Fanhouse Jay Mariotti - nfl

Big Ben Could Go Down as Big Bum

Jay Mariotti — 2010-03-08T23:11:00 00:00

Filed under: NFL

Why was he there? What was he thinking? Why wasn't he watching a game on TV, dining at a cool restaurant, squiring a date or catching up on sleep before a morning tee time? Odd, but the same questions I have about Ben Roethlisberger and a college bar in rural Georgia are the same questions I asked last year, when he was spotted partying hard late one night in a pulsating Chicago club. Why would a well-known public figure who claims he was wrongly accused of rape inside a Lake Tahoe hotel in 2008 continue to visit establishments where, conceivably, he could be framed again?

That is to assume Roethlisberger is innocent in what now are two sets of sexual assault allegations, which is not at all what I'm stating. If the temptation was to grant him some benefit of doubt the first time, based on the accuser's seeming lack of credibility, a new allegation in a different part of the country only gives pause and raises eyebrows. It is now clear that the two-time Super Bowl-champion quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of America's most prominent athletes, has no understanding of discretion and the responsibility that comes with his fame and professional standing.

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Payton's Place Ripe for More Parades

Jay Mariotti — 2010-02-09T21:15:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL, Super Bowl

It isn't a bandwagon we're jumping on. It's a Mardi Gras float, a wave of confidence that dares to suggest that the New Orleans Saints, a team that wasn't supposed to win the Super Bowl unless the apocalypse arrived, might win another one next year. I realize the NFL means Not For Long, particularly in a millennium when only the New England Patriots have repeated as champions.

But the Saints, who borrowed their rides from Mardi Gras krewes Tuesday at the first nighttime title party ever thrown, might not be finished with their jambalaya joy. I say that not only because Drew Brees is at the apex of his career, his weapons are young and potent and the NFC is eminently more winnable than the stacked AFC, but because Sean Payton has become football's state-of-the-art coach.

That's right, Sean Payton, the same man who looks younger than some of his players, the same man who once had his play-calling responsibilities removed with the New York Giants, the same man so desperate for a chance to play in the NFL that he served the Chicago Spare Bears as a scab quarterback during the 1987 labor impasse. No one can say he hasn't paid his dues, yet no one can say he hasn't persevered and capitalized in ways very impressive and admirable. On Saturday, the day before the city's greatest sports triumph, New Orleans elected a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu.

I'm guessing Payton, had he chosen to run, would have won the election in a landslide. "I think I could kiss him right now,'' gushed Saints owner Tom Benson, whose standing in New Orleans was saved by Payton and Brees after he was vilified four years ago for threatening to move the team after Hurricane Katrina. We've watches several accomplished coaches -- Mike Ditka, Jim Mora, Bum Phillips, Wade Phillips and Hank Stram among them -- take over the Saints and not come close to what Payton has achieved in four astonishingly quick seasons. It's stunning enough that he has transformed a hopeless losing culture into a rousing success. But what blows us away is his savvy as a leader, his ability to command respect from his players while serving them with guidance that was on full display in Miami.

In what very clearly is a superstar-oriented league, Payton was the star of the Super Bowl. Brees won the MVP award, the Disney World commercial and priceless media attention with his headphone-wearing son, but Payton put the Saints in position to win with the greatest play call in the game's 44-year history. He would have been forgiven for shifting into conservative mode after his failed call in the second quarter, when he went for the touchdown on 4th-and-goal at the Indianapolis 1 and watched Colts linebacker Gary Brackett stuff running back Pierre Thomas. But Payton is the coach of the Saints, and since arriving months after the mass devastation of Katrina, he has been among the driving forces to help a city feel good and have pride through the power of the local football team. And if New Orleans could be so courageous in the face of tragedy, wasn't it his responsibility to have some guts in his own way and try to win a championship for the good people?

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Time to Put Pro Bowl Out of Its Misery

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-31T23:30:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

MIAMI -- Given a choice of watching the Pro Bowl or wading with killer alligators in the Everglades, well, next time, I promise to think about it. Not that I really want a next time. If this event could be held at midseason, like all the normal All-Star Games, and if every player was placed in a hermetically sealed cocoon to avoid injuries, and if the mood was serious and not something out of Uncle Bob's picnic, then maybe I'd embrace it.

