All right, the first preseason game of 2008, and the Challenge is here.
So which NFL quarterback will Madden and Michaels talk the most about tonight? Peyton Manning? Jason Campbell? Jim Sorgi?
Or Brett Fucking Favre?
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After pretending to care about the QBs of the teams actually on the field tonight, NBC gets to what's most important to them; for Christ's sake they actually have a camera crew live at the Green Bay airport waiting for BFF to land. Adam Schefter, who I assume is just on loan from NFL Network, reports the Packers are now welcoming BFF back to camp and have made it an open competition for starting QB. Two thoughts: for the Packers, this is a backpedal worthy of the very best of defensive backs, and Aaron Rodgers must really be stinking up the place, huh?
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So Canton's football stadium isn't named after Farrah Fawcett, then?
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The game starts with one of the better comeuppances of recent preseasons. Tony Dungy tries the tacky game-opening onside kick, but Adam Vinatieri kicks it right to the Redskins. Khary Campbell muffs it but Chris Horton falls on it. Washington makes quick work of the shortened field. Rock Cartwright runs like he did against the Rams in '05 for 18 (Colts had only ten men on the field for the game's second play), followed by Jason Campbell's 20-yard TD pass to a wide open Antwaan Randle-El on a drag pattern. Nice throw; poor coverage; 7-0, Washington.
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DEEP kickoff isn't even returned to the 20 by TJ Rushing.
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Oh for Christ's sake, we're cutting away to BFF's plane on the tarmac now.
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Shawn Springs stuffs Joseph Addai for a 4-yard loss on the Colts' first play, but Jim Sorgi hits five of six passes to get them across midfield, with Dallas Clark converting two third downs. Redskin rookie DE then smokes rookie TE Gijon Robinson for a big sack. I HATE plays that have a TE trying to block a DE. How often does it work? Robinson bounces back to convert the drive's third 3rd down two plays later. Clark gains another first down, juking the crap out of Reed Doughty, to get the Colts near the 10. Al Michaels outspotted the cameraman there, correctly identifying Doughty as the culprit even though the blamecam was fixed on Fred Smoot. On second down from the 8, Fred Smoot nearly intercepts Sorgi on a play where Madden blames the call for a hook pattern instead of Sorgi's awful throw. Washington bats down the third down pass and force Indy to work about 14 plays and 7 minutes for just a Vinatieri chippie. 7-3, Redskins.
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Washington starts from their 20 after a touchback. Campbell hits Santana Moss a couple of times to get them quickly out to midfield. Both Colt DEs, Raheem Brock and Josh Thomas, beat their men with alarming quickness the next play and take Campbell down. Third down completion to Chris Cooley is five yard short and the Redskins punt, into the end zone.
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Quinn Gray now at QB for the Colts. The bane of Addai's FFL GMs, Kenton Keith, runs around right end for a first down. Addai actually left the game during the Colts' first drive with a reported head injury. After hitting Pierre Garcon with a bullet pass, Gray gets the Colts across midfield with a third-down scramble. 7-3, Washington, at the end of the first quarter.
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Indy gets down to the Redskin 21 before a good play by Leigh Torrence stops a short out route to Anthony Gonzalez for no gain. They go for it on 4th-and-1 with a pass, and Gray can't handle fairly mild blitzing pressure from the outside, making a wild throwaway that returns the ball to Washington. Questionable call; poor play by Gray.
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Todd Collins now QBing for the Redskins. Billy McMullen's false start is the first penalty of the game, with 11:11 left in the half. On 3rd and 4 from the Redskin 34, two Colts cross the line of scrimmage but the Redskins fail to snap the ball to catch them offsides. They get back and Collins makes a poor throw under pressure to end the short possession. Between the veteran Collins and Jason Geisinger, who appears to be a converted tackle playing backup center, you'd have thought that recognition would have been made and the Colts would have been caught offsides. They settle for a punt with nice backspin that gets downed around the Indy 7-yard-line.
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That punt, and more center shenanigans, leads to two points for Washington, as Jamey Richard flies a third-down shotgun snap well over Gray's head and through the back of the end zone. 9-3, Washington, and yes, kids, center is an important position in football.
