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Old 01-31-2005, 11:02 PM   #52
stkelly52
College Benchwarmer
 
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Seattle WA
OK, I am back from the Nation's capital. Back to Leland Nixon's story

Week 1
Atlanta @ Carolina
The Panthers are coming off of a lousy season, but they are looking to change that trend. They are finally turning to there #1 draft choice from three years ago, who was expected to be the QB of the future. So far he has not developed the way that they hoped he would. He still looks like he might turn into a star, but he is far from there yet. As for the rest of Carolina's team, they look very beatable. They don't have much of a RB to speak of, and their defense is completely designed to defend the pass. They are very undermanned in run stoppers. Nixon should be able to pick up quite a few yards.

Early in the game things got of poorly for Nixon. One play after running for 41 yards, Leland Nixon fumbled the ball and it was returned 76 yards for a TD, and we were down 7-0 in the first. But thanks to some solid runs by Nixon we were able to answer right back an tie the score. Nixon continued to atone for his early game mistake and ran very well the rest of the game. While he was not able to get into the end zone, his runs set up several scoring opportunities for us, particularly in the fourth quarter. We go on to win the game 23-17. Nixon had 123 yards on 28 carries in the win.

Week 2
Houston 1-0 @ Atlanta 1-0
We are four point favorites in this game. Houston looks like they have a mix of very good run defenders, and very poor run defenders. We need to focus on those weak defenders if we are going to have the success that I desire.

This was a fantastic, exciting game. We fell behind by two TDs early, but we refused to give up. In the closing moments of the first quarter we cut the lead down to just 7. Following a Houston field goal, Nixon scored his first TD of the year on a 2 yard dive to cut our deficit to just 3. To open the second half we went on an unbelievable 19 play 80 yard drive that Nixon capped with another 2 yard TD dive. There is no way to track these kinds of stats, but I know that I have never heard of any other 19 play drive.
In the fourth quarter, Houston added a 23 yard field goal to cut our lead to just one. We responded with another TD drive with 2:37 left in the game. We were up by eight, needing to just hold on for a couple more minutes. But we couldn't do it. Houston needed just 47 seconds to go 80 yards and tie the score (with the 2 point conversion).
But there was still 1:50 left. We had the ball 8 yards from the goal line. Our we knew that our kicker needed to get within about 45 yards to make the kick to win the game. With all of our time outs remaining we had no problem getting him 43 yards from the cross bar. The kick went up and just crossed the bar as time expired. We win 31-28.
Nixon had another solid day. He ran for 99 yards on 24 carries, averaging 4.1 yards per carry. And he had those two TDs as well.
The bad news is that we lost our starting LG, Kyle Conklin, for basically the rest of the regular season. The doctors tell me that he might be ready to play for the last game or two, but not to count on it.

Last edited by stkelly52 : 02-03-2005 at 12:25 AM.
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