FanHouse MauriceLeggett

It doesn't matter your affiliation to a certain team, we can all admit that, during a sports year, athletes make just as many idiotic decisions on the field as they do off it. You have backward passes, premature celebrations, and rare "I'm not even sure what was supposed to be happening there" plays that can make you go bald from all the head scratching. This year was no different in the NFL, and here is what we came up with as the NFL's dumbest plays of 2008.

Dan Orlovsky's Phantom Safety -- Do you want to know how bad this play actually was? When bringing this idea up to the FanHouse football group, all I had to say about this play was, "Dan Orlovsky." Everyone knew which play I was talking about. The poor guy was thrown into a terrible situation in Detroit, and decided his legacy was going to be "running out of the back of the end zone without ever really knowing what went on." Running out of the end zone as a quarterback is one thing ... not knowing you did so and continuing the play is quite another. I can guarantee Orlovsky one thing -- his video will be shown by high-school coaches all around the nation as what not to do when stuffed back by your own end zone.

The Free Kick Attempt by Neil Rackers -- It sure wasn't the dumbest play of the year, but it was definitely the most confusing. With five seconds left in the first half against the Giants, Ken Whisenhunt actually made the decision to opt for a "free kick," even though nobody knew what in the world a free kick was. Rackers set the ball up on a tee, rared back his heavy leg and ... muffed it. Not only was it unsuccessful, but it gave the Giants a chance to return it. I guess the good news was that we learned what a free kick was and that Rackers has no 68-yard leg.

The Kansas City Chiefs had to be feeling pretty good about themselves nine minutes into Sunday's game with the Broncos. Jay Cutler had just gifted them a touchdown with a pass into coverage which Maurice Leggett picked off and took for six points. That made it 10-0 Chiefs and a replay of Week Four's 33-19 win looked like it was in the cards.

Cutler wouldn't let it happen, though. He was 30-of-36 with 270 yards and two touchdowns after that interception and did most of his best work late in the game when an injury to Peyton Hillis cost the Broncos any semblance of a running game. Cutler completed eight passes, including the winning touchdown to Brandon Marshall, on a 12-play, 95-yard drive that bridged the end of the third and start of the fourth quarters.

Then, backed up on their own one-yard line on third-and-10 with just under four minutes to play, Cutler hit Marshall for 19 yards for a first down. He followed that with an 11-yard strike to Tony Scheffler on another third down to ice the game and, barring a complete collapse, the AFC West for the Broncos.

Cutler is the reason why. Hillis was the sixth Bronco back to go down to injury this season and that's put a lot of pressure on the quarterback. He's inconsistent and brasher than he has any reason to be, but Cutler's put up strong performances often enough to keep a poor defense and mediocre running game from stopping the Broncos run to the playoffs.

On a day where coaches around the National Football League were making ridiculous and absurd calls from the sidelines, defying all human logic and sound reasoning, Oakland head coach Tom Cable may have outdone them all.

Here's the situation: Oakland is facing a fourth-and-10 from the Kansas City 25-yard line in a 3-3 tie. Cable, naturally, sends out the special teams unit to attempt a 42-yard field goal. A successful kick would have given the Raiders a 6-3 lead early in the second quarter. Makes sense, and honestly, it should have been a routine play. Which is probably why the Raiders still managed to screw it up.

Instead of kicking, the Raiders called a fake field goal which resulted in punter Shane Lechler lateraling the ball under his legs, while Sebastian Janikowski, the team's 260-pound monster of a kicker, was, presumably, supposed to outrun the Chiefs special teams unit to the first down marker. On what planet is this a good idea?

As one would expect, everything went terribly wrong.

If you were fired up for this rivalry game, well, I give you credit. The Raiders and Chiefs entered Sunday's game with a combined four wins on the season, and the play, as you would you expect, reflected that lofty win total, as the Chiefs pulled out a 20-13 win.

The biggest highlight reel play of the day was the Raiders hilarious attempt of a fake field goal, which resulted in Shane Lechler lateraling the ball to, uh, nobody, while Chiefs rookie Maurice Leggett (Valdosta State, representing) picked it up and raced 67 yards for a touchdown.

Other than that? Not much else took place.

A week after throwing only one incomplete pass, the good news for JaMarcus Russell is he completed the same number of passes. The bad news is, he did so on 28 attempts, as opposed to the 11 he threw a week ago. Even more incredible, for the fifth consecutive game, the Raiders again only had one wide receiver catch a pass, as Ronald Curry hauled in one pass for a whopping zero yards. That was it for Raiders receivers. One catch. Zero yards.