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Wild cards, All-Pros and more
Posted: Monday January 04, 1999 12:41 PM
King's All-Pro team | This Week's Awards | Ten Things I Think I Think | Top 10 Teams Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag.
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- MIAMI -- JACKSONVILLE --Strange weekend. It started with the weirdest weather thing I've ever seen, in the Buffalo suburbs on New Year's Eve. Ever hear of a lake effect storm? A band of snow squalls about five miles by 10 miles stalls slightly inland from Lake Erie. It doesn't snow in downtown Buffalo, 10 miles due northeast. It dumps 24 inches in five hours on Orchard Park. I abandon my rental car in the Bills' parking lot. I four-wheel-drive with Buffalo PR man Scott Berchtold to the airport. I am in 67-degree Fort Lauderdale in time to drive to the hotel for New Year's. New Year's Day. Interviews at the Dolphins. It's 81 degrees. I watch bowl games. Lots of them. I talk with coaches who want vacant jobs. Lots of them. Saturday, a 20 percent chance of showers. Five minutes before we hit the air on CNN for the pregame football show, I feel a few drops. Within 30 seconds, there's a deluge. I have no umbrella. I go on national TV looking like a wet dog. I think, gee, people must really place a lot of faith in what a guy who looks like a wet dog says. I can't believe how excitedly nuts Jimmy Johnson goes after the win. Sunday. Yesterday was scintillating. Today's a nap. I wonder if the Patriots are ever going to score a point again. Walked off the field with Patriots all-pro corner Ty Law after the game. Good guy. Worthy of all the credit he's getting, and surely the best corner in the league this year, but he got beat on this day on a Mark Brunell-to-Jimmy Smith TD bomb. "My fault, Peter," he told me. "Never should have let him get behind me." More points for Law, admitting when he blew it. Hustled to the airport to make a delayed flight home to New Jersey. Watched the last eight minutes of the Niners' classic win over Green Bay with Phil Simms , my planemate to Newark. What a game, two old heavyweights trading haymakers. Pack scores to go up 27-23 with 1:56 to go. I say to Simms: "They scored too soon." 49ers drive. I say to Simms: "Bet you wish you were one of the quarterbacks in a game like this." He says: "Nah. Got that all out of my system. I just love watching 'em." Simms says he hates to say the word great. Thinks it's the most overused word he knows. But he uses it to describe both quarterbacks while watching Young drive. Young makes the pass to Terrell Owens heard 'round the world, and 30 or so fans are waiting by the airplane gate in Jacksonville watching on the CNN Airport Network (don't mind my shameless plug). We erupt when Owens holds onto the ball. "I wonder," I say to the guy on the other side of me, "if that's one of the best games of all time." Monday. So you don't think this column a total loss, here's my ballot for the Associated Press All-Pro team: THE OFFENSE Wide receivers: Randy Moss, Minnesota, and Ed McCaffrey, Denver. Two huge impact players, even McCaffrey, the skinny Giants reject. I like what Mike Brown , the Cincinnati owner who cut his pro teeth around the dynastic old Browns, told me the other day about Moss: "Moss is the Jim Brown of his generation. He is astounding." Tight end: Frank Wycheck, Tennessee. More catches than Shannon Sharpe. Better blocker than Sharpe, too. Offensive line: tackles Tony Boselli, Jacksonville, and Larry Allen, Dallas; guards Pete Kendall, Seattle, and Kevin Donnalley, Miami; center Jeff Christy, Minnesota. Finally the stranglehold of Dermontti Dawson is broken on the center position, and not because he had a bad year. Christy's a leader. He's tough. He's the glue that holds a great line together. And a pro scout who I hold in great esteem told me last week when I asked which Vikings lineman had the best year told me: "Christy. Not even close.'' Quarterback: Randall Cunningham, Minnesota. Of all the great feel-good stories of the NFL year, this is numero uno. That's saying something, when the Magic Flutie is out there. Backfield: tailback Marshall Faulk, Indianapolis, and fullback Sam Gash, Buffalo. The AP team listed two running backs (Terrell Davis and Jamal Anderson) and one fullback (Mike Alstott), and I protested this formation. What team ever plays two running backs at once, except for some