Week 1: Moonlight Graham Award

I thought it would be hard to establish an award for the person who steps out of obscurity each week, but had no idea how much harder it would be after a loss and a lackluster performance.

I was hoping to award one of my two M.O.P. candidates the "Grahammy" this week, but Kelly Herndon didn't do anything compelling, and Josh Scobey put us in an immediate hole by fumbling the opening kickoff.

My first thought was to give it to the refs. Not for stepping OUT of obscurity, but more for stepping back INTO obscurity and not becoming a factor in the outcome of the game. It was a fairly called game where they basically let both teams play, and got most of the calls right. There were several opportunities for marginal calls to go against the Seahawks, like they seemed to all last year, but they didn't. It was also good to see the Seahawks cure the rash of penalties they racked up in the off season, but come on, who wants to give an award to a REF??!!

My next thought was Shaun Alexander. REALLY!

How can you give an award for stepping out of obsurity to the Franchise running back? Well, I wasn't thinking so much about his running but more about his blocking. I've been hearing all off season about what a terrible blocker he is and never picks up the blitz. Well, now that I have DirecTV, I got to see for myself, and I thought he did a pretty good job of sticking his nose in there when he had to and keeping guys off Matt. But the word "obscurity" just does not go together well with a player making $6.3 million this season !

So this week's Moonlight Graham award goes to none other than Strength and Conditioning Coach Mike Clark, who is the handsome smiling guy above. Without really reviewing the game film, one of the biggest accomplishments on Sunday was that nobody got hurt, which has got to be in part due to the off season and training camp workout regime. Not only that, but our guys did not seem to be wilting in the 120-degree on field heat, which was key.

Our offense will undoubtedly bounce back from a 4 interception performance. Our defense showed glimses of hope and may play better once Rhodes returns. And I'm still waiting for something special out of our Special Teams. But the one thing that we can't do anything about is injuries, so I'm extremely thankful that everyone seemed to get out of Jacksonville with no major set-backs.

Now, I hope that we play well enough against Atlanta to actually consider some PLAYERS for this award next week!

[Wall of Fame!]