MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010
NFL WEEK 5 25,000
Dollars the NFL could fine wide receiver Terrell Owens for a tweet about giving a signed jersey to a fan, posted one hour before kickoff. The NFL policy is 90 minutes, and fellow Bengal Chad Ochocinco drew a $25,000 fine in the preseason.
68,500
Seats in a planned Santa Clara, Calif. stadium that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the San Francisco 49ers should look into sharing with the Oakland Raiders.
STAROFTHEDAY Hakeem has a dream day in Giants’ 34-10 victory
New York wide receiver Hakeem Nicks caught 12 Eli Manning passes for 130 yards and two touchdowns as the Giants drubbed the Texans and stayed tied for first in the NFC East. Seven of Nicks’s catches came in the first half, and six of those went for either a first down or a touchdown. Another one of his catches, a 27-yard grab, set up a one-yard TD run by Brandon Jacobs. Nicks now has six of the Giants’ 13 touchdowns on the season to go with 33 receptions and 409 receiving yards, putting him among the NFL leaders.
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BESTANDWORST Raiders’ early blocked punts key in win
Oakland blocked two punts in the first quarter, including one by former Redskin Rock Cartwright that caused a safety. . . . Chicago’s Matt Forte had 188 yards from scrimmage, including 166 rushing, and two touchdowns , both in the first quarter. . . . Shaun Hill threw three TD passes and no interceptions in the Lions’ 44-6 rout of St. Louis. . . . New York’s Osi Umenyiora had two sacks and two forced fumbles. . . . The day’s top receivers—Malcom Floyd ( 8-213) and Miles Austin (9-166)—put up their numbers in losses.
Mistakes undermine Romo and Rivers
Dallas’s offensive line allowed Tony Romo to be sacked six times and the QB threw three interceptions in a one-touchdown loss, though he passed for 406 yards. . . . San Diego’s Philip Rivers fumbled twice during his 431-yard passing day. . . . Former Redskins QB Todd Collins threw four interceptions in his 6-for-16, 32-yard day for the Bears, who won.
“It took us 15 weeks to win this many last year.”
Josh Freeman, Buccaneers quarterback, who led his team past Cincinnati for its third win of the season. Last year, Tampa Bay was 3-13 in Coach Raheem Morris’s rookie year.
Cowboys unravel their own rally with key mistakes
Dallas recovers from early 14-point hole, but Tennessee wins
BY JAIME ARON
arlington, tex. — Jason Witten scored a touchdown and handed the football to Marc Colombo so the burly offensive lineman could spike it. Then they leaped and bumped chests, with Colombo losing his balance on the land- ing and tumbling across the end zone. Pretty silly, eh? The Tennessee Titans will be
laughing about it for a long time. A penalty for excessive cele-
MICHAEL CONROY/ASSOCIATED PRESS MikeHart, in for the injured Joseph Addai, drags a pair of Chiefs defenders as he stretches for the clinching touchdown for the Colts. Colts topple unbeaten Chiefs
No touchdown passes for Manning; defense shuts down Kansas City
BY MARKMASKE
indianapolis — The NFL was left without an unbeaten team, only five weeks into the season, when the Kansas City Chiefs couldn’t manage a touchdown Sundayandlost to the Indianapo- lis Colts, 19-9. The Colts got four field goals by
place kickerAdamVinatierianda game-clinching touchdown run by reserve tailback Mike Hart with just more than four minutes remaining at Lucas Oil Stadium. “It was nice on that last drive . .
. getting that touchdown,” Colts quarterback Peyton Manning said. “Our defense did a great job all day long.” The Colts improved to 3-2 but
lost tailback Joseph Addai to a shoulder injury suffered when he was tackled by Chiefs defensive end Glenn Dorsey on a third- quarter running play. Addai watched from the sideline, minus his jersey and shoulder pads, as Hart took over and provided the game’s only touchdown by weav- ing through Kansas City defend- ers for an 11-yard run. Manning completed 26 of 44
passes for 244yards. But he threw an interception and didn’t have a touchdown pass, and the Colts sputtered at times on offense against aKansasCitydefense that used formations with eight play- ers dropping into pass coverage. “They did a couple of unusual
things,” Colts Coach Jim Caldwell said. “They did a good job. You have to give a lot of credit to them.” But the Chiefs, who were com-
ing off a bye week that followed a 3-0 start, couldn’t do enough on offense to stay undefeated. Tail- back Jamaal Charles ran for 87 yards. But quarterbackMatt Cas- sel threw for a modest 156 yards on 16-for-29 passing, and the Chiefs scored only on three field goals by Ryan Succop. Succop missed his final field
goal try of the day, sending a 51-yard attempt wide right with just more than a minute left. The Colts ranout the clockfromthere, ending a game that was a role reversal for them.They have been the league’s last unbeaten team with some regularity in recent seasons, not the sort of club that
bration pushed back the kick- off and Tennessee’sMarcMari- ani followedwith a long return, setting up a one-yard touch- down by Chris Johnson with 3 minutes 28 seconds left in the fourth quarter. That gave the Titans a 34-27
victory Sunday over the Dallas Cowboys in a game they were struggling to put away. “That misconduct penalty
was big,” Tennessee Coach Jeff Fisher said. “That return prob- ably doesn’t happen if they’re not kicking off down there [on their 15].” The Titans (3-2) did plenty of
things right, such as Johnson running for 131 yards, Vince Young throwing two touch- down passes and the defense coming up with six sacks and three interceptions. But this game will be re-