freaky play or formation? I pick Faulk over Terrell Davis and Jamal Anderson risking the wrath of a loyal and smart webdom because of a very simple reason: Football is a complex game where versatility is as important as explosiveness, and Faulk (2,227 combined yards behind a mediocre offensive line) had the best year of any running back in the game. Gash? He seeks and destroys. THE DEFENSE Line: ends Joe Johnson, New Orleans, and Michael Strahan, Giants; tackles La'Roi Glover, New Orleans, and Chad Eaton, New England. Strahan is the state-of-the-art defensive end in the game today, a great edge pass-rusher (ask John Elway, who looked old running from him) and great run-stuffer. The Saints guys are terrific unknown players, and I thought Eaton was as dominant a defensive player as I saw the whole year in a couple of late-season games, against Pittsburgh especially. Linebackers: outside guys Dwayne Rudd, Minnesota, and Bill Romanowski, Denver; inside guys Levon Kirkland, Pittsburgh, and Ray Lewis, Baltimore. I don't know that I've seen a better sideline-to-sideline player than Rudd in years. Even though he overruns plays sometimes, he makes up for it with his unabashed spirit and a pit bull's speed and mentality. This was Romanowski's best year, though he tailed off in December. He was the best defensive player in the game for the first two months of the season. Kirkland's a Mack truck, Lewis a playmaker's playmaker. Defensive backs: cornerbacks Ty Law, New England, and Sam Madison, Miami; safeties LeRoy Butler, Green Bay, and Victor Green, Jets. Buddies in the business tell me I can't leave Deion off. I say you can, because if Ken Griffey Jr. missed 60 games, would he be your post-season all-star centerfielder over a more productive and healthier Bernie Williams , who played 55 games more? How about some fame for Green, by the way? Watch him in the playoffs and tell me he's not a great all-around player. SPECIALISTS Feet: kicker Gary Anderson, Minnesota, and punter Mitch Berger, Minnesota. You can't not vote for the first kicker ever to make every kick (35 field goals, 59 extra points), and you can't not vote for an above-average punter who doubles as the deadliest kickoff man in the game. Legs: returner Jermaine Lewis, Baltimore. Has lightning bolts in his legs. That's what I figure after watching him go nuts all season on kickoffs. (I favor a kick returner and punt returner, but AP has but one.) I would also favor naming a holder (Berger) , snapper (Mike Morris, Minnesota) and special-teams player (Mark Pike, Buffalo , who just finished his 13th season as a special-teamer and led his team in special-teams tackles with 28). AWARDS MVP: Terrell Davis, Denver. When you vote for a most valuable player, it's different than voting for a player of the year. My main criterion is this: Which player meant the most to a good team? If you took this player away from his team, would his team suffer irreparable harm? I can't vote for players who are actually taken away from a team because the award says most valuable player. This means Deion Sanders, who missed parts or all of six games, can't win. To me, the engine propelling the Broncos to 13-0 was Davis, who every week was dominant enough to overcome all the injury uncertainty at quarterback, even when every defensive eye was on him. Coach: (Tie) Dan Reeves, Atlanta, and Dennis Green, Minnesota. Toughest pick on the whole team. I can't distinguish between a guy who leads a moribund franchise to a 20-4 record over the past 14 months (Reeves) and a guy who almost quit or got fired and then went 15-1 (Green). Can you? There is no executive of the year award on the ballot, but my vote goes to Minnesota's Jeff Diamond. Do you know what it takes to keep stars together on a starry team? Diamond hasn't lost one yet among Randall Cunningham, Todd Steussie, Korey Stringer, Randall McDaniel, John Randle, Robert Smith, Jake Reed and Cris Carter. Offensive Player of the Year: Faulk. Defensive Player of the Year: Rudd. Offensive Rookie of the Year: Moss. Defensive Rookie of the Year: Vonnie Holliday, Green Bay. Down linemen don't grow on trees. Great pick, Ron Wolf . Comeback Player of the Year: Doug Flutie, Buffalo. I laughed the other day when he told me he's not vindictive about all the people who said he couldn't do it. Come on, Doug. You pluck motivation from every branch of the football tree. One more Flutie thing: He's the comeback