- Forgive me for not celebrating beating Jason for the first time this season. I'm still looking at three straight weeks to start the year where I would've won more picks than I lost had I just picked the opposite of what I actually picked. FML. Bizarro Week, indeed.
- Two things the Eagles never figured out before their Thursday night loss to the Chiefs ended: Start covering Kansas City's crossing routes, especially when Donnie Avery is the target, and stop throwing to Riley Cooper, who kept dropping passes as if he were expecting angry black men to come hit him hard or something. One major factor that should worry Philadelphia in addition: That video game version of Michael Vick, the one where he takes off running at top speed and gains 20 yards before anyone breathes on him? Those versions of Vick are few and far between because of how beat up he gets as the season wears on, and the Eagles just took one of those games and squandered it. The Chiefs are really dangerous when not going straight ahead. It's a very familiar formula when playing against Alex Smith--physically take away the angles and make him beat you over the top. No one's done it yet.
- Baltimore got some assistance from Houston in overcoming their offensive woes. Matt Schaub threw an early INT right to the defender. That helps. Andre Johnson wasn't ready to answer the bell for the whole game, having to come off the field several times. And it also helps when the Texans special teams gives up the booty to Tandon Doss on a punt return TD. Jay and I stupidly went back to picking Houston after they showed a serious lack of urgency in almost losing to Tennessee. This team has no heart right now. They probably need a coach who will put his foot up their collective asses, but Gary Kubiak doesn't seem right for the role. I might be through with them for a while until they show some fight.
- And now, the reigning heavyweight champions of showing no fight...the New York Football Giants! Congrats guys, your prizes are waiting offstage. Carolina wanted that game more from the opening whistle. It was too damn easy for the Panthers to slice into the offensive line and sack Eli Manning over and over and over again. Yes, every team has a game like this, but the G-Men didn't act like they were interested in fighting back. They got that one possession early where they were in the red zone and got sacked, moving the ball back, and then missed the field goal. After that, they looked like they quit. Bad word to bring out in Week 3, but that's what the film looked like. It was just too accommodating to Cam Newton and the Panthers offense for me to ignore the Q-word as a possibility. Carolina will not look this good in any game the rest of the season.
- Washington and Detroit are very similar teams in that they're both talented on offense but flawed on defense, so their game coming down to the wire was no surprise. Neither was it a surprise that the Redskins found themselves on the losing end. How they did it was a bit bewildering. They fouled up the 4th quarter by playing no defense on Calvin Johnson, watching their QB scramble and then cough up the ball even though no one was touching him, and getting a big TD catch overturned because the receiver couldn't hold on to the ball. Usually it's Detroit finding ways to lose. Griffin looked a little better on his runs, so perhaps he's starting to come around. But he's still not as fast as last year.
- The Titans may not be title contenders, but they don't know how to play a boring game anymore. Thanks to QB Jake Locker, every game's an adventure, for better or for worse. He kept throwing the rock to Kenny Britt, who refused to catch the ball all game long and incurred dumb penalties and should have been benched by coach Mike Munchak after spending the week on Twitter claiming that he was being railroaded out of town at the end of the year (why would the Titans do that to such a wonderful player and community leader? LOL), but when they needed a 4th-quarter drive to win it with no Britt on the field, Locker came through. Britt wasn't even the biggest cunt on the field, though. That would be Chargers QB Philip Rivers, who argued against an offensive pass interference call in the end zone not on him but on someone else so demonstrably that he was flagged and set his team out of range for another shot at the end zone. They had to settle for a FG. I would have had to be stopped by my staff if I were Rivers' coach, because I would be tempted to bench him. Who the fuck do you think you are that you can go batshit crazy arguing calls with the refs and cost your team precious field position? That's worse than any action by Randy Moss or Terrell Owens or Deion Sanders or any of the other legendary hotdogs. I was sure that San Diego would gain more yards than Tennessee on the day and still lose at the end, but the Titans looked a little scary with Locker scrambling for big yardage and making the pass coverage loosen up and pay attention to him. Tennessee, despite its talent disadvantage most weeks, will not go down to anyone easy.
