Tuesday 30 October 2012

Week 8 2012 Season


Week eight has been a very special week for NFL in the UK as once again it was time for the international series at Wembley stadium. For those who are new to the sport, for the last five years Wembley has paid host to a regular season NFL match.

During the past five years we have played host to teams such as the New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Diego Chargers and the great Eli Manning and his New York Giants.


The festivities started for the fans on Saturday with the now annual fan rally held in Trafalgar square, London. Originally I wasn't going to attend the event this year but late on Friday night I learned that three Buffalo Bills players would be there courtesy of New Era. The Bills players in attendance were Stevie Johnson, Kelvin Sheppard and Marcell Dareus.

Before I continue I would like to offer my sincere apologies to Mickey 'Big Dog' Hogg as due to the late notice of my attendance I forgot to invite my NFL wing man. As always with the NFL events I met some great people including Lee Marshall and a Scottish Eli Manning. There was also lots of little games for everyone around the peripherals along with the main stage, shop and autograph tent.


Lee and I arrived just in time to hear a massive bang which later transpired to be Rob Gronkowski spiking the microphone after a big chant from the fans asking him too!

The event was filled with many stars of the game past and present appearing on the stage including Isaac Bruce, Tory Holt and Bruce Smith. During the day I was lucky enough to get autographs from Isaac Bruce, Tory Holt, the Patriots cheerleaders and the aforementioned Bills Players. To their credit they are all very down to earth and easy to talk too which showed me their true class!



Okay so that's enough about the rally, this years game involved the New England Patriots and St Louis Rams. Both teams have been playing very well recently and I expected this to be a closely fought game between a solid Rams defence and the high scoring Patriots offence. It started well for the Rams who received the ball from the opening kick off. On their opening drive the Rams managed to get a quick score thanks to a 50 yard pass from Sam Bradford to Chris Givens.

Unfortunately for the Rams fans in attendance the Joy stopped there as the Patriots went on to score 45 unanswered points taking the game 45 - 7. I will let Marcus discuss more about the game and tailgate party for you during this weeks podcast available at www.ballhawksnest.weebly.com

I'm sure the Rams fans out there are pleased to know that I am now moving swiftly on to the other games around the league that caught my eye this week. Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts where involved in a tight, tense game against the Tennessee Titans. The teams were so closely matched that this one ended up in overtime and was settled on the first Colts drive thanks to this 'trout out of the water' like dive by Vick Ballard on his way into the endzone. Thanks to this remarkable play the Colts won 19 – 13.


Another really close game this week was the Detroit Lions and the Seattle Seahawks. This game swung back and forth all day with Detroit taking the early lead only for Seattle to go into halftime with it

In the end this game was settled by a one yard touchdown pass to Titus Young who is starting to make a habit of coming up with the clutch catches when the games are on the line. I hope you all haven’t forgotten his tipped pass catch on the Hail Mary at the end of the week three game versus the Titans!


Before I move into the awards section which has now been trimmed back to just the original two, here is all the scores from this weeks action:

Tampa Bay 36 vs 17 Minnesota
San Diego 6 vs 7 Cleveland
Carolina 22 vs 23 Chicago
Seattle 24 vs 28 Detroit
Jacksonville 15 vs 24 Green Bay
Indianapolis 19 vs 13 Tennessee
Miami 30 vs 9 New York Jets
New England 45 vs 7 St Louis
Washington 12 vs 27 Pittsburgh
Atlanta 30 vs 17 Philadelphia
Oakland 26 vs 16 Kansas City
New York Giants 29 vs 24 Dallas
New Orleans 14 vs 34 Denver
San Francisco 24 vs 3 Arizona

Okay so onto my awards for week eight. Let's start with the Ray Lewis award for the 'Defensive Impact Player'. This week there was one player who stood out for me and showed us why there was so much hype about him last season. He had a total of four combined tackles including one sack and most importantly he also had an interception which he returned for a touchdown.

