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Vikings throw late TD in blowout, Brooking goes after Favre
By Chris Chase
January 18, 2010
Did the Minnesota Vikings run up the score on the Dallas Cowboys in Sunday's NFC divisional playoff? Keith Brooking thinks so. A late Brett Favre touchdown pass infuriated the Dallas linebacker, who charged over to the Vikings' sideline to voice his displeasure. And in his postgame press conference he didn't back down.
The Vikings had held a comfortable 27-3 lead since the early part of the fourth quarter. Dallas looked completely deflated after going down 24 points and the team's subsequent play did nothing to dispel that notion. On the Cowboys' next two possessions the team went four-and-out, gaining a mere 14 yards on eight plays.
After the second turnover on downs, Minnesota took over on Dallas' 37-yard line. With 5:26 remaining and the Vikes holding a nearly insurmountable lead, runs to milk the clock were expected. But after an Adrian Peterson run on first down, Favre hit Bernard Berrian(notes) for 19 yards on the next play. Two Peterson runs followed, before Favre threw a short three-yard pass to bring up fourth-and-three after the two minute warning.
Here, the Vikes had four choices: 1. They could take a knee and give Dallas the ball back for the game's final two minutes; 2. Wave a partial white flag and run the ball up the middle; 3. Kick a field goal (which also could have been percevied as running up the score); 4. Drop Favre back to attempt a pass.
Minnesota went with option No. 4 and Favre hit tight end Visanthe Shiancoe(notes) for an 11-yard touchdown. This choice did not go over well with Brooking. The Cowboys' linebacker, presumably upset because he felt Minnesota was running up the score, stormed over to the Vikings sideline and exchanged words with coaches and players, including Favre. He had yet to calm down after the game:
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"I thought it was totally classless and disrespectful. This is the NFL, that's not what this is about. I don't think there's a place for that ... I was looking for [Vikings coach Brad] Childress. I didn't think it was right, but they've got to see us next year."
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Brooking needs to relax and listen to his own words.
He's right. This is the NFL, not high school or college. The Dallas Cowboys don't get sympathy. Throwing that pass may not have been the greatest sportsmanship, but it also wasn't an affront to decency. If Brooking didn't want Minnesota to score then maybe he and his 10 teammates on the field should have done something about it.
Just because the Cowboys quit doesn't mean the Vikings needed to also.
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Jets’ Ryan keeps pushing the right buttons
By Michael Silver
January 18, 2010
SAN DIEGO, CA — Rex Ryan’s team had been held without a point. It hadn’t picked up a first down until eight minutes remained in the second quarter. At halftime of Sunday’s AFC divisional playoff game at Qualcomm Stadium, Ryan’s New York Jets had been outgained by the San Diego Chargers, 212-99, and looked as gassed and outclassed as the rest of the weekend’s lower-seeded roadkill.
As the rookie coach convened with his players in Qualcomm’s cramped visitors’ locker room, it seemed inevitable to the outside world that the favored Chargers would eventually build on their seven-point lead and bust open the game, the way the favored Saints, Colts and Vikings had in securing the first three spots in next weekend’s conference championship clashes.
To Ryan, the scoreboard was a thing of beauty.
“We just played the worst football we can possibly play, and we’re still in it,” Ryan told his players. “Now let’s go out there and play our game. Just be true to us. If we go out there and play Jets football, we’ll win the game.”
What, you expected Ryan to be meek and understated? Yeah, and Al Pacino will be restrained and subtle in his next cinematic role, and the reunited Soundgarden will play acoustic folk tunes on tour.
Spurred on by their brash, unabashed leader, the Jets stayed true to themselves – running the ball with relentless persistence, subduing the Chargers’ potent offense with brute force – and remained in the hunt for what would be one of the least likely Super Bowl appearances in history.
