10 Things You Need to Know: NFL Regular Season Week 11

Aaron Glenn has since retired, but was a big part of building
the Texans into the playoff contender they are today.
(Photo credit to Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

‘Like’ The All-Sports Crew on Facebook to keep up with updates! The All-Sports Crew will air on WMUC Sports, live, tonight from 6-8, yes, we have a special two-hour show for you today!

10.            Bigger Problems than Defense in New York

Last week I said the Giants defense is a problem. In my defense, I was right about that. But I also thought the offense would bounce back after some severely sub-par games and beat the Bengals. That didn’t happen. I am still holding out hope that they can get things back on track after this bye week, but this isn’t a ‘typical Giants November slump.’ They’ve never looked this bad before getting on track in the playoffs. Eli needs to find his mojo.

9.            Quarterback Injuries

This week in the NFL really hit home for me, what with all the injuries at the quarterback position we’ve suffered here at Maryland. We’ve had so many quarterbacks go down this season I can’t remember if it’s four with three ACL tears or five with four ACL tears.

The 49ers are in the best position to play well if Alex Smith misses time because Colin Kaepernick has been great when he’s played this season. But, as fortune would have it, Smith is also the least likely to miss time. In fact, both Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger have been ruled out this week, Big Ben with the only non-head injury of the group, and doctors are very worried about his ribs. Jay Cutler is the only one besides Smith whose status is still up in the air. The Bears and 49ers play on Monday Night in Week 11.

8.            Tim Tebow

This morning an article was released in which Tebow’s teammates with the Jets said the quarterback ‘stinks.’ I call foul on that one. Last year it was well documented that Tebow performed very poorly in practice, but in clutch time he always seemed to come threw somehow, some way. The Jets haven’t even gotten to see much of him in-game.

7.            If the Season Ended Today

Much of the playoff picture has not changed, but here’s something interesting: the Chargers are the first team out in the AFC right now. If they can beat the Broncos this weekend… Hahaha, I kill myself. At this point, the Bengals, and possibly the Titans, are the only AFC teams not already in the playoffs that could possibly sneak in.

On the NFC side, there’s still plenty available to shake up. The Saints are on a roll and who knows what they might be able to pull off down the stretch. The Vikings are still sticking around and the Buccaneers have made a strong case for themselves, too. The Giants are in serious danger of falling out – a mid-season collapse that extends into the latter part of the season will not give them a playoff birth this year, and I’m labeling the Seahawks ‘pretenders’ until further notice.

6.            Fantasy Disappointments

There were plenty of fantasy disappointments this week, so I’ll just list a few that stood out to me.

• Nate Washington has been a pretty solid target this year in Tennessee. He doesn’t get the most receptions but he tends to get good yards and then this week he ended up with just 0.5 points (no points for those of you in non-PPR leagues).
• Steve Smith has been in the double digits every game this season except in Weeks 4 and 5 against solid Falcons and Seahawks defenses, so maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised he didn’t do well against the Broncos, but for the first time all year he caught fewer than three passes.
• Of course, the easy guy to lean on as dud of the week is Eli Manning. He has scored 10 fantasy points in the past three weeks combined, with just 2 in my league this past week.

5.            Fantasy Surprises

• The Broncos defense came through with 39 fantasy points this week (in my league). Manning played a solid game but it truly was the Broncos defense that carried the team. That said, 6 of those points never should have happened because of a fumble out of the end zone that was never called.
• Joe Flacco hadn’t scored 20+ fantasy points since Week 4 against the Browns. He finally got back there, and more, with a 34-point performance against the Raiders in which Baltimore set the franchise record for points and Flacco threw for over 300 yards, tossed three touchdowns and ran for another score.
• Dallas had gotten double-digit fantasy points for their defense just once all season before putting up 32 big ones against Philadelphia. They scored three touchdowns on defense and special teams.

4.            Games to Watch

Like last week, I’ll be more specific on why these are the biggest games to watch in my predictions post tomorrow.

• Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills (Thursday, 8:20 p.m.)
• Philadelphia Eagles at Washington Redskins (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• San Diego Chargers at Denver Broncos (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers (Sunday, 8:20 p.m.)
• Chicago Bears at San Francisco 49ers (Monday, 8:30 p.m.)

3.            Power Rankings

For the sake of space, I will list just the top 6 and the bottom 6 here. You can see the rest on NFL.com.

1. Houston Texans	27. Carolina Panthers
2. Atlanta Falcons	28. New York Jets
3. Green Bay Packers	29. Oakland Raiders
4. Chicago Bears	30. Cleveland Browns
5. Baltimore Ravens	31. Kansas City Chiefs
6. San Francisco 49ers	32. Jacksonville Jaguars

The Giants, Lions and Chargers suffered the biggest drops this week while the Titans and Saints saw solid rises in the Rankings.

The Power Poll is a better representation of where the teams stack up, in my opinion. Check that out here.

2.            Baltimore Ravens

The Texans aren’t feeling quite so lonely now with another AFC team to keep them company in the top 6 of the Power Rankings. The Ravens had a fantastic game on Sunday, but how much can we really read into it, considering it came against the team ranked #29. The Ravens won’t have to deal with Big Ben this week either.

1.            Houston Texans

Several weeks ago I questioned whether the Texans would stick around when Brian Cushing went down. Not only have they stuck around but they’ve beaten some good teams to get here and are almost undeniably a better 8-1 than the Falcons are. Houston will stay here another week, too, because the #1 team in the NFL gets to play the worst team in the league this weekend when the Jaguars play in Houston. Forget flex scheduling, how about flex matchups mid-season?

Monday Night Football Afterword: Steelers vs Chiefs

The Chiefs gave the Steelers a scare, but Pittsburgh faces
a bigger problem. Photo credit to ESPN.

As it turned out, this was a much more interesting game than anyone, myself included, figured it would be heading into last night.

The Chiefs held a lead, in regulation, for the first time this season. In fact, they held a 10-0 lead early in the second quarter before the Steelers rallied to tie the game at halftime.

The third quarter saw no scoring change. When Pittsburgh took a 13-10 lead in the fourth, I figured that it was over, that KC’s confidence was so low that they were doomed to suffer another loss. Not only that, but the officials really seemed to be skewing things in favor of the Steelers and that wasn’t helping Kansas City’s cause, either.

Instead, in an incredible final drive of regulation, which included overcoming a costly offensive pass interference call, Matt Cassel made some incredible passes I never expected to see from him, and get his team in position for Ryan Succop to redeem himself from an earlier field goal miss. He made the field goal but an interception by Cassel deep in Chiefs territory in overtime led to a 1^st Down field goal try by to give Pittsburgh the victory.

There were many turning points in the game, most significantly a defensive touchdown for Kansas City that was called back on account of the infamous ‘Tuck Rule.’ The score would have given the Chiefs a 17-10 lead in the third quarter. More importantly, even though the score did not count, the Chiefs were still flagged for excessive celebration.

It was a very weird game, but the bad news from all of it is on the Steelers side. The Chiefs season was already over before this game began, but Pittsburgh could be in serious trouble, too. Ben Roethlisberger left the game with a shoulder injury and was taken to the hospital during the game. There was some speculation that it may have been a separated shoulder but so far the only confirmed report is a shoulder sprain. That said, ESPN recently announced that Steelers personnel are concerned that it may be a significant shoulder injury that could lead Big Ben to miss a fair amount of time.

Week 10 was a rough one for quarterbacks. In addition to Roethlisberger’s injury, Alex Smith, Michael Vick and Jay Cutler all suffered concussions. So far, only Alex Smith, who has no documented past issues with concussions, appears on track to play in Week 11.