If you know who this is already then say it with me, congratulations to Jason Pierre Paul of the New York Giants. He had a great game and the interception really helped swing the game in his teams favour.


Now lets move onto the Megatron award for 'Offensive Impact Player'. The more I think about this weeks winner, the more I think this guy should get the award every time he plays. Opposing teams just don't know how to cover him and he always produces when given the opportunity.

This week the award goes to Rob Gronkowski who had yet another outstanding performance with 146 receiving yards and two touchdowns. He also pulled out a great celebration after his first touchdown by pretending to march like one the queens guards.  Congratulations Mr Gronkowski and don't forget that you owe Mr Neil Reynolds a new microphone!


Finally this week I would just to like to offer my thoughts and prayers to Marcus Lattimore, running back for South Carolina who suffered a horrendous knee injury this week following a direct hit by an opposing defenders helmet. I hope he is able to recover fully and continue playing at the high level he deserves. (Please be warned that if any of you google his injury it is very graphic and discretion is advised).

Until next week football fans, take care and stay safe.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Week 7 2012 Season


Welcome to the week seven edition of the 'The Lo Down'. This weeks action saw a handful of key divisional matches in the NFC East, AFC East, AFC North and NFC South along with the big battle at the top of the AFC between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.

It was interesting to see how Baltimore would react after losing two key members of their defence to injury for the remainder of their season.  I am of course referring to the great Mr Ray Lewis and cornerback Ladarius Webb.


Baltimore reacted to the injury news by doing something no one was expecting and that was to activate Terrell Suggs who has been sidelined for approximately seven months with an ACL injury.

It was a sign of desperation in my eyes and the Texans proved that by destroying the Ravens 43 - 13. This match was ridiculously one sided, it was like watching the New England vs Tennessee game from 2009 which the Patriots won 59 – 0!


I hate to say it but the future for the Ravens looks bleak and they may now even struggle to reach the playoffs! On a brighter note though 11 of the 13 games this week were all close affairs being settled by 10 points or less.

The first of these matchups started on Thursday night when the San Francisco 49ers played host to the Seattle Seahawks. At the start of the season, on paper this match was always going to be one way traffic or so I thought however the Seahawks had other ideas. It turned out to be an intensely fought defensive struggle in which the 49ers managed the only touchdown of the game resulting in their 13 – 6 victory.


The next epic battle would like to discuss is the NFC East showdown between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. I was excited about this game for two reasons and you would be right in thinking one of them was Robert Griffin III, can you guess the other reasons?

That's right it was our friend, good old Eli 'I've won more superbowls than my brother' Manning. The more I think about it, the more I think meeting the great Eli has to go on my bucket list! Okay so back to the game itself, this was your typical battle between two teams who like to control the ball and play solid defence.  This game certainly lived up to its billing and I strongly recommend checking out the highlights below.


As you can see the Redskins struck the first blow by scoring the go ahead touchdown with just under 2 minutes remaining with RGIII showing the talent he is going to bring to the league for years to come!

Que Eli Manning who had a minute and 40 seconds to spin things around and win the game for the Giants. Sure enough albeit quicker than expected our friend Eli threw the game winning touchdown to Victor Cruz crushing the Redskins spirits who fumbled the ball on the next \ last drive of the game making the final score 27 – 23.

Here is a recap of all the scores from week 7:

Seattle 6 vs 13 San Francisco
Tennessee 35 vs 34 Buffalo
Dallas 19 vs 14 Carolina
Baltimore 13 vs 43 Houston
Cleveland 13 vs 17 Indianapolis
Arizona 14 vs 21 Minnesota
Washington 23 vs 27 New York Giants
Green Bay 30 vs 20 St Louis Rams
New Orleans 35 vs 28 Tampa Bay
New York Jets 26 vs 29 New England Patriots
Jacksonville 23 vs 26 Oakland
Pittsburgh 24 vs 17 Cincinnati
Detroit 7 vs 13 Chicago

If you want to hear more about this weeks games and issues, please check out 'Spitball' my weekly podcast at www.ballhawksnest.weebly.com

Let's finish off this week with the weekly award winners:

Megatron: Buffalo Bills Defence


Ray Lewis: Charles Tillman (Chicago Bears)


Team Performance of the Week: Houston Texans.


