Alumni Association: NFL Vols and the Wild, Wild West

Today, I bring you a special edition of the Alumni Association.  We'll be taking a look at Vols in the NFL as usual, but given the magical, mystifying, heart-stopping, unbelievable, heart-restarting, phenomenal, heart-restopping game that was San Diego v. Denver, I'm going to take a look specifically at Vols in the AFC West.  That takes nothing away from other Vols like Jerod Mayo and his 7 solo tackles.  I am, however, an avid Denver fan and, botched call notwithstanding, am still far too pumped about that game to think about much else in the NFL.  (And yes, there was a lot of terrific football in the NFL this weekend.  Wow.)  So...

Dustin Colquitt, Kansas City Chiefs

Yeah, when the punter is the headliner for a team, it was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.  Colquitt will undoubtedly be rewarded with a day off to ice his kicking leg after eight punts (!!!) against Oakland, of all teams.  Even with eight punts, he still kicked his way to a 49.4-yard average, a long of 73 yards, and 5 punts within the 20-yard line.  Dustin Colquitt, you win Player of the Game honors for the Chiefs in my book.

As for Herm, maybe he just shoulda stayed in bed.

Brad Cottam, Kansas City Chiefs

Not much to say here for the guy riding the pine behind Gonzalez.  That's alright though; given the Chiefs' offense, it's not like Cottam is missing much.

Turk McBride, Kansas City Chiefs

McBride is currently the #2 left DE on the Chiefs behind Alfonso Boone.  With limited action, McBride did record one solo tackle, but had little opportunity to grace the stat sheets otherwise.  Fortunately for McBride, few Vols fans had the opportunity to watch this dud, so we didn't have to witness the agony.

Rashad Baker, Oakland Raiders

Rashad Baker is third in the depth chart at free safety and did not record any meaningful stats in Oakland's romp over Kansas City.  Given that this is his fifth year in the league, he's probably destined for a quite and less-than-legendary career.  But then again, given Al Davis, he might become the new head coach any day.

Gibril Wilson, Oakland Raiders

Wilson, another 5th-year safety, provided more support for the Raiders with 4 tackles (2 solo).  For both of  you Oakland fans out there, it's a good thing that this is down from his 11-tackle tally against the Broncos in week 1.  This means that the defense did better of stopping people before they gained a jillion yards.  But then again, this was against the Chiefs.  So there's something there for both the optimist and the pessimist.  Everybody wins!

San Diego Chargers

What?!?  No Vols playing for San Diego???  Well, if the Chiefs get Norved, at least they know where to look.

Denver Broncos

No Broncos either??!!!1??/?  Um... forget what I said about Norv.  I mean, um, perhaps Shanahan is waiting on Berry?  Can we at least call Cutler an honorary Vol?  No?

/dodges rotten tomatoes

Well, with that dud, let's go into the bonus and look at a couple other notable performances:

Jason Allen, Miami Dolphins

Jason Allen is the #1 free safety for the Dolphins - sorta.  If they're in the 4-3, Allen is atop the depth chart.  If they're in a 3-4, he's #2 behind Chris Crocker.  It'll be interesting to see which form wins out, though Parcells prefers the 3-4.  Allen did not record a tackle, but Crocker recorded only 2, so it wasn't exactly an exciting night for free safeties against Arizona.  Perhaps it should have been; Arizona does love themselves some deep ball.

Anthony Herrera, Minnesota Vikings

Herrera is the starting right guard for one of the strongest running O-lines the NFL has seen in a while.  Thanks in part to his road-grading, Adrian Peterson took off for 160 yards on the ground in a losing effort against the Indianapolis Mannings Colts.  Since NFL teams (and most other teams) tend to put their best run-blockers on the right side of the line, this is quite a compliment for a guy you'll never hear about on Sportscenter.  But the big guy does a terrific job and gets love here (and the final billing).

So what did you notice?