Sunday Football Afterword: Week 9 Late Games

Romo out-dueled Matty Ice, but his Cowboys lost as
Atlanta maintained their unblemished record.

I got the Thursday Night game incorrect. I picked one of the early Sunday games incorrectly. Then I got just one of the later games wrong. I wonder what that spells for tonight? But my Afterwords are not about looking forward; they are about one final glance back.

The Raiders put up quite a fight as Carson Palmer played a pretty solid game. However, the Buccaneers, and specifically Doug Martin, were not going to be stopped. The rookie running back ran the ball 25 times for 251 yards and four touchdowns. In my fantasy league, he scored 59 points. Now, it is custom scoring settings, but the best score a running back has posted in my league before was when Arian Foster scored in the 40s last year.

The Vikings put up a valiant effort against Seattle’s 12^th Man. Adrian Peterson has a fantastic day, racking up almost 200 yards and punching it in twice. But between the fans and the Seattle secondary, Christian Ponder had a terrible day, reminiscent of an early-2011 game Donovan McNabb had in the same uniform. Russell Wilson tossed three touchdown passes to lead the Seahawks to a 30-20 victory.

In the third game I’ve picked incorrectly this week, Eli Manning and the Giants were shocked by the Pittsburgh Steelers at home, 24-20. But they shouldn’t be shocked. They played a terrible game. At least one of New York’s touchdowns was very controversial. Yes, I’m talking about the fumble return. Don’t get me wrong, there is no doubt – I repeat, NO DOUBT – that it was a fumble. Pushing the ball forward doesn’t matter, Roethlisberger did not have control and that makes it a fumble no matter what angle you look at it. However, there should have been a clip called near the end of the play. The Giants were outplayed and deserved to lose. That loss keeps the rest of the NFC East close enough for hope to still be a prevalent emotion, especially for the Eagles who desperately need a win tonight.

The late game featured Dallas in Atlanta to take on the last unbeaten team in the NFL this season. The numbers were fairly similar, but I really felt like Tony Romo outplayed Matt Ryan and it took a little luck for the Falcons to remain undefeated with the 19-13 win. Right now, the biggest problem for Dallas is the running game, or lack of one. They need DeMarco Murray back. With him, this is a completely different team, one that doesn’t need Romo to throw as much and, therefore, can deal with a little bit of inconsistency from him.

Check back tomorrow for my Afterword on tonight’s Monday Night Football matchup between the Eagles and Saints in New Orleans. Thanks for reading!

Thursday Night Football Afterword: Vikings vs Buccaneers

The Buccaneers won 36-17 in Minnesota, handing
the Vikings their first home loss of the season.

So often these days, teams like to look back at a game and say, “we lost it,” rather than “the other team won it.” If the Vikings try to pull that one this week, we can call B.S. The Vikings didn’t beat themselves; the Bucs played a terrific game.

Did the Vikings turn the ball over a couple times? Yes. But the Buccaneers scored just ten points off those turnovers. They won by 19. I don’t think you can attribute the Tampa Bay victory to just the turnovers.

Plenty of us knew the Buccaneers had a special young player in their backfield, but I had no idea that there would be serious competition for runner-up in the race for NFC offensive rookie of the year – I don’t think Robert Griffin III will be caught, but I figured Alfred Morris would easily be the number two pick.

Doug Martin had a spectacular game. He scored twice and had over 200 total yards from scrimmage. I don’t know how many fantasy leagues he is owned in, but the team in my league that has him was lucky enough to have put him in at flex and now has over 30 points heading into the weekend.

Josh Freeman had the fewest passing yards of any game since Tampa Bay’s bye week, but threw three touchdown passes for the third consecutive week. Another quick fantasy look-in, the team in my league with Josh Freeman has him on the bench for Aaron Rodgers. Of course I won’t argue with that, considering Minnesota was solid defensively at home until last night and Green Bay is playing Jacksonville, but I know the league member will be upset if Rodgers doesn’t top 27 points on Sunday.

Jared Allen became a hero to the Minnesota crowd
over this two-play sequence.

On the other side, Christian Ponder didn’t have a bad game. In fact, he had a pretty terrific game. A glance at the stat line won’t tell you that, but Ponder was under heavy pressure all day. Some of his best passes came while being drilled in the face, in the back, and while rolling out.

Adrian Peterson also had a pretty good day on the ground, but a costly fumble seemed to have an effect on him for the rest of the game. He didn’t run quite as hard as he did before the fumble.

Multiple times, the Vikings worked to get back in the game, but they couldn’t put back-to-back drives together and let the Bucs get away in Minnesota’s first home loss of the season.

The Vikings are not in trouble yet, and I view this more as a statement game for Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers have been playing in close games, and Josh Freeman is playing more like he did two years ago when he nearly led his team to a playoff birth, when he threw only five interceptions all year. He has already matched that number this season, but four of them came in the first four weeks.

Minnesota will get an extra few days to prepare for their next game, which is good because they have to face the Seahawks and the 12^th Man in Seattle next Sunday. Tampa Bay’s next game will be next week in Oakland.

Find me on Facebook to stay updated on new blog posts as I publish them and also show some love for my WMUC Sports talk show, The All-Sports Crew. You can also follow me on Twitter – I recently changed my tag to @cpuffnfl.

Thanks for reading everyone and enjoy the rest of Week 8. I’ll be back Monday with my Sunday Afterwords!