My apologies for the short blog this week,it has been a crazy busy week with my 33rd birthday.  Rest assured though I will be back up to full speed next week, until then take care and stay safe.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Week 6 2012 Season

WOW, week six has been yet another great week of action in the NFL! This week we have seen more emotion and drama than a week’s worth of EastEnders! I have so many things I want to talk about, the question is where to start?


Let’s start with my 'Team Performance of the Week' award. There was one team this week who managed to provide all of the things you want to see in a game: big hits, sacks, interceptions, a 4th quarter hail mary to win the game and of course the sight of Tom Brady losing!

That's right folks the award this week goes to the Seattle Seahawks who despite having the best defence in the league were under dogs going into Sundays match up against the New England Patriots.

In the first quarter the two teams traded touchdowns with Seattle managing to sneak in a field goal as well making it 10-7. In the second quarter despite not scoring Seattle showed their intentions as Brandon Browner absolutely lit up Wes Welker after a reception, it was a bone jarring tackle that saw Welker sit out the next few plays.


Despite the tackles flying in from here, there and everywhere New England managed 10 unanswered points taking a 17 - 10 lead into the half. In the second half Seattle were able to hold the Patriots to only two field goals as they clawed back the deficit culminating in a 46 yard hail mary pass from Russell Wilson to Sidney Rice giving the Seahawks a 24-23 lead.

At this point there was just over a minute left on the clock and I thought that was more than enough time for Brady to do the usual! The Seahwaks however managed to stop the Patriots on their final drive to secure the win.Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks on winning my 'Team performance of the Week' award.

Another one of the most amazing parts of Sundays action was the triple box feature on NFL redzone for the end of the late games. Just as Rice was catching the game winning pass for Seattle, Jay Feeley was hitting the post with a potential game winning field goal for the Cardinals and RG III was running in a 76 yard touchdown against the Vikings, it was just unbelievable Jeff!


More about that Jay Feeley field goal miss later on but for now here is all of the scores from week six:

Pittsburgh 23 vs 26 Tennessee
Dallas 29 vs 31 Baltimore
Cincinnati 24 vs 34 Cleveland
Detroit 26 vs 23 Philadelphia
Indianapolis 9 vs 35 New York Jets
Kansas City 10 vs 38 Tampa Bay
St Louis 14 vs 17 Miami
Oakland 20 vs 23 Atlanta
Buffalo 19 vs 16 Arizona
New England 23 vs 24 Seattle
Minnesota 26 vs 38 Washington
New York Giants 26 vs 3 San Francisco
Green Bay 42 vs 24 Houston
Denver 35 vs 24 San Diego

The only unbeaten team left after this week, the Atlanta Falcons were pushed to their limits against the Oakland Raiders and somehow managed to scrape a win. They are now 6-0 and the question remains can they go unbeaten all season?


Other performances of note this week bring me to the weekly 'Megatron' award for week six. Uncannily this week before the late night game on Sunday this award nearly went to the man himself Calvin 'Megatron' Johnson for some of the outstanding catches he made in Detroit's win over Philadelphia!

Unfortunately for Johnson this week contained an offensive performance of sheer quality and precision that could not be beaten. I am of course referring to Aaron Rodgers who tore the Texans great defence apart with six touchdown passes and 338 yards thus leading the Green Bay Packers to a comfortable 42 - 24 win. Congratulations to Aaron Rodgers on becoming this weeks 'Megatron' award winner.


Personally I think he needs to keep performing like this to prove myself and EJ wrong about being the biggest disappointment of the season! Moving swiftly onto my 'Ray Lewis' award winner for this week and surprise surprise, it is Buffalo's own Jairus Byrd.