In slugging their way to a 17-14 victory over a San Diego team that hadn’t lost in three months, the Jets reached their first AFC championship game since the 1998 season, setting up a rematch next Sunday with the top-seeded Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Late last month, the Jets kept their playoff hopes alive by coming from behind to beat then-undefeated Indy – after Colts coach Jim Caldwell abruptly pulled Peyton Manning(notes) and other starters in the third quarter. After watching Manning and company roll over the Baltimore Ravens, 20-3, on Saturday, most of America is convinced that the Jets (who opened as 7?-point underdogs) will once again be overmatched. In a potential Super Bowl XLIV matchup, either New Orleans or Minnesota would likely be favored to beat New York, too.
Ryan, naturally, is about as intimidated as a New York cabbie in downtown San Diego traffic.
“We’ve got a bunch of tough-asses,” Ryan said Sunday as he walked through a tunnel leading out of Qualcomm toward the Jets’ team buses. “This is the team I thought it was.”
It’s a team that the 47-year-old Ryan, hired exactly one year ago Tuesday, molded in his image from the start. His bravado and penchant for saucy personal expression was greeted warmly in a locker room reeling from the repressive regime of Eric Mangini. This was the NFL’s equivalent of glasnost, and the Jets greeted it like disembarking airline passengers tasting their first breath of non-stale air.
The transition, says veteran fullback Tony Richardson, was “unbelievable. Having a coach like Rex is cool. He was talking junk from day one. He said, ‘You take one of ours, we’ll take two of yours.’ He said he wasn’t here to kiss [Patriots coach Bill] Belichick’s rings. A lot of coaches will say, ‘Be careful what you say …’ Rex has never once told us how to handle the media. He just lets us be.”
Just as his father, Buddy, did as a renowned defensive coordinator – and later as the Eagles’ and Cardinals’ outspoken head coach – Rex cultivated a swagger that shows up on the playing field.
“It’s good,” safety Kerry Rhodes says of Ryan’s approach. “It’s not just the talking-smack part. He’s not just saying it to say it. He’s saying it cause he believes in us, and it carries over. That’s a good thing.”
Adds veteran tackle Damien Woody: “Oh it’s great. He just believes in this team so much. When he says those things, it just gives guys the belief that they can go out and do anything.”
Of all the semi-controversial statements Ryan has made since taking the Jets’ job, perhaps the strangest was his postgame announcement after a disappointing 10-7 defeat to the Atlanta Falcons on Dec. 20 that “we’re obviously out of the playoffs, and that’s unfortunate.”
Fortunately for the Jets, Ryan’s understanding of math doesn’t come close to matching his brilliant grasp of blitz packages and other creative defensive schemes. Ryan’s report of his team’s demise, it turned out, was greatly exaggerated. The Jets, 7-7 at the time, earned one of the AFC’s wild-card berths by beating the Colts and Bengals, earning a first-round rematch with Cincinnati.
At that point Ryan swung back to unbridled optimism, handing out a detailed itinerary to his players that extended two days past the Super Bowl and included a victory parade through Manhattan. At 50-1, New York was the longest shot in the 12-team playoff field to win it all; naturally, Ryan told reporters, “To me, we should be favorites.”
The Jets, owners of the league’s top-ranked defense and No. 1 rushing attack during the regular season, beat up the Bengals, 24-14, in a first-round playoff victory, then met up with the Chargers, who during their season-ending, 11-game winning streak had averaged 30 points per game.
Ryan relied on some unremarkable methods to get his team motivated, showing his players film of Mike Tyson in his prime during their Saturday night meeting at the team hotel and harping on the widespread perception that the Chargers would roll to victory. “Let’s shock the world,” he told his players, who charged out of the tunnel to the jeers of 69,498 fans acting as if Qualcomm were their home field.
More significant was Ryan’s strategic vision and adaptability. Rather than doing the expected – taking his best defensive weapon, unparalleled shutdown cornerback Darrelle Revis, and matching him on San Diego’s top receiver, Vincent Jackson – Ryan relied mostly on zone-based schemes early on, with Revis switching liberally between Jackson and fellow wideout Malcom Floyd.
