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Something about Brett Favre's healthy -- and the league's halfpoint MVPPosted: Monday November 04, 2002 10:26 AM
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- The voice on the other end of the phone was scratchy and fading, emanating from a cell phone deep in Wisconsin hunting territory. I wanted a reaction from Brett Favre, who had escaped after practice the other day for an afternoon in a tree stand in Shawano, Wis., about being named SI's midseason NFL MVP in a vote of league scouts and personnel guys. Favre, me and MVPs have a checkered history. In 1997, I voted for Carnell Lake of the Steelers for MVP, and Favre ended up tying Barry Sanders for the award instead of winning it outright. Favre was OK about it, but his better half, Deanna, was a tad chilly toward me at our next meeting. Anyway, Favre got a kick out of this recent honor, as you'll see here in a minute.
As for the news of the day, don't worry about Favre's health tonight. His strained lateral collateral ligament is healing just fine, and, other than an uncomfortable knee brace he'll wear against the Dolphins in what looks to be a very good Monday nighter, he doesn't think he'll be affected much by the knee problem. Ten questions with Favre: PK: You beat out Priest Holmes and Drew Bledsoe for MVP of the first half of the season in our SI poll of personnel men. Your feelings? Favre: How many votes did Carnell Lake get? PK: You're sounding a little bit like Deanna, aren't you? Favre: Well, I gotta stick up for her. PK: Pretty nice tribute to you, beating out those two after the way they've played, isn't it? Favre: It's flattering. It really is. I appreciate those guys feeling that way about me. I expect it out of myself to play well. And there's no way I can be content with the first half of the season. Football doesn't work that way. If anyone told me we'd be 6-1 after seven games, I'd have said, "Wow. I'll take it." But now you look at it like, "There's a lot of football left. We gotta keep it going." PK: And for you? Favre: For me, it's pretty rewarding to be playing like this. Anything I'm in, I want to be doing it the best of anybody, so it's an honor that people think I'm doing that. PK: You can't be surprised to still be playing at a high level, can you? Favre: Last year [3,921 yards, 32 touchdowns, 15 picks] I really felt rejuvenated as a player. And this year, I think any doubts that I could still play have been pretty much wiped out. [Wow. Who'd be thinking that?] PK: How's the knee? Favre: Fine, really. I'm pretty sure I would have played last week if we had a game. The key thing is wearing the brace. That'll be different. It's like if you had to do your interviews and write your story with a helmet on. You'd do it, and the job would get done, but it would just feel weird. PK: Did you think the injury was worse than it turned out? Favre: Of all the injuries I've ever had, this is the one that made me go, "Whew!" When I watched it on replay, I knew I dodged a big bullet. I can't believe I didn't blow out my knee. PK: The football karma gods are looking out for you, don't you think? Favre: Whatever, I don't know. When I saw our doctor, Pat McKenzie, the next day, he told me, "When I saw that on replay, I was thinking one thing -- total reconstruction." If that's luck, I'm happy about it. PK: What are you hunting? Favre: Deer. Going up to a place I've been going about eight years. I love it. PK: Bow-hunting, right? How's it going this year? Favre: Yeah. I've been out about 20 times. I've seen a lot of deer, but I've passed on most of them. If you've got an eight-point buck and you see an eight-point, or a seven-point, why would you take a shot? Why kill what you've killed before? I want something bigger. Gee, there's a surprise.
OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK San Francisco WR Terrell Owens. The more you watch this guy, the more you realize he is as fearsome a weapon as this league has seen in years. He's the Lawrence Taylor of offensive players. His damage from Sunday's 23-20 overtime win at Oakland: 12 catches, 191 yards, huge impact. The 49ers moved the chains late in the fourth quarter and through their only drive of overtime thanks to the guts of Jeff Garcia and the physical presence of Owens. Why in the world was Charles Woodson giving Owens such a cushion? You don't give this man a cushion. He'll just catch it, as he did over and over again in the clutch on Sunday, and he'll make you pay. The combination of the physical and the athletic in Owens makes him the most dangerous non-quarterback offensive player in the game today. DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK New England linebacker Ted Johnson, whose two big defensive plays in the first quarter took the Bledsoe Bills out of two prime scoring chances. On the Bills' first drive, they were in primo field goal range at the New England 19 when Johnson chased Bledsoe down, and instead of throwing it away, Bledsoe was nailed by Johnson for a 17-yard sack; Mike Hollis' 50-yard field goal attempt on the next play was short. Next Buffalo series: Bills driving, third-and-1 at the Bills' 38. Travis Henry runs around right end, looking for the first down and BOOM! Johnson sticks him, driving him back a yard. Buffalo punted. By the time the Bills got the ball again, New England was ahead 14-0. SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK New York Jets PR Santana Moss, who came through when his team desperately needed him. His 52-yard punt return for a touchdown early in the Jets-Chargers game started New York on its way to its stunning 44-13 win at San Diego. It was the second week in a row in which Moss has returned a punt for a touchdown. COACH OF THE WEEK Cincinnati head coach Dick LeBeau, who, despite heading into Sunday's game at Houston with a 10-26 record as the Bengals' head coach, was still universally respected in his locker room. The players knew this ugly era of Cincinnati football, which stretched into this year with a 0-7 start, was much more the fault of the front office than the head coach. And so those players went and gave LeBeau a gift, a 35-point win at expansion Houston. If you've raised the white flag, as the Bengals had been accused of doing, you don't have an effort like Artrell Hawkins' 102-yard interception return. REF OF THE WEEK Referee Dick Hantak, whose crew called an excellent Pats-Bills game, particularly in making consistently good spots of the ball. Hantak ran up the tunnel to the officials' room after the game, showing no signs of the wear a 25th-year official should. I shook his hand and told him, "Good game." He said thanks, then added: "This is it for me. My last year." Heck of an official. Whistle-happy at times, but conscientious and always in control of a game. Hope he gets to work the Super Bowl on his way out. GOAT OF THE WEEK San Francisco K Jose Cortez, who yanked a 27-yard chippie field goal as regulation time expired with a 20-20 tie in the 49ers-Raiders game. Straightaway kick. Perfect snap. Perfect hold. He knuckled it way, way left. "This is professional football," Cris Collinsworth said on FOX. "You don't miss those kinds of kicks." You do if you want to be unemployed. QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"You play to win the game! HELLO?"
NON SEQUITUR QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"The Emmitt Smith Wheaties box is out. Just in time for Halloween."
Huh?
Backup Patriots center Grey Ruegamer, while a member of the Miami Dolphins a few years ago, was offered $50 to eat a large bowl of mustard. He did it.
My partner in sporting ventures, your CNNSI.com columnist Don Banks, and I completed a unique daily double Saturday night: World Series Game 6 last Saturday in Anaheim, Canadiens-Maple Leafs this week. Ninety-minute drive from the hotel in Niagara Falls (Buffalo-area hotels were crammed with Patriots types this weekend). Scant delay at the border; didn't even have to show our IDs on the way there. Sat high atop Air Canada Centre in a scouts' box with, of all people, ex-Maple Leafs tough guy Tiger Williams. Beautiful, beautiful building, and this was the 637th meeting of the teams. Two interesting comments from Williams. We asked him if Gretzky was as well-loved by every player as it seemed. "If Wayne Gretzky called me tomorrow and said he needed to see me," said Williams, "I'd walk on broken glass to wherever he was to see what he wanted." Then we watched Don Cherry, the Cosell of Canada, on CBC between periods, with Cherry railing about the league trying to get rid of fighting. The "left-wing pinkos," he said of the anti-fighting element in the game, "have gone too far! People want rock 'em, sock 'em hockey! Why do you think they get 9,400 in Boston this week to see a first-place team! You gotta get the hitting back in the game!" We asked Williams about Cherry, and he said the stuffed shirts of the game hate him and would love it if he disappeared. "But if they ever get rid of Don Cherry in this country, there'd be a national riot," Williams said. The great thing about the trip home, other than the Tim Horton's doughnut-and-coffee stop, is that few cops patrol the QEW between Toronto and the Falls, and therefore we flew back to the States.