With the score at 16 – 13 to the Bills Jay Feeley kicked a 61 yard field goal to tie the game and then somehow managed to strike the post with a 38 yard game winning attempt. Anyway I digress, back to Mr Byrd who finished this week with four tackles and two interceptions. The more important of his two picks coming in overtime to set up the game winning field goal from Ryan Lindell!

For me he is one of the unsung heroes of my Bills team and he is also the inspiration for me wearing the number 31 jersey for my flag team! The Byrd was definitely equal to or greater than the word this week. Congratulations Jairus Byrd on becoming the week six 'Ray Lewis' award winner.


Speaking of the great Ray Lewis, it appears that he will be sidelined for the rest of the season with a torn tricep and if that wasn't bad enough for the Ravens they have also lost cornerback Ladarius Webb for the season with a torn acl. Time to change my fantasy defence I think!

Let’s finish off this week by talking about the Monday night game between the Denver Broncos and San Diego Chargers. This fixture always has massive implications into who will come out top in the AFC west. Last year we had Tebow time but this year we have Manning Mayhem.

Peyton Manning showed his true class in the second half of last night’s match up with the comeback of all comebacks! At the half the Broncos were down 24 - 0 and the future was looking bleak. I don’t know what was said at half time but Manning was on fire in the second half throwing three touchdowns.


An inspired defence also managed to score off two turnovers taking the Broncos to a 34 - 24 win. In doing this they also tied the league record for the greatest ever comeback win by an away team! There is still so much more from this week to discuss and so please join myself and Marcus by listening to Spitball my weekly podcast :)

As always if you have any questions, want to chat football or offer your services to the blog or podcast please get in touch by tweeting me @AdriMallows, by emailing me at ballhawksnest@gmail.com or drop a comment on the blog/website www.ballhawksnest.weebly.com

In the words of many a Warner Brothers character, until next week ‘That’s all Folks’.


Tuesday 9 October 2012

Week 5 2012 Season

I would like to start this week by congratulating Drew Brees on breaking yet another long standing record this weekend. Last year as you all know Brees broke Dan Marino's 27 year record for most passing yards in a single season.

On Sunday night in front of a home crowd which included the suspended Sean Payton, he broke Johnny Unitas's record for most consecutive games with a touchdown. The record now stands at 48 games.


In an era that has been dominated by Brady and the Manning brothers it is often easy to overlook Brees's performances. With this in mind I say again congratulations on an outstanding achievement Mr Brees and keep up the great work!

On a side note as part of his record breaking performance Brees threw for 370 yards and 4 touchdowns leading the saints to their first victory of the season.

The other winless team going into this week weren't quite so lucky. The Cleveland Browns ran in to an inspired Eli Manning and the Giants. Cleveland did get off to a fast start scoring 14 quick points through Trent Richardson and Josh Gordon however it was short lived as Manning then took over the show throwing for 259 yards and three touchdowns all to Victor Cruz in their 41 - 27 victory over the Browns.


Moving on from the winless teams it has been an emotional week for the Indianapolis Colts with their head coach Chuck Pagano being diagnosed with Leukaemia and Bruce Arians standing in as interim head coach. Things didn't start too well for the Colts as the Green Bay Packers shot out to a 21 - 3 lead with the Colts not being able to move the ball down field. In the second half however the Colts were inspirational as they managed to finally put pressure on Rodgers. Reggie Wayne was also on top form making some amazing catches on his way to a career high 212 yards and one touchdown which proved to be the winning score.

It was a great score as Wayne caught the ball with his back to the endzone and whilst being tackled he managed to spin round and reach his arm over the goalline! With this in mind it is with great pleasure that I announce Reggie Wayne as my 'Megatron' award winner for week 5! Also one of his many receptions was a spectacular one handed grab in traffic!


Okay so onto the Buffalo update. We took another pounding at the hands of the 49ers this week and it left a lot of people doubting our players and coaches alike. I'm slightly more of a realist and when I saw our schedule at the start of the season I was expecting us to be no better than 3-2 at this point. Sure we are 2-3 but this is only one game behind where I saw us being and don't think we can call it a crisis just yet!

