- Some very exciting finishes this week, starting with the Thursday night Browns-Ravens game, which was a snore up until the finale. I don't care that Cleveland almost won the game on the final throw, I just want props for nailing the score. What's that? I was off by one? Oh no, my friends, Baltimore screwed up a routine extra point on their first TD, so the score really should have been 24-16, just like I said it would. I will take full credit for that being the correct score, even though it wasn't. The game went just like Jason and I thought it would, so nothing to talk about there.
- The Pats-Bills game didn't go like anyone thought it would. Who saw an early Buffalo lead giving way to an eruption of New England points in the 4th quarter? Who saw two 100-yard rushers and receivers for NE in the same game? I cited a tough history at Buffalo for New England when I previewed the game, and that was a royal fuck-up on my part, because I recalled the 34-31 loss last year and the Lawyer Milloy Bowl, a shutout for the Bills in 2001. Those are the only two losses that the Pats have suffered against Buffalo since the turn of the millennium. If you're looking for a team that owns another, this is it. And if you're looking for a team on a mission after early miscues, the Patriots might be the team.
- Speaking of ownage, that's what Houston has on the rest of the league through the first quarter of the season. I don't want to necessarily say that the Texans have had a cupcake schedule early, but Miami, Jacksonville, Denver, and Tennessee doesn't read like a death wish of NFL title contenders. But hey, they've done what they had to do. On the issue of the Titans, look, I know that I'm the one guy in the world that was pushing Jake Locker for starting QB, and I still think they should start him because he won't get any better sitting behind Matthew Hasselbeck. But if Locker hadn't gotten hurt again, the Titans may not have scored on the Texans despite Chris Johnson breaking off some good rushes. Hasselbeck brings a veteran calming presence and a focus that Locker doesn't have yet. He also brings the suck, which is why Houston's defenders were dancing into the end zone with the ball as much as Tennessee's receivers were.
- I think the Chiefs just turned it over again. While I'm piling on, I think New England just scored another touchdown.
- Can we bury the Lions as a serious franchise again? We had to do this last year when everyone thought they were going to challenge for a division title very soon, and I kept warning that they're not very strong mentally and not disciplined. That was before their special teams decided that they'd like to become the weak link of the team. No squad's ever allowed a punt and kickoff TD in consecutive games before Detroit last week and this week, so congrats are in order. The game looked to be over after Percy Harvin's opening KO return for a TD, because all Minnesota had to do to keep the Lions at arm's length was have Christian Ponder throw deep balls in the direction of Detroit DB Bill Bentley and let him commit pass interference. Minnesota's not very good. But you know what they are right now? Fucking better than Detroit. No question.
- We both had Carolina hanging close with Atlanta and giving them a scare, but this was quite the scare. Carolina should have won the game, but their defense once again let them down. Joining Bentley in looking like they didn't belong on an NFL field was the Panthers' safety Haruki Nakamura, who kept getting torched by Roddy White for big plays when the Falcons needed them. Carolina got a great pass rush and kept putting Matty Ice on his ass, but that's why he's Matty Ice--he kept getting up and making plays to keep the game alive. The Panthers secondary was set up to let downfield plays happen because Michael Turner put down the bottle long enough to gash them for big runs. He's so key to Atlanta's success. And let's not let Cam Newton off the hook, as his 3rd-down fumble backwards to take a 1st down off the board led to the punt and the Falcons starting the game-winning drive at their own 1-yard line, which was fine for them because Roddy and Nakamura had one more date left. Someone order Jim Schwartz and Ron Rivera new free safeties, please.
- Russell Wilson had to run for his life in St. Louis, and time ran out for him to get points for his Seahawks. Yeah, it's hard to win when the opposing kicker (Greg Zuerlein) is nailing FGs from 58 and 60 yards, and yeah, it's hard when you give up a TD on a fake FG where the kicker threw to a WR just standing all alone at the goal line. But it's also hard when your rookie QB, already struggling to string together completions, has to avoid a killer pass rush and lead a comeback in the air. Just wasn't going to happen. Eventually, Wilson started forcing passes, and the Rams got key interceptions to thwart the comeback. What really sucks is that Seattle outran St. Louis by 100 yards. Seattle has spunk and moxie and all that, but they can't win a game from behind through the air unless replacement referees are calling the game.
- Did the New York Jets do anything right against San Francisco? Hmmm...didn't score a fucking point, got outrushed by 200 yards, gave up a Wildcat TD to the backup QB (which they just knew they would achieve themselves this year after the Tebow trade), gave up more sacks, more turnovers...ooh, here's something, they held Alex Smith to 143 yards in the air! Now, the Jets had to throw for more than the 49ers if they held Smith to...huh, oh wait, look at that...Total Fraud only threw for 103 yards...in a game where they were losing all the way so they had to throw to get back in it...103 yards for the game. Uh, um, wow. I mean, just...wow. So much for West Coast teams traveling east.
