With the Giants not playing yesterday, I had a better chance to really absorb the other games going on around the league and take a closer look into some of the more interesting stories that unfolded in Week 10 of this NFL season. There were more than a few interesting subplots to take away from yesterday’s action. From near-upsets to head-scratching coaching decisions, Week 10 was like one long of episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Moments of laughter, moments of confusion and moments that make you wonder, “Did he really just do that?” But above all those things, yesterday just proved to me, once again, that I really do not have a clue how to pick NFL games.
- Since I’m likely to finish below .500 in my picks for the second straight week, I’d like to at least take a few sentences to acknowledge that I am capable of getting something right. In my Week 10 picks column, I wrote that Vince Young had revitalized the Titans in a way that they desperately needed. He provides an extra intangible spark that Kerry Collins didn’t possess and with him on the field it seems that the team as a whole is playing with a lot more confidence now. That has never been more apparent than yesterday’s 41-17 thrashing of the Buffalo Bills. Of course I’m aware that they beat the Bills and not the Colts, but Tennessee has now won three in a row with Young under center. I’m aware that anyone with even a portion of a normally-functioning brain could tell that replacing Collins as the starter would spark the Titans, but I still feel proud to be able to salvage some sliver of wisdom from my defeated and drained psyche.
- I’m aware that even the best teams in the league have their off days, but the Saints really escaped with one yesterday. And by escaped, I mean that they did everything but have Michael Scofield tattoo prison blueprints to his body and get arrested so he could help them escape. The Saints were sloppy yesterday, but the fact that they somehow managed to stick with their gameplan and survive even on their worst of days to stay undefeated, makes them that much better. And if that doesn’t make a lot of sense to you now, just wait until the playoffs and you’ll see what I mean. A 9-0 team that loses a sloppy, meaningless Week 10 game to the Rams loses a little bit of their swagger, even if its not immediately noticeable. On the other hand, a 9-0 team that barely escapes the upset and ekes out a win over the Rams in a meaningless Week 10 game gains something from that win. Believe it or not.
- The Cincinnati Bengals. I’ve been fawning over them all season like I’m a teenage girl from 1994 and the Bengals are Zach Morris from Saved by the Bell. Of course I haven’t been able to pay as much attention to them as I’d like because I took up a seat on the Broncos bandwagon after Week 1 and I have been riding shotgun there ever since. But yesterday, as much as I talked up their defense all week and even though I took them in my picks column, there was something in the back of my mind that told me that they couldn’t beat the Steelers on the road in the most important game of the season thus far in the AFC North. And then they did. 18-12. They scored the only touchdown of the entire game on Bernard Scott’s 96-yard kickoff return in the first quarter and 4 Shayne Graham field goals later, the Bengals are 7-2 and all alone in first place in the AFC North. With a 5-0 record within the division, they are in the driver’s seat right now, having swept both the Ravens and the defending Super Bowl champs and one more meeting with the hapless Browns is the only thing that stand between Cincy and a 6-0 record in the AFC North and possibly a first-round bye in the playoffs. Needless to say, I vacated the Broncos bandwagon after yesterday’s disaster in Washington so quickly that I think I left a vapor trail and now I’m on the waiting list for the Cincinnati bandwagon. I know I should have come to them sooner.
- Speaking of the Broncos, they are slumping, and they are slumping big time. And speaking of slumping, there’s another team that continued its struggles yesterday that starts with “Atlanta” and ends with “Falcons”. While the Broncos were busy dropping their third straight game to a Redskins team that can’t get out of its own way, the Falcons went ahead and lost for the third time in four games. Atlanta, now 5-4 after a 4-1 start to the season, apparently has a strong case of the homesick blues as all four of their losses have come away from the Georgia Dome. The road woes will be in play once again next week as the Falcons travel to Giants Stadium to take on a Giants team that is also struggling. In addition, Atlanta might be without star running back Michael Turner, who rolled his ankle yesterday in the second quarter, after piling up 111 yards on only 9 carries. While this could be disastrous for my already sinking fantasy team, it’s a good thing for Giants fans, which I am. The Broncos aren’t without injury issues of their own, as Kyle Orton went down with an ankle injury yesterday as well. Chris Simms started the second half for Denver, which might seem like a bad thing, until you realize that the difference between Kyle Orton and Chris Simms is like the difference between Sweet & Low and Equal. They’re both bad for you, but one is a little less worse. Fortunately for both teams, the Falcons still have two games to play against the Bucs and the Broncos play in the same division as the Raiders and Chiefs. Hope remains.
- The Dallas Cowboys are not really making it hard for me to question their legitimacy. They put on a strong performance one week and then have a game like they did against the Kansas City Chiefs the week after. Last week, they seemed to be in top form; and then yesterday they get shutout by Green Bay for 58 minutes. I’m not saying the Packers are bad, because they are far from it, but this is a Packers defense that got torched for 38 points by Tampa Bay last week and are apparently having identity issues themselves. Romo looked his usual, scared self, and most importantly, Dallas just could not get the run game going with Marion Barber being held to only 26 yards on 5 carries. Romo was forced to throw the ball 39 times, and everybody knows that when Tony Romo is throwing the ball 39 times, things are not going well. Had I stayed home to watch football yesterday, I would have been stuck watching the Cowboys-Packers with nothing else to toggle back-and-forth between. However, I decided to go to the local sports pub for the 4:00 games and possibly saved myself from sticking bamboo up my fingernails to ease the torture of a 3-0 game in the 4th quarter combined with the drone of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
- What will possibly end up being the most-talked-about story of yesterday and the most heavily questioned coaching decision in recent memory happened during last night’s much anticipated, annual Patriots-Colts battle. With the Pats up 34-28 and just over 2 minutes to play, Bill Belichick opted to go for it on a 4th and 2 with the ball on the Pats’ own 28-yard line. As Tom Brady came back on the field and the team lined up to go for it, all I remember is that I kept repeating, “No they’re not, they can’t be” as I watched in horror. Sure enough, they did not convert and at the two-minute warning, with three full timeouts left, Peyton Manning had but a mere 28 yards to take his team for the game-winning touchdown. Instead of punting it away and leaving Manning with maybe 60 or 70 yards to march in 2 minutes, Belichick made Peyton’s job at least 50% easier for him. In case Bill wasn’t aware of this, Peyton Manning is perhaps one of the few players in the NFL that you don’t want to ever make things easier for. It’s already easy for him. Is it highly possibly that Manning would take the Colts down the field for the score anyway, even if New England punted? Yes, very possible. BUT WHY MAKE HIS JOB EASIER? It took Indy four plays until Manning found Reggie Wayne in the endzone. 35-34, game over, Colts stay undefeated. Not only did the Patriots blow a 34-21 lead with 4 minutes to play and possibly a chance to recapture the throne of power in the AFC, but their supposedly genius coach suffered one of the most epic brain farts of all time. I swear that I’ve made decisions with a BAC of 2.25 that were better than that decision to go for it on fourth down.
- And before I sign off for the rest of the week and mentally prepare myself for the Giants-Falcons game on Sunday, it would not be right if I didn’t get in at least one dig at the New York Jets. Not only has Gang Green dropped 5 of their last 6 games after their rather arrogant 3-0 start, but they’ve lost to the Dolphins twice, the Bills and now the Jacksonville Jaguars, with 3 of those losses coming on their home turf. Forget for the second that somehow the Jaguars are 5-4, losing to Jacksonville, Miami and Buffalo at home is not going to make a lot of people believers. Keep up the good work, and you might be able to salvage a 6-10 record out of this season.
