Opening weekend offers matchups that promise season-long ramifications:
– Denver’s new quarterback, Brian Griese, starts against Miami in a rematch of the divisional playoff loss that prompted Shannon Sharpe to talk trash and still has the Dolphins seething. Griese’s dad, Bob, played his first game with the Dolphins against the Broncos.
– Minnesota goes to Atlanta as the favorite even after Atlanta won the NFC title game in Minnesota.
“Maybe people think it was a fantasy-football thing last year, a one-time deal,” said Falcons cornerback Ray Buchanan. “We’re the same football team, the same staff. We don’t care what other people think. Minnesota hasn’t proven anything either.”
– Jacksonville and San Francisco boast the league’s two best left-handed quarterbacks in Mark Brunell and Steve Young. Brunell is supposed to be the new Steve Young, but the old one hasn’t left.
– The Cleveland Browns come back against the Pittsburgh Steelers, providing evidence there is justice in the world.
Said Steelers coach Bill Cowher, a Pittsburgh native who played for Cleveland between 1980 and 1982 and coached there under Marty Schottenheimer between 1985 and 1988: “I don’t like going up there on Sunday night . . . but it’s the right thing to do.”
– Poor Pete Carroll gets to start another new season in New England against an old ghost, Bill Parcells and the New York Jets.
– The New York Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, two teams that slipped out of the playoffs last season, look for a rebound against each other with quarterbacks under the gun–Kent Graham and Trent Dilfer.
– There is one glaring mismatch: Detroit’s injury-riddled offensive line faces Seattle’s No. 1 AFC sacking team. And the Seahawks don’t have to worry about Barry Sanders.
Guess what? Instant replay is under attack even before it makes its regular-season comeback.
Giants coach Jim Fassel couldn’t believe referee Phil Luckett refused to overturn two calls during a 28-24 loss in Baltimore.
Luckett upheld a LeShon Johnson fumble although replays clearly showed his knee had hit the ground before he lost the ball. Later, Luckett let stand a Ravens completion despite receiver Billy Davis’ second foot clearly landing out of bounds.
“I didn’t think we were voting to take the correct call on the field and make it a bad call,” Fassel said. “I’m not being critical of the officials, but I tell you what: If we don’t get this straightened around, the uproar before instant replay is going to be minimal compared to what’s happening right now. Instant replay has screwed it up. If I’m an owner and I put $10 million into this thing, I’m looking at what’s happening right now and I wouldn’t be real happy.”
Luckett is the referee whose hearing during a coin toss last season came into question and caused a rule change. Now players call it before the toss in front of two officials.
No kick coming: Kickers are up in arms (and feet) over new regulations governing game balls. Instead of allowing kickers to test game balls on Fridays, 12 balls branded with a small “K” will be opened in the locker room two hours before game time.
This is to prevent kickers from “doctoring” balls in various ways to soften them or make them more suitable for kicking.
“It’s hilarious what they were doing with them,” said George Young, NFL vice president of football operations. “They would put 30 pounds of pressure in the thing. It’s supposed to have 13.”
Bears kickers built a contraption of plywood that would nearly flatten the balls to loosen them up. Others used clothes dryers.
“When they’re complaining, it means they’re cheating,” Young said. “Now they wonder, `What are we going to do?’ I’ll tell you what they’re going to do. They’re going to kick. The better kickers will kick better and the not so good won’t.”
Second year: Coaches notice the biggest improvement in players usually comes between the rookie year and the second year. Colts quarterback Peyton Manning agrees: “You get an off-season. From March until June, we took one route per day–say, a post route–and we’d run it against bump-and-run, against blitz, against man, and learn everything about it so you really got the timing down. During a season, you can’t really develop timing. I have a better idea where Marvin Harrison and E.G. Green are going to be. Your rookie year, you’re just trying to get the snaps and get the ball handed off.”
Moss on Payton: Minnesota’s Randy Moss said he never pretended to be any particular receiver growing up.
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“I idolized Walter Payton when I played midget league, so he’d probably be the only one,” Moss said.
When the Bears were scouting Moss, Payton took him to lunch. Now Moss wishes Payton well in his illness.
“It’s a bad thing,” Moss said. “Hopefully, he can recover from it. Whatever operation he needs, hopefully he can get it done. I respect him so much for the fact he won a Super Bowl, he’s well-spoken, and he got out there and made it happen. When I finally met him in person, it was something beyond me just seeing him on TV. It was a face-to-face conversation.”
Did I say that? First-year coaches can have second thoughts. Early in camp, Baltimore’s Brian Billick said this about Scott Mitchell and Tony Banks: “There’s a lot of talk about our quarterbacks and whether we can succeed with them. I’ve said this before: Take a leap of faith with me. I’ve had some success working with quarterbacks who weren’t supposed to play very well.”
On Banks this weekend: “For (Ravens offensive coordinator) Matt Cavanaugh and I to think that we are some type of especially gifted coaches who can get through to this young man what others have not, would be too self-serving.”
Go, you NU: Sean Bennett, fourth-round draft choice from Northwestern and onetime record-setter at Evansville before the Purple Aces dropped football, led the Giants in preseason rushing and will start.
“He has a level of maturity you can’t find among rookies,” Fassel said. “He has a confidence without a cockiness. He has a focus. He plays like a veteran from the standpoint that he’s not hyper, and he’s not making mistakes because he’s confused and the game’s too fast for him.”
Bennett carried the ball only 32 times last year at Northwestern.
Bears should have known: Dave Wannstedt wanted Bryan Cox to stop the run and rush the passer, but he should have let him make more of the Bears’ personnel decisions. Jets coach Bill Parcells said Cox pestered him to sign running back Bernie Parmalee, Cox’s former teammate in Miami.
“I told Bryan, `Quit bugging me; I got him,’ ” Parcells said.
Said Cox: “I think it’s going to pay off for us. Now I have to be right or he’ll never listen to me. But I put my neck out, and I’m comfortable with that because he’s not going to let me down.”
You’ve got mail: When kicker Steve Lindsey learned he had made the Jaguars’ roster, he found out not by a phone call, TV or newspapers. He learned it on the Internet.
“I got it off the Jaguars’ site,” Lindsey said. “My fiance called me and said, `I’m pulling it up right now–the Jaguars’ (Web) site.’ She actually said, `You’re not on there.’ I was like, `Well, I knew it.’ And she said, `No, you’re not on the cut list.’ I said, `Well, that’s crazy.’ “