots , the Philadelphia Eagles at the Atlanta Falcons , and much more.
This is always a must-listen, and we now have our own Shutdown Corner iTunes feed as well ! You can also left-click on the text link below to listen to the podcast, or right-click to save it to your hard drive.
The Shutdown Corner Week 2 Preview Podcast: Greg Cosell
We have no idea if the San Diego Chargers will go to the Super Bowl this season, but from a sheer class perspective, many of their fans proved to be world champions during the team's preseason contest versus the San Francisco 49ers on Sept. 1.
During the game at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, a Club Level server by the name of Heather Allison tripped on a stair, and all the money she'd taken in for the day â?? about $1,000 â?? flew out her hands and landed all over the area â?? on fans in attendance, under seats, and one level down in the lower field section.
Instead of doing the full-on "Ocean's Eleven" money grab, the fans' first instinct was to let everyone in the vicinity know just whose money it was.
"All my customers began screaming over the railing to the people below: 'That's the server's money,'"Â Allison, a mother of four and full-time student, recalled. Club level fans started collecting the money in their section, as did the field level patrons.
In the end, Allison got back every bit of the money she inadvertently lost , and pocketed $170 in tips for the evening after giving the concession company its cut. "It was all there,"Â she said. "Chargers fans are amazing. We're like a family."
It's a great story not only because a mother of four got all her money back, but also because of the connection fans have to the people who wing hot dogs and peanuts at them from the aisles, and satisfy their urges for a lemonade or cold beer on a fall day. The emotional remembrance given to longtime Seattle vendor Bill "The Beerman" Scott a few years back was but one example of that connection.
No question â?? there had to be people in those sections who knew Ms. Allison, and had to know just how much that money meant to her. It's a great part of the fabric of the gameday experience.
Kudos to you, Chargers fans.
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