membered for all the things Dallas did wrong: 12 penalties (two by Mike Jenkins for pass interference leading to a Ten- nessee touchdown on the open- ing drive; a hands-to-the-face that erased a punt-forcing sack on another touchdown drive) and all those sacks against Romo, who’d gone down only once in 128 attempts coming in. There were three sacks on
one drive in the second quarter, forcing right guard Leonard Davis to the bench — until his backup got a finger in the eye. The costliest sack was a six- yarder on a third down that pushed a field goal attempt back to 44 yards; David Bue- hler narrowly missed when a make would have put Dallas ahead. Instead, the Cowboys (1-3)
DARRON CUMMINGS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
PeytonManning completes 26 o f 44 passes for 244 yards with an interception, but no touchdowns. Haley took his second major
faces an early-season game with a must-win feel to it to avoid a losing record. The Colts persevered, even
with Chiefs Coach Todd Haley trying just about everything to give his team an edge. The Chiefs attempted an onside kick on the game’s opening kickoff, then passed up a short field goal in favor ofafourth-downtrybytheir offense later in the first quarter. Neither move worked.Haley said those early failures didn’t cost the Chiefs the game. “If you hold this team under 20
points, you should have a chance to be in the game until the end, which we were,” Haley said. “Overall I think our team--wejust needto execute inacouple areasa little better.” TheNewOrleans Saints used a successful onside kick to open the second half en route to beating the Colts in last season’s Super Bowl. But the Chiefs weren’t as fortunate Sunday, as their onside kick failed to travel the required 10 yards and the Colts began their opening drive of the game at Kansas City’s 37-yard line. That resulted in the first of Vinatieri’s two first-half field goals.
gamble of the first half on Kansas City’s opening drive. He left his offense on the field for a fourth- and-twoplay from the Indianapo- lis 8-yard line. But Cassel threw into a crowd of players at the goal line, with four Colts defenders covering two Chiefs receivers, and his pass was knocked down for an incompletion. “We came out aggressive,” Ha-
ley said. “Thatwasourgameplan. We knew generally you’ve got to do certain things against this team to have a chance to win the game. . . . a team that’s averaged four losses [per season] over the last bunch of years.” The Colts drove to another
field goal for a 6-0 lead, and had a chance for more late in the first half after a hit by safety Antoine Bethea caused a fumble by Charles. But this time, it was a Colts gamble that went awry. Addai was stopped short of a first down on a fourth-and-two run from the Chiefs 39. The Chiefs, aided by a 15-yard personal foul on Colts cornerback Kelvin Hayden for a late hit out of bounds, got a45-yard field goalby Succop two seconds before half-
COLTS 19 9
time to close to 6-3. Vinatieri had a 47-yard field
goal in the third quarter, but Succopresponded with a 35-yard- er for the Chiefs.Manning threw a pass directly toChiefs safety Jon McGrawfor an interception.That put the Chiefs in business at the Colts 30, but they could manage only Succop’s 43-yard field goal that tied the game at 9. Vinatieri connected from 42
yards in the opening minute of the fourth quarter after an in- stant-replay challenge by the Chiefs negated an apparent com- pletion from Manning to wide receiver PierreGarconthatwould have given the Colts a first down. It was ruled after the review that the ball hit the ground for an incompletion. “They have a good defense,”
Manning said. “They have not given up many points at all. We knew it was going to be a test…. Certainly there are some things you want to improve on.”
maskem@washpost.com
RONALD MARTINEZ/GETTY IMAGES
David Buehler, right, and the Cowboys were off the mark against the Titans, falling to 1-3 in a season filled with great expectations.
CHIEFS TITANS COWBOYS 34 27
are off to theirworst start since being 0-4 in 2001. Just when they thought
they’d revived hopes of playing in the Super Bowl at home because of an impressive victo- ry followed by a bye, this game showed what a mess this club is.
Each unit can look at the
other and say, “What hap- pened?!” “It was an exasperating
game,” Coach Wade Phillips said. “It looked like we had turned a corner, then it went the other way on us. . . . I don’t have any qualms about our heart, but our execution needs to be better.” Romo was terrific at times,
repeatedly hittingMiles Austin for crucial plays such as a 69-yard touchdown that tied it at 17. Austin snatched the ball between two defenders at the 44 and strolled into the end zone when the Titans collided and fell. “Itwas just a freak accident,”
Tennessee safety Michael Grif- fin said. “I wish Miles was the meat in between our sand- wich.” Griffin got payback by haul-
ing in one of two tipped-pass interceptions, his coming in the end zone to snuff what would have been a 91-yard drive for Dallas. The other was a biggie: at
the Dallas 13 and returned to the 1, setting up a touchdown from Johnson that put Tennes- see up, 27-20, with 7:26 left. Romo answered with the
touchdown toWitten, followed by all that wackiness. His final pass was his third interception — right into the chest of line- backer Stephen Tulloch. “This is very hard to swallow
right now,” saidRomo,whowas 31 for 46 for 406 yards with three touchdowns. “If you’re a good enough ballclub, you have to be able to overcome [mis- takes]. We haven’t been able to.”
Witten was confused about
the celebration penalty, noting that Colombo has spiked it before and they’ve bumped chests. “I don’t think he was trying
to do anything different,” Wit- ten said.
— Associated Press
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