New section of the column this week. I get quite a few missives, so I thought I'd start answering a few each week. Here goes. YOU IDIOT! GIVE THE PACK CREDIT: Paul Bastian from Menomonie, Wis., writes: "You are without a doubt my favorite NFL columnist, but when in the bloody hell are you going to give the Packers a little credit? They have played without half their defense all year, lost a starting tackle, lost numerous more players for at least one game, not to mention Favre going down last week, and still they are 6-1. And yet you have them sixth in your ratings, with two-loss teams ranked ahead of them? Mike Sherman is the most underrated coach in the NFL. Denver is the best team? Please!!! Maybe you need to switch to decaf because all those triple lattes and espressos are melting your judgment." They've moved to fourth now, but I'm sure you still won't like that. Should I have them ahead of No. 3 New Orleans, which beat Green Bay 35-20 Sept. 15? Here's how I do this part of the column: I ask myself, if team X and team Y meet on a neutral field today, who would win? And right now, there are three teams in the NFL I believe would beat the Pack on a neutral field. Stay tuned. We'll both be wrong about a lot of things in this crazy league over the next couple of weeks. YOU IDIOT! GIVE EMMITT CREDIT: David Allen from Los Angeles writes: "I have always respected your opinions -- until now. To place Emmitt Smith No. 7 on your list of running backs is flat out funny. I'll give you Jim Brown and Walter Payton, but that's where it ends. Gale Sayers and Barry Sanders may have been prettier to watch, but style points don't count. Longevity has to be a factor. How can you place the all-time leading rusher and the second-leading touchdown scorer any lower than third? O.J. Simpson was wonderful, but comparing his career to Emmitt's is insulting." Well, OK. We all have opinions. Let's talk O.J. for a minute. Did you see him play? He averaged over 1,000 yards a year for a Buffalo team that, in his nine seasons, was 38 games under .500. He played in an era with a 14-game schedule. He averaged 143 yards a game in 1973. He averaged 30 yards per kickoff return in his career. Smith was surrounded by the greatest offensive supporting cast of his day. That doesn't diminish what he did. Not a bit. I just think there have been a dozen or so runners in history who, in Smith's shoes, could have been similarly fantastic. I bet I could find eight Bill Walsh types who would, off the record, say it's an insult to think Emmitt was better than O.J. A BARRY GUY: J.P. from Brooklyn writes: "Love your work; especially good to see you on HBO. Your presence adds a nice touch and balance to the show. Not to detract from his achievement, but ... consider what the record book would look like if the Lions hadn't made Barry Sanders walk away from football. (Add a minimum of 5,000 yards to his numbers.) Then add another 5,000 if he played with a real team. Finally, next time you come into Manhattan to do your great work on HBO, stop by Allen Edmonds on Madison Avenue. As we can plainly see when you are sitting in the chair, you need some new dress shoes. They even hate my shoes. LEAVE DUSTY BAKER ALONE. From Kevin Watts of Toronto: "I find it tough to understand your take on the batboy issue for the Giants. [I ripped Baker and baseball for turning the Giants dugout into a daycare center last week.] So what if ballplayers want to steal a little extra time with their kids in an effort to see more of them between April and October? A writer who uses his column to regale his readers with field hockey scores and highlights surely must see the benefits in combining a little family time with work." One difference between me and Dusty: I wouldn't have brought my 3-year-old daughter to the press box and an NFL locker room 13 years ago. YOU'RE A BIT OF A RACIST. From Jay H. Im of Hackensack, N.J.: "I am a faithful reader of MMQB but I was disappointed by your comments related to Asian tourists [flocking to Niagara Falls] listed under the section titled 'Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week.' Personally, I think this observation was borderline racist at worst and culturally ignorant at best. I have personally witnessed large numbers of Latinos at a Jewish deli in Nebraska or African Americans at a Japanese restaurant in Germany and even overweight Caucasian reporters jamming the duty free shops in Seoul, but I do not classify such occurrences as either aggravating or enjoyable. I simply go about my own business and try not to stereotype people and where they 'belong.' This is the world that we live in, Mr. King." Jay, point well taken. In trying to note something that seemed borderline bizarre to me, I came off sounding as if I were racist. Thanks for pointing it out to me. MARY BETH KING CAN WRITE: Jeremiah Haley of Kennebunk, Maine, writes: "Talent for writing must run in your family. Mary Beth's e-mail to her teammates [after the field hockey team's lone loss of the season] was eloquent and heartfelt. It's hard to imagine that she's 'only' a teenager. Sounds like she'd make a great coach someday." Mary Beth says: "Thank you very much. But I don't really want to be a coach."
