You didn't see many prognostications, including my own, for tonight's Broncos-Titans game that foresaw a lot of scoring. That means you didn't see too many correct predictions. Instead you got two stellar performances from the two quarterback standouts of the 2006 Draft and a highly entertaining 34-20 Bronco win. The victory puts them into a first place tie with the Chargers for the AFC West lead and they've got a lot more momentum than Norv Turner's underachieving bunch.
Jay Cutler had his best game as a professional. 16-of-21 for 200 yards and two touchdowns in a nearly flawless performance for the Broncos. He moved with confidence in the pocket, running with effect when needed and throwing on the move with precision. His first quarter touchdown to Brandon Stokley was a smart throw made better by some nifty running from the wideout. In the third quarter he recognized Brandon Marshall had drawn a mismatch with Titans safety Chris Hope out of the game and exploited it for a 41-yard score that upped Denver's lead to 27-10.
They opened the lead thanks to an unlikely source. The Bronco kick return game had been miserable all season but Glenn Martinez scored his first career touchdown on an 80-yard return in the first quarter that staked the Broncs to a 14-0 lead. Martinez later fumbled a punt to allow Tennessee back into the game but his touchdown represented the second unit that's emerged in as many weeks for Denver.
Understandably Adrian Peterson has gotten all of the attention in Minnesota this season--when the best back in team history shows up, he steps right into the spotlight.
But his injury meant that the supporting cast got a chance to shine on Sunday. The Vikings offensive line showed that it doesn't really matter who runs behind them, they'll pick up the yards. And Chester Taylor got a chance to remind everyone that the Vikings No. 2 tailback may not be Purple Jesus, but he's still better than many starting backs around the league.
With Peterson out with a knee injury, the Vikings still rushed for 228 yards. Taylor simply blew the Raiders away with a 164-yard, three touchdown day that included six runs of 10 yards or more. The Vikings running game was good enough that they managed to make Tarvais Jackson look like an NFL quarterback. Jackson connected on 17 of 22 passes for 171 yards, which ranks as easily the best day of his young career. Of course he still was only the third best quarterback on the field--Oakland's Duante Culpepper threw for 344 yards in his return to Minnesota while Vikings wide receiver Sidney Rice was a perfect 2-for-2 for 94 yards including a 74-yard pass to Vinsanthe Shinacoe on the first play from scrimmage.
Bill Belichick has publicly expressed his respect and affection for the Buffalo Bills and coach Dick Jauron, but that didn't stop him or his team from manhandling them last night at Ralph Wilson Stadium. In fact, the Patriots showed no mercy at all as they tallied up 56 points, which included touchdowns on their first seven possessions.
What more can be said? It was another dominant performance by a team that is probably the best the NFL has ever seen. Tom Brady and Randy Moss connected 10 times for 128 yards and four touchdowns, while the Patriots defense held the Bills to 78 yards rushing and 229 yards overall.
Not all was lost for Buffalo, however. Despite their ugly performance on the field, the entire stadium was treated to a heartwarming message prior to the game.
Minutes before the players took the field to do battle, the Jumbotron came on and played a video from Bills tight end Kevin Everett, who suffered a near fatal spinal cord injury only 10 weeks ago. And his message was an extremely positive one. He let everyone know that he is finally home and expressed his thanks for the support from teammates, coaches and fans.
A loss is a loss and a life is a life. And while losing is never fun, the Bills and their fans have to walk away feeling great about their night after hearing such great news from Kevin Everett. I know I did.
If the first matchup of the Texans versus Saints were a referendum of the 2006 draft, then Texans defensive end Mario Williams would be the clear victor. He finished the day with a sack, a forced fumble from that sack and six tackles--along with lots of quarterback pressure. In a league where gifted defensive ends are usually harder to find than running backs, the Texans are hoping for many more of these types of performances.
Saints running back Reggie Bush, on the other hand, had a awful day. Against a Texans defense that has been awful against both the run and the pass, he rushed 15 times for 34 yards, an average of 2.3 yards. He caught 12 passes for 70 yards.
