The undefeated season is over, and if the Chiefs want to bounce back from a 13-point effort against the Steelers, they’ll have to do it on the road. They travel to Oakland, Dallas and New Jersey to face the Giants for three of their next four.
Methodology: These rankings are based on which teams voters think would win head-to-head matchups. Higher-ranked teams would be favored against lower-ranked teams. Coming off a win doesn’t guarantee a jump, and a loss doesn’t guarantee a fall.
Future Bears special teams coach Mike Sweatman, whom Steckel hired in 1984 when he was head coach with the Vikings. As Pat Mannelly told us, Sweatman is the coach who implemented the fake field goal ninja, which the Bears ran for a touchdown in 2001 against Washington, with Brian Urlacher catching and scoring.
The article, written by Football Scoop’s Scott Roussel, provided a bit of background on the play, noting that it came from Tampa Bay’s then-offensive coordinator Les Steckel. Roussel remembered the play as soon as he saw it, as did several high school and college coaches who Roussel saw tweeting that they’d run the play before.
He located it from a Buccaneers-Packers game in 2000 and found the clip. He ended the article writing:
Something tells me Coach Steckel enjoyed seeing that one called last night; and he probably remembers to this day the coach from whom he got the idea…
My best guess? Steckel’s coach at the University of Kansas, Jack Mitchell.