Sunday Football Afterword: Week 17 Early Games

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.

Check back later for my Sunday Football Afterword for the seven late games. Thanks for reading everyone!

Sunday Football Afterword Deluxe: Week 14 Late Games & Monday Night Football

Rookie running back David Wilson celebrates after scoring
in New York's key victory over New Orleans on Sunday.
Photo credit to Yahoo! Fantasy Sports.

Because I had other things I had to get done yesterday, I have to combine my second Monday post with my usual Tuesday post, which isn’t all that bad really considering it’s only five games to cover, so let’s get to it.

The 49ers were one of the few teams who easily did what they expected to on Sunday with a 27-13 home win over the Dolphins. Colin Kaepernick bounced back nicely from a disappointing Week 13 performance against the Rams.

The Redskins were looking for some help from the Saints, but got none as New Orleans put up decent points but allowed Eli Manning and rookie David Wilson to put up a 50-berger and suddenly we’re right back where we were after Week 12, with the Giants looking like clearly the best team in the NFC East.

New York wasn’t the only team to KO a scoreboard on Sunday. The Seahawks demolished the Cardinals. Well, not exactly. ‘Demolished’ isn’t nearly strong enough of a word for a 58-0 beat down on the strength of eight turnovers by Arizona. Seattle looks more and more like a legitimate NFC title contender every week.

Detroit took an early 14-0 lead in snowy Green Bay on Sunday Night and it looked like Chicago would get the help they needed and a strange Sunday would be complete, but Aaron Rodgers slowly got his team back in the game. Calvin Johnson continued to chase Jerry Rice’s single-season receiving yards record, but it was not enough in a 27-20 losing effort.

After a Sunday of fairly boring games – even the Packers/Lions ordeal lacked a certain level of excitement for me – I had hoped that the Monday Night game on ESPN would reveal itself as Week 14’s true game of the week.

Instead the Patriots scored on each of their first three drives while their often-struggling defense shut down Arian Foster and contained the Texans’ passing attack. Houston’s defense settled down and kept New England from scoring on their next four drives, but their offense had no such luck. The Patriots did get things rolling again later and eventually finished with 42 points against arguably the best overall defense in the NFL.

Tom Brady threw for 4 touchdowns and no interceptions and has now done so twice more than any quarterback in NFL history and he did so on fewer than 300 passing yards, a testament to a better rushing attack than we’ve seen from New England in recent years. Brady also tied former Chiefs great Len Dawson for the most starts at quarterback resulting in 40 or more points, an impressive feat for Dawson to have his name anywhere near considering he threw for fewer than 30,000 yards in his 19-year career.

Thank you for reading and be sure to come back tomorrow for my Week 15, 10 Things You Need to Know post.

Monday Night Football Afterword: Bears vs Lions

Monday's matchup was the 110th MNF game
televised by ESPN.

In a rehashing of the oldest rivalry in the National Football League, the Lions got crushed by the Bears. Okay, so they didn’t exactly get crushed, but anyone who watched any of the game knows that the 13-7 victory for the Bears was no escape either.

The Lions scored a late touchdown to avoid being shut out, but they played a terrible game. The Lions failed multiple times to get Calvin Johnson open, and the one time he did break wide open, early in the game, he dropped a well-placed pass by Stafford.

There were seven possessions inside the red zone between the two teams. Only two resulted in points. The Bears had enough scoring to make up for their two failed red zone attempts, but the Lions started 0/3 inside the red zone before their meaningless late touchdown. They fumbled just inside the 20 late in the second quarter, then fumbled again one yard out of the end zone in the third quarter. The third red zone turnover for the Lions was an interception three yards out.

So while the game certainly was not a blow out, I would still say that ‘crushed’ is a fair description of the Lions after last night. They had a few solid drives that should have resulted in some sort of points, but they repeatedly got crushed near the goal line.

Unfortunately, due to an outside obligation, I was unable to see the entire game. I watched the early portion of the game and a fair amount of the fourth quarter. From replays and recaps I have seen and read, I have gathered that it was a statement game for the Bears. However, I have to ask what explanation there is for the Lions driving so effectively leading up to those turnovers. The Lions could have easily won this game with just one or two of those turnovers not happening.

Once again, I still hesitate to put my trust in the Bears. I have no doubt they will win the NFC North, but once they get to the postseason I have a very difficult time believing this is the team to represent the NFC in New Orleans. Don’t get me wrong; this is a good team with some terrific players. But they haven’t played against a really good team yet. Even their loss came to a Packers team that had not gelled yet.

Chicago’s second half is a little more difficult. After two more games that should be easy wins – against Carolina and Tennessee – the Bears host Houston and then visit Candlestick. A win in San Francisco would give me a big confidence boost in them. But they also have two games against a competitive Minnesota team, matchups with defensive juggernauts Seattle and Arizona, and a home game against a Green Bay team that looks much better than they had during the first few weeks of the season.

Detroit, meanwhile, I think can be fairly dropped from serious postseason discussion. The Lions have lost Nate Burleson, possibly for the rest of the season, to a broken leg. Considering they have failed to come up with a solid game plan that gets the ball in Calvin Johnson’s hands, Stafford is about out of options. There is also talk that Jahvid Best may have played his last game because no doctor wants to sign off on him playing again after his recent concussion. Lions fans should be very worried about the very real possibility of their team returning to the cellar of the NFL. As long as Stafford is around, don’t expect another 0-16 season, but I could see some seasons with only three to six wins in the near future without some major offseason changes.