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| There wasn't too much positive news for teams in yesterday's early games, but Super Bowl winning head coach Sean Payton will return to the Saints' sideline in 2013. Photo credit to NY Daily News. |
It was a long Sunday with all sixteen games played
yesterday. The Buccaneers snapped a five-game losing streak by winning their
season finale. After being in playoff contention in early December, they
dropped way out but really knocked around the Falcons in Week 17. With the NFC
South clinched, Atlanta still played their starters and suffered injuries to
two defensive leaders. Hopefully neither is significant.
Buffalo crushed the New York Jets at home, 28-9 to end their
season. It was not enough, however, to save Chan Gailey’s job as head coach. On
the Jets’ side, General Manager Mike Tannenbaum is out. Rex Ryan, however, will
return to coach the Jets in 2013.
Baltimore only played their starters early in the game, and
Cincinnati followed suit shortly after, but Cincinnati proved to have a
slightly better second team than the Ravens. Both teams will play next weekend
and I will preview their games later in the week.
Houston struggled in consecutive weeks, first to the Vikings
and then to the Colts, who they beat two weeks ago. This time, Chuck Pagano was
on the sideline and it was in Indianapolis, where the Texans are 0-11 all-time.
People try to keep from reading into that stuff, but come on; the Colts beat the
Texans in Indy last year when they
won two games and Houston won the AFC South. There’s something to
that stat.
In New Orleans, the Saints looked to be headed to a .500
record but a poor defense – New Orleans set the NFL record for yards allowed in
a season – and a Drew Brees pick-6 allowed Carolina to take a significant lead.
The Saints’ offense came back firing, but their defense could not keep the
Panthers from scoring more and Carolina ended up winning the game.
In New York, Tom Coughlin wants answers. The Giants have
been the most inconsistent team in the past six or so weeks of any team I can
ever remember seeing in the NFL. They closed the season with a 35-point victory
over the Eagles, spurred on by the fact that they could still get a playoff spot
with some help, but they would need the win. Michael Vick got the start for
Philly but looked no better than he did early in the season. However, the
celebration for the win was short-lived, only about five-minutes long, in fact.
Chicago’s defense kept Calvin Johnson from eclipsing 2,000
receiving yards, but nearly let the Lions come all the way back from a 20-3
deficit late in the second quarter. The win gave the Bears a playoff spot if
the Packers could beat the Vikings in a later game. It also eliminated the
Giants from the playoffs just a few minutes after they concluded their defeat
of the Eagles. The Bears were ultimately knocked out of the postseason (I will
get into that in my later post) and Lovie Smith was fired this morning.
With Ben Roethlisberger starting this time around, the
Steelers avoided turning the ball over eight time, and in doing so beat AFC
North rival Cleveland in both teams’ season finales. The Browns’ head coach Pat
Shurmur and GM Tom Heckert were both fired this morning.
The Titans let Jacksonville stay in it early but ended up
rolling to a 38-20 victory over Jacksonville, mostly due to three interceptions
by Chad Henne, two of which were returned for touchdowns by rookie Zach Brown,
and two punt return TDs by Darius Reynaud. Jacksonville GM Gene Smith was fired
today after the Jaguars suffered their worst record since the franchise was
created in 1995.
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