Peyton’s standing ovation and a few of the weekend’s biggest hits are here for your enjoyment as JOE rounds up the NFL news
The crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis gave returning quarterback and living legend Peyton Manning a huge standing ovation as he ran out on to the field with the visiting Denver Broncos last night, in what was an emotionally charged game. A video of his best moments as a Colt flashed up on the screen, and as he recognised the crowd’s affection, he was visibly moved by the gesture.
The ovation was all they were willing to give him though, as Andrew Luck lead the Colts to a 33-39 victory. One of the highlights was this big hit from punter Pat McAffee on the kick returner Trindon Holliday, and although there was helmet to helmet contact, there was no flag thrown since he led with the arms.
Here’s the same hit, but sloooowwwweeeerrrr…
Troy Polamalu was trying to make an impact on the game against Baltimore when he made a guess at the timing of the snap count and got it just slightly wrong, but it was still a pretty impressive jump to try and make the block on this extra point attempt.
Justin Blackmon did his best to try and get on the end of a touchdown pass in the endzone in yesterday’s game between the Jags and the Chargers, but he was unable to get the score as he saw his team lose 24-6. That said, he did manage to absolutely flatten a bystander who thought he was safe standing in an area where the low-scoring and all-round truly terrible Jags were trying to score. He was wrong, and his face met the floor.
There were plenty of injuries to round up, but it seems that Sam Bradford, Brian Cushing and Reggie Wayne are the most likely to be out for the rest of the season with cruciate ligament injuries, while cornerback Leon Hall’s status is also in doubt after a suspected Achilles tear. Wayne’s injury was one that Andrew Luck took the blame for after the game, saying he underthrew the ball, which led him to turning around and twisting his knee. It makes for unpleasant viewing.
Jay Cutler is headed for an MRI on his groin injury, while Doug Martin and Arian Foster are carrying shoulder and hamstring injuries respectively.
If you fancy staying up late and watching awful things happen to good people, then the Giants take on the Vikings tonight and between them they have a 1-12 record. We say with a fair degree of certainty that it will be one of the worst games ever seen.
To round off our look at the NFL, here’s Megatron being Megatron and making a TD catch in triple coverage. He cannot be stopped.
Hat-tip to Bro Bible, Fansided and SB Nation for the gifs