[stkelly52]

Week 17
Atlanta 12-3 @ Carolina 9-6
In the final week of the season, we know that this game really means nothing. We could use this as an opportunity to give some playing time to some other players who could use the experience. But we are not going to do this. Carolina desperately wants to win this game. If they win today, then their season continues. If they lose then they open the door for Arizona to take the final Wild Card slot.

We have just a couple of players who are injured. We are going to let those guys rest and heal completely for the playoffs, but everyone else who is healthy will play. We have a few things that we want to accomplish. For one, Leland Nixon needs only 125 yards rushing to set a new single season rushing record. He also needs just one more TD to set a new record for rushing TDs in a season (This is the 4th time a player has equaled 16 in a season; Nixon has 3 of those years). Leland would love to have those records all to himself.

But more important than personal records, we want to win this game because Carolina came into Atlanta earlier this year and embarrassed us. Now we want to return the favor.

This game really looked like we were trying to get Leland the record more than we were trying to actually win the game. In the end, Leland did get his 17th TD of the year, but he fell 18 yards shy of the record, in spite of being given 37 attempts to break the record. The Panthers knew what we were trying and they were able to stop it. What the Panthers were not able to do was move the ball well. They had a big 86 yard TD pass in the first quarter, but after that their offence could do nothing. Leland's 4th quarter TD run from 12 yards out was enough to win the game for us 12-7.

Regular Season Review
Leland also set a new record for rushing attempts this year with 502. His 2128 yards rushing is the third highest total in the history of the league, and he became the first player to ever have two 2000 yard seasons. His end of season average of 4.23 yards per carry was comfortably above the 4.0 goal that we set for him. And of course he had the record 17 TDs. For fumbles, no one in the league had more fumble than did Nixon, with 12. Even so, this has been a very successful year for Leland. I really think that this could be the year that Nixon is finally named to be an All-Pro. Of course we will have to wait until the end of the playoff to see.