Normally I’ll take 11 wins any way I can get ’em during the NFL season but to lose one the way Redskins coach Joe Gibbs did…I probably would have said murder… but that might be considered tasteless under the circumstances.
In any event, myself, Karl the Birdman, Sean from www.pornlegends.com and Dan Davis shared 11-4 marks while three members of the Adultfyi pool came in at 10-5.
LANDOVER, Md. (AP) – Fred Smoot cried several times when he looked over to the safety position and Sean Taylor wasn’t there. Santana Moss held up his fingers to represent Taylor’s No. 21 after catching a pass. Clinton Portis revealed a T-shirt honoring Taylor after scoring the game’s only touchdown.
Drained before they ever took the field, the Washington Redskins somehow steeled their fragile emotions and played to honor their fallen teammate in front of 85,000 fans waving their No. 21 towels.
Nick Wass, AP The Redskins honor Sean Taylor by wearing his No. 21 on their jerseys. They get off to a fast start against the Bills on an emotional day before suffering a second-half letdown and their fourth consecutive defeat.
Their resolve was shattered, replaced by more tears and disbelief, when Rian Lindell kicked a 36-yard field goal with 4 seconds left to give the Buffalo Bills a 17-16 victory.
“It makes your heart drop all the way to your feet,” quarterback Jason Campbell said. “We wanted to come out here and win one for Sean.”
Five days after Taylor died from a gunshot wound in Florida, the Redskins defense did Taylor proud by not allowing a touchdown. Buffalo’s points came on five field goals and a safety.
But, on this of all days, a major gaffe by Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs played a key role in leaving Washington’s players disconsolate at the final whistle.
Lindell made a 51-yard attempt that didn’t count because Gibbs called timeout just as the ball was snapped. Gibbs then called another timeout as Lindell lined up a second time, but consecutive timeouts aren’t allowed in the NFL – and they result in a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty when specifically called to freeze the kicker.
The penalty gave Lindell a much easier kick in the rain. His game-winner extended his streak to 17 consecutive made field goals, tying the franchise record.
Gibbs said he asked an official if it was OK to call a second timeout, and the coach thought the official said yes. Still, the harried moments of a game’s final seconds are hardly a good time to be learning the rule book.
“There’s nobody to blame but myself,” Gibbs said. “I should have known the rule.”
Afterward, players spilled their emotions in a room in which Taylor’s locker was sealed in Plexiglas, just as it is at Redskins Park, the team’s headquarters. They tried to exonerate Gibbs, saying that any number of mistakes and blown plays could have cost them the game.
More than anything, though, they were emotionally spent.
“I didn’t show up to play this game,” said Smoot, the Washington cornerback. “I showed up for a tribute for my friend, to send him out right, and we found a way to mess it up.”
On Wednesday, Taylor’s father, Pedro Taylor, addressed the Redskins and urged them to win five games in a row and make the playoffs. But Washington (5-7) has now lost four straight and is fading quickly from the postseason picture. The Redskins will fly to Taylor’s funeral Monday, then must try to find a way to focus for a Thursday night game against Chicago.
“I just hope as a team we can get down to Miami for the funeral and get some closure so that we can move forward,” defensive end Phillip Daniels said. “It’s been tough for everybody. … It wasn’t easy to get out there and play today.”
When the Redskins defense came on for the first time, Taylor’s safety position was vacant: Only 10 players were on the field for Jackson’s 22-yard run around the left end. Then Taylor’s replacement, Reed Doughty, ran out, and he was the one who made the tackle on the next play, a short pass to Josh Reed.
“It was important for the team to know that he was with us one last time on the field,” Doughty said. “That was special. It’s really difficult to be running out there taking over for somebody who is of legend proportions. It was really hard.”
Buffalo (6-6), with solid performances from rookie quarterback Trent Edwards and third-string running back Fred Jackson, broke a two-game skid to keep its AFC playoff hopes alive. But the Bills were unwelcome outsiders on a day that was part memorial service and part celebration, one that fittingly ended in a chilly autumn shower.
