Let’s provide the last quotage of the day this one from NBC’s Football Night in America. And I also include Bob Costas’ crazy halftime commentary.
“FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA” NOTES & QUOTES – WEEK 1
“It was offense, defense and special teams that got outplayed, not just the quarterback position.” –- Tony Dungy on the Colts
“You cannot expect to compete with the big boys of the NFL and pass for 39 yards.” -– Rodney Harrison on the Vikings
“We knew he could be a dynamic quarterback. He was accurate and dynamic, too.” – Dan Patrick on Cam NewtonNEW YORK – September 11, 2011 – Following are highlights from Football Night in America. Bob Costas hosted the show live from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, and was joined on site for commentary by Sunday Night Football commentators Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth. Co-host Dan Patrick and commentators Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison, Peter King and Mike Florio covered the news of the NFL’s first week live from Studio 8G at NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza studios in New York. Alex Flanagan reported from FedExField on the Giants-Redskins game.
ON EAGLES
Dungy: “New linemen. New line coach and Michael (Vick) having to deal with the blitz. That’s what people did last year and it’s going to keep coming if they don’t handle it better. The lights are going to go out on them.” [NOTE: Vick said in his postgame press conference that he played ‘lights out.’]ON RAVENS-STEELERS
Michaels: “This has become the best rivalry in the National Football League at this moment in time, and more certainly now than before because Peyton Manning is not with Indianapolis and doesn’t figure to be for a while. So I’m going to say that this has supplanted Indianapolis-New England…A big, big, big leg up for the Baltimore Ravens today; a tremendous win for them and this is a team right now that really has to be considered a very serious Super Bowl contender.”ON RAVENS
Collinsworth: “The thing that is most interesting about today as far as I was concerned, four division winners from a season ago…Pittsburgh, Indy, Kansas City and Atlanta…none of them scored more than 12 points on the afternoon. All of them got blown out. It’s one thing to lose on opening day; it’s another to get embarrassed in many ways. For Pittsburgh, maybe they said one too many things about Joe Flacco this offseason. The Ravens came out to play.”ON STEELERS
King on Troy Polamalu’s new contract: “This contract will push the Steelers to more than $20 million over the 2012 salary cap. That is a worry after the old defense that I saw today.”ON TEXANS
Collinsworth: “This Houston team is very much for real. If you had to pick one team out of preseason and you said, ‘Okay, who impressed you the most?’ It would have been the Houston Texans. So now maybe they’re taking a deep breath down there that Peyton Manning is no longer around and saying this is finally our year.”ON RAMS
King on what coach Steve Spagnuolo told him about the injuries to Sam Bradford, Steven Jackson & Danny Amendola: “You’re talking about our three most productive offensive players. I’m going to be praying all night.”ON LIONS
Dungy on Lions QB Matthew Stafford: “He has great chemistry with Calvin Johnson. He can make all the throws. But more than anything, they believe when he’s in there that they can win every game.”Patrick: “Here they are making mistakes and coming back from those mistakes to win. That’s something the Lions didn’t used to do.”
Dungy: “Winning on the road; that’s huge for them. This is the first meaningful game they’ve won on the road in a long, long time.”ON COLTS
Dungy: “You have to start with the other players, not Kerry Collins…The Colts have other Pro-Bowlers beside Peyton Manning.”Harrison: “All three phases are important. It’s not just Kerry Collins. It’s that entire team doing a better job.”
Dungy: “And that’s where Jim Caldwell’s got to be disappointed. It was offense, defense, and special teams that got outplayed, not just the quarterback position.”
Harrison: “[Caldwell] also got out-coached.”
ON CHIEFS
Harrison: “My biggest concern: anytime you have a young team, just as well as a coach, you worry about complacency kicking in. These guys went to the playoffs last year. It almost seems like they feel like they can just show up and all of a sudden they’re going to get a victory.”Dungy: “They did nothing in the preseason and nothing today at all.”
ON CHARGERS
Harrison on Chargers’ special teams: “I was a starting strong safety and me, along with five other starters, played on special teams. Kickoff is an attitude and they’re going to have to start putting some of their best players on that kickoff team because it will come back to haunt them.”ON VIKINGS
Harrison: “Very disappointing for Minnesota. You have a veteran offensive line, you have Adrian Peterson, you want to come out and establish the run. But you cannot expect to compete with the big boys of the NFL and pass for 39 yards. You can’t expect that.”ON REDSKINS
QB Rex Grossman on public criticism to Alex Flanagan: “You always want to play well because I got a lot of haters and it keeps me on my toes. I’ve got to play good every week. I’ve got a lot of people talking about me.”ON PANTHERS
Dungy on Cam Newton: “This is what they said he couldn’t do, throw from the pocket. He was right on target all game…This is something special. Rookie quarterbacks don’t come in and do this. They don’t do it on the road their first game with no off season program. Cam Newton was tremendous.”Patrick on Newton: “We questioned if he could be an accurate passer. We knew he could be a dynamic quarterback. He was accurate and dynamic, too.”
Dungy: “They say there are no moral victories. This was a big (moral) win for Carolina. They’ve got a quarterback who can do it for them…There were a lot of questions about Cam Newton. Could he do it? Was he worthy of that No. 1 pick? He threw for 400 yards today. I coached against John Elway in his first game on the road. He completed one pass. Cam Newton was a big winner today.”
As promised, here’s the transcript from Bob’s comments.
BOB COSTAS HALFTIME ESSAY ON TODAY’S ACTION
Thursday night in Green Bay, the NFL opener was wild and dramatic, but, in a sense, it all went according to form. Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees put points on the board – and well, that is what they do.
But for much of Sunday, the headline was ‘go figure.’ The Chiefs were 7-1 at Arrowhead last season, but this afternoon, the Bills – 4-12 a year ago — stampeded into Kansas City and blew out the home team, with Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing for four scores.
Meanwhile, we knew Indy wouldn’t be close to themselves without Peyton Manning but did anyone think it would be this bad?
With the Colts likely in for an off-year, the Ravens and Steelers have one less competitor for AFC supremacy. But in the arch-rivals’ matchup today, the Ravens superiority was unquestioned. This was the first time in four seasons that a regular-season game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore was decided by more than four points — in this case, four touchdowns.
And then there was the Bears 30-12 win over the Falcons in Chicago. Atlanta, a hot Super Bowl pick, seemed anything but. And Jay Cutler, who when last seen in a game that mattered, was being unfairly ripped for leaving the NFC Championship with what turned out to be a legitimate injury, today, threw for over 300 yards and two scores.
The Carolina Panthers — 2 and 14 a year ago — almost joined the list of surprises before losing at Arizona, 28-21, but the Panthers leave the Valley of the Sun in a sunny mood. Cam Newton looked great: 400 yards passing, including two touchdowns, plus another score on the ground.
A dynamic debut and a nod of approval on an opening Sunday that often had us shaking our heads.
That’s it from a very fun opening Sunday in the National Football League.
