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A Long Way From Lambeau
Sub-Plots of the 2007 NFL Season
by Mark Lyne-Austen
17/1/2008
As a fan who lives every moment of the NFL, it can be hard to keep on top of all the buzz being such a long way from Lambeau. The 4.30am finishes to watch David Garrard take a knee to knock out the Steelers are worth the bleary eyes at work, the haunted look that comes from knowing there’s nearly a week to go before the next round of games is intensified come playoff time. The excitement and the trepidation is the race for the Super Bowl, the right for a team to be crowned World Champions. The title tilt is one of the greatest stories in sports, the hardest, most explosive game on the planet builds to it’s peak.
Despite the passion it arouses, the Super Bowl story itself is not all that keeps the avid viewer hooked. Each team is its own sub-plot with mostly decades worth of backstory that remind us all why we love the game. There will only be one headline act to draw most of the attention but that headline is built on the rivalries, the adversity, and the unexpected that every one of the 32 NFL teams dishes out each year.
This year as every year, the Super Bowl champions will be feted and the players etched into NFL history. The rest will be merely the supporting cast but each has a tale far richer than the most subtle of dramas and those stories are played out live on our screens. For the UK fan, the day out at Wembley was like nothing else the chance to see the field when Eli did and watch him scramble as fast as his Manning-shaped body would carry him, the audacious fumble from Lemon that scuppered the Dolphins hopes, the rain and that horrible turf. This is one of those memories that will live with me for as long as I’m still capable of remembering but even if it is the first step towards a truly world-wide league, it doesn’t fall into the top 5 most memorable sub-plots in this 2007 NFL season:
5. Adrian All Day Peterson
 While more than one new NFL star was born in 2007, Adrian Peterson was the one we were all talking about. Big, strong, fast, and potentially as dangerous as any Running Back in the league it was hard to miss him. The San Diego defense missed him though as he blasted them for a league record 296 yards in a red button game. That game was no fluke as the 224 yards against an overrated Bears defensive unit showed. Though it helps to play behind Steve Hutchinson, Peterson was a highly deserving rookie of the year. As with any RB, he didn’t hit the home run all the time, and he didn’t take his team into the playoffs but he did leave an indelible mark on NFL fans as a player to take seriously and the biggest star to emerge this season.
4. Brett’s Back
Brett Favre was bound to break Dan Marino’s passing records this year, he was too close to miss just as he was too close to George Blanda’s interception record to avoid it. It was great to see the gunslinger break through those marks but the story was overshadowed by the unexpected improvement from the entire Green Bay staff. Brett just hadn’t looked the player he was in his prime for 2 years but in 2007 he led the Pack to their best season in ten years, a decade since Favre had last put up such winning numbers and had been named MVP. Calls for head coach Mike McCarthy to receive league-wide honours went largely unheard but what was heard around the league was the wily old campaigner taking the young, athletic team around him to unexpected heights when most had been calling for his retirement.
3. The Unity of Tragedy
The Washington Redskins had been one of the NFL’s bad guys. Dan Snyder’s attempts to buy his way to NFL glory and his unappealingly slimy public persona won him few friends. After a disappointing 2006 season, things were looking just as bad for 2007 at 5-6. It got worse, much worse with the callous murder of star DB Sean Taylor. 5 days later the team were 5-7 with a loss at home to the Bills. Watching Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, it was hard not to wonder why he had come back. The outpouring of support and the unity that Joe Gibbs and his Skins showed drove the team into the playoffs and validation for the 67 year old coach, turning the team into most fans second favourite and allowing the veteran leader to bow out with dignity, admiration, and thanks.
2. Mike Vick, Felon
The Mike Vick saga dominated the off and pre-season and with good reason. Vick still is one the biggest names in the NFL, the 2001 first overall pick with the endorsement deals and the face of the Falcons franchise. Atlanta pinned their hopes to Vick’s mast to the extent that they traded away their highly capable backup Matt Schaub. They pinned those hopes on Vick because they trusted him. Arthur Blank, the owner of Home Depot and notorious public relations enthusiast so desperately wants his team to be one of the good guys. General Manger Rich McKay is known as a character guy someone who wants to be surrounded by high class operators. Neither of them got what they wanted in Vick. He proved to be a high quality liar and his support for a barbaric practice made him a pariah in middle America. His actions also brought him the most press coverage in the UK of any NFL related person in recent times. Is his career over, looks more than likely but the damage he has done to the Atlanta Falcons organisation will not soon be forgotten.
1. The Perfect Storm
 New England’s perfect regular season sits proudly and unsurprisingly atop the memorable list. 16-0 is itself an incredible story unprecedented in regular season history. In itself, that might well have been the biggest story of the year so far but this plot is multi-layered. Wes Welker, the Miami castoff who turned himself into the player with the most receptions in New England franchise history was not even the featured receiver at a club in dire straits down in Florida. Tom Brady, the sixth-round draft QB with the heartbreaking looks and a legacy closing in on Joe Cool breaks the record of his arch-nemesis Peyton Manning. Randy Moss, the troubled and troublesome receiving star who was well past his best in front of the Raider Nation sets a new mark for TD receptions and pulls off some of the greatest grabs ever seen. All this with the backdrop of Belichick, the unlovable curmudgeon at the helm who was caught cheating in Week 1 to solidify himself and his Patriots as NFL fans enemy no 1. The 2007 Patriots are the perfect villains gruff, unaccommodating, and ill-spirited yet so frustratingly talented and awe-inspiring that the hate they deserve is tinged with admiration.
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