“It was a very emotional day for everybody,” Buffalo coach Dick Jauron said. “I’m sure more so for them, but we have a number of players on our squad that were very close to Sean – played with him in college or in the NFL. I thought that both teams really played hard, and that would honor him. That’s how he played the game. He played it all-out. It was a 60-minute game; that’s how he played the game.”
Fans held posters that called Taylor the “eternal 12th man.” Another read, “4-ever a Skin, 4-ever a Cane, 4-ever 21,” a reference to Taylor’s stellar college career at the University of Miami before the Redskins drafted him in the first round in 2004.
When Moss, one of Taylor’s closest friends on the team, caught his first pass, he pounded his chest and held up his index and middle fingers and his pinky. It was his way of spelling “21” for all to see. He repeated the gesture throughout the game, sometimes with both hands.
Portis, another close friend of Taylor’s, lifted his jersey to reveal a white shirt that included the words “In memory of Sean Taylor” after the 3-yard run that gave the Redskins a 16-5 lead in the third quarter and seemed to realize the promise that they would, indeed, win one for their departed teammate.
The gestures contrasted with the hard, cold facts of a football game. The Redskins offense had the same problem as in recent weeks: an inability to finish drives. Washington kept settling for 3 points instead of 7, with Shaun Suisham kicking first-half field goals of 27, 28 and 33 yards.
The Bills never did get a 7. Their only points in the first half came when Angelo Crowell sacked Campbell in the end zone for a safety. Lee Evans’ juggling catch set up a second-half field goal, and turnovers by Campbell on back-to-back possessions – defensive tackle Larry Tripplett forced a fumble and made a diving interception of a tipped ball – led to two more field goals.
Buffalo started its final drive at its 22 with 56 seconds remaining and no timeouts. A 31-yard pass to Josh Reed set up the winning kick that broke so many hearts.
“It’s unfortunate,” Jauron said, “that one of those teams had to lose on this day.”
[LA Times] It’s going to be tough to stop the Miami Dolphins now.
The last realistic obstacle in their path to imperfect immortality — the New York Jets — came and went Sunday, dropping a 40-13 defeat on the Dolphins as easily as Miami quarterback John Beck dropped the football — twice — when he wasn’t throwing it to Jets defenders.
After three interceptions and two lost fumbles by Beck, the Dolphins were left at 0-12 with four games to play. They are the seventh team to open the NFL season with 12 consecutive defeats but the first to get there with seemingly no way out of an indelible 0-16 tag.*
(*The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14 because 31 years ago, NFL rules prevented teams from losing more than 14 games during a regular season. That changed in 1978, when the league expanded its regular-season schedule to 16 games. The Buccaneers went on to lose their first 12 games of the 1977 season for an overall 26-game losing streak, but the record does show that Tampa Bay never finished a season worse than 0-14. Sorry, Dolphins fans. Rules are rules.)
Undoubtedly, the Dolphins will not be favored to win any of their final four games: at Buffalo, Baltimore, at New England (NFL has yet to sign off on the mercy rule concept) and Cincinnati.
Incredibly, the Dolphins were favored to win this one. Miami has not won a game since Dec. 10, 2006, and had not scored more than 10 points in a game since Week 7, but the Dolphins were favored by 1 1/2 points to beat the Jets, mainly because of often reliable “Now or Never” and “Time to Show Some Pride” principles of team sports.
Also, the Dolphins were playing at home.
Instead, Miami suffered its most lop-sided defeat of 2007, losing by 27 points to a Jets team quarterbacked by Kellen Clemens (pre-game passer rating: 56.9), a Jets team that is now 3-9 overall but 1-9 against opponents not named the Miami Dolphins.
