It is not often that a 335-pound defensive tackle is among the NFL's scoring leaders, but that is where the Buffalo Bills' Sam Adams finds himself as the NFL enters its second week on Sunday.
Adams and the Bills travel to Jacksonville to face the Jaguars, hard-luck losers to Carolina in their opener.
The ample-bellied Adams picked off one of four errant Tom Brady passes and rambled 37 yards for a touchdown in the Bills' 31-0 demolition of the New England Patriots last Sunday, earning him a spot on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine.
"Nobody gives me much credit for being an athlete," the 10-year veteran said. "But I am."
A two-time Pro Bowler while with Baltimore, Adams had one career interception prior to the game against New England. He took that one back 25 yards for another touchdown.
So the Jaguars -- led by rookie head coach Jack Del Rio -- should be forewarned of Adams's fondness for the end zone. The only other team to toss a shutout on opening week was the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who blanked the Philadelphia Eagles -- new ballpark and all -- 17-0.
The Buccaneers now host the unbending Carolina Panthers, who finished second to Tampa in overall defense a year ago.
Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp took a turn at tight end in the Eagles game and made his first ever reception, dragging would-be tacklers for 14 yards to set up the clinching touchdown.
His heroics bring back memories of former Chicago Bears defender William "The Refrigerator" Perry, who at his peak weighed only a handful more pounds than Sapp (310 to 303) despite his voluminous nickname.
Perry often lined up at fullback and scored two touchdowns -- one on a short toss -- during the Bears' Super Bowl season.
He was even more of a presence in the 1985 title game, becoming the first defensive lineman ever to be sacked while attempting to throw a pass and then blasting his way into the end zone with the game already well out of hand.
Is there more in store for the outspoken Sapp? Stay tuned.
Fittingly, the punchless Patriots and Eagles go head-to-head in Philadelphia in week two.
Putting up points should not be a problem in Kansas City, where the Chiefs entertain the Pittsburgh Steelers. Both teams have ditched their familiar grind-it-out style, which also leaves them susceptible to big plays.
Notebook
An hour after the Giants defeated the St. Louis Rams on Sunday, an ambulance headed through the Giants Stadium tunnel, presumably carrying Rams quarterback Kurt Warner toward an evening of neurological tests after an afternoon of corporal punishment.
It turned out he had one of what will be roughly 160 concussions in the NFL this season. Warner, who also had a concussion in 2000, will give way to his backup, Marc Bulger, on Sunday.
The Rams' coach, Mike Martz, and the team doctor, Bernard T. Garfinkel, were left to explain why Warner was allowed to play after he was hurt. Garfinkel cleared Warner at halftime to continue playing, Martz said. When asked about this later, Garfinkel agreed that he had.
Martz also said he had continued to play Warner even though he had trouble deciphering the plays. Garfinkel's response: "That's a coaching decision, not a medical decision."
So where does the buck stop on head injuries in the NFL?
"I would say it's not the coach; it's ultimately the physician's decision," said the Jets' team physician, Elliot Pellman, who is chairman of the NFL committee on mild traumatic brain injury. "But you can't have a hard and fast protocol, because the injury is all over the place."
Even though a majority of concussions clear up quickly, Pellman said in a telephone interview this week, some players do not return to the game in which they are injured. "The only way you can really be definitive is by having a physician on the sideline who is aware of the literature and has clinical experience dealing with the issue," he said.
Pellman said he was confident that the physicians who work for each of the 32 NFL teams are well versed on an injury that is one of the more complex in sports. A concussion occurs when the brain is concussed, or shaken, and it can happen a number of ways and with varying levels of severity, from light dizziness that clears up soon after the hit, to mild nausea and headaches, to the uncommon but most severe cases of post-concussion syndrome, which can include malaise, headaches and memory loss.
Impotent offenses
The New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles have been two teams to emulate in recent years. They mixed punishing defenses with offenses that could soar on any given weekend. The Patriots won the Super Bowl after the 2001 season. The Eagles had 34 regular-season victories from 2000 to 2002, the most in the league.
But when those teams play Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, it will be the first time in 71 seasons that two NFL teams that were shut out in Week 1 met in Week 2, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The last time it happened was Oct. 2, 1932, when the Staten Island Stapletons played the Chicago Bears. Amazingly, the Stapletons-Bears game ended in a 0-0 tie.
Coach Andy Reid, whose Eagles dropped a 17-0 decision to Tampa Bay, gave little weight to the Patriots' 31-0 loss in Buffalo.
"I know how things work in the National Football League, and it is never as good as you think and never as bad as you think," Reid said in a conference call this week. "Sometimes things can snowball on you a little bit, and we are in that same situation that they are in, so I understand."
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has seen New England fall to a 6-8 record since beginning the 2002 season at 3-0. "I think we still are going in the right direction," Brady said. "Not that it really showed itself last Sunday, but we are doing everything we can to change that around."
Bruce Smith nears sack record
At the height of his powers, Bruce Smith turned the corner at the line of scrimmage as well as any defensive end who has ever played. His speed was remarkable, his ferocity a staple of the Buffalo Bills and their run of four consecutive American Football Conference titles in the 1990s.
At 40, and now a member of the Washington Redskins, Smith is just two and a half sacks short of equaling Reggie White's career sack record of 198. Smith recorded a half-sack against the Jets in Week 1.
As far back as 1996, Smith talked about holding the record one day. "Becoming the all-time sack leader," he said, "would be special for me."
In the Redskins' locker room, players half Smith's age have been cheering him to the record.
"Like me and Champ say, we'll be the reason he sets it, because it means we're locking our guys down," Fred Smoot said, referring to his fellow Redskins cornerback Champ Bailey.
"It's going to be real monumental for me to see him get something that he's been shooting for a long time. Like I told him, the day I break the interception record he needs to come back and sit in the stadium and watch that."
Smith will have to be patient. It could take two lifetimes for Smoot, with nine interceptions, to catch Paul Krause's mark of 81, which he set in a career with the Redskins and the Vikings.
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