Most of his yardage came when the game was out of hand. He lost two fumbles, including one at the goal line that the refs on the field ruled a fumble, but arguably wasn't, but couldn't be overturned. Saints coach Sean Payton adds that he is concerned about Bush's missed assignments.
Obviously, with 47 yards total rushing this week and 43 yards last week against the Rams, the Saints are a team that obviously misses a healthy Deuce McAllister. And has fans wondering about the play calling. The Saints had so much more time of possession this week compared to the Rams game and still couldn't run the ball.
And now for some random recap and fun pictures you might not see if you read just the AP report of the game:
Arizona got a huge win in Cincinnati, 35-27, led by Antrel Rolle's three interceptions. Not just interceptions, but pick-sixes. All three were returned for TDs (one was called back after a Cardinal took a cheap shot on Carson Palmer).
It wasn't all about Rolle; it was about a turnaround. During the past 15 years or so, no NFL franchises embodied losing more than the Cardinals and Bengals. The Jake Plummer-led Cards had a brief moment in the sun several years ago while these Bengals made good back in 2005.
These Bengals are supposed to be one of the NFL's elite. Right now, they are in shambles with a 3-7 record. Still, this was a game that Arizona tended to lose: a road game. Arizona went into "the jungle" and beat the Bengals in ways not known to Cardinal fans.
The defense really stepped up. Arizona picked off Carson Palmer four times and recovered a Chad Johnson fumble. The offense, while not blazing, did what it had to do to win. Kurt Warner was throwing the ball with his right hand, left hand, underhand and backhand. They outmuscled the Bengals on both sides of the ball. Arizona took advantage of Cincy's mistakes and didn't make many of their own. Who would've thought going into the season that it would be the Cardinals as the poised, gritty team in this one?
Those are all great signs for a Cardinals team that now finds itself in the thick of the NFC playoff race. The Cards trail the NFC West leading Seahawks by just a game in the two-team race ... and are just a game behind the Lions in the wildcard race.
Cincinnati, on the other hand, have found themselves in the thick of nothing more than a dark cloud of doubt and chaos. In the AFC, only the winless Dolphins and 2006's dog Raiders have a worse record than the Bengals.
You hear coachisms like "We made just enough plays to win the game" often, but the real story when you're talking about a Rams/49ers game is who can make enough plays not to lose the game. In this case, it was the Rams doing just enough to not sabotage their chance at victory.
A look at the box score, the discrepancy in stats, and you wonder why St. Louis didn't win this one more decisively. The team that seemed to have woken up last week against the Saints did a good job moving the ball, but untimely sacks set back a number of potential scoring drives. The 49ers got to Marc Bulger six times, losing 50 yards of offense in the process.
The 49ers also did a good job of forcing the Rams to dink-and-dunk their way down the field, holding Bulger to just 4.8 yards per attempt (with no pass longer than 17 yards) and the team to just 3.5 yards per carry. Offenses can still score effectively playing this style of ball (also known as the West Coast Offense, maybe you've heard of it), but you need to convert third downs at a high rate for that to be successful. The Rams' 6-of-18 third-down success just doesn't cut it.
Last week, the Lions' horrid rushing performance against the Cardinals really began to circle the drain when Shaun McDonald was dropped for a 15-yard loss on an end-around. This week (besides fumbling the ball), with the Lions down by six, Jon Kitna twice looked for McDonald in Giants' territory, both resulting in interceptions. On the first, he didn't bother fighting for an underthrown ball. On the other, he played a more active role, tipping the pass to Sam Madison, ending a game that resulted in some post-game smack.
"Yeah, it's more difficult because that is not a better football team than us," quarterback Jon Kitna said. "We gave them the football game."
Strahan took offense to Kitna's take on the game.
"I honestly thought in the first half that was one of the worst teams we played that was 6-3," he said. "I don't quite understand why Jon would say that. Maybe we'll see them down the road and if that's the case, we'll beat that a-- again."
The Tampa Bay Bucs aren't a great team, but winning the NFC South division title doesn't exactly require greatness. Being the only good team in a bad division is good enough. The Falcons are a bad team, the worst team in a bad division. Add those two things together and you get one of the ugliest games of the day.
