Andy Dalton’s fourth down heroics did it in 2017
The Ravens probably thought things couldn’t have gotten worse than they did last year, but they did. Coming into Sunday’s game, the Ravens controlled their own playoff destiny, needing a single win to get in.
The Bills, on the other hand, needed to win, and the Ravens to lose. The Ravens had a seemingly easy task on their hand with the Bengals, but it was far from that.
But it hardly ends there, for any of them. It’s also in growing the players as people and into leaders, which means even those who quickly get into the lineup remain immersed in developing with their peers.
“An emerging leadership plan is something we focused on for sure with players like that,” Dimitroff continued. “We’ve had players who continue to rise to the occasion, like (Deion Jones) and like Grady Jarrett, younger guys who continue to show their ability on the field, and in how they lead the team. That’s another element of Plan D that’s important to us, to continue to determine who those guys are going to be, the next wave of leaders on this football team.”
Jonathan Stewart is 5’10 and 240 pounds. His build is vaguely reminiscent of a bowling ball with legs. He’s about the last guy you’d expect to see jumping straight over a defender. But he did.
The Dolphins’ Cordrea Tankersley is crouching over a little, but he’s mostly upright. And Stewart hurdles him so casually, like this is something he does every day.
Maybe we shouldn’t have been so surprised, because this wasn’t Stewart’s first hurdle. But it doesn’t make it any less impressive to see him flying over a guy who’s three inches taller than Stewart.
Speaking of butts, 2017 was the Year of the Butt in the NFL. Panthers wide receiver Damiere Byrd contributed to that with this touchdown against the Green Bay Packers in Week 15.
I watch the 49ers only when they play a nationally televised game. Even though Garoppolo is 4-0 as a 49er, I haven’t changed my NFL viewing habits because the Niners still haven’t been on national TV, so I haven’t been able to watch them. I really want there to be an a la carte system for cable and if they really had that, I would go back to purchasing cable so I could pick what channels I actually wanted. Until then, I would rather put that money towards something else that we really like to do. My wife and I like to travel, so we put money aside to travel, we paid off her student loans this year, and we made renovations to our condo.
