Pro. Brandon Stokley

[RaisingCajun08]

This is GREAT news. I am sure he is not completly out of the woods yet but it is great for all involved.

[NewsCopy]

LOUISIANA La. — Brandon Stokley didn’t get back to the Super Bowl in his first year with the Indianapolis Colts, but he’s feeling super these days just the same.

Stokley and his wife Lana were able to bring their son Cameron home from the hospital last week, two weeks after a harrowing episode with meningitis for the child.

“When you bring your child to the hospital, thinking he’s got a cold, and you find out he has something that could be life-threatening, it’s a scary thing,” Stokley said. “It’s frightening.”

Stokley and the Colts were coming off a 38-31 road victory at Kansas City and had just begun to game plan for the AFC Championship Game at New England when the Stokley household was turned upside down.

Cameron was diagnosed quickly, however, and treatment soon had a positive effect.

His father was able to rejoin the team’s practices and head to chilly New England for the contest.

Stokley managed three catches against the rugged Patriots defense in a 24-14 loss, absorbing what he called “the hardest hits I’ve had all year” before turning his attention back to his son’s health.

Finally, doctors felt secure enough to let the child go home last Tuesday.

“He had to be off oxygen completely before they would let him come home,” Stokley said. “We hope to come home in a month or so. Cameron has his 8-week shots in a couple of weeks, and then we’ll look at coming back.

“We don’t want to fly. Lana’s paranoid about germs on a plane, so we’ll pack up the car and drive. I’ll get plenty of coffee, and I’m good to go.”

The source of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

LAFAYETTE — The last place Brandon Stokley figured to see snow was the Deep South, especially after spending last football season in Indiana, but that’s what he encountered last weekend.

The Indianapolis Colts wide receiver, his wife Lana and infant son Cameron drove back to Lafayette to enjoy Mardi Gras with family, and they figured they had left the white stuff behind.

“We got held up by a snow storm in north Mississippi,” Stokley said. “I had to go about 30 miles an hour. We had driven from Indiana, through Missouri, Illinois and then had snow in Mississippi.”

The former UL Lafayette star was on the golf course Friday, enjoying mild weather after spending some cold days in Indianapolis waiting for Cameron’s bout with meningitis to clear.

Since the Colts season ended, Stokley agreed to restructure his contract so the club will absorb a smaller salary cap figure.

The team lowered Stokley’s 2004 cap figure by about $860,000 by giving him a $970,600 signing bonus and lowering his base pay to $535,000.

tHE REST OF THE STORY

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

Peyton Manning and Brett Favre threw touchdown pass after touchdown pass, moving the ball as if the defenses were little more than speed bumps.

The dizzying array of offense produced nine touchdowns and no interceptions. Midway through the fourth quarter, Favre mounted another drive, hoping to throw for another score. . . .

Receivers on both sides also had career days.

Reggie Wayne caught 11 passes for 184 yards, both career-highs, and one TD. Brandon Stokley caught eight passes for a career-high 110 yards and two TDs. . . .

Manning opened the game with a 36-yard TD pass to Wayne, a 28-yard score to Marvin Harrison and a 34-yard score to Stokley.

The rest of the story

[NewsCopy]

If you saw Indianapolis Colts receiver Reggie Wayne poke quarterback Peyton Manning in the chest last weekend, you also saw a teammate who looked surprised at having been caught between the two. How appropriate it was Brandon Stokley.

The underappreciated wide receiver seems to be everywhere these days, and it's usually between Manning and opposing cornerbacks. Stokley not only has more catches than Wayne, his higher-profile teammate, but he has more yards than everyone on the Colts -- and, yes, that list includes Marvin Harrison.

"I'm really blessed," said Stokley. "I'm healthy this year, and I'm in an offense with so many weapons. And that's helped me a lot. Plus, because of people like Marvin and Reggie and Edgerrin (James), I've had a lot more opportunities than I've had in the past."

It's one thing to have opportunities; it's another to take advantage of them. And Stokley is making the most of his time this season, with more receptions (32) through six games than he's had in any previous year.

While that's terrific, this is what you like most about the guy: His catches are significant, with Sunday's game against Jacksonville serving as Exhibit A. Stokley hauled down a game-high seven passes, five of which were for first downs -- including the Colts' longest reception, a 38-yarder to set up a touchdown.

That was not an aberration. In three of his last four games Stokley has at least seven catches, and in two of those games -- including Sunday's loss to Jacksonville -- he has over 100 yards in receptions. What's more, he -- not Wayne and not Harrison -- leads the Colts in third-down receptions with 11, tying him for third in the AFC.

The rest of the story

By Clark Judge
SportsLine.com Senior Writer

[El Sidonio]

First of all, I'd like to thank mr. judge for a great article. Second of all, I pose a question: If Stokley is so good and has better stats than the other guys mentioned in the article, why do we hear more about Edgerrin, Harrison, et al?

God Bless.

[shof]

Enjoy

By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com

INDIANAPOLIS -- He is making a league-minimum base salary of $535,000 this season, and making a lot more big plays than several NFL receivers who are earning several times that much, but Indianapolis Colts wideout Brandon Stokley made it clear Sunday that he can't even begin to see himself in another offense that better suits his skills.

Brandon Stokley has been getting congratulated by his teammates a lot this season.
"This place and this offense, well, they're perfect for me," said Stokley, who has already voided the segment of his contract that extends beyond this season, making him eligible for unrestricted free agency in the spring. "It's like I'm in heaven, really, and I can't ask for a better situation. I know I've got it pretty good here."