But what I watched on a rainy Sunday night, inside whatever they're calling Joe Robbie Stadium/Pro Player Stadium/Dolphin Stadium these days, was completely embarrassing, meaningless, unnecessary and insulting to one's intellect. Give me Rex In The City, Jets coach Rex Ryan, flipping the bird at rowdy Dolphins fans at a nearby mixed martial arts event. Give me whether the NFL is headed toward labor doom, which will be a constant theme this week. Give me a debate on whether Shaun Alexander belongs on the league's all-decade team. More importantly, give me Dwight Freeney's torn ankle ligament -- or if you believe the Colts, and I don't, a low ankle sprain -- and how it will affect the Indianapolis defense in putting pressure on Drew Brees next Sunday.

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Warner: Rare Great Who Shouldn't Retire

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-28T01:10:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

Normally, I run the Legacy Protection Program, urging premier athletes to retire so our fondest memories don't fade on a tear-drop canvas of creaking bones, senility and Viagra ads. Among them was Michael Jordan, who used to scold me in the parking lot of the Chicago gym where he was preparing his comeback with the Washington Wizards. "I put your articles on my refrigerator door so I can prove you wrong," he'd say, tossing in f-bombs where applicable.

I was right about Jordan, who accomplished little in downtown D.C. beyond helping the arena-area develop with chain stores and bars. I'm right about most others, too. But this time, I'm sensing that a 38-year-old quarterback named Kurt Warner actually has two excellent years left in him, if not more, and that he shouldn't retire from the Arizona Cardinals.

He's going to anyway, it appears, having announced a Friday news conference in which family members will be present. One doesn't invite the wife and kids and all the relatives merely to announce, "Get your tickets now, fans, for the '10 season!" But while Warner worries about his faith, concussions, seven children and living a long, healthy life -- heartfelt concerns, all -- I'm fixed on his performance of only 2 1/2 weeks ago. In one of the magnificent quarterbacking shows in NFL postseason history, he completed 29 of 33 passes for 379 yards and five touchdowns. Indeed, he had more scoring passes than incompletions, and he led the Cardinals to a 51-45 overtime victory over a Green Bay team with a defense that had been ranked among the NFL's best.

"I don't think you ever want to stay too long," he said after the game, "but you never want to go out before it's time. The hard part is trying to figure that out."

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Super Bowl No Place for Tebow's Views

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-27T01:30:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL, NCAA Football, Super Bowl

Super Bowl Sunday is a chance for America to unite around football, parties and, better still, those ambitious and occasionally hilarious 30-second ads. This year, we'll see such creative masterpieces as E-Trade employing a new smart-aleck baby, Danica Patrick dressed as Marilyn Monroe for Go Daddy, Boost Mobile using the 1985 Bears for a Super Bowl Shuffle reunion, Intel going for "geek humor," Kia letting the Nickelodeon monster Muno drive a Sorrento to Las Vegas, Don Rickles returning as the voice in Teleflora's flowers-in-a-box ad, HomeAway Inc. bringing back the Griswolds for a Vacation spoof, Cheap Trick helping Audi with a cute environmental theme, Dr. Pepper hiring Gene Simmons for another KISS experience and ...

Oh, yes, Tim Tebow and his mother explaining why they oppose abortion, in an ad financed by a conservative Christian organization called Focus on the Family.

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I'm Not Afraid to Beg: Come Back, Brett

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-25T22:00:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

NEW ORLEANS -- Having been in this murky place before -- once, twice, how many friggin' times now? -- we recognize it as the self-serving interval in which Brett Favre wants us to gush and goo over him. It's where we tell him how much we utterly adore him and to not retire, so we may continue to worship his every touchdown pass and gutty performance and not feel as if life is passing us by. When he said after his Sunday night heartbreak in the Superdome that it's "highly unlikely'' he'll return for a 20th NFL season, I detected the same, old puppy dog begging us to throw him a bone.

So you know what? Let's just throw it.

Come back, Brett. Please, come back.

