Jaguars’ season is clearly on the line in Indianapolis

The return of Leonard Fournette from his ailing hamstring is the big storyline for the Jacksonville Jaguars in Sunday’s game at Indianapolis.

The Jaguars are hoping that they will be able to return to their power running game with him in the lineup.

One factor, though, has been overlooked.

Is Fournette really a key to the game?

Last year, he didn’t play in the first game and Blake Bortles threw for 330 yards and a touchdown while T.J. Yeldon ran for 122 yards on nine carries. The Jaguars scored 14 points in the first quarter and won 27-0.

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A quick look back at NFL Week 9

Five quick takes on Week 9 in the NFL:

1. The Los Angeles Rams became the last unbeaten team to fall when they lost to the New Orleans Saints, 45-35, and now the Saints have the tiebreaker edge on them if they tie for the best record in the NFL. The game also featured the second puzzling call by Rams coach Sean McVay in as many weeks. A week ago, he got away with taking the field goal for a two-point lead and giving Aaron Rodgers the ball with two minutes left to drive for the game-winning field goal. McVay got away with that when Ty Montgomery took the ensuing kickoff out of the end zone and fumbled. Against the Saints, McVay went for a fake field goal with the game tied 14-14 and didn’t make it, although the officials appeared to have blown the call. Still, it will be interesting to watch McVay’s decisions in the playoffs.

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A quick look ahead to NFL Week 9

Five quick takes on Week 9 in the NFL:

1. The first week in November is usually one of the highlights of the season. The World Series is over and the holidays are still a few weeks away. The season is half over and the NFL tries to stage some of its best games to kickoff the second half of the season. And Sunday night, it has its best attraction of the season– the New England Patriots vs. the Green Bay Packers. Tom Brady vs. Aaron Rodgers. For star power, it doesn’t get better than that. And they’ve only met once in their careers (at Lambeau Field, when Rodgers won), and unless they play in a Super Bowl, they won’t meet again for four years if they are both still playing then. Since neither quarterback has a great supporting cast, this could come down to which one plays better and which one has the ball last.

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Despite the plaudits, McVay’s end-of-game strategy needs work

Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay is the flavor of the year in the NFL.

The second-year coach has the Rams unbeaten at the midway point of his second season after they went 4-12 in 2016 and Jeff Fisher was fired with three games left.

McVay revitalized the offense in his 2017 debut, turned the team around and they went 11-5 before losing a first-round playoff game to Atlanta.

This year they are the league’s only unbeaten team at the halfway point at 8-0 with two big games coming up against the New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs sandwiched around a division game against Seattle.

McVay is the prototype of the bright young innovative offensive coach that teams are looking for in this era. And he has a knack of remembering every play in every game.

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Will the Buccaneers ever find a franchise quarterback?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers starting playing in 1976 and have been in a futile search for a franchise quarterback ever since.

They made Doug Williams and Vinny Testaverde the first pick in their respective drafts, and neither won a Super Bowl for them. Williams left in a contract dispute and won a Super Bowl in Washington.

They got rid of Steve Young to make room for Testaverde, and Young won a Super Bowl in San Francisco.

They drafted Trent Dilfer in the first round and got rid of him, and he won a Super Bowl in Baltimore although the defense carried him and he was dumped at the end of the year.

So the Bucs have had three quarterbacks who won Super Bowls after they’ve left.

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Peterson’s long TD run put him in select company

Washington Redskins running back Adrian Peterson is now one degree of separation from Jim Thorpe and two from Pop Warner and Dwight Eisenhower.

When Peterson ran 64 yards for a touchdown Sunday against the New York Giants at age 33, he became the second-oldest player to run for a touchdown of 60 or more yards.

The last time a player at that age did that was in 1921, when Thorpe – yes, that Jim Thorpe – ran for an 80-yard touchdown at age 34 for the Cleveland Indians against the Columbus Panhandles.

