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Sunday, November 11, 2007
Vintage Dunn gets workhorse job done
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Charlotte — Long before Alge Crumpler spent the waning seconds on Sunday sealing a Falcons victory with a catch-and-run sprint of 30 yards through the Carolina Panthers defense, there was Warrick Dunn.
For the good of the Falcons, along with mom, apple pie and the American flag, there always was Warrick Dunn.
You can’t just like this guy. You have to love him. Not only do you have his slew of humanitarian awards for his housing program for single mothers and other initiatives from the heart, you have his ability to keep leaping out of nowhere to stiff-arm time. He does so by ignoring his 32-year-old legs to become his vintage self, and we’re referring to the Dunn of old who consistently ranked among the NFL’s most complete players as a prolific runner, receiver and blocker.
So this was vintage Dunn at Bank of America Stadium. What better way to celebrate Veterans Day than to have one of the most impressive human beings in sports history show 73,340 witnesses that age is just a number in his world.
“He’s not that big of a guy, so, yeah, it’s special what he’s doing when you see him taking all those hits from the big guys,” rookie wide receiver Laurent Robinson said of the Falcons’ 5-foot-9, 187-pound miracle.
Added owner Arthur Blank, delivering more truisms about Dunn from the locker room of the 20-13 winners, “As a person, he always amazes me, but at his age, to be performing the way he does on the field really [is amazing]. Whenever he has to step up, he always steps up. I’m sure Warrick has lost a step. It’s just hard for me to see it.”
Nobody sees it. The Panthers didn’t, not with Dunn grinding his way to 89 yards rushing and a touchdown. He also caught three passes for 51 yards and blocked with efficiency. He could do nothing less than become the Falcons’ offense for a bunch that still hasn’t a clue of how to run coach Bobby Petrino’s power spread scheme without sputtering for long stretches.
The Falcons scored on the game’s opening drive, and Dunn punctuated it by racing 30 yards to the end one. Once, he kept churning and stretching after a catch to add five, six, maybe eight yards to what became a play of 35 yards. He also did a Knowshon Moreno twirl on a couple of runs to make the Panthers dizzy.
“I guess sometimes when I’m watching film, I’m kind of surprised at some of the moves that I’ve made,” said Dunn, in his typically humble tone. He set the stage for his Carolina performance by looking a decade younger against San Francisco the week before. That’s when he rushed for 100 yards in a game for the first time this season. Said Dunn, “I constantly challenge myself day in and day out to just go hard and leave it on the field. That’s pretty much what I try to do, and whatever happens after that, to me, it just comes naturally. It’s nothing that I’m planning to do. It just happens.”
It just happens for a supposedly old guy who underwent shoulder and back surgery before the season. It just happens for a supposedly old guy who is working behind a ghastly offensive line. It just happens for a supposedly old guy who is forced to carry more times per game (27 against the 49ers, 26 against the Panthers, as opposed to an average of 13 carries per game during the previous seven games) these days to compensate for injured backup Jerious Norwood. It just happens for a supposedly old guy who is 58 yards rushing from 10,000 for his career, which is close to Hall of Fame territory.
Just so you know, Dunn can reach that milestone Sunday at the Georgia Dome against the Buccaneers, his team prior to joining the Falcons in 2002. He remembers more about his Tampa days than his pretty touchdown run Sunday.
“I think it was a draw play, and I just tried to read the blocks,” Dunn said, shrugging. “I have no idea what happened after that. I was just running, and the next thing I saw was [wide receiver] Roddy [White] and defensive backs. So I cut off Roddy and ran to the end zone.”
Now Dunn will keep running toward Canton, ancient feet and all.
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