There were eight 1:00 games on Sunday, eight!! That’s a lot, especially when there were only 2 in the
early evening slot. But let’s get too all the early action.
Some games just plain were not exciting. Baltimore played a
lousy game, continued to ignore their all-pro running back by only giving Ray
Rice nine carries in the game, and got blown out by Houston 43-13. On the new
Total Quarterback Rating system, which rates everything a quarterback does on a
scale of 0-100, Flacco scored 0.3, the lowest for any quarterback since 2008.
The bright side was that Terrell Suggs was not only back but also phenomenal,
but it did little to slow down the Texans attack.
Dallas and Carolina played a close game, but it was also
boring. Cam Newton continues to show that he struggles with adversity, and the
Panthers ought to just be called the Steve Smiths, because he seems to be the
only one out there who knows what he’s doing. The Panthers should have won the game.
New Orleans and Tampa Bay played a very strange game. Drew
Brees was rolling in the first half with over 300 passing yards, 4 touchdown
passes and one interception on a tipped ball. He had 32 fantasy points in my
league at halftime! He totaled 3 more
fantasy points in the second half as the Saints went insanely conservative and
the Buccaneers led a furious comeback that almost sent the game into overtime
if it hadn’t been for illegal touching being called on a Tampa Bay touchdown
pass on the last play of the game. I know it’s typically frowned upon to run up
the score, but that’s when you’re winning by three scored in the last 5 minutes
of the game. When it’s halftime, no lead
is safe; we saw that last Monday Night.
I didn’t get a chance to see much footage from the Packers
win over the Rams or Minnesota’s 21-14 win over Arizona. Generally I can watch
a bit from everything, but eight games at once was a bit much.
The Bills played much better than I anticipated, which seems
to be a common trend. They are very streaky. There are teams that do really
well one week and then very poorly the next and I learn quickly not to jump on
the bandwagon after a good week. Then there is Buffalo. They’ll play very well
for a few weeks and I’ll start thinking they’ve gotten things figured out, then
they back into irrelevance for a while and we overlook them. They showed up
against Tennessee, but, just their luck, Chris Johnson decided to have his
second good game of the season and Matt Hasselbeck showed that he isn’t as
washed up as many people seem to think.
The Colts played a pretty good game, but so too did the
Browns. I can’t sit here and say that Cleveland will be an AFC North title
contender in a few years time, because the Browns have an uncanny knack for
screwing up their team in the offseason and starting right where they did the
year before every year. But Brandon
Weeden is playing very well, maybe even better than Andrew Luck the past two
weeks. But the Colts have a couple more pieces than Cleveland and were able to
pull out an important win.
I don’t think anybody would argue about the most exciting
game of the day. The Giants and Redskins squared off in East Rutherford and it
was quite a battle. The first half saw the Redskins score on all three
possessions (a touchdown and two field goals). The Giants scored three times on
four possessions and it was tied at 13 at halftime. The second half was
entirely different, but both teams still scored plenty.
Eli Manning threw two uncharacteristic interceptions in the second
half, but the Redskins turned the ball over four times in the last 30 minutes,
three of them on fumbles. Griffin III’s only interception was on a double
clutch that he normally would not have released. The turnovers were enough to
doom Washington. RGIII led a drive late in the fourth quarter to give the
Redskins the lead, but it was too soon as Manning quickly found Victor Cruz for
a long touchdown play. There was still plenty of time for Washington, and they
were driving nicely, but Santana Moss fumbled near midfield with about 45
seconds left to play and that was it.
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