NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Looking good in brown is Derek Anderson of the Cleveland Browns

John Czarnecki at NFL on Fox is ranking the young quarterbacks.

Derek Anderson of the Cleveland Browns is tops on his list.

Cleveland’s Derek Anderson: A year ago, nobody with the Browns would have bet that Anderson would have started 15 of 16 games, winning 10 of them. Yes, he choked in Cincinnati when he fired four interceptions, causing the Browns to miss the playoffs. But Anderson is definitely the starter while poster boy Brady Quinn watches and waits. What makes Anderson’s life all the easier is a great young tackle in Joe Thomas to protect him and two of the game’s finest young receivers in Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow Jr.

source

His next 2 choices to be stars are David Garrard of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Jay Cutler of the Denver Broncos.

You will have to read the article to see who else John likes at the quarterback position.

Be sure to check out my companion blog at NBA Obsessed.

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NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Tom Brady almost perfect

26 of 28. Think about that for a moment.

Ok, here is my question. Name one thing that you can do 26 out of 28 times.

Now go out in your backyard and throw the football to someone that is on the run and try and complete 26 out of 28. It is almost impossible and you are only 10 yards away without some 309 pound guy in your face trying to crush you.

Tom Brady did it to set an all time NFL record, regular season or post season, and Tom did it in one of the biggest games of all time. You see, this game gave the New England Patriots the record of 17 - 0. That ties the Miami Dolphins 17 - 0 record set over 3 decades ago.

There was pressure to win. Not even counting the pressure to win a playoff game against David Garrard and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Final Score - New England Patriots 31 - Jacksonville Jaguars 20.

There was no denying Tom Brady today.

Brady completed 92.6 percent of his passes, breaking Phil Simms record of 88 percent (22-of-25) set in the Super Bowl after the 1986 season in which he led the New York Giants to a 39-20 win over the Denver Broncos.

And Brady did it mostly without Randy Moss, who had only one catch.

He hit all the other receivers — throwing for three touchdowns and 262 yards.

“Tom is terrific,” Seymour said. “He’s a great leader and he does all the little things.” source

Tom Terrific, now there is a new name for Brady.

Phil Simms had a terrific day himself in that Super Bowl against Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Tom Brady says One game, we are only talking about One game

Perfectomundo. 16 - 0.

That is an amazing accomplishment. In order to pull that off the Patriots had to play to the end. Tom Brady, Randy Moss, let’s give them a show and win this game.

Now did the winning all 16 games hurt them?

What do you mean? How could that hurt them?

When first you win it is so good. The winning can create a momentum all its own. In other words, winning begets more winning.

Your confidence as a team and as a player can skyrocket!

But the human mind and the human body can take only so much. Doubts and fatigue start to creep in and they tell you that losing one game would not be the end of the world.

Suddenly team focus changes and you play not to lose. We have seen it, oh so many times before. Has this happened to the Patriots?

Some may be wondering if the Patriots will be rusty off a bye week or taxed after 16-0? Will New England succumb to the omnipresent scrutiny? Are Belichick and Co. thinking about the Colts or flashing forward to the Super Bowl?

The Pats are concentrating on just one thing: the Jacksonville Jaguars. source

Now so far those are words.

A few years ago my beloved Pistons entered the NBA finals with an astounding 64 wins in the regular season. They played the starters heavy minutes all season. They wanted home field advantage in the playoffs.

The playoffs arrived and mentally they were a tired team. The Pistons were more interested in being careful and not losing than exhibiting their usual attacking style of offense. Eventually the Miami Heat and Shaq and Wade eliminated them in the Eastern Conference Finals. All that winning had created a unique mental hurdle.

Can the Patriots avoid or overcome that mental hurdle? Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

All right another award…uhh, go team go!

This was a tough vote.

No, really it was, because of teammate Randy Moss. You remember Randy, the guy who gave up in Oakland.

Tom threw for 50 touchdowns. Think about that for a moment. A great year has a QB throwing for about 25 to 28 touchdowns. Tom did about double that.

Hey, Peyton threw for 48 just a few years ago in a season to be remembered forever. Well, forget about it. 50 is the new 48.

