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Pastimes : Football Forum (NFL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: blankmind who wrote (2510)	9/20/1999 12:25:00 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 45639

Viewpoints: A daring call by Seifert Tom Sorensen - Knight Ridder Newspapers Monday, September 20, 1999 Charlotte -- There's 1:55 remaining, the Jacksonville Jaguars have the ball on the Carolina Panthers 44, and the Panthers have only two timeouts. If the Jaguars, who lead 15-14, pick up a single first down, time expires. If they hand the ball off three times, and quarterback Mark Brunell drops to one knee, time will come close to expiring. If they have to punt, the Panthers get terrible field position and almost no time. The Panthers have to get the ball back. How? By making the most daring call in franchise history. It is more daring than their other daring call. Brunell hands the ball to running back James Stewart, Stewart predictably runs up the middle and nobody is there to greet him. The Panthers come wide with a seven-man blitz. Yes, you've seen this defense before. It looks like the one the Panthers used Oct. 4, 1998, when the Falcons scorched them for 51 points. As defenders fling themselves at the outside, Stewart runs through a hole the size of Nate Newton for a 44-yard touchdown. Only one Panthers defender gets close enough to Stewart to tell him to hurry. Not only is Carolina's call daring, it's effective. The run takes only seven seconds, and the extra point pushes Jacksonville's lead only to 22-14. Now the Panthers have the ball and 1:48 with which to score the touchdown and 2-point conversion that will send the game to overtime. The Panthers get the touchdown, but the conversion fails, and Jacksonville wins 22-20. Because the Panthers at least put themselves in position to win, the strategy was brilliant. Jacksonville coach Tom Coughlin begs to differ. Coughlin bristles when asked if the Panthers allowed his man to score. But Coughlin would bristle if you asked him to show you pictures of his kids. The Panthers also contend they didn't get out of Stewart's way. ''No, that happened on its own,'' safety Mike Minter said. ''We were in an all-out blitz. Either we were going to get him or he was going to score a touchdown.'' So coach George Seifert didn't tell you to get out of the way? ''He never comes and talks to us,'' Minter said. Did you realize the significance of Stewart's touchdown? One senses he did. ''We gave the offense a chance to go down and score, get a two-point conversion and tie the game up and go into overtime,'' Minter said. By now, he is trying to suppress a smile. He's failing. But he suppresses his longer than defensive end Ernest Jones does. ''No, no, no,'' Jones said when asked if the defense allowed Stewart to score. ''I was crushed.'' For the record, he is smiling broader than any crushed man I have ever seen. Allowing an opponent to score is not new to Charlotte, of course. Fans of the Panthers witnessed the ploy almost nightly back in the team's Motion Offense Era. The coaching staff of the Panthers denied they purposely allowed opponents to score. Will Seifert? ''In that situation, everybody looked around and said, 'That's probably the best thing that could have happened to us,' '' Seifert says of the touchdown. So you did let Stewart score? ''I didn't say we let him,'' Seifert said. Allow fans to believe you did. They need a reason to get excited, a reason to believe these Panthers are different than the Panthers of the past. I promise you, Coach, nobody has ever called the Panthers daring before.

To: blankmind who wrote (2510)	9/22/1999 1:02:00 PM
From: Thomas M.	Respond to of 45639

It looks like the NFC has gotten very interesting. The Niners and Falcons have now both lost their starting RB for the year. It should be interesting between ATL, SF, and NO. I heard someone saying that the Falcons played in a weak division last year, which is just plain ridiculous. Comparing to the NFC Central: ATL and Min were about equal, SF was a tad better than GB, NO was a tad better than TB, etc. I won't even bring up the NFC East, to save them some embarassment. The West was the best division in the NFC last year, and it's darn tough again. Tom