From the start it was quite clear that the Bucs defense was too much for the Falcons, and especially too much for Byron Leftwich. Leftwich's long windup and his lead feet gave the Bucs front four plenty of time to get to him. By the time Bobby Petrino had seen Leftwich throw his second interception (he'd also fumbled twice), the Falcons coach had realized he'd screwed up.
So Petrino went back to Joey Harrington, the Falcons whipping boy of a quarterback. Harrington outplayed Leftwich which just adds to the confusion for the Falcons' ritual beating at the hands of the Colts on Thanksgiving night. No Falcon knows who their quarterback is going to be, but everyone knows it likely won't; matter much. Isn't everybody just loving the Bobby Petrino era?
Last year the Jets returned from their bye week with a brand new defense. They cut their points allowed in half and became one of the stingiest teams in the league. That propelled them from the middle of the AFC pack to the playoffs. This year there's no chance of a playoff berth but, after today's 19-16 win over the Steelers, there's reason to believe that Eric Mangini and company may have pulled off a similar defensive resurrection.
The Jets had nine sacks through their first nine games. They dropped Ben Roethlisberger seven times today. They've been giving up more than 150 yards per game on the ground but held the Steelers to 112 through four-plus quarters. They forced two turnovers and limited the Steelers to three second half field goals when a touchdown would have made their chances at victory quite slim indeed.
The Jets were much more aggressive than they've been up to this point and the Steeler line looked like it was stuck in (nonexistent) mud. Dewayne Robertson, who's been more of a rumor than an actual player this year, had two and a half sacks by shooting past Sean Mahan, Alan Faneca and Kendall Simmons like he was John Randle circa '97. Shaun Ellis, another much malinged defensive lineman, ran through Willie Colon like bad clams. They wore green and white but in no way resembled the 2007 Jets.
Last time the Redskins and Cowboys met, Terrell Owens was the topic of discussion. Except it was in a bad way. Remember, it was Owens' dropping a sure TD pass in the Cowboys' wacky loss ... and Owens catching a TD pass, laying down and using the football as a pillow.
One year later. We're talking about him again.
This time, it his big game in the Cowboys' 28-23 victory over the Redskins. Owens caught 8 passes for 173 yards and 4 touchdowns. Yep, four of 'em. He caught TD passes of 4, 31, 46 and 52 yards and exposed a depleted Skins' secondary for huge plays. The Redskins were without CB Carlos Rogers (who is out for the year) and S Sean Taylor
Tony Romo was also extremely effective, completing 22 of 32 passes for 293 yds and those four T.O. TDs. Dallas was an amazing 8 of 13 on third downs.
You didn't see many prognostications, including my own, for tonight's Broncos-Titans game that foresaw a lot of scoring. That means you didn't see too many correct predictions. Instead you got two stellar performances from the two quarterback standouts of the 2006 Draft and a highly entertaining 34-20 Bronco win. The victory puts them into a first place tie with the Chargers for the AFC West lead and they've got a lot more momentum than Norv Turner's underachieving bunch. 
Understandably Adrian Peterson has gotten all of the attention in Minnesota this season--when the best back in team history shows up, he steps right into the spotlight.
If the 
Arizona got a huge win in Cincinnati, 35-27, led by Antrel Rolle's three interceptions. Not just interceptions, but pick-sixes. All three were returned for TDs (one was called back after a Cardinal took a cheap shot on 
You hear coachisms like "We made just enough plays to win the game" often, but the real story when you're talking about a Rams/49ers game is who can make enough plays not to lose the game. In this case, it was the Rams doing just enough to not sabotage their chance at victory.
Last week, the Lions' horrid rushing performance against the Cardinals really began to circle the drain when 
Last year the Jets returned from their bye week with a brand new defense. They cut their points allowed in half and became one of the stingiest teams in the league. That propelled them from the middle of the AFC pack to the playoffs. This year there's no chance of a playoff berth but, after today's 19-16 win over the Steelers, there's reason to believe that 
Last time the Redskins and Cowboys met, 