Don't get me wrong in an ideal world I would rather we had a more aggressive defence and someone who is more emotional on the sideline as a head coach like one of the Harbaugh brothers or Jim Schwartz for example but we are still rebuilding so let's stay realistic!



Here are all the scores from week fives action:-

Arizona 3 vs 17 St Louis
Baltimore 9 vs 6 Kansas City
Cleveland 27 vs 41 New York Giants
Miami 17 vs 13 Cincinnati
Green Bay 27 vs 30 Indianapolis
Philadelphia 14 vs 16 Pittsburgh
Atlanta 24 vs 17 Washington
Seattle 16 vs 12 Carolina
Chicago 41 vs 3 Jacksonville
Buffalo 3 vs 45 San Francisco
Denver 21 vs 31 New England
Tennessee 7 vs 30 Minnesota
San Diego 24 vs 31 New Orleans
Houston 23 vs 17 New York Jets

As you can see from the above we still have two teams that remain unbeaten in the Atlanta Falcons and the Houston Texans.

Firstly I would like to talk about the Texans purely because they have my 'Ray Lewis' award winner this week in JJ Watt. It would almost seem like loosing Mario Williams in the pre season was a blessing in disguise for JJ as all the talk was about the loss of Super Mario.

This week JJ Watt had a combined six tackles, one sack and most importantly three pass deflections. One of his deflections led to an interception with the Jets in a scoring position and the last of them again came on a clutch play on the Jets final drive.


Sanchez had a receiver wide open for the game tying score but thanks to JJ the ball didn't get passed the line of scrimmage. Now for me that is the true definition of an impact player and I think he will potentially end up as the defensive end of the year filling the gap left by Jason Pierre Paul’s average performances this year.

Now onto the Atlanta Falcons, what can you say about this team that hasn't already been said. On offense they have the perfect package with a hall of fame tight end, a great running back and quarterback not too mention their two potential future hall of fame receivers in Julio Jones and Roddy White! Even at this early stage you have to ask could this be our potential Superbowl or will the Falcons and Texans find a way to crash and burn when it counts like the last post season!


Finally to finish off this week I would like to add a new feature called 'Team Performance of the Week'. Every week from now on I will be looking for one team a week that has either shown a great team spirit together with a performance or a team that has stunned us all with their result.

This week my selection for 'Team Performance of the Week' will sit very well with one of my co hosts on 'Spitball' my weekly podcast as it goes to the 'wait for it' St Louis Rams. This week they went up against their undefeated division rivals the Arizona Cardinals and really showed me both a great team spirit linked with a determination not to lose that game.


The Rams defence this week combined for a total of nine sacks and one forced fumble whilst holding the Cardinals to only three points. Their offense is finding a way to keep Bradford on his feet long enough to make plays and even though they lost Danny Amendola to injury, Bradford still got the job done through the air.   Let's not forget that they also have a potential hall of fame running back in Stephen Jackson. I for one am starting to wish I'd picked them at the start of the season to be my surprise playoff team, let's see if my words have now cursed them!

As always ladies and gents please feel free to get in touch whether it be to just chat football or if you want to be a part of the Ballhawks online family. You can email me at ballhawksnest@gmail.com or tweet me @AdriMallows or drop your comments at the bottom of the blog! Until next week football fans take care and enjoy the week six action!


Wednesday 3 October 2012

Week 4 2012 Season


With week four now in the bag there are just five teams with a 100% record. Three teams have the good winning 100% record and two have the bad yet to win a game 100% record!

Let's start with the two teams that have not yet won a game this season and that is the Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints. Cleveland have showed a few glimpses that they may become a good team in the future with the performances of rookies like Trent Richardson their number one pick out of Alabama!


In his first four games Richardson has accounted for 344 yards and four touchdowns on 79 touches. Please note that by touches I mean rushing attempts and receptions. The question is even if the Browns did go on to have winning seasons would they finish any higher than fourth in their division with the Bengals new lease of life with Andy Dalton and A J Green not to mention the Steelers and Ravens!

