2003 Season - Week 17

USA, USA. In a season when only two owners made the Hall of Fame how apt it was for Wayne to seal the 2003 Papas Fritas Trophy by posting his third ever 50 plus week. He ended up winning the Trophy by 54 points the largest winning gap since Gully’s 67 point margin way back in 1997. USA, USA. With the final play of the season Paul moved ahead of Gareth into second place as his kicker Matt Stover kicked the OT winner for Baltimore over Pittsburgh. Dave G won the Conference after leading it since week 12. I’m pleased to announce John (the architect of the split division promotion/relegation system) has also been promoted and, like Dave, Andy H has made an immediate return to the Premiership. Making way for them are Phil (who lead the Conference ever week of last season), together with Daz ‘I’m going down fighting’ and ‘still the all time leading points scorer’ Johnny. Record Setters St Louis kicker Jeff Wilkins enters the BUMS record books as he scored an all-time BUMS high 163 points this season for Dave G just surpassing the 162 points Gary Anderson scored in the 1998 season. Many running backs had big years this year but none had as big a BUMS year as Priest Holmes. The KC Chief finished the season with an NFL record 27 TD’s. He ended the BUMS season with 162 points beating the record for an offensive player of 160 set by Marshall Faulk in 1999. Jamal Lewis had a huge season running the rock and finished with 2,066 yards the 2nd highest total in NFL history. Just the 5th back to rush for over 2,000 yards, he finished just 39 yards behind record holder Eric Dickerson. Meantime Curtis Martin quietly rushed for 1,000 yards for the 9th consecutive year. That’s every year since he entered the league. The only other back in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in each of their first 9 seasons was Barry Sanders. Jerome Bettis started the season on the bench but was a starter again by midseason and finished the year with 12,353 yards. That puts The Bus 6th all-time behind Tony Dorsett (12,739), Dickerson (13,259), Sanders (15,269), Walter Payton (16,726) and Emmitt Smith (17,418). Brett Favre has now thrown 346 TD’s passing Fran Tarkenton’s 342 for 2nd most all-time. However he still trails Dan Marino by 74 passing scores! Peyton Manning becomes he first QB to pass for 25 TD’s in 6 consecutive seasons. Jerry Rice took his streak of consecutive NFL games with a reception to a record 273, while fellow Raider Tim Brown also caught a ball in every game this year and took his NFL second highest streak to 172 games. Rice now has 22,458 receiving yards and Brown is again number 2 with 15,761. Both have said they want to come back to Oakland next year. On defence Bruce Smith finished the year and his career with exactly 200 sacks having surpassed Reggie White’s NFL record of 198. ‘The Idiot Kicker’ Colt Mike Vanderjagt (Ron) set an NFL record with 41 consecutive Field Goals all season long.