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Unsung hero Peter Boulware expertly plays his part for the Ravens
Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag. DENVER -- "Sixty minutes, baby!" cried Baltimore's spirited leader, Ray Lewis, as the final seconds ticked off in the Ravens' 20-13 win at Invesco Field on Sunday. I watched as Lewis maniacally patrolled his sideline, hugging and chest-bumping anyone in his path. "Hard hats and lunch pails! That's us, baby!" Great defense is not always pretty. It is intimidating and fierce, and absolutely consistent and unbending. Above all the Ravens in this very, very big win, the man with the biggest lunch pail, the man who seemed to have played only a smidge under 60 minutes but with good reason, the man who time and again was most consistent and unbending against one of the game's great offenses was linebacker Peter Boulware. Four tackles, four assists, a sack and a half of Brian Griese, and this tremendous series that helped seal the game:
Twenty minutes remained in a 13-13 game. The Ravens had just scored, and now they needed to make another stop. The crowd was into it as Denver took the ball at its 35. Griese went back to pass. Boulware steamed around end, diving at Griese and just missing a sack. Now Griese moved right, trying to find a receiver. Finding no one, he moved up into the pocket, looking some more. And here came Boulware off the ground, chasing, chasing ... until he and Rocky-Mountainous Tony Siragusa met in a violent car accident of a collision with Griese. Boulware's helmet met Goose's helmet in a violent crash. The sandwiched Griese went down. Something white flew out of either Goose's or Boulware's facemask. Teeth? Mouth guard? You couldn't tell at first glance. Griese got up. Boulware rested on all fours. Goose was KO'd. Forty minutes after the game, I asked Goose, then Boulware, if the something that had flown out belonged to him. "No clue," Goose said. "I still don't know where I am, man." "Wasn't teeth, I can tell you that," Boulware said, running his tongue all over his mouth to make sure. "Must have been snot. Because we were knocking the snot out of each other all day." Siragusa had to come out for a few plays. Boulware also went to the sidelines. The team doctor asked him where he was, and how he felt. Boulware wasn't going to say he was lightheaded, but he was. After the 3-yard sack, the brainy Broncs ran Mike Anderson through the Goose's void for nine yards. Now it was third-and-4 at the Denver 41, and the Broncos were getting some life. "Stay out!" Boulware heard the doc yell. But he ran back onto the field anyway. Griese went back to pass, found nothing (a common theme of his day) and took off, into open ground. A first down was assured ... until, from behind, a diving 6-foot-4 Boulware got him by the cleats. One-yard gain. Denver punt. Two series later, Baltimore drove 70 yards for the winning score. I don't want to make light of players playing with slight concussions, which Boulware may have had. I don't condone it. But defenses are communities of guys who will sell little pieces of themselves for the cause. "I trust every guy on this unit without question," Lewis had told me Friday. "We all rely on each other." And Boulware knew this was his time. He couldn't -- wouldn't -- let Griese pull Denver back into the game. "That's the hallmark of our defense," Boulware told me. "Guys go 100 percent every play. Everybody's responsible." In three games, Baltimore's defense has allowed 183, 203 and 228 yards. The Ravens' run defense is so good, so depressingly scary for a great foe like Denver, that the Broncos, on fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter with the game on the line, spread four wides and a tight end with an empty backfield. This is a great defense to watch. And we should all look a little closer at Boulware, who was the defensive MVP on Sunday.
I asked Rod Smith the other day what he thought of Randy Moss' $75-million contract. "Sweet. They always say you're worth whatever you get. So he's worth $75 million. Nobody's scored that many touchdowns in their first two or three years." Then I asked Smith if he was envious. "Oh, yeah," he said.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK (tie): New England DB "My Man" Otis Smith, whose weaving, athletic 78-yard interception return of a Peyton Manning pass gave the Patriots a 17-0 lead and put New England on its way to a 44-13 rout of the Colts. New York Giants DE Michael Strahan. With Jim Fassel putting the heat on his front four (only one sack in the first two games) to get to the quarterback, and with terrific right tackle Kyle Turley across the line from him, Strahan responded with three sacks, two forced fumbles and seven tackles. The Giants won 21-13, and no wonder. SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Baltimore P Kyle Richardson. Big spot in the game Sunday: Denver up 10-6, five minutes left in the first half, Ravens have the ball on fourth down from their own 5. Richardson lines up with his feet six inches from the end line. From there, he takes the snap and hits an incredible fungo 77 yards in the air. The 65-yard punt, minus a 12-yard return, gave Denver the ball in its own territory, at the 42. On his next punt, Richardson hemmed in the Broncos at their own 4-yard line. COACH OF THE WEEK: New England head coach Bill Belichick, who always frustrates Manning, figured a way to mess with his head again. The result: three picks and a 31-point win, the most stunning score of the day. TY DETMER AWARD: (Formerly known as Goat of the Week) New Orleans P Toby Gowin, who, with the game on the line at Giants Stadium, onside-kicked a ball that didn't go the required 10 yards -- then tried to recover it before the ball went the correct distance. "The kick sucked, all right, if you want to know the truth," Saints head coach Jim Haslett said.