OK, so maybe, tempted by the lure of free agency and perhaps the promise of some fast-talkin' general manager who thinks Stokley can line up as a No. 2 receiver, the sixth-year veteran bolts Indianapolis next spring for a bigger paycheck. Says here, and this is just a suggestion, that Stokley would be crazy to ever abandon this offense.

And it says, too, that even though Indianapolis will have far more significant free agent concerns, with the potential for wide receiver Marvin Harrison and running back Edgerrin James to hit the open market, the Colts would be nuts to allow Stokley to escape.

His performance on Sunday offered yet another reason why Stokley is the square peg in the round hole in the Colts' offense -- he had five catches for 132 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns -- and why he is fast becoming one of the NFL's premier slot receivers.

Flanked by Harrison and Reggie Wayne, and with James now softening up defenses with the run again, Stokley has flourished big-time in the Colts offense. He now has 41 catches for a team-best 665 yards and five touchdowns and Sunday was this third 100-yard outing of the season.

More important, he has provided Peyton Manning, whose five touchdown passes Sunday raised his league-leading total to 31, with the additional option every quarterback covets. Most league defenses don't have even two cornerbacks sufficiently skilled to try to keep up with Harrison and the ever-emerging Wayne. But add Stokley to the equation, and the task of stopping the Indianapolis passing game is nearly impossible.

"We played (poorly)," acknowledged Houston cornerback Aaron Glenn, "but they just seem to have weapons all over the place. It's so hard to keep them all under wraps. You concentrate on Marvin and Wayne and then that No. 83 guy (Stokley) makes all kinds of plays. With him, it's even tougher to keep them down."

Fact is, about the only thing that slowed the Indianapolis offense was its own mistakes (seven penalties, including three false-start calls on one series), and the game officials. The crew, led by referee Bill Carollo, was ponderously slow. And there were a trio of replay challenges in the first half that really forced things to drag.

Houston coach Dom Capers actually used all three first-half timeouts on one Colts offensive series. Two of the timeouts came on instant replay challenges, plays where it seemed Capers had no chance of overturning the on-field call, that were upheld. And he actually used one timeout to stop the clock so he could make the second replay challenge.

Manning completed 18 of 27 attempts for 320 yards, with the five touchdown passes and a pair of uncharacteristic interceptions, for a quarterback rating of 115.7. Harrison had just two catches for 22 yards, and likely wasn't happy about that production, but Manning certainly spread the ball around.

In addition to Stokley's standout performance, which included a 69-yard touchdown catch on the first possession of the second half, tight end Dallas Clark had a big day. The two-year veteran grabbed three catches for 102 yards and two touchdowns. His biggest play was an 80-yard touchdown, when Manning was flushed out of the pocket to his right, and Texans free safety Marcus Coleman whiffed badly on an interception attempt.

In recent weeks, Manning has begun going to his tight ends again, and that just further complicates things for opposition defensive coordinators.

Sunday marked the fourth straight game in which Clark, who had but two receptions for 68 yards in the first five outings of the year, posted three catches. He has 264 yards (a healthy 22.0-yard average) and four touchdowns on those dozen catches. Fellow tight end Marcus Pollard has 10 catches for 119 yards and three scores in that same period, after only eight receptions for 56 yards the first five games.

"Definitely, there are a lot of weapons here," agreed Stokley, who began his career with Baltimore but was signed by the Colts in 2003, in part because Manning, who used him as an instructor as his annual passing game, lobbied for him. "Peyton is doing a great job of spreading it around. All you can ask is to get your share, you know?"

Right now, Stokley is certainly his share, and making the most of his opportunities.

[CajunFanatic91]

Pretty good. He's certainly got something to be thankful for. Brandon finished with five receptions three TDs and about 50 yards in Indys 41-6 win over Detroit.

[Turbine]

Brandon has been on fire as of late. He fits with Indy to a "T" or is that an "I"

[RaisingCajun08]

Peyton is a great QB but Brandon created his own holes on his 3rd TD catch.

Brandon is definatly benefiting from having 2 good WRs on each side of him.

[BabbForHeisman]

I was just looking at some NFL stats and noticed that Brandon Stokely is #5 in the AFC in receiving yards, right in front of his more well known teammates Marvin Harrison(#7) and Reggie Wayne(#6).

My question is where Brandon will end up next year...

Will be stay in Indianapolis, where he'll have Peyton Manning throwing to him but he'll probably always be the #3 guy?

Or will be more likely to go somewhere else where he can be the first or second option?

How about Carolina...I heard he was thinking about signing there last time when he ended up with the Colts. Can you imagine Jake throwing to Brandon and Steve Smith, with Muhsin Muhammed as a solid #3 guy?

[snote]

Originally posted by BabbForHeisman
I was just looking at some NFL stats and noticed that Brandon Stokely is #5 in the AFC in receiving yards, right in front of his more well known teammates Marvin Harrison(#7) and Reggie Wayne(#6).

My question is where Brandon will end up next year...

Will be stay in Indianapolis, where he'll have Peyton Manning throwing to him but he'll probably always be the #3 guy?

Or will be more likely to go somewhere else where he can be the first or second option?

How about Carolina...I heard he was thinking about signing there last time when he ended up with the Colts. Can you imagine Jake throwing to Brandon and Steve Smith, with Muhsin Muhammed as a solid #3 guy?

is this a request for brandon's phone number? (smiles)