1. I think Marc Bulger of the Rams looks downright terrific. Look at what this third-string quarterback's doing. He's playing with the big boys for the first time in his life, completed a Warner-esque 70 percent of his passes over a month-long period, and handing it to Marshall Faulk very, very nicely. If he has done nothing else, Bulger has earned himself a shot to play somewhere once he gets out of Kurt Warner's shadow. And he has proven once and for all that Mike Martz, whatever you might think of him, can get kids ready to play great offensive football, no matter what their pedigree. 2. I think these are my quick-hit football thoughts of the weekend: a. Is Sebastian Janikowski on a strict cupcake diet or what? b. Jets 44, Chargers 13. No NFL score in my memory stuns me as much as that one. c. Except Cincinnati 38-3 in Houston, maybe. d. I hear that Jon Gruden is absolutely miserable because of the way the Bucs have been playing on offense. I doubt mauling the Vikes will make him feel much better. e. How tough is Tiki Barber? Just watch the guy play. Every week I marvel how he doesn't get broken in two by some of the hits he takes. f. Joe Theismann, if you'd watched disappointing Giants running back Ron Dayne play as often as the Jersey fans have seen him during the past three years, I guarantee you wouldn't be the president of his fan club, which is how you sounded Sunday night. If Dayne had been any sort of good power runner since arriving in New York, why would the Giants be trying to run out the clock with a 5-foot-10 guy (Barber) against the Jags? g. I counted the number of times the ESPN crew said some derivative of "I talked to Joe Jaguar last night, and he said ... " and I believe it added up to 698. Geez, fellas, we know you talk to all those guys. You don't have to bang us over the head with it every third minute. i. Is Tim Seder, the Jacksonville latest attempt at a kicker, the worst onside-kicker you've ever seen? j. Does Dallas play the ugliest game of the week, every week, in the NFL, or is it just my imagination? k. Smile, Jon Kitna. Heck of a day, both for you and your team. l. Mike Holmgren, that is one ugly offense you've got there. m. Steve Spurrier makes his only trip to Florida Sunday, to play the Jags. I like the Spurriers in this one. 3. I think this is how I'd review Michael Vick's first half: He has to run fewer than his current seven times a game, which he knows, or else there's a good chance he won't make it through 16 weeks. But he's a 60.4 percent passer with eight games to go -- better than anyone had a right to expect -- and he has thrown one interception in seven games. If you don't like Vick, you don't like ice cream. 4. I think if you want to know much about the Steelers' postseason chances, you should go to the NFL schedule and look at their final eight games. Five home games remaining, none against a team that scares you; the Steelers will be solid faves in all. Road games with Tennessee, Jacksonville and Tampa. Amazing. Steelers started 1-3 and could finish 12-4. 5. I think these are my personal thoughts of the week: a. I know you're going to call me an ESPN suckup, but I really like Beg, Borrow and Deal. Cool show. Those kids are fun to watch. If you've ever hitchhiked from Athens, Ohio to your brother's college roommate's house in Charlotte -- as I did for Thanksgiving 1976 -- you'll identify with people who have next-to-nothing and have to get across the country. b. Will the guy who coughed like a TB patient in the room next to me last night, all night, at the Sheraton Four Points/Buffalo Airport please report to his internist immediately? c. Coffeenerdness: Drew Bledsoe walked into Ralph Wilson Stadium Sunday morning with a venti Starbucks coffee. d. Montclair (N.J.) High Field Hockey Note of the Week: The Mounties, ranked No. 12 in New Jersey, rebounded from their only loss of the year, a non-league decision, to win three games -- 1-0 at Demarest, 5-0 over Hackensack and 3-0 at Wayne Hills -- to complete the first undefeated, untied North Jersey Field Hockey League season (15-0-0) in coach Mary Pat Mercuro's ninth season as coach. Our ultimate pepster, senior Margot Vreeland, reviews our past and our future, with the state playoffs scheduled to begin for us Nov. 13 against Randolph. "I wasn't surprised we went through the league without a loss," Vreeland said. "I knew from the beginning we were so capable of doing it. We all have the same goal. We have more than skill. We have heart." Gee whiz, don't you all you