TEMPE, Ariz. -- Defenders like to make fun of David Johnson because hes almost always smiling.But Johnson usually gets the last laugh.While the Arizona Cardinals did a lot of things wrong in their season-opening loss to the New England Patriots, Johnson did a lot of things right.His mix of skill and instinct was on full display in a 45-yard run that led to the Cardinals go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter.Johnson began the play with a jump cut worthy of a long jumper, followed by a spin to get out of the clutches of would-be tacklers. He put his hand to the turf to keep his balance and stiff-armed two defenders as he broke into the open field.A crazy run, basically, Johnson said after the Cardinals practiced Wednesday. It was all instincts. Thats all I could say is that all instincts took over that run for sure.Johnson is big -- 6-foot-1, 225 pounds -- with power, agility and surprising breakaway speed.In the 23-21 loss to New England, Johnson carried the ball 16 times for 89 yards and caught four passes for 43 yards, one of them a 26-yarder that featured a couple of open-field moves and a quick dash past would-be tacklers.The Cardinals, who had the No. 1 offense in the NFL last season, are known for Carson Palmers passing Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd and John Brown, among others. But Palmer points to Johnson as a critical player if the team is to have the success it expects this season.It goes where Dave goes, theres no doubt, Palmer said. He does so much in the passing game, not only protection but running routes. He catches a lot of balls. But very few things will work in the pass game if we dont have a run game. So, him running the ball like hes been running from the beginning of training camp until has tremendous effect on the pass game. Hes as big a part of this offense as anybody.According to Pro Football Focus, Johnson had the highest rushing grade of opening weekend at 81.4, followed by Melvin Gordon (80.5), DeAngelo Williams (80.1) and Todd Gurley (78.7).In the six games since Johnson became the starter as a rookie late last season, he leads the NFL with 531 yards rushing and 791 yards from scrimmage.Gurley and Gordon were the big-name backs chosen in the first round of the 2015 draft. Johnson was selected in the third round out of Northern Iowa.Coach Bruce Arians said he saw immediately what kind of potential Johnson had, but brought him along slowly.The first time Johnson touched the ball in an NFL game, he caught short pass from Palmer and turned on the speed in a 55-yard touchdown play. The second time he touched it, he returned a kickoff 108 yards for a score.Still, he didnt get the starting running back job until Chris Johnson went down with a season-ending knee injury. Chris Johnson is back but David has a firm hold on the job now. Chris Johnson only played two snaps against the Patriots.Chris will play when David decides hes too tired.He never really got tired against New England, Arians said. There was the one time we had a longer drive and he tapped out, and Chris went right in and Andre (Ellington) jumped in on third down. Hopefully we have some longer drives and he taps out more often and we can get Chris in there.Johnson is such a nice guy its hard to reconcile that with the hard-hitting player on the field.When you get on the field, its a different story, especially as a running back, he said. Youve got to be aggressive. Youve got to be able to take the pounding and be able to get the yards.Not much can make him angry, he said. He gets mad at himself when he makes a mistake. And then theres those times when the defenders are chirping.I try to show them, Johnson said, that just because I smile, Im not a soft guy.---Online: AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and AP NFL Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/AP-NFL Air Force 1 Günstig Kaufen . It is a cliché dragged out by fans and pundits regularly when discussions take place around which teams are better than others. Air Force 1 Billig . Hamelin, who triumphed in the 500 on Saturday, edged out Victor An of Russia by 0.021 seconds to maintain his lead in the World Cup standings. Russias Vladimir Grigorev was third. In the relay, Canada took control six laps from the finish line to beat Russia and the Netherlands. http://www.airforce1schweiz.ch/ . Olli Jokinen, Mark Scheifele, and Bryan Little each had a goal and an assist as Winnipeg won 5-2, handing Calgary its record-setting seventh consecutive loss on home ice. Air Force 1 Ch . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night. Air Force 1 Outlet Schweiz . Bjorn, who had a 36-hole total of 8-under 134, made a testing six-foot putt to save par on the 16th and a birdie on the 17th before bogeying the final hole after a misjudged approach shot. American Kevin Streelman was in second place after shooting a 69. On Monday night in Toronto, Eric Lindros was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame for being one of the games most feared and dominant players of the 1990s. But, despite his reputation as a hard-hitting, glove-dropping, goal-scoring freight train of a player, Lindros legacy will also be his willingness to shed light on what remains a controversial topic: concussions in hockey.He was ahead of his time, said Pittsburgh Penguins assistant general manager Bill Guerin, who began his NHL playing career in Lindros rookie season of 1992-93. He had a pretty deep history with concussions; his family knows it well. Its not always the popular move to come forward with something like that. It was a difficult one, and he brought it to the forefront. He should be recognized for that. It was a big step.Lindros, 43, retired as a player in 2007 at the age of 33, after six concussions between 1998 and 2000 stripped him of what could have been the most productive years of his career. His decision to sit out the entire 2000-01 season heightened the NHLs awareness of concussions and how to treat them.Its not about the number, Lindros told ESPN.com. Its about the degree of each one and the makeup of each individual person. Everyone is completely different. Thats the hard part of this. Some guys will take a big hit and feel fine and not want to come out of a game. No one is ever going to question how tough these guys are. Thats why they had to take it out of the players hands.This season, the NHL and its players association enhanced the concussion protocol by adding a group of certified athletic trainers who are the central league spotters. They monitor every game from the player safety room in New York and are authorized to require a players