The ongoing saga at New Orleans continues with yet another loss, this time at the hands of the Green Bay Packers. With their poor start to the season anyone would link that Drew Brees was on the cover of Madden again!


I have heard a few different reasons for their downfall but for me it all comes down to the loss of Sean Payton for the year, not just his play calling but his presence on the sideline and in the locker room. On a plus note if they continue at this pace, Payton will have the first draft pick on his return next year!

Something else that made me smile this week was the look on Rex Ryan's face as the Jets were shut down and shut out by the 49ers! It would appear that not even the great Tim Tebow could get their offense moving, with their shakey start to the season the question remains how long before it's Tebow's time?


Okay so here are all the results from the week four action:-

Cleveland 16 vs 23 Baltimore
New England 52 vs 28 Buffalo
Carolina 28 vs 30 Atlanta
Minnesota 20 vs 13 Detroit
Tennessee 14 vs 38 Houston
San Diego 37 vs 20 Kansas City
San Francisco 34 vs 0 New York Jets
Seattle 13 vs 19 St Louis
Cincinnati 27 vs 10 Jacksonville
Oakland 6 vs 37 Denver
Miami 21 vs 24 Arizona
New Orleans 27 vs 28 Green Bay
Washington 24 vs 22 Tampa Bay
New York Giants 17 vs 19 Philadelphia
Chicago 34 vs 18 Cowboys

As you can see from the results, the Cardinals, Texans and Falcons remain unbeaten with a quarter of the season played. I have to ask do we think all three teams will reach week six unbeaten?

With the fact we are now a quarter of the way through the 2012 season I think it is worth taking stock of the players who are both under and over performing respectively. I know there is one player that EJ briefly mentioned in last weeks podcast as under performing this season and that was Aaron Rodgers!


I think that it is fair to say that at this point he certainly is as he has thrown for only 1064 yards and seven touchdowns working out as an average of 250 yards a game and only 1.75 passing touchdowns. For a quarterback of his calibre you would expect a lot more from him at this point!

Another player who has disappointed me this season so far is Rob Gronkowski. After his amazing season last year I think we were all expecting his production to go through the roof this year however with only 260 yards and three touchdowns it is very disappointing.


On the flip side to this though are the players how have impressed me so far starting with Matt Ryan who has thrown for 1162 yards, 11 touchdowns and only two interceptions. On top of this Ryan has an accuracy percentage of 69.4%. These are great numbers for any quarterback and especially one that I appear to have overlooked this year!

Next up is not so much one player that has impressed but a total defence and that is the Seattle Seahawks who are second behind the Houston Texans in average yards conceded per game with an average of 275.8 yards a game. Seattle has given up the second fewest points in the league as well conceding only 58 points to opponents! For me it is even more impressive when you look at the fact they have faced the high flying Cardinals, the Cowboys, the Packers and the Rams.


It would be great to hear your thoughts on this as well so why not tweet me @AdriMallows or drop me an email at ballhawksnest@gmail.com

Now we move onto my favourite part of the week and that is the Ray Lewis and Megatron award winners aka the offensive impact player of the week and the defensive impact player of the week.

This week to be different I am going straight into my award winners and this week the Megatron award goes to Brian Hartline for his 12 receptions for 253 yards and a touchdown against Arizona. Hartline was very unlucky not to be on the winning side this week and he is starting to look like Tannehill's favourite target. I expect great things from him for the rest of the season!


The Ray Lewis award this week goes to the veteran Lance Briggs who helped tame the Cowboys offense with six tackles, one forced fumble and an interception which he returned for a score. The Chicago defence is often thought of being a one man team behind Brian Urlacher but we shouldn’t forget the hard work and graft Briggs puts in every week.


Well that's it from blog land this week football fans but be sure to check out 'Spitball' my weekly NFL podcast via www.ballhawksnest.weebly.com.