- First, to clean up a mistake on my part, I accused Washington coach Mike Shanahan last week of having zero playoff wins since John Elway's retirement, and in fact, he has one. Mea culpa.
- And now, for the big in-depth breakdown of the Lions-Jets affair: The Lions choked like Gia Paloma. Yes, kicker Jason Hanson got clipped and wasn't available to kick an extra point that stud DT Ndamukong Suh missed (really, that's your backup placekicker?), mathematically making OT not possible if the PAT is good. Yes, QB Matthew Stafford got his shoulder popped out and Drew Stanton had to take over in the 4th quarter and overtime, leading Detroit to exactly zero points. But the bottom line is, Detroit led by ten points in the 4th quarter and choked it away. Suh and Stafford didn't lose that game. The Lions' pass defense lost that game. And it's a shame because Detroit played so hard for three and a half quarters.
- Great effort by Atlanta in the 1st half of the Bucs-Falcons tilt, great fight back by the Bucs in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. It would have been easy for Tampa to throw in the towel after pinning the Falcons on the 1-yard line in the 2nd quarter and promptly giving up a 99-yard TD drive to put the Dirty Birds up 14-0. But Josh Freeman and the Pirates showed resilience, which wasn't a surprise but was impressive in a hostile environment. That long drive towards the goal line in the 4th quarter by Tampa came up short this time, but it's easy to imagine in the future a more experienced TB squad finishing off the big comeback.
- In a battle of two rough offenses, Miami proved to be made of sandpaper, and Baltimore prevailed in the end thanks to some late turnovers that were a staple of the Ravens' D years ago when they were in their prime. Almost 100 of QB Joe Flacco's 266 yards for Baltimore were out of the flat to RB Ray Rice. They're not contending for a title unless they get more vertical, and quickly. Miami can't even do those passes correctly; Dan Le Batard on his Miami talk show calls what QB Chad Henne and the Dolphins offense does "Checkdown-a-palooza."
- That's some long list of things that went the Browns' way in beating the Patriots and giving coach Eric Mangini a Gatorade bath for a meaningless regular-season win over his former mentor Bill Belichick. Pop-up kickoff that gets muffed by the Pats and recovered by Cleveland. The old Statue of Liberty play for a Chansi Stuckey TD. A big strip and fumble recovery in the red zone. QB Colt McCoy running for his life and winding up in the end zone. RB Peyton Hillis steamrolling New England to the tune of 184 yards. Check, check, check, check, check. Wanna bet on that ever happening again?
- I'm a little confused as to why Brett "Wangler" Favre leading a crazy comeback for Minnesota over Arizona should save coach Brad Childress's job. If he sucks at coaching, fire him. If he doesn't, keep him. The popular opinion seems to be that Vikings owner Zygi Wilf wanted to can Childress after the Randy Moss debacle and may have been ready to do it directly after this game had the Vikings lost. Well, they didn't lose only thanks to two facets of the game, and I don't know why that's enough to spare Childress's head. First, the Minnesota pass rush finally showed up in the 4th quarter and OT, preventing the Cardinals from getting first downs and salting the contest away. And second, what can be said about Favre and the throws he made? The man just doesn't care about whether his receiver is covered or not, he just fires the ball to a spot and lets the results speak for themselves. A career-high 446 yards is a big speech.
- Congrats to the Chicago Bears, who stopped a 2-game losing streak by scoring 3 points more than the Buffalo Bills, thereby covering the spread (yes, it's a push for me and Jason but technically they did cover) and sparing me from having to choose next week between honoring the Brett Favre Rule and picking the Bears over the Vikings or honoring the 2010 Bears Blow Rule and picking Minnesota. The Bills actually looked like this year's Bears, sucking at running the ball and ultimately abandoning all efforts, and the end result was 51 passing attempts for QB Ryan Fitzpatrick in a losing effort.
