DEL.ICIO.USFalcons’ Roddy White has another career day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, December 07, 2008
New Orleans — Roddy White had one of those games where he ran wild.
He was matched up against a third string cornerback for the Saints, and eating his lunch. White had 100 yards receiving at halftime — 118 yards on six catches, to be exact.
Bob Andres/bandres@ajc.com
Roddy White, who now leads the NFL in receiving yards, has had seven 100-plus yard receiving games this season.
He went a little playground on quarterback Matt Ryan on the first play of the second quarter, watching Ryan flushed out of the pocket, and pointed downfield.
That was Ryan’s cue to launch deep — and he did. White was there 59 yards downfield to make the catch and set up the Falcons’ first touchdown.
In the second half, White kept at it, only now it was in the clutch. He caught a 21-yard pass to convert a third-and-11 that was called back for holding in the third quarter. No matter, he just caught another one on the next play, going for 26 yards this time on third-and-21.
White caught three other passes on third down in the game, including one other on the drive, to pad his total for the season. He was second in the NFL in third-down catches coming into the Saints game.
White, who now leads the NFL in receiving yards, finished the game with a season-high 10 catches for a career-high 164 yards. It was his seventh 100-yard game of the season, a Falcons record. Tony Martin had six 100-yard receiving games in 1998.
White has 1,249 yards receiving on the season. One more 100-yard game — give or take a first down (he needs 110 yards) — and he’ll break Alfred Jenkins’ Falcons record for yards receiving in a season. Jenkins had 1,358 in 1981.
Ultimately though, White’s efforts got a little lost in a 29-25 loss to the Saints, at least in his mind.
“That’s good, but I want to win,” White said. “I want to make the playoffs. That’s more important. If we had won today, and I had caught one ball, I wouldn’t care.”
White’s eyes got wide matched up on Usama Young, the backup backup cornerback.
Mike McKenzie had broken his knee cap against the Falcons on Nov. 9. His backup Randall Gay went down with a concussion early in the game Sunday, and tried unsuccessfully to return. That left White matched up on Young, a second-year player out of Kent State.
“They had a lot of injuries, a lot of young guys out there, so we wanted to take advantage of that,” White said. “I felt like today we did. We just didn’t finish drives.”
The Falcons mounted one of their patented first quarter drives, but Ryan was intercepted trying to hit White at the Saints’ 29. White made a touchdown-saving tackle on the play after a 23-yard return.
“We threw a pick on our first drive, but we were moving the chains,” White said. “They did nothing to stop us today. We stopped ourselves with penalties and stuff like that. On the road, you can’t do that.”
He didn’t like that the Falcons had to settle for a field goal on a monstrous nine-minute 15-second drive in the third quarter, when he converted a pair of third downs. The field goal gave the Falcons the lead, 17-16, but they could have used those extra four points in a four-point loss.
“We’ve got to get down there and score touchdowns,” White said. “We’ve got to punch it in, man.”
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