Upon review, belonging to a big-league team that plays its home games in or around Miami is no advantage. This summer, the Florida Marlins finished last in the National League East at 71-91, 18 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies. Sixteen games into their 2007-08 season, the Miami Heat is 4-12, last in the NBA’s Southeast Division.
Also, the Jets did not play fair. Instead of their customary green and white uniforms, the Jets showed up at Dolphin Stadium clad in navy and gold, the “throwback” color scheme of their early-1960s incarnation as the New York Titans. This greatly confused the Dolphins and their coaches. They had spent long, draining hours in the video room last week, specifically preparing for a team dressed in green and white.
In their quest to become the NFL’s first team to end a season 0-16, the Dolphins should closely study the final minutes of two more videotapes: Washington’s 17-16 loss to Buffalo and New Orleans’ 27-23 defeat against Tampa Bay.
In New Orleans, the Saints had a three-point lead and the ball at midfield with less than four minutes to play, apparently closing in on an NFC South gap-closing victory over first-place Tampa Bay. Once again, a coach trying to protect a lead got a little over-heated. New Orleans’ Sean Payton called for a reverse, which resulted in Reggie Bush making a bad pitch and Tampa Bay’s Jovan Haye recovering the ball at the Saints 37-yard line.
A few plays later, Buccaneers backup quarterback Luke McCown tossed a four-yard pass into the end zone for tight end Jerramy Stevens. Stevens hung onto the ball. With 14 seconds on the clock, Tampa Bay had a four-point victory and a three-game lead over New Orleans in the NFC South standings.
Something that can’t be said every NFL Sunday: The McCown family went undefeated. With Luke completing 29 of 37 passes for 313 yards and two touchdowns in relief of the injured Jeff Garcia, older brother Josh McCown completed 14 of 21 for 141 yards and three touchdowns in the Oakland Raiders’ 34-20 triumph over the Denver Broncos.
In other words, the McCown brothers combined to complete 74.1% of their passes for five touchdowns.
And still, Josh did not make the biggest quarterback news in Oakland. No. 1 draft pick JaMarcus Russell stole away that ripple of thunder by playing two series during the second quarter, marking his NFL regular-season debut.
Russell completed four of seven passes for 56 yards and then returned to the bench, Raiders Coach Lane Kiffin turning the game back over to McCown’s efficient passes and handoffs to Justin Fargas. Fargas netted 146 yards in 33 carries, his second consecutive 100-yard rushing performance and third in five games.
Denver dropped to 5-7 with the loss, an exercise in bad timing on a day the San Diego Chargers beat the Chiefs in Kansas City, 24-10. That’s a rare occurrence for the Chargers and Chiefs — before Sunday, the Chargers had won only once in their last 10 trips to Arrowhead Stadium.
With LaDainian Tomlinson running for two scores and passing Walter Payton for No. 3 on the rushing touchdowns list (Tomlinson has 111), San Diego improved to 7-5, two full games ahead of Denver. That means Norv Turner owns as big a first-place lead as Tony Dungy.
And Dungy’s Indianapolis Colts needed four touchdown passes from Peyton Manning to forge that two-game lead in a 28-25 triumph over AFC South rival Jacksonville. Appearances can be deceiving in this league. Through 12 weeks, the Colts’ only defeats had come against New England and as a result of Adam Vinatieri’s rare shanked field goal against San Diego. Meanwhile, Jacksonville had scuffled along with David Garrard’s injury and Quinn Gray’s inexperience and outsider status when it came to any discussion of the NFL’s elite teams. Yet the Jaguars began Sunday only one game behind the Colts — and lost by three points inside the RCA Dome.
At the same time, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning improved from four interceptions against Minnesota to two in a 21-16 victory against Chicago. He also lost the ball on a fumble, but three turnovers beat four turnovers any day.
Eli also passed for a touchdown. Add that to Peyton’s four and the Manning brothers combined for five scoring passes, which enabled the Mannings to achieve one important key to victory: They kept pace with the McCown brothers