No Fun League – Year in Review

As the NFL’s regular season wound down last Sunday, I found myself sorting through the memories of the ‘year’ gone by. One very interesting thing about sports for me, is that as seasons pass, everything blurs together. For those of you who know anything about my bionic memory, this should come as a shock. As such, I would be lying if I said I will remember the specifics of the past 17 weeks a year from now. But for some yet to be determined reason, this season felt very special to me. Here are my random thoughts and recollections of the season:

• The bringer of pain and destruction, aka DeAngelo Williams, one of the few draft picks my team has made that I have actually liked at the moment the name was read aloud. Everyone in the sporting world was shocked that we (yes I said we, deal with it) didn’t take Lendale White. When Carlos and I had a conversation about the upcoming season during the summer, he asked me if DeAngelo could succeed. My response was he can be great if we actually let him run. In 2007 he ran the ball 144 times for 717 yards and 4 rushing touchdowns. This year: 273 times for 1515 yards and 18 touchdowns (he tacked on two through the air as well).

• Smash and Dash, DeAngelo is Dash, Jonathan Stewart is Smash. He rushed for 836 yards and 10 scores as Dash’s ‘backup’.

• Running back battalion, in other words, the running gods take revenge on Mike Shanahan. I don’t even know what to say.

  Denver rushing leaders by game: Andre Hall, Selvin Young, Selvin Young, Selvin Young, Michael Pittman, Michael Pittman, Michael Pittman, Andre Hall, Ryan Torain, Peyton Hillis, Peyton Hillis, Peyton Hillis, Peyton Hillis, P.J. Pope, Eddie Royal, Tatum Bell.

  Denver running backs on injured reserve: Anthony Alridge, Andre Hall, Peyton Hillis, Michael Pittman, P.J. Pope, Ryan Torain, Selvin Young.

  It didn’t seem as though the Broncos could go a snap without a back being injured.

• Three Arkansas running backs were taken in the draft this year. This is how they did:

  Darren McFadden (taken 4th overall): 499 yards, 4 touchdowns (285 receiving yards)

  Felix Jones (taken 22nd overall): 266 yards 3 touchdowns (1 kick return td)

  Peyton Hillis (taken 227 overall): 343 yards 5 touchdowns (179 yards receiving, 1 td)

  Peyton was the blocking back for Darren and Felix in college.

• Perfection, in other words, Detroit makes history. 0-16, ’nuff said. The only time this team got close to winning? Twice against division leader and NFC #3 seed in the playoffs, the Minnesota Vikings. In fact, the Lions only allowed less than 21 points in a game twice this year, the two times they played the Vikings. I’m not trying to bash on the Vikings here (a team that has my favorite defensive player in the league on their roster) as much as show how improbable it was for Detroit (a team with a surprisingly decent offense) to go winless. Considering they were dead last in net points (at -249) it is amazing that they lost four games by less than a touchdown (two of those against the Vikings of course). All in all I’m proud of Detroit and could probably blog about them forever. I do feel bad for them… sometimes… nah, not really.

• Rams go 2-14 and no one cares.

• Megatron, I have no idea where he got this nickname from or why it was given to him, but it has been fun to see the continuing emergence of Calvin Johnson, the receiver with the skills of Randy Moss and the heart of Jerry Rice. The fact that the Motor City Kittens lost every game makes this something we should all appreciate, Calvin had 78 catches for 1331 yards and 12 touchdowns. The passers throwing those scores: Jon Kitna, Dan Orlovsky, and Daunte Culpepper.

• This was quietly the year of the runner, specifically the new runner. Rookies Steve Slaton, Matt Forte (Carlos predicted his success), Chris Johnson and Kevin Smith burst onto the scene while second year players Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch, Ryan Grant and Pierre Thomas continued their assault on opposing defenses. But don’t forget Michael Turner, the league’s second leading rusher is the result of leaving a backup role in San Diego and moving to the starting spot in Atlanta (I called this one).

• The wildcat offense officially made its debut in the NFL. Now we should take into consideration that teams like Carolina having been letting players like DeAngelo Williams take snaps for some time now. Regardless, it was fun to see the likes of Ronnie Brown, DeSean Jackson, and Joshua Cribbs get their talented hands on the ball in ‘new’ and different ways.

• Donovan McNabb didn’t know you could tie.

• 7 minutes, 33 seconds into the season the league lost one of it’s best players for the year (and possibly longer) to an ACL injury. When Tom Brady went down it seemed as though the Patriots season would be lost. This would have been especially disappointing for me since the Patriots and Brady single handedly saved my love for the NFL and sports in general with their bid to go undefeated last year. Fortunately, Matt Cassel, professional backup, salvaged the season and was a few Brett Favre mistakes away from leading the Patriots back to the playoffs. Wes Welker continued his pass catching dominance and was second in the league with 111 grabs.

• Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and Steve Breaston each went over 1000 yards receiving. They all play for the Cardinals.

• The Dallas Cowboys audition for a remake of the hit soap opera Dallas but get beat out (and down) by the up and down Philadelphia Eagles.

• Over the last few weeks of the season we were all fortunate enough to witness a monumental collapse in Denver, but I’m not sure if anyone really paid any attention to the one that went down in Tampa Bay. Well in any case, trust me, it was awesome.

• The league’s highest scoring team, the Saints, failed to make it to the playoffs (or even finish above .500). The Cardinals, a team with one net point and one more win than the Saints is a divisional leader and the 4th seed in the playoffs.

• On the other end of the spectrum, after starting 3-7 the Houston Texans finished at 8-8. The 49ers somehow finished at 7-9 despite never actually playing a game. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m forcefed their games almost every week I wouldn’t know they exist anymore.

• Wes Welker scores a touchdown against Arizona and gets fined $10,000 for making a snow angel in celebration. Shaun Ellis throws a snowball at a fan in the stands after New York implodes in Seattle and gets fined $10,000. No Fun League indeed.

• I have a question. Did anyone hear about the snowball thing? I honestly didn’t until Welker’s fine. If this had happened in Dallas all we would hear about is Terrell Owens crying after being left out of the snowball fight. Well at least it didn’t happen at a Patriots game, snowballgate, I can hear it now…

• In other news it snows in Seattle all of  a sudden. Next you’re going to tell me it rains in Chicago…