On any given Sunday (or Monday, or Thursday), your NFL Run & Shootaround crew will be gathered around multiple televisions, making inappropriate jokes and generally regressing to the mean. Catch up on all the NFL action right here.
Believing Is Art
I don’t know when a series of improbable events starts to mean something, but I do know it looks that way in Indianapolis. The Colts were dead on more than one occasion yesterday in Detroit, but when Andrew Luck got the ball back down five with 1:07 left, I’m not sure anyone watching doubted how it would end: with a 75-yard drive and a Colt in the end zone.
There are plenty of rational explanations for what happened at Ford Field in the final six minutes and 40 seconds, just after Luck’s pass for T.Y. Hilton was intercepted with Indianapolis down 12. Detroit has struggled to develop its running game all season, and few teams are less apt at draining the clock at the end of games than the Lions. The result was two stalled drives that could’ve ended the game but instead handed the ball back to Luck, who’s an explanation all his own. The most notable play on the Colts’ final drive wasn’t the throw to Reggie Wayne or the one to Dwayne Allen on the sideline. It was the willingness to spike the ball on an early second-and-1, understanding that in that situation, the down was inconsequential. Andrew Luck is going to be great, but I’m not sure any of us knew how much his head — or his legs — would play a part in it.
After hearing the news about Tyron Smith and his family issues, I talked to Ephraim about the financial and personal strain family can be for young players entering the league. From there, we discussed Chuck Pagano's moving postgame speech, the most affecting locker-room speech Ephraim ever got, and the different kinds of relationships players have with their coaches. Because we're only capable of being mature adults for so long, the conversation than devolved into sophomoric double entendres about Charles Tillman's ball-punching and an argument about the notion of being "overrated" in the NFL. Finally, Ephraim picks out a few players he's been most impressed with halfway through the season.
On any given Sunday (or Monday, or Thursday), your NFL Run & Shootaround crew will be gathered around multiple televisions, making inappropriate jokes and generally regressing to the mean. Catch up on all the NFL action right here.
The King's Speech
This season, with the widespread distribution of RedZone and the behind-the-curtain nature of the year's great controversies (Bountygate and replacement refs), the NFL has made me feel like a bit of a voyeur. Experiencing this league in some kind of hyperactive way, zooming through story lines, injuries, wins, losses, tweets, radio bits, GIFs, and, yes, games, I feel like I'm watching lots of things I shouldn't, or at least lots of things I don't need to see. It's a testament to the NFL's unmatched production values that I (a) can follow it all, and (b) haven't gone insane.
Maybe that's why the footage of Colts head coach Chuck Pagano giving his team a postgame speech after their victory over the Dolphins felt like it brought another manic Sunday to a halt.
By Robert Mays at
Ronald C. Modra/Sports Imagery/Getty Images
Patriots shell out more money to pass catchers, continue blatant taunting of Wes Welker
Every bit of this Karen Guregian blog post for the Boston Herald is so perfectly Bill Belichick that I don’t think anything could make me happier. It starts with the news of Aaron Hernandez’s new $40 million extension, which comes on the heels of Wes Welker’s very public griping about his own contract situation. It’s no secret that Belichick’s Pats have never let loyalty get in the way of business matters, but an apparent willingness to jettison Welker is a far cry from dealing Deion Branch. Welker has caught at least 110 passes in four of his five seasons in New England, including a 122-catch, 1,500-yard 2011 campaign. Allowing Welker to walk would take the Patriot Way to an entirely different place — the place where we might finally be able to conclude that Belichick has lost his mind.
