The window of opportunity is closing for a lot of teams to make the playoffs. Meanwhile and few more teams are surging and gaining confidence. There are also a couple more revelations after week 14 in the NFL:

Old Sayings Never Die  

Deshea Townsend helped one saying live another day.

“Defense Wins Championships.” It doesn’t matter what sport you play, you are bound to hear this at least eleventy-billion times while watching and playing it. For the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was their defense that saved them against the Dallas Cowboys. With under five minutes in the game, the Steelers were stopped on 4th and goal and the Cowboys held on to their seven point lead. While the Cowboy coaches were picturing their “defense wins championships” inspirational speech for after the game, the Steelers stepped up and stopped the Cowboys’ stagnant offense. The Steelers ended up marching the ball straight down the field for a touchdown. On the Cowboys very next play, Tony Romo threw an  interception to Deshea Townsend, which was returned for a touchdown. Cowboys tight end Jason Witten took responsibility for the interception, saying that he ran the wrong route. I would have to agree with him, or be lead to believe that it was an awful throw by Romo, because Townsend was wide open. As the waning seconds of the clock clicked away, the Steelers had just outscored the Cowboys by seventeen in the final seven minutes and head coach Mike Tomlin was preaching “Defense saved our butts…I mean…wins championships!!”

Saints QB Drew Brees is in MVP talks despite his team's 7-6 record.

The MVP Race is Tightening

With the season coming to a close the MVP debates are starting. Here’s an MVP trivia question for everyone: who was the last non-offensive player to win the MVP and when did they win it? Answer: Lawrence Taylor – 1986!!! How about the last non-running back or quarterback? Answer: Jerry Rice – 1990!!! I think it’s safe to say that either a quarterback or a running back will win it this year. Since the AFL-NFL merger there have only been three non-offensive players to win the award. If football is truly a team sport, then how can two offensive positions always be the most valuable? Not to mention, if it’s defense that wins championships, then wouldn’t a defensive player be the most valuable? So as to not raise too much controversy, there are a couple defensive players being mentioned for the award, but we all know they have just as good of a chance of winning as O.J. does of getting parole. It’s kind of like how at least one African-American has to be interviewed for every head coach vacancy, there are protocols that need to be followed. Right now the names being mentioned are Drew Brees, Brett Favre, Kurt Warner, and Adrian Peterson. The mentioning of these guys defies the often used logic that the MVP should be the best player on the best team. Then Saints are 7-6, while the Jets, Cardinals, and Vikings are all at 8-5. How about Eli Manning on the 11-2 Giants or Jake Delhomme on the 10-3 Panthers? They might as well just pull a name out of a hat this year, debates will ensue no matter who is chosen.

Tags: NFL

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under NFL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.