It used to turn my stomach to make such pleas, of course, having been nauseated so often by his diva-like waffling on his NFL status. Since March 2008, Favre has retired, unretired, retired and unretired, which means his next move is to retire. And he'll probably do just that, only to change his mind in August and unretire, though doing so with a strategic timetable that allows him to miss most of training camp. It would behoove him to avoid that approach this time, for all it will do is erode the widespread admiration he regained in his inspirational season with the Minnesota Vikings and turn him into the irritating mope who ticked us off with his wishy-washiness. I like very much the Brett Favre of 2009. I want to preserve that and watch him again in 2010.

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Saints and Their City Finally Get a Break

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-25T02:25:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL, Super Bowl

NEW ORLEANS -- I saw men and women laughing through their tears Sunday night, staring at a confetti blizzard on a field where so many games have been blown and, in life's biggest picture, so many lives were lost. It wasn't long ago when the Superdome was darkly symbolic of Hurricane Katrina and its horrors, a home for thousands seeking a shelter of last resort inside a building that reeked of stench and barely had a roof.

But now, finally, the massive mushroom on Poydras Street is the joyful, triumphant shrine of a championship football team. Now, it's where strangers were making out in the aisles Sunday night and where fans refused to leave the Dome until they were kicked out. Once, the New Orleans Saints were so pathetic that the locals called them the "Aints'' and wore paper bags over their heads. Today, for the first time, they are headed to the Super Bowl, persevering in the NFC title game just as their city has tortuously tried to survive for 4 1/2 hellish years. At last, the people of the Bayou received an inspirational gift that can be vital to self-esteem and the ongoing recovery mission, surviving the will of a battered Brett Favre to reach overtime and then steal a 31-28 win over the Minnesota Vikings on a 40-yard field goal by a kicker who had a premonition the night before.

What else would you expect in the land of voodoo and beads but a foretelling?

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A.D. Has Been A Dud, Needs Big Game

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-23T17:43:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

NEW ORLEANS -- It's curious enough that Adrian Peterson, nicknamed "A.D." (All Day) and "Purple Jesus" and once known as football's finest running back, now is an afterthought on the field. But it seems he also has been completely lost in the pop-culture swirl that engulfs the Vikings. The musician Prince, who lives in the Minnesota backwoods, has recorded a spiritual, naughty-free theme song for his beloved team called "Purple and Gold," though I would have suggested the obvious "Purple Reign."

"I saw the future," he explained.

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If Cowboys Think Big, Why Keep Phillips?

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-19T01:00:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

Jerry Jones built the world's largest domed stadium, one with an exterior made of fritted glass and limestone rock, one that cost $1.3 billion and has a magnificent high-def screen hanging from one 20-yard line to the other, one with 3,000 LCD units and huge partitions that open in both end zones, one that charges $800,000 per year to lease a luxury suite and prices a pizza at $90 and a 12-pack of beer at $66 in those suites, one that has players enter the field through a sports bar with see-through walls and delirious fans, one that even includes a elaborate locker room for -- ta da! -- the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

"Words just can't explain how grateful we are for it. Each girl has her own locker like the players, with our own individual mirror, plugs and storage," gushes Cassie Trammell, a squad member.

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In Favre's Fairy Tale, 40 Is the New 30

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-17T20:20:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

MINNEAPOLIS -- What we're watching is a triumph beyond football, sport and maybe anything similar we've seen in life. The finest tribute I can give Brett Lorenzo Favre is this: at 40 years, three months and eight days, he is making players who grew up idolizing him look significantly older than he is -- while he, conversely, looks younger and hipper than everyone else in the NFL playoffs. His sideburns may be silver and his trousers may be ranch Wranglers, but he's performing with the verve of a too-cool-for-school twenty-something with a shag haircut and skinny jeans.