1. I think we all wondered if Marty Schottenheimer would last three years under Dan Snyder's watchful eyes. Now, we wonder if he'll last three months. 2. I think Texas quarterback Chris Simms looked like the first pick in the NFL draft Saturday night against Texas Tech with his 21-of-26 showing. The problem for the NFL is that he looks like the first pick of the 2003 draft, not 2002. He'll stay in school, which he should do. (And that's not being a provincial, pro-NFL guy either. Would I want to be the first pick of an expansion team -- Houston picks first next April -- with the added pressure of playing in my collegiate backyard? Would I want to jump into the fire after one season of steady college starting? No and no.) 3. I think Jake Plummer is delusional. "I'm going to say this right now," he said after stinking up the joint for the second straight week in a 34-14 loss to Atlanta. "We're going to be a damn good offense that's going to roll on people." Get rolled is more like it. 4. I think Jim Fassel made a smart decision on his game balls last week. One to New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, one each to the heads of the New York fire and police departments and EMS, one to Giants broadcaster Dick Lynch (whose son is among the missing in the World Trade Center rubble) and one to Newsday sports columnist Shaun Powell (whose brother perished in the attack on the Pentagon). You want class? That's class. 5. I think LaDainian Tomlinson is better and tougher than I thought. 6. I think, on a personal note, here are a few items: a. Montclair Field Hockey Note of the Week: We have scored. And we have been scoreless. Again. A recap of a week in the life of the Montclair (N.J.) High field hockey team finds us breaking a 181-minute scoring drought (for both teams) in our third game, a 3-0 win at Wayne Hills. Thank heavens for the quick wrist of left wing Alexis Barbalinardo, who scored twice. Then, at Ramsey, we had our third 0-0 overtime tie in four games. But we rebounded against River Dell with a 4-0 rout Saturday morning, leaving us with the strange record of 2-0-3, and leaving our all-county candidate goalie, senior quad-captain Kaitlyn Robinson, with a 320-minute shutout streak. One down note, however: Right midfielder Marla Goldsmith, a tremendous feeder of right wing Mary Beth King so far this season, suffered a chip fracture of her right thumb at Ramsey and will be out for at least two weeks. Gutty kid. She went into the orthopedist and implored him to give her a cast that would allow her to still grip a stick and play. The doc compromised, putting on a hard cast but agreeing to re-X-ray it in two weeks; if it's sufficiently healed, he'll put on a cast allowing her to play. See why it's so easy to love these kids? They're the greatest. And see why it makes me sick to see Randy Moss take plays off? b. A woman stopped her car, with Illinois plates, at the Manhattan food-preparation staging area for the World Trade Center workers one night last week. "Is there anyone I can give these carrot cakes I baked to?" the haggard-looking woman said. A worker took the cakes, thanked her, and asked where she was from. "Chicago," the woman said. "I wanted to do something, so I baked the cakes and drove them here." In the back seat of the car were two sleeping children. You can't make this stuff up. c. Here's a way you can help New York, if you're so inclined, and if you can get to northern New Jersey Monday or Tuesday: Mary Beth King and Carly Sargent, two Montclair High students, are collecting 20-pound bags of dog food for abandoned dogs and dogs whose owners died in New York Sept. 11. Bags must be delivered to the Montclair High School Civics and Government office, in care of Mary Beth and Carly, at 100 Chestnut Street in Montclair, N.J. (a few blocks north of the main drag in Montclair, Bloomfield Avenue), by 2 p.m. Tuesday. If you can't get to the school by 2 o'clock, take it to field hockey practice between 3 and 5:30 at Watchung Field on North Fullerton Avenue near Watchung Plaza; ask for Carly. The food will be sent into the city Tuesday night in the back of the King family Explorer. I know that's short notice, but if you can help, the pups would sure appreciate it. d. That certainly is a test of the readership of this column, isn't it? e. Kudos to Continental officials at the hub, Newark International Airport, for making a secure environment a convenient one. That's my story, anyway. From the time I stepped off the long-term parking bus into Terminal C on Saturday morning, and made my way through the e-ticket kiosk, and checked a bag, and went through security screening, and waited to have my laptop rechecked for explosives, and walked to my gate and sat in my seat for the flight to Denver, 29 minutes elapsed. Heck of a job. f. Coffeenerdness: Everything about Invesco Field at Mile High -- the turf, the sightlines, the locker rooms, the TV-quality scoreboards -- is first-rate, with one exception: the watery press box coffee. 7. I think, at some point, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to have to put their play where their mouths are. They talk about what a great defense they have, and here they go against Minnesota on Sunday, surrendering 402 yards and letting the Vikes go 96 yards in the last five minutes for the winning touchdown. You're more talk than action, fellas. 8. I think Ichiro is the A.L. MVP. 9. I think Brian Billick is on his way to inventing a new language. Last week, he talked about how quarterback Elvis Grbac ran the offense well, and he said he liked the way Grbac "instruments" the attack. Billick also said of Grbac: "He dirts the ball when he has to." That means, I assume, that Grbac is good at knowing when the throw the ball away. To be sure, I checked out Webster's, to see if some great man defined "dirt" as a verb, as in "to dirt." The dictionary defined "dirt" as a noun only. The definition: "Any unclean or soiling matter as mud, dust, dung, trash, etc." What an education you get with this column. 10. I think if the NFL plays the Super Bowl in New Jersey I would be: a. happy; b. floored; c. totally unprepared to act as a tour guide for 3,000 of my closest media friends. The NFL will play in New Orleans, folks, though the car dealers with whom the league must switch convention weeks are driving a hard bargain. This might take a couple of weeks to resolve.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN's NFL Preview. Click here to send a question to his NFL Mailbag.
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