Week one: Panthers stun Bolts

I don't usually write much about football on these pages, but it's something to keep us occupied until the beginning of October.

Yes, I'm aware that my headline looks like a hockey game synopsis. Naturally, I did that on purpose. However, the game I'm talking about was between the NFL's Carolina Panthers and the San Diego Chargers. After leading 19-10 in the fourth quarter, Carolina fell behind 24-19 late in the game, only to win the game in dramatic fashion.

Week one of the NFL is when I'm pretty excited about football. Oh sure, like football, but by week eight, I've lost my interest. The beginning of football season signals the beginning of cooler nights and shorter days. More importantly, it means that hockey season is just around the corner.

Being a native North Carolinian, It's natural that the Carolina Panthers are my team. With a bionically rebuilt quarterback, a tandem running back situation, and a wide receiving corps made up of little-used depth guys and the ageless Muhsin Muhammad while Steve Smith rides the pine, the Panthers were hoping to run the ball a lot, chew up the clock, and depend on the defense to keep them in the game.

As it turned out, the defense did more than keep them in the game. Carolina's defense held Ladianian Tomlinson to less than 100 yards on the ground. They scored a defensive touchdown. They held the fort at some critical times.

Carolina's offense looked good early, but they were all Maxim Afinogenov-like. All Russian, no Finnish. They moved the ball down the field, but were stopped inside the one once, and settled for three first-half field goals.

Carolina added another field goal in the second half, plus a defensive touchdown, and found themselves in the driver's seat with about seven minutes to go. However, the defense gave up a touchdown, then the offense turned the ball over, leading to another touchdown just before the two minute warning.

Jake Delhomme, fresh off a Tommy John surgery, and playing without his favorite target, had to march down the field and get a touchdown. That's exactly what he did. Muhammad made some key catches. Dwayne Jarret made some key catches. The biggest of them all, though, was tight end Dante Rosario, who led all Panthers with 97 receiving yards on seven grabs.

The play straight out of a storybook. Carolina called its last timeout with 0:02 remaining and the ball on the Chargers' 14 yard-line. There are no running plays for this scenario. From the shotgun, Jake bobbled the snap, bought some time, then made a pump fake so convincing that the camera guys bought it. He sent a pass through two defenders to Rosario in the back of the endzone for the dramatic 25-24 win. The San Diego crowd fell deadly silent.

This is not how this was supposed to happen. I don't think anyone in their right mind would have predicted a Carolina win.

That game-winning drive was vintage Jake. If there were any doubts about his rebuilt shoulder, let them be cast aside. He's back. The way he led the team down the field and capped it off with a walk-off touchdown reminded me of 2003, when he stole the starting job from Rodney Peete and halftime of week one. That game ended the same way.

Rookie runningback Jonathan Stewart had a great game, as did the other half of the two-headed monster, DeAngelo Williams.

Smitty will be out for one more week, then it'll be just like 2003. Delhomme, Muhammad, Smith.

Once hockey season starts, you won't hear me go on about football anymore. Until then, I'll be doing this every Sunday.

Pro football pick'em now open

Just for fun, I've just opened up a NFL football pick'em league. Please feel free to sign up and invite whomever you want. Like the fantasy hockey, this is over on Yahoo, and is completely free.

Go to this site, then click on "join a group". At the prompts, enter:
group id#: 67093
password: pickem

All you have to do is simply predict the winners of each game. No point spreads. No over/under. Simply pick who will win, then predict a couple of scoring scenarios for tiebreaking purposes.

Since there was a game on Thursday, week one is already in progress, and we are locked out. Our group's competition will start in week 2. Hurry on in. Tell your friends and family. Up to 50 people can join the group!

Summer doldrums continue

This summer has been magnificently boring. The Olympics broke the monotony a little bit, but the stuff I'm interested in is over, so now I'm just counting down the days to when training camp starts, to when the preseason games start, to when the third sweater will be released, and finally to when the regular season begins.

There hasn't been very much action at all. Some bloggers have been writing "five things I would change about the NHL" or "100 things about me" posts, just so they could have SOMEthing to write about. I've been thinking about writing a "one thing about me" post, or maybe some posts about music. I'll get to those later. Or not.

I've been keeping half of one eye on the Kings this summer. They're well below the salary cap floor and there have been a number of rumors about how they're going to remedy that. I'm completely puzzled by the fact that they haven't re-signed the youngster Patrick O'Sullivan, who was one of their best players last year with 53 (22/31) points last year. They've already let Mike Cammalleri go, they're overstocked with inexperienced goalies, dreadfully thin on defense, and as September looms, they're still not doing anything about it.

The most puzzling of all that is the O'Sullivan situation. I haven't heard a word about contract negotiations, and I've heard his name mentioned in a couple of trade rumors, but I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw "O'Sullivan wins 49'ers QB starting job" on my Yahoo NFL news. I thought "Wow, that's certainly a surprise", but then I quickly realized that they weren't talking about Patrick O'Sullivan. As it turns out, it's J.T. O'Sullivan, who has never started an NFL game in his six year career.

This is what happens when you're desperate for some hockey news. You misinterpret things. One time, my friend Patrick saw "Shockey", as in Jeremy Shockey, NFL tight end, come across the ESPN crawl. Without pausing to think about it, he said "What the heck is ess hockey?"

Carolina Panthers sign Vinny Testaverde

Off topic -- NFL football.

On Wednesday, the NFL Carolina Panthers continued a long and frustrating tradition of signing 40-year old quarterbacks.

With Jake Delhomme out for the season with a bum elbow and David "Mickey Mouse" Carr nursing a sore back, that left Matt Moore as the only healthy quarterback heading into week six. As a security measure, the Panthers went out and found 44-year old Vinny Testaverde. I guess Bart Starr was unavailable.
Carr thinks he can start on Sunday, but even if he does, you still need some contingency plan.

First it was old man Frank Reich, who was 34 years old when he took the starting quarterback job. Then there's that Kerry Collins fiasco. Then there was old man Steve Beuerlein, who was 32, then there was the 29-year old "rookie" Chris Weinke. Then the 35-year old Rodney Peete. Then Delhomme, then Carr. What do all of these have in common? Except for Weinke, they're all "old", and they're all journeymen. Castoffs.

In keeping with tradition, the Panthers have a 44-year old castoff journeyman who just might become the starting quarterback.

According to the linked article in the Observer, Testaverde is two years younger than David Carr's father.
I guess "Mickey Mouse" is off the hook now. He'll no longer be the butt of all the locker room jokes.