I am very happy to say he no longer is acting like a diva, my term for him last month when he and his boss, Vikings head coach Brad Childress, tugged for control of the team's offensive direction. Favre made his case, ended up getting his way and, in Sunday's NFC divisional playoff game, took advantage of this pass-first mentality with four more spectacular touchdown throws -- three to his new favorite receiver, Sidney Rice -- and a knack for avoiding the fearsome pass rush of the Dallas Cowboys. In contrast, the 29-year-old Tony Romo, he of the US Weekly covers and elusive ducks and darts, was harassed into a frazzled, hopeless mess by Minnesota's thunderous defensive line, losing two of his three fumbles and throwing a killer interception, when he wasn't being sacked six times and hit 12 other times.

"He was the guy I wanted to be,'' said Romo, who was playing high-school ball in Burlington, Wis., when Favre was in his Green Bay heyday.

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If This Is Real Bush, Saints Are Super

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-16T22:50:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

NEW ORLEANS -- Is it wise to aggravate fate, mess with karma, toy with the voodoo? The Super Bowl is Feb. 7, the weekend when Mardi Gras kicks in, a day when parades and beads and Hurricane-lubed drunks and even an army of costumed dogs converge for the megaparty that always has defined the city's uninhibited vibe. Only this time, some of the parades are being canceled, with the natives daring to embrace the unfathomable thought.

The Saints, they insist, will be playing in the Super Bowl.

Mardi Gras, they declare, will have to wait.

It has been a silly notion to date, based on a woeful history in which the team has been renamed the Aints and fans have worn bags over their heads in a region ravaged by natural disasters and blight. But Saturday, during a three-hour jubilee of touchdowns and titillation, no one pondered the cursed past. From the long-awaited breakout performance of Reggie Bush, to the priest who hugged umbrella-toting owner Tom Benson, to the kiss coach Sean Payton planted on Bush's cheek, to the sound of 69,623 loons -- a mere 526 Arizona fans were in the house -- bouncing raucous decibels off the Superdome's concrete roof, this didn't seem like a story headed toward a crash next week.

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Admit It, Goodell: Rooney Rule Is a Sham

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-11T01:15:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

LOS ANGELES -- If I were Dan Rooney about now, I'd be demanding that my name be removed from the so-called Rooney Rule. He was integral in establishing the rule seven years ago in the spirit of diversity, to provide legitimate NFL opportunities for minority candidates who deserved to be considered for head-coaching and executive positions. It was named for Rooney, one of the league's smartest and most progressive men, because he was offering chances to minorities with the Pittsburgh Steelers back when other owners still were employing good-old-boy practices.

But something very wrong and troubling has happened of late. The Rooney Rule has been twisted into a hokey euphemism for the token interview, a sign that those same good-old-boys are alive and not well. I'm not saying that Leslie Frazier (pictured), defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, is more worthy of the Seattle Seahaws' coaching position than Pete Carroll, who twice has been an NFL head coach and is coming off a rousingly successful reign at USC. Nor am I saying that Jerry Gray, an assistant coach with the Washington Redskins, should have been offered the head-coaching position in D.C. over Mike Shanahan, a two-time Super Bowl champion who might make the Hall of Fame if he revives a dog franchise.

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Integrity vs. Tanking? NFL Has a Problem

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-05T21:30:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

This is not what we prosecutors want right now, more ammunition for the defense. When NFL receiving leader Wes Welker blew out two knee ligaments Sunday, after the New England Patriots had clinched a first-round home playoff game and had little else to play for, it gave two maligned men in Indianapolis the escape hatch they desperately needed.

Kiss, Jim Caldwell said. My butt, Bill Polian said. Resting your best players late in the regular season is more important than momentum, confidence, even the potential for a 19-0 season unprecedented in league history. They haven't come out and said so in emphatic terms, but they don't have to. Their smugness today is larger than Lucas Oil Stadium, the only sports structure I know that is more immense than the rest of a city's downtown area.

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Let's Hear It for Rex in the City

Jay Mariotti — 2010-01-04T00:32:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- In the frozen, tailgating-trashed parking lots outside Giants Stadium, the drinkers and stoners renamed the place. "FINAL GAME AT JETS STADIUM,'' read their T-shirts, worn by folks who have felt like second-class bums for 26 years in the structure named for New York's blueblood NFL team. Other than the Los Angeles Clippers, no franchise in sports has dealt with a civic inferiority complex quite like the Jets, who are to the Giants what a street vendor is to a Fifth Avenue jeweler and whose crazier fans have passed time with stunts such as encouraging women to bare their breasts, which some actually do.

