1. Not a whole lot unexpected going down in the NFC in Week 5. Pretty much everyone who was expected to win did, convincingly. Included in that group are the 5-0 Giants, who took advantage of the woeful Raiders for a 44-7 win. Interesting fact about the Giants, in each of their last 3 games they have held their opponent under 100 yards passing. Of course, those opponents have been the Raiders, Chiefs, and Bucs, so actually they probably should have held those teams to 100 yards passing total.
"We're Down 38-10, It's Dancin' Time!!"
2. The other 5-0 team in the NFC is the Vikings. They slapped around the winless Rams 38-10, but even though they won by 4 TDs there may be a few reasons for concern. First, the Vikings haven't run for over 100 yards in any of their last 3 games, which is weird considering they have Adrian Peterson. Maybe even more concerning, they gave up 400 yards of total offense to a Rams team that has scored 34 points all year. That defense has a lot of big name guys, but the last two weeks they've given up over 400 yards in each game (other one was against the Packers). Their next 3 games see them facing the Ravens, Steelers, and the Packers on the road, so if they keep playing defense like that, the 5-0 could turn into 5-3.
3. The Falcons seemingly fixed everything that was wrong with them during their bye week. Although they were off to a 2-1 start, the offense had struggled, particularly Michael Turner and Roddy White. This led Dook!e and me to keep Roddy White on our bench in Week 5, and he rewarded us by going off for 210 receiving yards and 2 TDs, as we lost by 1 point, with Pierre Garcon and Derrick Mason, 2 guys we started ahead of White, combining for 1 catch for 9 yards. Turner scored 3 TDs as the Falcons ripped the heads off of a Niners team that had been playing very well this year, 45-10.
Andy Reid Spots a Cheeseburger Across A Crowded Room
4. Another team that looked strong coming off the bye week, the Eagles, smacked around the terrible Bucs 33-14. Donovan McNabb returned at QB and had a pretty nice game, throwing 3 TD passes. Rookie Jeremy Maclin had a breakout game, catching 6 passes for 142 yards and 2 TDs. The Eagles have had a pretty nice schedule lately. Chiefs, then bye week, then Bucs, now the Raiders this week. The animal rights people are going to be out protesting Michael Vick, and may also have words with Al Davis about all the goat blood drinking.
5. The breakout star of week 5 was Cowboys WR Miles Austin. Of course, he was facing the Chiefs, which helps, but he did have..250 receiving yards? Miles Austin? Included in that huge total was a 60 yard walkoff TD reception, in which a few Chiefs looked like they were wearing handcuffs trying to tackle him. The Cowboys win 26-20, in OT. When you need overtime to beat the Chiefs, I think that qualifies as a "moral defeat". Still, the Cowboys absolutely had to have that game. To be 2-3 going into the bye week riding a loss to the Chiefs would have absolutely killed their season. As it stands, they are 3-2 and Jerry Jones has assured us all that Wade Phillips will not be fired this season. As recent Cowboys head coaches go, he is way better than Dave Campo.
6. The defending NFC Champion Cardinals pretty much saved their season with a late 4th quarter goal line stand against the Texans. They blew a 21-0 lead, but got a 49 yard INT for TD by Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to take the lead, then stonewalled the Texans on the 1 yard line late in the game to hold on and avoid falling to 1-3. Here's a cooky stat you didn't see coming, the Cardinals are 5th in the league in yards per rushing attempt against, and they've faced Gore, MJD, Brown/Addai, and Steve Slaton.
7. Carolina picked up their first win of the season, coming back from a 17-9 4th quarter deficit to nip a Redskins team that is 2-3 despite playing a winless team every single week of the season so far. And they play another winless team this week, the Chiefs. Meanwhile Dan Snyder refuses to give Jim Zorn the stay of execution that Jerry Jones gave Wade Phillips.
8. And finally, here's my 2 cents on Rush Limbaugh. I find the man a reprehensible asshole. A chickenhawk who has helped cheerlead lots of soldiers into unnecessary harm, a race baiting douchebag who speaks to millions of losers who want to feel they are persecuted because they are white. His politics are his politics, and if he prefers the "Republican" side of the insatiable blood sucking machine that runs this country to the "Democrat" side, which 95% of the time are just two heads of the same monster, that's fine. The only real problem I have with him are the war mongering and the race baiting, because my country can do without both of those things. That said, I'm a firm believer in giving assholes like this enough rope to hang themselves with. He should have been allowed to own the Rams. It would have been a great opportunity for him to embarrass himself and maybe finally irrevocably have this guy be discredited once and for all. Won't happen now though, now he has more fuel to bitch and moan about how he is a poor persecuted white man.
No comments:
Post a Comment