- I don't blame Arizona for not scouting Miami QB Ryan Tannehill or WR Brian Hartline. Who the fuck are they? They are the duo that lit the Cards up through the air in the desert, that's who. 431 yards for Tannehill, 253 of them to Hartline. Props to Kevin Kolb for finding Andre Roberts twice and tying the score, forcing OT and letting the Arizona D force Tannehill into mistakes, completing the comeback with a FG after an interception. I have to wonder, though--all the talk about Arizona being 4-0 and hot as hell dating back to the end of last season thanks to their top young defense, the question is, does a top young defense allow Ryan Tannehill to throw for 431 yards or Brian Hartline to catch 253 yards?? You think the Cards have a good defense? Then why did they get dominated by Ryan Fucking Tannehill?
- Great game planning by Denver, as they didn't try anything very far downfield in the passing game. Peyton Manning surgically cut his way through the Oakland defense with all underneath throws, letting his receivers operate in space. I admired the scaling back of any long passes, but at the same time, I was terrified watching Manning ignore anything deep. He's half a QB if he's never going to attempt anything over 15 yards. The game took a snowball effect, as Manning slowly built a lead, and the more points the Broncos earned, the more pass pressure they dialed up on Carson Palmer, and the more hits Palmer took, until the thing was all downhill. Can Denver do that against top teams? That will make the difference between playoffs or no playoffs.
- Green Bay was unstoppable in the 1st half. Jason was looking like a genius for changing his pick from New Orleans to the Packers. Wha happened?? Aaron Rodgers missed a play or two, that's wha happened. He was leading the Pack in the red zone for another TD drive when he got poked in the eye and had to come out of the game, and backup QB
LucasGraham Harrell fumbled a simple handoff to a RB, which the Saints recovered. That led to a Drew Brees bomb TD pass and the Saints taking the lead. So the Pack did what they should have done against a terrible NO defense, they just let the Saints hang around when they shouldn't have. The better team won, but the lesser team covered. It happens sometimes. But it's guaranteed to happen when one of us changes his pick to go against said lesser team. - Speaking of lesser teams, both Tampa Bay and Washington brought lesser-ranked pass defenses to battle, as in the two last-ranked pass defenses, and they didn't disappoint. Tampa's Josh Freeman went for 299 yards in the air, and Washington's Robert Griffin III topped him with 323 passing yards. Neither QB would be described as elite. The difference in the game was, Tampa's D is, as I observed in their previous games, young and hungry and eager and very stupid. At one point, they had RGIII backed up at his own 1-yard line, and they forced him into an incomplete pass on 3rd down. One problem--they hit him very late and let the Redskins out of the shadow of their own goal post with a dumb personal foul. TB had a rare late lead, but the defense couldn't hold on, and the Skins got a last-second FG to win it. But Washington will still be in trouble for the season because that defense can't rely on the other team being dumb to overcome their own bad play.
- Michael Vick found himself at a Ku Klux Klan rally on Sunday night. Every time he dropped back, angry people were chasing him and trying to murder him. It's almost a miracle the Eagles won the game, which I guess indicates how I feel about the Eagles. But I still have them winning the division because, as lucky as they are, they're still preferable over the Cowboys, Redskins, and Giants. In a low-scoring
dogfight, Vick found a rhythm in the 2nd half and strung together barely enough passes to get the win. Eli Manning couldn't do the same for New York because Philly's Wide-9 pass rush harassed him as well. The G-Men sorely missed Hakeem Nicks as the big possession receiver Eli can hit when in trouble. Vick's scrambling ability also proved a big difference, but that's a surprise only because Andy Reid and Vick haven't been able to consistently figure out a way to take advantage of his feet on an every-week basis. - What we saw on Monday night was Jay Cutler and Mike Tice respecting the defense they were playing, and as a result, they didn't call plays that left Cutler in jeopardy of getting his head torn off. There's no guarantee that short slants and quick pops are going to work, so it's to Chicago's credit that they executed the plan in throttling the Cowboys. But I think they grew up a lot during that game. They knew that J'Marcus
RussellWebb and the rest of that garbage offensive line had been struggling mightily, and DeMarcus Ware and the Boys were ready to feast. So they took Dallas seriously and came up with plays that picked on the young secondary and exploited the linebackers as not ready to perform in pass coverage, all while keeping Cutler (mostly) clean. Dallas was forced into boo-boos on offense because the Bears rarely blitz but whipped out the blitz packages for this game. Tony Romo wasn't the only one affected by the speed of the Bears D; Dez Bryant couldn't get his hands up quick enough on several throws, and he didn't adjust his route on one of Romo's INTs, and Miles Austin had trouble finding room to get open, and Kevin Ogletree let a Romo pass tip off of his fingers for another INT. It was a full team collapse for the world to see, and it's why I should have picked the Bears from the moment I heard about the game.
YTD Records--Dre 36-25-2, .590; Jay 37-24-2, .607
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