want to run to the malt shoppe and get fired up up for the next big game? e. Montclair Field Hockey Player of the Week: Senior left wing Jess Giammella scored the winning (first, in most cases) goal in all three games last week, bringing her total for the year to a team-high 15. Jess is a quiet kid and a big Favre fan. Our exclusive interview: MMQB: How'd you get interested in field hockey? Giammella: I started freshman year because I was starting high school, and it's how I thought I would meet people. It's turned out to be a lot of fun. There's been a lot more running than I thought there would be. MMQB: Do you have any predictions for the tournament? Giammella: Predictions. Hmmmm. If we all work together, we'll do perfectly. I would say we're not going to fall apart and stink. We're going to win. MMQB: Favorite pro athlete. Giammella: Brett Favre. He's great. He always completes his passes. MMQB: Anything else you'd like to say? Giammella: Yes. The field hockey team loves to eat. We'd rather eat than play. Eating is our favorite thing. 6. I think I wonder why in the world would Notre Dame bring out green jerseys if they didn't need the luck of the Irish yet? 7. I think the biggest disappointment from the draft, not including Bryant McKinnie, has to be Cleveland running back William Green. His numbers: 71 carries, 161 yards, 2.3 yards per carry. Seems to be struggling with a bum shoulder, but never has looked like the hard-driving, confident back teams wanted to trade up for on draft day. Park of the problem, certainly, is that the Cleveland offensive line is playing so horrendously. It's impeding any sort of normal offensive progress this team should be making in year four. But you've got to give Green his share of the blame. He doesn't look a franchise back. He doesn't even look like a starting back. 8. I think one of the stranger NFL scenes I've ever witnessed happened last Tuesday, during the taping for HBO's Inside the NFL, when the outed Esera Tuaolo was on set with Cris Collinsworth, former teammate Cris Carter and host Bob Costas. Before the segment began taping, all four were shooting the breeze. The breeze got a bit heavy. Carter: "Anybody in the league you're still close to?" Tuaolo: "No. When it ended, I just wanted ... to ... end it." Someone, I forget who, asked Tuaolo what he wanted to gain by coming out. Tuaolo: "I just want what you have. I want to walk down the street with my family." The topic turned to why he didn't come out during his nine-year NFL career. Tuaolo: "I know what it's like in the NFL. Teams put bounties out on guys. You know that. Knock the quarterback out, and you get a steak dinner. Of course somebody's gonna knock out the gay guy. You know it would have been bad. You know it would have ruined team chemistry." Carter, who said he was troubled by Tuaolo's statements that he was afraid to come out while he was playing because of anti-gay comments he overheard in the Vikings locker room, asked: "Personally, how do you think I would have treated you?" Tuaolo: "I don't know. Just don't know." Collinsworth, chuckling: "Hey -- somebody in there (the control room) better turn that camera on. It's getting pretty good in here." Then the interview began, with Costas asking about the reaction Tuaolo had received since the news broke. Tuaolo laughed, then asked to start over. "You caught me off guard," Tuaolo said. "What do you want me to ask you about, Cover 2?" Costas said. 9. I think no one wants to play the Rams right now. 10. I think the best way to play Drew Bledsoe is the way the Patriots played him yesterday. Rush lots of different people. Blitz, but never send two identical blitzes. And most important, run a lot of different, quick players back and forth in front of his face. I don't know if he gets confused, but most quarterbacks would if they don't know where the pressure's coming from and their offensive line doesn't know whom to block. On at least three different plays, Bledsoe looked up and saw four linebackers and seven defensive backs playing. Now that's a changeup.
I don't have a great handle on this one, but that wise old football philosopher Curly Lambeau once said: "When a Florida team comes to our fair city in November, and Ray Lucas is the quarterback, I like our chances." Pack, 24-20. Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Monday Morning Quarterback appears in this space -- no kidding -- on Monday mornings. Click here to send him a comment.
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