- I was looking forward to the Arizona secondary matching up with the New Orleans weapons and presenting a challenge for Drew Brees and the Saints. What had happened was, Brees kept feeding passes to TE Jimmy Graham and the running backs and only took deep shots when they presented themselves, usually against CB Yeremiah Bell. God, Brees is good. Arizona's opening drive was perfect, ending with a touchdown, and Brees took over from there. A pick from Interception Santa in the red zone down 24-7, and there went the Cards' chances for a backdoor cover. I'm thinking that's the best group of defensive backs Brees is gonna play, and he carved them up because none of them could stick Graham. Who else is going to contain the Saints passing attack??
- Whatever you may think of the New England offense right now, it's still good enough to put 23 points on the board, and Tampa had no chance of matching that with the way their offense is playing. Goodnight, Josh Freeman. Your college coach has yanked you for a freshman named Mike Glannon, hoping to spark ol' Tampa State U. Good luck with that.
- Green Bay's entire defensive problem crystallized in this one game. Roided-Up Troglodyte was on fire in the 1st half, forcing a fumble that turned momentum and started the Pack comeback down 14-0 in Cincinnati. Aaron Rodgers didn't stop discount double-checking until the Pack were up 30-14. Then Troglodyte got hurt. Then Andy "Red Rifle" Dalton started the Bengal comeback, assisted by Giovanni Bernard, who provides a dose of electricity in the backfield that Cincy didn't have running and catching. It was another rookie RB that cost Green Bay the game--their own, Jonhathan Franklin, who fumbled on 4th-and-1 up 3 in the 4th quarter. The ball was recovered and ran back for the game-winning TD. This may have been a function of the Packers not trusting their kicker. Mason Crosby was terrible last year but brought back anyway, but coach Mike McCarthy could have sent him for a 48-yd. FG attempt instead of running on 4th-and-1. He went with the run, and the fumble happened. You can talk about the kicking situation or the Bengal pressure making Rodgers throw bad passes early, but the biggest GB issue to me is, how can they get players on defense who have the motor that Clay Matthews has? Because when his motor turns off, they need other guys to fill in the gap, and right now, they don't have any.
- The first St. Louis series in Dallas was a hot mess: A 3-and-out, but Dallas muffed the punt and left the Rams offense on the field, only to go backwards by getting sacked, and then a pass on a fake FG by the kicker was incomplete. It didn't get better. This was about as dominant a game between both teams' offensive and defensive lines as I've ever seen. The Rams couldn't block the Cowboys for shit, and the Cowboys shoved around the Rams' d-line no problemo. They should do that every game for DeMarco Murray. He'd be an All-Pro RB with blocking like that. I wondered for a second if Jason Garrett would have been smart enough to stay with the run as new coordinator Bill Callahan did all day had Garrett still been calling plays. I assume Garrett was calling plays a couple of years ago when Murray ran for 253 yards against the Rams, so maybe he's not a total moron, but it sure seems like Garrett has over-relied on Tony Romo and the aerial attack lately, which is partially why he was removed as playcaller. Whatever the case, St. Louis will not be competitive this Thursday against the 49ers if their lines play like that again.
- No one expected the Browns to be competitive against the Vikings after the upheaval earlier in the week. Yeah, Bizarro Week at its finest. So much for Minnesota being bulletproof when Adrian Peterson runs more than 20 times. I didn't account for the awesomeness of Brian Hoyer. Welp. I'm moving on.