- The Chargers did indeed try to lose against Houston despite putting up video game offensive numbers, as they have every week this year. But they managed to pull it out, and they had some help from the rule book. The Calvin Johnson Rule struck again as Texans RB Arian Foster caught a pass, brought the ball over the goal line for a TD, and put the ball on the ground as he was tackled. The refs reviewed and ruled that Foster didn't hold the pigskin all the way through the "process," so no TD. Honestly, change the fucking rule already. But in reality, Houston still held a 9-point lead in the 3rd quarter, so they have no one to blame for the loss but themselves. There's not much they could have done though against Philip Rivers and the San Diego attack. Rivers could take a group of 10 overweight housewives out of a Curves gym and post a 280-yard passing day.
- Man, Carolina and Seattle suck.
- Didn't get why Peyton Manning was a 3-point "dog" against Michael Vick and the Eagles, but I'm glad they were. Vick continued his good behavior by being nice to these dogs and not covering the spread. Vick and DeSean Jackson wasted little time spitting at my theory that they needed to play their way back into game shape after missing time, hooking up for huge downfield plays. They pretty much had their way with the Colts. So why did the Eagles not cover? A couple of reasons--Philly settling for FGs to end many of their impressive drives (4 FGs in the game to be exact), and Eagles DE Trent Cole swiping at Peyton Manning during an Indy drive with under 2 minutes left in the game and Indy down 9 and Cole accidentally tapping Manning's helmet, negating a Colts turnover and penalizing Cole for what amounted to a loving caress of Peyton's head. Indy went on to get into the end zone on that drive to cut the lead to 2. I'll take it!
- Another wild comeback occurred in a sloppy and fumbly (I just made up a new word) game between the Chiefs and Raiders. This one came down to Oakland QB Jason Campbell doing what I said he would do and what he did all game, which is throw the ball erratically and sometimes at the other team. With Kansas City leading by 3 late in the 4th quarter, Campbell, already with one INT and a bunch of near-picks, flung a ball up for this week's fantasy knee-jerk pickup Jacoby Ford, but Chiefs DB Brandon Flowers was waiting underneath the underthrown ball. Ford made a superhuman play, jumping over the shoulder of Flowers and plucking the pass before the defender could seize it. Oakland went on to get the game-tying FG, then Ford abused Flowers in OT, catching a long bomb from Campbell to set up the game-winning FG. I don't feel any different about the Raiders after this game. I still don't trust Campbell to string together consistent error-free games, and I don't trust Tom Cable to lead the Raiders to where they need to be.
- Dallas owner Jerry Jones was yapping after last week's annihilation at the hands of Jacksonville, and he had a slip of the tongue in calling the 1-6 Cowboys 1-7. Guess he was looking into the future. As for firing beleaguered coach Wade Phillips, I think that the only thing the general public should care about is whether new coach Jason Garrett can somehow shift the mindset of the team out of its current mail-it-in attitude and subsequently cover the big spreads that they will face the rest of the year. After watching them not even try against Green Bay, I highly doubt it.
- Speaking of not trying, that's what the Cincinnati Bengals looked like on Monday night...until the Pittsburgh Steelers rubbed it in a little too much. WR Antwaan Randle-El took a handoff and threw a long TD pass to Mike Wallace to start the 4th quarter, putting Pitt up 27-7 and switching off TVs across the nation. Sometimes, that's what it takes to get a team playing like it should be playing. The Bengals mounted a furious rally that fell short 5 yards away from a TD that would have given Cincy the lead very late. I don't know if he'll keep playing like this with Cincy basically out of the playoff race, but much respect to Terrell Owens for his part in the comeback. He finished with 10 catches for 141 yards and 2 TDs. There's a lot of things that Terrell Owens is: Self-centered...narcissistic...pain in the ass...diva...emotional little bitch. Oh, one more thing: Top 5 wide receiver in the history of football.
YTD Records--Dre 67-61-2, .523; Jay 62-66-2, .484
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