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A good blitz pickup dooms the Redskin drive after the free kick. On second down from their 31, Jason Fabini was faked out badly by Colt DT Eric Foster. Foster was picked up nicely by RB Marcus Mason, but Fabini dived low at Foster attempting to make up for his mistake, committing a chop block in the process. If Mason hadn't been there to do his job, Fabini's low block on Foster would have been perfectly legal. After the penalty backs Washington up, Marcus Thomas makes Stephon Heyer look bad to sack Collins and end the drive. TJ Rushing brings the punt back all the way, but it's called back for a pretty blatant hold by Kelvin Hayden.
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Does the guy in the dorky powder blue tux really have to fail to carry his wife up the stairs in that Viagara commercial? HE CAN'T GET IT UP - we get it!
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Replay of BFF getting off the plane and loading his luggage into his SUV. Huh, the Green Bay QB isn't all that "green", is he.
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Colts strike back quickly after the punt. Throwing on the run, Gray hits Onrea Jones up the sideline for a 31-yard TD. Gray's scrambling ability seemed to cause some confusion in the secondary. Stuart Schwigert was late getting over, but it seems like Justin Tryon should have stayed with Jones up the field. Schwigert also had a post route by Anthony Gonzalez in the middle of the field to contend with. 10-9, Colts, just under 6:00 until halftime.
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Tryon doesn't make up for the last play with his kickoff return, which doesn't make it to the 20. The Redskins have run well all half, though, and Mason gets them most of the way to the Colt 20 in five carries or so. On 2nd-and-4 from there, though, Jeff Charleston beats Todd Wade, and Thomas embarrasses Heyer again, just tossing him to the ground, to converge on Collins for a sack/fumble that really should have been called an incomplete pass per the stupid tuck rule. At the last second, Collins made a motion to throw the ball into the ground. The stupidity of the tuck rule is that that's interpreted as a downfield throw attempt, when at the very best in this example, Collins should have been called for grounding or throwing to an illegal receiver. Shaun Suisham gags on a 39-yard kick to keep it a 10-9 game with about 0:30 left in the half.
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More trouble for Tryon as Gray moves the Colts quickly downfield again. With about 0:08 left, Gray's on the move again and hits Courtney Roby at the 5, in front of Tryon, for 35-40 yards. Considering the amount of time left, and that Indy was out of timeouts, maybe it was OK for Tryon to let Roby get in front of him. Interfering with him, though, wasn't OK, stopping the clock with :05 left. Indy cashes in on Tryon's penalty with another Vinatieri FG as we go to halftime. Colts 13, Redskins 9.
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Washington: good half for Campbell, Cartwright and Mason. Bad half for Heyer and Tryon.
Indianapolis: great half for Marcus Thomas, decent half for Sorgi and Gray. Bad half for the run defense.
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Viva preseason! After a touchback, Gray has to call a timeout on the FIRST play of the second half. This drive belongs to Michigan RB Mike Hart, who rips off runs of 12, 20 and 15 to advance Indy inside the Redskin 15. He lost his helmet on the last run and still put his head down for extra yardage and took a wallop. Smart, not so much, but you have to like the tough style he's showing. They're set back by a holding penalty on Richard, though, and settle for a 28-yard FG by Adam Crossett of Mizzou to make it 16-9.
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The Redskins bring in Colt Brennan at QB, and for his sake, I hope he's better here than he was at the Senior Bowl. He hits Billy McMullen on a long corner route that Madden is immediately ready to gush about as a "perfect pass". Um, no. McMullen had to really chop his steps and wait for it to come down. A good throw there is caught by the WR a lot closer to the sidelines. Any competent coverage at all would have broken the pass up. Probably a simple matter of Brennan putting too much air under it. But far from a perfect pass. Didn't Michaels live in Hawaii for a while? They're clearly rooting for Brennan in the NBC booth. Fred Davis has caught a couple of balls tonight, but we're not going to see either of the Redskins' second-round wideouts due to injuries. After taking a coverage sack at the Colt 22, Brennan hits Maurice Mann in the corner of the end zone with a pretty pass to tie the game at 16. All in all, a very nice drive for Brennan, though Zorn SHOULD have gone for two to eliminate the possibility of the dreaded preseason tie. 16-all with just under 6:00 left in the third.
