The Student of the GameGoing Beyond the Stats

The atmosphere was one of the most paradoxical one could imagine with stories intensifying the match-up of the first 2009 sell-out of Jacksonville’s All-Tell Stadium between the Indianapolis Colts and the hosting Jaguars. The Jags fighting against the ‘Collapse of the Cats’ as conjectured by critics killing them in the media by constantly clamoring over close calls against crappy competitors combined with the concept of clashing against the cunning Colts who are competing to cultivate their calamity-free season.

The chefs for the feast of retribution would be the players who set up their team to use this Thanksgiving Thursday night game to get their respective teams back in the race for the lead in their particular divisions. The New York Giants having bounced a struggling Atlanta Falcons team in overtime last week after losing 4 straight and the Denver Broncos losing their last four with the latest being a beat down by their AFC West rival San Diego Chargers; both teams were desperate for a springboard to get back into the playoff battle.

QB Ben Roethlisberger, SS Troy Polamalu, newly acquired CB Ty Law, and CB Champ Bailey . . . all big names that would have been prewritten into the opening paragraphs of writers all over the country, but it’s a man who wasn’t talked about leading up to this game, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ FS Tyrone Carter, that had the big numbers in silencing the Denver Broncos in the biggest match-up for Week 9, 28-10.

While it will not necessarily apply to all those who gaze upon this particular article, the public will be fed and mezmorized by the elements of the story pertaining to former Packer QB Brett Favre playing against his former team at the Metrodome in a Minnestoa Viking uniform for the first time in his last NFL game before he turns 40 years old and think that he was the hero of the game in the Vikings 30-23 division victory putting them at 4-0. But Favre himself was forced to show appreciation to the man who was the real factor, “[DE]Jared Allen is a beast . . . I’m glad we have ‘em”.