All Randy did was break Jerry Rice’s single season receiving touchdown record. Randy Moss had 23 and Jerry Rice only had 22. No big deal, it was only Jerry Rice, the guy the practically invented the multiple touchdown game.

Maybe if Randy had caught all 50 of Tom Brady’s touchdown passes, then he could have won the award.

The voting was a little one-sided.

And it’s been a rewarding season for Brady, the first New England player to be chosen MVP and now the first Patriot to win Offensive Player of the Year. He collected 35 and a half votes to 12 and a half for Moss. Wes Welker, the Patriots’ other starting receiver, got one, as did Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre. source

Wes Welker got as many votes as Brett Favre? Uhh, what is that all about? Who is more valuable on offense, Wes or Brett, Wes or Randy, Wes or Tom? Geez, come on.

Tom Brady

Back to Tom. No matter how Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

David Garrard on 32 yard keeper

What a game to wear you down. It looked to all the world that the Jaguars had the game in hand and then Pittsburgh comes storming back in the fourth quarter to take the lead.

Big Ben struggled for Pittsburgh in the first half and Jacksonville took over the game.

In the second half, it was problems for David Garrard, the no turnover QB had 2 interceptions in the game and seemingly could not complete a pass to save his life.

Garrard aided the Steelers’ comeback by throwing two interceptions — one less than he had all season — only to come up with the play that may have saved the Jaguars’ season. source

Maurice Jones-Drew

Maurice Jones Drew had a great game and at times carried the Jags.

Jones-Drew, escaping Jaguars star Fred Taylor’s shadow in a performance filled with big plays, scored on a 43-yard swing pass after one of Roethlisberger’s interceptions and a 10-yard run that provided the 18-point lead. Jones-Drew’s 96-yard kickoff return the first time Jacksonville touched the ball set up Taylor’s 1-yard touchdown run and immediately answer the Steelers’ opening-possession 80-yard touchdown drive.

But in the end, it came down to a great play by David Garrard with time running out on a designed quarterback keeper Garrard rushed up the middle for 32 yards on a night when he could not hit the broad side of a barn with his passing. The run set up the game winning field goal by Josh Scoby.

NFL Football Fan Question Did the pressure of the playoffs disturb David Garrard?

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NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Maurice Jones Drew likes to go for it!

You will have to admit that you were not picking Jacksonville to win a whole lot of anything this year.

Admit it in now. It helped clear up a lot for me to admit it.

Ahh, that feels better.

Jack’s 3 secrets

So how is Coach Jack Del Rio pulling this off in Jacksonville. After all he got rid of his incumbent quarterback Byron Leftwich and went with David Garrard. That is a heck of a gamble for a usually conservative guy.

Now it is time to reveal Jack Del Rio’s 3 secrets to winning.

1. In the off-season, Del Rio fired offensive coordinator Carl Smith, who had 19 years of NFL experience. Del Rio replaced Smith with Dirk Koetter, a guy who had never coached in the NFL. source

Ok, so one is to get a real offensive coordinator with experience.

2. Del Rio shocked the league when he cut quarterback Byron Leftwich, who had been the starter from the start of the off-season, a week before the season opener and replaced him with David Garrard. That move put Del Rio on the hot seat before the campaign even started.

Now two is to go with the guy that is going to execute what you are going to run, not necessarily the most athletic or even the best quarterback, but the one that will get the job done. Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

The return of the Squibster. Now the good and the bad. The good is that my most excellent boss and coworkers filled in quite nicely and that is most appreciated.

The bad is the Squibster is diagnosed with Cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. Fear not, they say the cancer is one that is curable, so let us move forward with our dreams of football!

The Indianapolis Colts are 9 - 2. They lost the one home game to the Patriots that most of us watched and then the following week dropped a close game to the Chargers on the road.

9 - 2 and truly the class of the AFC South Division.

Or are they?

What are you talking about? There is no other team in their division worth talking about. You know, the Jags, the Titans, and the Texans, come on, all wanna be’s.

Wanna be’s?

You know, Jags with no QB, Titans with no offense, and the Texans just plain No. Wanna be’s. Maybe next year’s news.

Did you know the Jags are 8 - 3? Read more