- Atlanta doesn't just let their foot off the gas as Jason suggests is their biggest problem. Against the Dolphins down on South Beach, they got out of the car altogether. The Falcons didn't tackle hardly anyone in the 2nd half, letting Ryan Tannehill lead a comeback victory in which he probably looked a lot better than he is. And he looked fucking awesome. Atlanta brought in Osi Umeniyora as a pass rush threat, and he paid dividends with a sack and strip, but the two questions remain: Where is Osi the rest of the game and where is the rest of the Falcons D at any given time? They had help coughing up this one, as Harry Douglas muffed a punt and Miami subsequently tied the game. And Matty Ice didn't throw it up for Julio Jones late in the game when they needed a TD, then he forced it to him on the last possession when he was bracket-covered, resulting in the clinching INT. Talk about doing just enough to lose.
- It's a world record for penalties for Gang Green! Well, they went for the record of 25 and came up short, only drawing 20 flags. And yet the Jets still beat the Bills because Geno Smith decided to be a long threat and go bombs away to the likes of Santonio Holmes and Steven Hill. Bizarro Week strikes again!
- Speaking of Bizarro Week, how about the Colts coming off that big trade beating the 49ers by running down their throats with NOT Trent Richardson?? Everyone assumed they would prominently feature their new toy in their first game with him, but they started Ahmad Bradshaw, and let Bradshaw carry in the key moments in the 4th quarter to seal the deal. For whatever reason, it looked like San Francisco played too fast to start on defense, getting flagged on the first two Indy plays, and then played too slow the rest of the way, letting Andrew Luck hit his targets without resistance and getting ran over by Bradshaw and Richardson. Remember when Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs were a "Thunder and Lightning" combination with the Giants? It was never "Thunder and Lightning," it was "Thunder and Thunder" because Bradshaw runs hard and angry, but he was lightning compared to the plodding Jacobs. Folks, this may be the new "Thunder and Thunder." As for the Niners' offense, they ran easy on the first possession and then abandoned the run for reasons I can't explain. They tried to balance the offense, but with Anquan Boldin still unable to get free just like last week in Seattle and stud TE Vernon Davis not playing, the passing attack was a total FAIL. That allowed Indy's D to start playing tight coverage and smothering the run because they knew the SF wideouts sucked ass. Game, set, match. Oh, Aldon Smith checked into rehab after the game but he played well, so at least he's got his priorities in order.
- Best team in the league. Worst team in the league. Coach of the best team in the league still thinks he's coaching at USC and trying to impress the BCS Committee. Did ya think Seattle wouldn't run it up?
- I wish Pittsburgh hadn't shown some fight after the 1st quarter of their beating at the hands of Chicago because I still have hope that they can turn it around. Just give Ben Roethlisberger some time and he can still find guys for big plays. Antonio Brown might be the new Mike Wallace after all, who knows. Yes, they still don't have a running game, yes, they still have major issues on the offensive line. But call me Brokeback Dre, because I just don't know how to quit the mystique of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I'm not totally stupid, though--Chicago was by far the better team on the field from the opening whistle to the final gun. They're really good already on offense. And the D is still the best in the world at going after that football at all costs. The Steelers rallied back behind Big Ben but also by blitzing and rattling Jay Cutler, but live by the blitz, die by the blitz, as the Bears made killer big plays late using the open field provided by the Pitt all-out attack. I can't really hate on the Bears anymore. What more do they need to show?
- Terrelle Pryor has an idea of what to do in his offense, so Oakland isn't as hopeless as they seemed at times on Monday night in Colorado. He doesn't have the expertise to execute the offense, but he looks like he knows where the ball should go. I'm still rooting for him. They could use Pryor taking off more often to shake up the defense. I'm actually not completely convinced that Denver has much better talent than Oakland, but they have such excellent play designs. And of course, the surgeon, Peyton Manning, who has the expertise to execute the designs. Can any secondary figure out Peyton and the Broncos offense? They'd better hurry, because Denver's getting better and better. Manning might be playing better right now than he did in Week 1 when he threw seven touchdowns. Think about that.
Week 3 Records--Dre 6-9-1, .400; Jay 4-11-1, .267
YTD Records--Dre 16-30-2, .348; Jay 25-21-2, .543
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