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Colts start from their 29, and yes, that's the Hefty Lefty, Jared Lorenzen now behind center. In usual Hefty Lefty preseason fashion, he scrambles for a first down to keep the drive alive before blitzing safety Chris Horton impressively drags him down for a sack. Horton was spotting him at least 70 pounds and still got him down for a big loss. Colts punt. One thing I don't like about either of the Colt backups behind Sorgi is that when they're in doubt, they're throwing hard, without any touch. Yeah, it's worked for BFF for nearly two decades, but generally, brute force isn't the path to quality quarterbacking.
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We cut to highlights of Green Bay's night scrimmage. Madden and Michaels are basically ignoring the game right now to blather about BFF, and I'm happily ignoring them. Meanwhile, Brennan spears Jason Goode with a high pass for about 20, and I have to agree that he's looking quite good tonight. Colt DT Darrell Reid keeps the Washington drive alive at midfield with an offsides on a failed 3rd-and-2. Ouch. Zorn has Brennan throwing quite a few dinks while on the roll, and it's been quite effective. He has them inside the 30 again as we move into the 4th quarter.
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Brennan tops off another super drive - 15 plays, 88 yards - with a scrambling TD throw to Mason to put Washington up 23-16. Have to call him the story of the night, while at the same time trying to figure out if his Senior Bowl tutelage under Mike Martz helped him or hurt him. 10+ minutes left in the game.
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We're now watching Deanna Favre ignoring the Packers' scrimmage from up in a Lambeau Field luxury booth. We may yet get a report on BFF's activity in a rest room somewhere.
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We haven't had a 3-and-out yet tonight afaik. The Redskins come close to getting one here, as Tryon breaks up a 3rd-and-4 pass that was too short for the first down anyway. Looking good for Washington here, with the ball going back to Brennan with a lead and under 8:00 left.
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Um, make that somebody called Derek Devine, who I would have guessed was a porn star prior to tonight.
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Schefter interviews the completely-inactive-tonight Jason Taylor on the Washington sideline and asks him about - BFF. Somebody kill me now. Mason peels off several nice runs to get the Redskins to midfield before the Colt defense stiffens and forces a punt. Redskins ran the entire drive. 4:10 left.
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Colts are forced to go for it on 4th-and-12 deep in their own territory, and Hefty drills it to Jacob Tamme for a first down with about 2:20 left. Lorenzen hasn't been accurate with his long throws but he has done a good job buying time and making plays. Right before the 2:00 warning, Horton blitzes in again, this time on Lorenzen's blind side, and takes him down for another big sack. That forced a 4th-and-7, which became a disaster for the Colts when the Redskins blitzed again and Lorenzen hurried a pass that Matterral Richardson stepped in front of, picked off and returned 40-45 yards for a game-sealing TD. First turnover by either team. 30-16, Redskins.
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Garcon returns the next kickoff almost out to midfield; the only decent kick return of the night. Hefty dinks and dunks the Colts down to the 25, then has Courtney Roby drop a TD pass. Hart is tackled out of bounds at the 2 as the game ends. Redskins win, 30-16.
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Final thoughts, which I'll have to make quick because it's 1:30 in the freaking a.m.: It's best not to try to take too much away from this one, since it was second-stringers pretty much from the get-go. Redskin fans can feel a lot happier about their QB situation than they've probably felt most summers. Campbell looked very sharp, and Brennan has come a long way since Mobile. They have a solid #3 QB in him at the least. Heyer looks like a concern to me if they have their usual injuries at tackle, and I didn't really feel like their WRs were much of a part of the passing game. Run defense looked all right. Tryon rebounded some from early struggles. Horton has to be the defensive standout. Marcus Thomas looked very good for the Colts, and they played very few starters, so it's hard to complain much about their run defense, which left a lot of wide lanes. It's going to be hard not to root for Mike Hart, who I thought served notice tonight. I was disappointed with Hefty Lefty. Gray looks like the #3 there if not the #2.
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Oh, and for breakfast tomorrow, BFF is having Raisin Bran. With banana slices.
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Next game: more than likely the Saints-Big Dead game on ESPN Thursday night, and more than likely a much shorter rundown than this...
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