But on Sunday night, Gang Green won its revenge. While the Giants crashed in one of their worst finishing stretches ever, the Jets closed down their Meadowlands co-share by clinching their first postseason berth since 2006. Wisely, the team decided not to sell beer at stadium concession stands, citing the late start and unique circumstances. "We feel it is not prudent to serve alcohol,'' a team spokesman said. There is no critical need for beer or breast-flashing, of course, when the fans have an entertaining coach, a monster defense, a power running game, a rookie quarterback who has learned to stay out of the way and a former quarterback who's a serious weapon in the Wildcat offense.

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Reality of Colts' Choke: 19-0 a Pipedream

Jay Mariotti — 2009-12-28T21:49:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

Isn't it why we live and dream, to reach plateaus no other man has conquered? When we can fly to the moon, why settle for a mountainside? When we can crash the sound barrier, why drive the speed limit? I can continue on this train of thought all day, and my guess is that Peyton Manning and his teammates, at least privately, would join the chorus.

There were the Colts, from the smallish and generally irrelevant town of Indianapolis, positioned to win for the 15th time without a loss this season. Leave Manning in the game, armed with a five-point lead with five minutes left in the third quarter, and he surely wins. Then they'd have won in Buffalo, making them the second 16-0 team ever and building momentum that would elevate them as the centerpiece story of the NFL postseason. Win two AFC playoff games, and the Colts are in the Super Bowl.

Win the big one, and they're immortals, the first 19-0 team in the history of America's most popular and prosperous sports league.

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Decade of Deceit, Lies & Scandal Can't End Soon Enough

Jay Mariotti — 2009-12-24T12:06:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL, MLB, Golf

What a piece of (expletive) he is, (expletive) fag."
Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, about me, June 21, 2006

And so ends the decade of the wackos, the frauds, the juicers, the dog-murderers, the bimbo-nizers, all the salacious scandals that surrounded sports like flies on you-know-what. By my estimation, six of the top 12 athletes over the last 10 years have been immersed in improprieties that marred their legacies and, worse, significantly diluted our trust in the industry. Normally, .500 is a decent percentage.

In the oughts, it was an indictment of deceit and sleaze.

Allow me to mention immediately in this column what I did love about the decade: Peyton Manning, Albert Pujols, Tom Brady with a minute left, the new Yankee Stadium, whatever they're calling the San Francisco park now, Federer vs. Nadal, outdoor hockey, Bob Costas, Tim Tebow, Vince Young in the Rose Bowl, Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, the Music City Miracle, the Jimmie Johnson whose hair moves, SportsCenter commercials, Boise State beating Oklahoma and the star running back proposing to the cheerleader, George Mason, LeBron James, Syracuse vs. Connecticut in six overtimes, Sarah Hughes, Tim Duncan, Michael Phelps going 8-for-8 in the pool, Tiger Woods playing on one leg for 90 holes, the champ-to-mom-to-champ journey of Kim Clijsters and Usain Bolt lighting up the Beijing tedium. Because what we experienced, generally, were events and episodes that either turned our stomachs or awakened us to a new reality that everyone in sports is guilty until proven innocent.

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Disgraces to Chicago: Bears and Bulls

Jay Mariotti — 2009-12-23T00:45:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL, NBA

CHICAGO -- The bar is called Bull & Bear. It's a sports hangout on Wells Street, hard by the rumbling and annoyingly archaic 'L' tracks, and the name pays a double tribute to traders in the financial district and what once were the city's two proudest sports teams. It would be a natural place for a Bears communal on a Sunday afternoon and a Bulls party on any winter's night.

If only the locals cared to watch, that is.

