College FB '14 Dread News - Week 3

It wasn't that long ago (was it?) that a star HS wide receiver who wanted to play in college for a team in Florida instead ended up wearing the green and white of the Marshall Thundering Herd. Two years and 55 TD later (including at least 1 TD in every game he played), Randy Moss left Marshall following his sophomore season and began a career in the NFL that certainly will result in him being elected to the Hall of Fame. Some of the Marshall fans in attendance as the Herd whipped Ohio U 44-14 on Sept. 13 this year might have been thinking about Moss and thinking that history was about to repeat itself after enjoying the breakout performance by another WR who wasn't originally slated to suit up for the Herd.

Let's get one thing straight: I'm not saying that freshman WR Angelo Jean-Louis is or will ever be anywhere near as good as Moss, who arguably was the most talented WR to ever play. But after the first three games of this season, it's not that much of a reach to say he has a chance to enjoy the same team success during his stay at Marshall as Moss did.

College FB '14 Dread News - Week 2

As you may remember, the 2013 season ended with a TD catch by WR Kelvin Benjamin to give Florida State a BCS title game victory over Auburn. The same Kelvin Benjamin scored his 1st NFL TD last Sunday, helping the Carolina Panthers pick up a road victory over the offensively challenged Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On the same field 24 hours earlier Tampa Bay's offensively challenged college team - the South Florida Bulls - put on their typical display of futility, costing them their chance to get off to a 2-0 start. While pretty much ignoring the marquee matchups involving Big 10 teams Ohio State, Michigan State, and Michigan, the game I spent the most time watching last Saturday had Big 10 newbie Maryland doing almost everything possible to give away the game to South Florida - and the Bulls absolutely refusing to accept the gift. Despite turning the ball over 6 times, the Terrapins escaped with a 24-17 victory that no doubt had fans of both teams cringing throughout the afternoon.

You really wanna go there?

..... That was the question I put to my crystal ball (CB) a couple of days ago immediately after finding out who it was predicting to win Super Bowl 49 at the conclusion of the 2014 NFL season. I continued: "You do know that the last 9 teams that won the Super Bowl failed to win it again the following year, don't you?" To which CB replied: "L.O.B." Well, I guess that settles it then. The Seattle Seahawks, who took 38 years to win their first championship in franchise history, will need only 12 months to win their second. If CB is correct , it'll be Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch (photo) and friends raising the Lombardi Trophy - and doing it on the home field of their NFC West rival Arizona Cardinals - when the season ends in February.

As for who the Seahawks will defeat in the Super Bowl, again - more emphatically this time - I asked CB, "You really want to go THERE!?

DG155

Until now my only coverage of the 2013 NFL season was of the final week of the regular season and the playoffs - and that brief post I did when Cardinals rookie Andre Ellington lost some of his dreads while he was tackled. So in dread gallery #155, let's take a look at some of what happened in the first 16 weeks of the season. Obviously one DG doesn't do justice to the NFL. I mean, I checked maybe 5% of all of the NFL photos available on the internet yet still saved enough to do several dread galleries. Picking the best of the best of that 5% for DG155, there were more than 150 photos I wanted to post; but I have cut that down to about 100.

This review of the 2013 season won't be as complete as last year's review of the 2012 season (in DG149) because I still haven't gone over the defensive stats in all the games (and I'm not going to either); so I don't have the whole list of the dread stars and head dreads from each week. Also, I'm going to try to wrap this up in record time, so I'm not going to check the game situations for most of the photos. Also, I have to apologize to all the O-linemen in the league with sick dreads, because there won't be any photos of you. Sorry about that. Anyway, let's begin DG155 with some of last season's interceptions.

PICKS

1. Falcons rookie CB Desmond Trufant intercepts a pass intended for WR Pierre Garcon at the Washington 39-yard line with 5:38 remaining in the game in Week 15, setting up a FG. It was the 2nd and last INT of the season for Trufant. A lot went wrong for the Falcons during their 4-12 season, but Trufant wasn't one of them. Drafted in the 1st round, he started all 16 games, finishing with 70 tackles, 2 INT, 15 PBU, 1 FF, and 1 FR.