Memories of the Decade - NFL Edition

This decade started with the Baltimore Ravens hoisting the Lombardi Trophy and, well, in terms of the NFL’s decade, it hasn’t ended yet. In between, the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl three times (and nearly a fourth, if it wasn’t for an outstanding final drive by the New York Giants), the Pittsburgh Steelers won twice, and then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Indianapolis Colts, and New York Giants each won once.

One of the most startling trends is the rise of passing and the fall of a single feature running back. In the year 2000, the passer rating of the NFL was 75.9 and this past regular season it was 81.2, slightly down from an all-time NFL high of 82.0 in 2008. There are many reasons for this and one of the most prominent is that the NFL has instituted several rule changes that are specifically designed to increase offense. It is for good reason that referees are protecting quarterbacks; they are often left unprotected after throwing the ball and are susceptible to gruesome hits after interceptions or fumbles simply because the defense loves to put a hit on the quarterback. Along with that, there are the rules that were instituted after the Colts and Patriots playoff battles in the first half of the decade. Before that there were no limits to how much a defensive back could manhandle a wide receiver as long as the ball wasn’t in the air. Limiting contact to only 5 yards has greatly increased offensive efficiency and therefore passer rating.

On top of the rule changes, we are seeing a league right now that has a great number of marquee quarterbacks, including several that will be first ballot hall of famers without a doubt. Into this group I would definitely put Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Kurt Warner. Amongst the other quarterbacks that played significant time this year, I would say that it is possible that as many as 10 quarterbacks could one day make the hall of fame. Obviously much of this depends on what these guys do for the rest of their career but anything is possible.

Since 1947 (when it happened first), there have been 45 quarterbacks that had a passer rating over 100 with at least 224 pass attempts (or 14 per game over 16 games). Of those 45 seasons, 21 of them have come in the past decade. Of the 7 players that have ever had multiple seasons with a passer rating over 100, 4 are still active and a 5th (Kurt Warner) decided to call it a career yesterday.

With all due respect to the football players of yesteryear, they are just better today than they used to be and with the rule changes that have favored offense in this decade, it’s a good time to be an NFL quarterback.

THE GAMES

January 10, 2010
Arizona 51, Green Bay 45

This was a very interesting match-up from the beginning because these two teams met in Arizona in Week 17 of the regular season and then had a rematch a week later in the wildcard round of the playoffs. In the Week 17 game, the Cardinals had their playoff spot completely wrapped up and barely made a token attempt at winning the game. They were down 26-0 at halftime and then Green Bay added another touchdown in the third quarter to make it 33-0 en route to a 33-7 victory. The Packers handled the Cardinals in that game but there was a lot of talk afterwards about how Green Bay had maybe ran up the score a little when Arizona had their second string players in. All week there were discussions of how much of a drop there was from the Cardinal’s first string to the second, especially against the #2 defense by yardage in the regular season.

Well, it didn’t take them long to answer their critics and skeptics. At the end of the first quarter it was already 17-0 and early in the third quarter it was 31-10. It would have been very easy for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers to give up at that point considering that their offense had been rattled at best and wholly ineffective at worst. However, they responded and those who watched were treated to one of the best football games ever, without a doubt. Whenever Green Bay needed a big defensive play, they got it. Whenever they needed to convert a key play, they did. Over the final quarter and a half, they outscored the Cardinals 35-14, including a wild 21 point fourth quarter to force overtime. When the Packers won the coin toss it appeared as if they were headed for the Divisional Round of the playoffs since neither defense was having any luck at all at stopping the other offense.

Three plays later, the game was over. Unfortunately for Rodgers, he missed a wide open receiver on first down which would have gone the full 80 yards for a win. On third down, Rodgers got hit and lost the ball, which caromed right to Karlos Dansby, who took it 17 yards for the touchdown.

As Green Bay started their epic comeback and appeared to be unstoppable, I jokingly quipped that the first one to 50 would win the game. Sure enough, Arizona 51, Green Bay 45.

February 3, 2008
Super Bowl XLII
New York 17, New England 14

There were a lot of storylines coming into this Super Bowl (as there always are, given that the press has a month to think of all the potential storylines for all the teams in the playoffs should they make the Super Bowl) but people only really cared about one of them. The New England Patriots were trying to cap off a perfect after going 16-0 in the regular season and then winning in the Divisional Round and then the AFC Championship.

On the flip side, the New York Giants went 10-6 in a regular season that was marked by strife and conflicts in the locker room. They were a team full of talent on both sides of the ball but hadn’t really lived up to their potential.

The game itself was a low scoring affair, far from what the high-flying Patriots had been used to in the regular season, when they scored 40 or more points 4 times, including two games with more than 50. In a classic example of how he seems to always do better when the game is on the line, Tom Brady led the Patriots down the field to the go-ahead touchdown with 2:42 remaining and a lead of 14-10. However, he left far too much time on the clock.