The Chargers and Pro Bowl quarterback Philip Rivers seemed confused by the Jets’ defensive wrinkles, wasting two timeouts in the first quarter and incurring several pre-snap penalties. Still, Rivers managed to move the ball and found third-string tight end Kris Wilson( in the back of the end zone on a 13-yard touchdown pass early in the second quarter.
“It threw them off,” Rhodes said, “but I think it messed us up. We tried to play zone and trick them early, but it kind of backfired. When we went back to man-to-man and matched up our better players – [Revis] took Vincent Jackson, I took [tight end Antonio] Gates – it got better. We couldn’t keep letting Gates run around in that zone. We had to match up.”
Said Revis: “At halftime I told [defensive backs coach Dennis Thurman], ‘We need to play some man. We need to match up with these guys and get physical.’ Personally, I think the San Diego Chargers are a finesse offense. I think [Rivers] has a problem with that a little bit, when people get physical with his receivers, ‘cause it throws off his timing.”
To his credit, Ryan listened to his players’ input at halftime and responded.
“Oh, always,” he said as he left the stadium. “We just wanted to make a couple of adjustments … with personnel grouping. But it’s something we do all the time. Our guys are a smart group. We had to be able to do that on the fly.”
Rivers attributed the Chargers’ second-half struggles mostly to his team’s lack of precision, rather than to the Jets’ strategic changes. But the quarterback expressed an appreciation for the effectiveness of Ryan’s in-your-face coaching style. After all, they’re brothers from a different mother: Rivers is the NFL’s most vocal quarterback, one known for engaging (and often annoying) opponents on a consistent basis.
“I think one thing I’ve learned,” Rivers said as he left the stadium, “whatever being yourself is, you know, it gets scrutinized … but you’ve got to do what’s best for your team as a coach and a player.”
As the Jets took over the game in the second half, Ryan was like an old Who album on the sidelines: Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy. He had a lot to celebrate. After intercepting consecutive Rivers passes late in the third quarter – the first a spectacular grab by Revis off of the prone Jackson’s body, the second an underthrown ball that safety Jim Leonhard(notes) caught in stride – New York went ahead on rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez’s(notes) scrambling, two-yard touchdown pass to tight end Dustin Keller.
On the Jets’ next drive, the team’s unbending commitment to the run finally paid off, with rookie Shonn Greene (23 carries, 128 yards) bursting up the middle, blasting through safety Eric Weddle’s attempted tackle and racing 53 yards for a touchdown with 7:17 remaining.
“We come at you from the start with the run, and at the beginning, it’s like running into a brick wall,” Woody said. “The thing about our team is, we’ll keep pounding, pounding, pounding, and eventually we’ll break through.”
After surviving Rivers’ one-yard touchdown run with 2:14 remaining and a scary onside kick that Rhodes expertly gathered in traffic, Ryan faced one more big decision: On fourth-and-1 from the San Diego 29 with 1:09 remaining, he could summon kicker Jay Feely to try to extend the Jets’ lead to six, or he could hand the ball to one of his backs and try to ice the game.
His attitude, as he explained afterward: “Hey, let’s be true to ourselves.”
That meant the Jets would go for it and run the play everyone in the stadium expected them to run. Veteran halfback Thomas Jones took a handoff from Sanchez and rumbled up the middle for a two-yard gain, clinching the biggest upset of the 2009 playoffs and setting off a giddy celebration on the visitors’ sidelines.
A few minutes later a Jets official led the rotund Ryan into a packed interview room and asked reporters to clear a path to the podium.
“Make a hole for coach,” the official said, and the crowd began to part.
Still feeling the squeeze, Ryan cracked, “Make it a big hole.”
Everyone laughed. Without a doubt, the rookie coach owned the room.
One more stunning victory, and the rest of the football world will be his for the taking.
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