He played for Warner – yes that Pop Warner – at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pa., and is in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Carlisle beat an Army team 27-6 in 1912 that had a cadet named Dwight Eisenhower, who said in 1961 when he was president of Thorpe, “He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw.’’

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A quick look back at NFL Week 8

Looking back on Week 8 in the NFL:

The Los Angeles Rams played what amounted to a road game at home as the Green BaY Packers fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum made it seem like a Packers home game. But the Rams showed they don’t need a home field edge as they edged the Packers, 29-27, to finish the first half of the season with a perfect 8-0 mark. The Rams find out in the next three weeks if they have a serious shot at 16-0 when they go to New Orleans and play the Kansas City Chiefs in Mexico City sandwiched around a game against Seattle. The Rams needed the help of a bonehead decision by Ty Montgomery to ice the game. He took the kickoff out of the end zone after the Rams took a two-point lead. He fumbled, the Rams recovered and Aaron Rodgers didn’t get a chance to drive the team for a game-winning field goal. The Packers then traded Montgomery to the Baltimore Ravens on Tuesday.

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Five quick takes on NFL Week 8

Looking ahead to Week 8 in the NFL:

1. The Los Angeles Rams, the NFL’s only unbeaten team, can reach the halfway mark with a perfect 8-0 mark Sunday when they host the Green Bay Packers, who are struggling at 3-2-1 but are always dangerous when Aaron Rodgers is pulling the trigger. This is the start of a four game stretch that will show how good the Rams are. They play at New Orleans next week followed by a home game against Seattle and a game in Mexico City against the Chiefs before their bye.

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A quick look back at NFL Week 7

Five quick takes on Week 7 in the NFL:
1. Drew Brees continues to reach new milestones. A week after he became the all-time passing yardage leader, he became the fourth player to pass for 500 touchdowns against Baltimore.The other three are Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Tom Brady. He threw for two in a 24-23 win over the Ravens. And he kept the Saints a game behind the unbeaten Rams for the best record in the NFC.
2. The league’s overtime streak continued. Each week of the season this year, there has been an overtime game.  The Bucs beat the Browns, 26-23 in overtime as Chandler Catanazaro kicked a 59-yard field goal for the game winner. It was the longest game winning overtime field goal since overtime was instituted in 1974. If he had missed it, the Browns would have had great field position. The previous long one was 57 yards by Sebastian Janikowski of the Raiders in 2008. There would have been three overtime games if the Titans had kicked an extra point instead of going for two against the Chargers and Justin Tucker of Baltimore hadn’t missed his first extra point of his career against the Saints. Since the Titans dominated the second half, coach Mike Vrabel’s decision to go for two instead of playing for overtime was not a good move. Assuming, of course, the Titans had made the extra point.
3. Philip Rivers threw for exactly 300 yards in the Chargers‘ victory in London over the Titans. He now is the sixth player in NFL history to have at least 60 300-yard passing games. The other five are Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Dan Marino and Brett Favre.
4. After a 1-2 start, the Patriots are rolling again. The Patriots scored 38 points two weeks in a row against the Chiefs and Bears to go to 5-2 and they are virtually guaranteed a 6-2 mark at the halfway point because they play the Bills next Monday night. The Patriots seem headed towards another AFC title game, this time probably against the Chiefs. The Patriots are trying to become the first team to lose the Super Bowl and win it the next season since the 1972 perfect Dolphins.
5. The Houston Texans started out 0-3 and now have won four in a row to take over first place in the AFC South after beating Jacksonville last week. They are the first team to win four in a row after starting out 0-3 since the 2011 Chiefs. They are the sixth teams to do it.

Five things to watch out for in NFL Week 7

Five things to look for in NFL Week 7:

1. New Orleans’ Drew Brees continues to reach more milestones. After becoming the all-time leader in passing yards last week, he now needs one more touchdown pass to become the fourth quarterback to throw 500 touchdown passes behind only Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Tom Brady. And if he beats Baltimore, Brees will join Manning and Favre as the only quarterbacks to beat the other 31 current teams.

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