Eli Manning led the Giants down the field, going 83 yards on 12 plays in just 2:07, culminating with a 13 yard pass from Manning to Plaxico Burress. The play that everyone remembers (which part of me still doesn’t believe happened) happened about a minute before the touchdown. On 3rd and 5 from their own 44 yard line, Manning spun out of a sack that might have just ended their serious chance at a comeback and lofted a pass down the field. The ball hung in the air for what felt like an eternity before David Tyree leapt and caught it, trapping the ball against his helmet to maintain possession since his other hand was being occupied by the closest defender. It provided the signature moment of that drive but many people forget that that play only put the ball at the Patriot’s 24 yard line with about a minute to go. It wasn’t what I would call a monumental collapse, it was just a matter of the Giants making the plays when they had to.

With that, the Dolphins again pop the corks on their champagne.

February 1, 2009
Super Bowl XLIII
Pittsburgh 27, Arizona 23

The first three quarters of Super Bowl XLIII weren’t anything too terribly special. Thank goodness that they play all four quarters of football’s biggest game. At the end of the third quarter it was 20-7 Pittsburgh and they had handled (though not dominated) the game up until that point and seemed well on their ways to a record 6th Super Bowl Championship as a franchise. More than the score at that juncture was how they had gotten those last points. To start the third quarter, the Steelers executed a potentially back-breaking drive; 16 plays, 79 yards, and 8:39 elapsing off the clock.

The Cardinals, led by playoff veteran Kurt Warner, refused to give up. A 1 yard touchdown pass from Warner to Larry Fitzgerald made the score 20-14 with 7:33 remaining in the 4th quarter and little did any of us know, that was just the start of the fireworks. Four and a half minutes later, after a Cardinals punt pegged the Steelers at the 1 yard line, Ben Roethlisberger completed a 20 yard pass on 3rd and 10 but Justin Hartwig was called for holding… in the endzone. The Steelers lead was cut to 20-16 and all the momentum had gone firmly behind the Cardinals.

One play after the free kick placed Arizona at its own 33 yard line, Kurt Warner threw one of his perfect passes straight down the middle of the field to a streaking Larry Fitzgerald who never broke stride on his 64 yard romp to the endzone, a 23-20 Arizona lead, and a lock on the first Super Bowl title in franchise history… except the game clock still read 2:37.

On one of those drives that could define a career, Roethlisberger led the Steelers 78 yards in 2:02 and unlike David Tyree’s catch the year before, the best play on this drive was indeed the one that won the game. Big Ben threw a bullet from the Cardinal’s 6 yard line into the very corner of the endzone where Santonio Holmes made a fantastic catch, barely managing to scrape both of his toes on the turf. If there had been any less shoe shine on his cleats, he may not have managed to get both of them down.

I was definitely rooting for the Cardinals in this game, but that once in a lifetime ending made Arizona losing worth it.

YOU SHOULD NEVER LOSE YOUR STARTING JOB TO AN INJURY

Well, that heading really says it all. I firmly believe that you shouldn’t be demoted to the role of a back-up simply because you got hurt. However, there are two instances of exactly this happening that had a great hand in dictating the events of the first half of the decade specifically and the entire decade generally.

The first one actually happened in the last decade. In 1999 Trent Green was slated to be the starting quarterback for the St. Louis Rams until a hit from Rodney Harrison injured his knee and left him out for the entire season. His back-up during the preseason games was a former grocery bagger and Arena Football League player Kurt Warner. He went on to direct one of the most prolific offensive showcases the NFL has ever seen and if it wasn’t for an injury during the 2000 season, it’s entirely possible that the Rams could have represented the NFC in the Super Bowl for three consecutive seasons.

It was extremely unfortunate that Green lost his job but how can you honestly give him his starting job back after his replacement not only won the Super Bowl, but laid the foundation for a potential run of playoff appearances if not Super Bowl berths?

In 1993, the New England Patriots selected Washington State University quarterback Drew Bledsoe with the first overall selection in the NFL draft. For the next eight years, he threw for over 29,000 yards and 164 touchdowns, won more than 10 games three times and took the Patriots to Super Bowl XXXI against the Green Bay Packers. In 2001 he started the first two games and then was injured during a game with the New York Jets. His replacement is someone you might have heard of; Tom Brady. To his credit, Bledsoe played the role of the mentor to Brady and he never complained about being relegated to the bench despite only missing three games.

Bledsoe really showed his professionalism in the AFC Championship game against Pittsburgh. After an injury to Tom Brady, he came in and threw the ball better than he had since the run-up to Super Bowl XXXI, throwing for 102 yards and a touchdown in the 24-17 New England victory. In their next game, one guy who replaced the starter after he suffered an injury (Brady) beat another guy who replaced an injured starter (Warner).

How’s that for symmetry?