player of the decade. There is no all-encompassing czar of the year , but that goes to Bill Parcells . I now give Parcells the three-word compliment that has always been his highest blessing of someone he admires: He's pretty good. Offensive Player of the Week: You mean I can't pick Ron Dayne? Then it's Buffalo WR Eric Moulds , who set an NFL playoff record with 240 receiving yards on nine catches. He set a torch to cornerback Terrell Buckley and nickel back Jerry Wilson, starting with a 65-yard catch on the first play of the game. But that 65-yarder, which ended when Buckley caught up to him and punched the ball free, "will stick with me a long time," he said. "We made too many mistakes." Defensive Player of the Week: Jacksonville LB Kevin Hardy. Sorry, Jamir Miller. You were wonderful for the Cards in Dallas Saturday. But was Hardy shot out of a cannon Sunday or what? In Jacksonville's 25-10 win over New England, he had eight tackles and was the best defensive player on the field, and I'm forced to ask this question: What scheme is there that would have a player this good get just 1.5 sacks in a year? Feature him, Jags. Special-Teams Player of the Week: Jacksonville kicker Mike Hollis. He almost booted holder Bryan Barker's hands through the uprights on a 33-yard fourth-quarter field goal, but he concentrated on a bad snap (his second bad snap of the day, in fact) to boot it through. Half a season ago the Jaguars were worried about Hollis' inconsistency. No more. Coach of the Week: Arizona's Vince Tobin. As much as I've questioned some of his strategems over the year, you've got to hand it to a guy who had his team so ready to play -- and dominate -- the Cowboys in a playoff game on the road Saturday. And now for the 10 Things I Think I Think, Including Some College Things: 1. I think I have never been as shocked in my life as I was when, during the bowl games Friday, I saw Bill Parcells singing Kumbaya on a Tostitos commercial. 2. I think it's a bad year to be Fred Taylor, if you're following the rookie of the year awards. Moss may be the best rookie of his time. Peyton Manning is the best rookie quarterback of all time. Taylor is one of the best rookie runners to come along in years, but the transcendent nature of the other two guys makes him no higher than third on my rookie list. 3. I think, in the immortal words of Chuck Noll and Paul Brown , I'd start making plans for my life's work if I'm Scott Zolak. 4. I think the best free-agent quarterback by far this offseason will be Trent Green of Washington. If you need a quarterback, I think you'll have to pay Green $4 million a year, or trade first- and third-round draft choices to pry Brad Johnson from Minnesota. 5. I think every running back on Wisconsin must weigh at least 290 pounds. 6. I think if Ron Dayne changes his mind about staying in school for one more season, some NFL team would be happy to draft him in the top 15 and make him a millionaire. 7. I think anyone who saw Cade McNown do an Elway and pirouette through the air for a first down in the Rose Bowl on one play (landing on his throwing shoulder) and fling a 43-yard completion on the next play . . . well, anyone who saw this and doesn't think he ought to be a first-round draft choice isn't watching the same game as I am. 8. I think Jim Haslett would love a shot at the Seahawks job. He'll be in Seattle this week -- assuming Mike Holmgren doesn't beat him to the job in the next couple of days -- then in Baltimore late in the week. I look for him to have his best chance in Philadelphia, where the job is his if he wants it. 9. I think Drew Bledsoe wouldn't mind if former mentor and current Jacksonville offensive coordinator Chris Palmer were his head coach next year. 10. I think sometimes Jerry Jones must sit back and wonder what if ... What if I kept Jimmy Smith in 1994 and drafted Randy Moss in the first round of the 1998 draft? What if I had Michael Irvin, Moss and Smith? Would we have gotten embarrassed Saturday against Arizona with those three guys taking pressure off Troy Aikman? 1. Minnesota Vikings (15-1) 2. Denver Broncos (13-3) 3. Atlanta Falcons (14-2) 4. New York Jets (12-4) 5. Jacksonville Jaguars (12-5) 6. San Francisco 49ers (12-5) 7. Green Bay Packers (11-6) 8. Miami Dolphins (11-6) 9. Buffalo Bills (10-7) 10. Arizona Cardinals (10-7) Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag.
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