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Falcons miss Anderson's blocking

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Posted: Tuesday November 09, 1999 03:13 PM

The Atlanta Falcons clearly miss the running ability of Jamal Anderson, who is out for the season with a knee injury.

But Falcons quarterback Chris Chandler told me he misses Anderson for another reason. On Sunday, Chandler was sacked eight times by Jacksonville. It was so bad that linemen were apologizing to Chandler before the game had even finished.

Chandler says a big part of the problem is that he doesn't have Anderson around anymore to protect him. It's rare when a back can sense pressure in the pocket and even more unique when one will take on blitzing linebackers. Anderson used to do both, and now Chandler and the Falcons' passing game are hurting without him.

Rams, Lions closely matched

How closely matched were the Lions and Rams? They came out of last Sunday's game with identical 6-2 records. The two teams both ran 63 plays on offense and split time of possession at exactly 30:00 apiece while the Lions finished with just three more yards of total offense than the Rams and, of course, three more points.

Lake takes swipe at Steelers

Since jumping ship to Jacksonville, safety Carnell Lake has not been very kind to his former employers in Pittsburgh. Before the season started, Lake told me one reason he left the Steelers was that he sensed they were several years away from another run at the Super Bowl.

On Sunday he added that right now the Jags' top-ranked defense is better than any of the units he played on in Pittsburgh. "A big difference here is the offense," Lake told me. "If we had an offense like this when I was in Pittsburgh we could have accomplished a lot more than we did."

Believe it or not

Here are three amazing stats:

With three more losses, the Bengals will surpass the Bucs' all-time record (107 defeats) for futility in a decade.

No love lost

The end of Sunday's game proved there's no love lost between Baltimore and Cleveland. With the game in hand midway through the fourth quarter and the Ravens at the Browns' 26-yard-line, coach Brian Billick decided to punt the ball instead of running up the score with a field goal. To get some kicking room, though, the Ravens tried to take a delay of game penalty. But when Cleveland coach Chris Palmer declined the penalty, Billick sent in kicker Matt Stover who booted a 44-yard field goal to make it 27-3 Baltimore.

Dog pound gets slick

Could things get any worse for the Browns this season? Well, yes, in fact they could. Several former Cleveland players now with the Ravens say the Dawg Pound has lost a good deal of its bite.

Ravens defensive end Rob Burnett said the new Dawg Pound is both quiet and corporate. "I happened to see a couple of things in the Dawg Pound that I'm not used to seeing," Burnett said after the game. "Like a cell phone."

Sports Illustrated staff writer David Fleming covers the NFL and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated.

 

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