removal from a game if he shows visible signs of a possible concussion.I think as a whole we understand theyre doing their best to try to look after us and that you sometimes have to be taken out of the situation, said Arizona Coyotes captain Shane Doan, who came into the NHL in 1996, one year after Lindros won league MVP (Hart and Pearson, which is voted on by the players). Theres no competitor who ever wants to be taken out of the situation. Sometimes, even if you feel like its in your best interest to sit out, you still go out there. In our sport, theres a lot of pride in proving that youre tough enough to keep going. Sometimes you can and sometimes you cant, and youve got to trust the people whose job it is to make that call.On Nov. 3, late in the third period of a game between the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Islanders in Brooklyn, Flyers captain Claude Giroux was removed from the game after taking a high stick in the nose from Casey Cizikas. The Flyers tied the score on the ensuing power play, and Giroux was seen motioning to an arena worker to open the door behind the net to let him back onto the rink in time to play the final minute of regulation and overtime. Giroux, who was cleared of a possible concussion, scored the winning goal for the Flyers in the shootout.I just got off the ice right away to get it out of the way, Giroux told reporters after the game. Because when you get hit in the head ... with the protocol ... I was just trying to get it out of the way so I could play in overtime.On Nov. 8, a concussion spotter requested that Rangers goaltender Antti Raanta be removed from a tie game against the Vancouver Canucks?after seeing Raanta hit the back of his head on the ice after a collision with forward Markus Granlund. Raanta, who suffered a concussion last season, was examined on the ice by Rangers athletic trainer Jim Ramsay after the collision, but he was removed from the game four minutes later at the request of an off-ice concussion spotter.The Canucks scored a pair of goals on Rangers replacement Henrik Lundqvist before Raanta, who cleared concussion protocol, returned to the game 6:19 of game time after he was removed. After the Rangers 5-3 loss, Lundqvist wondered what might happen if a similar incident occurred in a Stanley Cup playoff game.I think they really have to look into this rule because its not like a [skater], where you can sit out a shift, Lundqvist told the New York Daily News. A goalie, its a whole other ballgame. If hes saying hes fine, at some point youve got to go with it.dddddddddddd I think theres going to be an issue if this is the playoffs and you have guys calling from upstairs to make that decision. Im not going to go off easy, Im telling you that.Former and current players agree that pulling a player out of a game in November will prove far easier than pulling him out of a playoff game in April, May or June.You can always say, Ive been hit harder than this before and Im fine, Doan said. Youve got to watch that. You cant get caught up in trying to say that. Its always hard to be honest with yourself in the middle of the game. But with what we know now, its impossible not to be aware if your bells been rung and not want to figure out how bad it was.Guerin said the real test will come in the postseason.This is a game where everybody prides themselves on not missing a shift, and sometimes its not the best decision, Guerin said. I think theyre definitely on the right track of making things mandatory and taking it out of their hands and taking the pressure off them. I know sometimes players get frustrated with it, and it will become a real issue in the playoffs, but deep down they really know its for their own good.We know more than we did a year ago and certainly more than we did 20 years ago. You have to take the information you have and do the best for the human being. Players arent just players. They have wives and kids and parents, and you want them to live long, happy lives. If youve got to miss a couple shifts for that to happen, then so be it.Today, Lindros is a husband and the father of three young children -- 2-year-old Carl Pierre and 14-month-old twins, Ryan Paul and Sophie Rose. Hes also the honorary chairman of See the Line, a concussion research arm at the University of Western Ontario, and he spends much of his time raising funds for the London (Ontario) Health Sciences Center, which received a $5 million donation from Lindros shortly after his retirement in 2007.I feel lucky, he said. Overall, I feel good. But you dont have to go very far to come across someone having a tough time.Lindros said hes encouraged to see the NHL taking a hard-line approach to concussions but is concerned about the rise in open-ice hits and the long-term effects they might have on players. He believes the NHL should eliminate the two-line pass and consider widening the rinks.Ive been saying to put the red line back in for five years, Lindros said. But something else that can be considered is making the ice surface wider.Lindros said widening rinks would allow players to accept passes from angles that would make them less susceptible to open-ice hits like the one he took from former New Jersey Devils defenseman Scott Stevens in the 2000 Eastern Conference finals.Tie Domi, who racked up more than 3,500 penalty minutes in his 16-year NHL career, believes putting the red line back in would help protect players such as his son, Coyotes forward Max Domi, from predatory, blindside hits.The games just way too fast, Tie Domi said. Guys are getting hit recklessly and getting concussions. [Putting the red line back in is] something they may have to consider.Lindros and Domi played in an era in which neutral-zone trapping slowed the game to a crawl and led to the NHL allowing two-line passes in 2005. Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Green, who entered the NHL in that post-lockout season of 2005-06, says hes not sure making dramatic changes to the game will produce the desired result.Its been a while since we played with the red line, and its hard to remember what that was like, Green said. Those are opinions. Right now the game is fast and it seems to be selling.I think the league has done a good job of reducing those high hits, those impact hits that are in open ice or along the boards, where guys are in danger at times. I think guys arent running around and doing that anymore, and if they do, theyre getting suspended. Guys are still finishing their checks, but the speed, especially with these young guys, is as fast as its ever been. It makes for an exciting game every night. ' ' '