In a town that has depended on football and basketball to unite the fans after two blood-dueling baseball teams divide them every summer, the Bears and Bulls have become sources of embarrassment and pain. They are woefully removed from glory days in which both franchises produced teams ranked among the most prestigious and entertaining in the history of sports. Remember the Jordan Era? It was wrecking-balled prematurely 11 years ago by Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who longed to create his own dynasty but only gagged away all momentum created by the greatest resource known to the NBA -- Michael Jeffrey Jordan and his six championship trophies -- while winning exactly one postseason series since. And remember the 1985 Bears? They devoured, shuffled and drank their way to one of the most dominant NFL seasons ever, a slaughter accompanied by their passion for partying, mischief and self-promotion. Chicago was blessed to have both reigns of terror and fun.

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Diva Favre Sparks Needless Controversy

Jay Mariotti — 2009-12-21T19:30:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

It doesn't take long, just a loss or two in the wintertime, for familiar doubts to form about Brett Favre. Much like the lines on his forehead and gray in his beard, the sudden troubles become more noticeable than his body of work, only feeding the fatalism that follows him. Being an ultra-sensitive, all-knowing watcher of his approval rating among media and fans, he has his antennae way up high -- too high -- in what is supposed to be the season of his renaissance and potential Super Bowl triumph, which would be an eternal story.

Which surely is why he overreacted like an infant when his coach, Brad Childress, wanted to remove him from a personal pummeling Sunday night in Charlotte. It's Childress' job to keep Favre healthy for the postseason and not subject him to needless punishment against the unrelenting pass rush of Julius Peppers, particularly when Favre's demise last December with the Jets involved his foolish decision to play with a torn biceps tendon in his right shoulder. When he wasn't being sacked by Peppers and other Carolina defenders, he was knocked down 10 times on an evening when the Minnesota offensive line looked like putty and left tackle Bryant McKinnie was benched.

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Who Should We Trust in Wobbling NFC?

Jay Mariotti — 2009-12-20T23:59:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

Editor's Note: This column has been updated from its original version.

In this year of the fraud, from Tiger to A-Rod to Balloon Boy, we now confront the question of which football team is the bigger tease: the Saints or Cowboys. It's entirely possible both will crash in the postseason, which should confirm a once-common sentiment that the Vikings are the NFC's most complete team given their playmakers on offense, difference-makers on defense and the fact Brett Favre's arm hasn't fallen off as his gray beard reveals flecks of -- would you believe? -- white.

But then, just as we started to envision the world's first All-Apolis Super Bowl, Minnesota laid its own rotten egg Sunday night against Carolina. It was the second time in three games that the Vikings looked like wannabes. They couldn't run the ball with Adrian Peterson, couldn't stop the run, fell flat in the fourth quarter and let Matt Moore -- Matt Moore? -- find the forgotten Steve Smith enough to hand Minnesota its third loss. As for Favre, he was tortured the entire game by Julius Peppers and last was seen winging an interception in the end zone, as he did so often last winter in his Meadowlands meltdown with the Jets.

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Caldwell's Gamble Dumb, but Peyton Saves Him

Jay Mariotti — 2009-12-18T01:38:00 00:00

by Jay Mariotti

Filed under: NFL

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- What they cannot do is deprive Peyton Manning. For all the debating and pontificating about resting players, prioritizing the playoffs over perfection and shunning history for supposed common-sense thinking, the overriding goal for the Indianapolis Colts should be allowing Manning to set himself apart from every other quarterback who has played the game.

The best way? Let him attempt to lead the NFL's first dance with 19-0 perfection. Thursday night, in a dizzying game of nine lead changes and compelling drama that drip-dropped to the final seconds, it was Manning who wouldn't be denied when so much around him was swirling wildly. The Colts almost gambled their way to their first defeat, with coach Jim Caldwell choosing to use his ferocious defensive ends -- Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, they of the combined 21 sacks -- primarily on third down and selected second-and-long plays. As they stood on the sideline in their clean white uniforms, their defensive colleagues let the Jaguars push them around the field. They couldn't stop David Garrard, who threw three touchdown passes and repeatedly led lengthy scoring drives. They couldn't stop Maurice Jones-Drew, who ran for 110 yards. They couldn't stop receivers Torry Holt, Mike Thomas and Mike Sims-Walker -- seems the Jags lead the NFL in hyphenated names -- and tight end Marcedes Lewis. Through three quarters, Jacksonville had 31 points.

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