This was a big week for the NFL, and these kinds of weekends definitely make it tough for people to choose some of the biggest moments of the week, but I'll give it a try.
All is not well in the state of the Denver Broncos. Rewind 5 weeks, before that dreaded bye week, and you've got a team that basically nobody wants to play. A team that shuts teams down in the second half of games, barely even surrendering a first down. A commanding 3 1/2 game lead in their division after knocking off their primary rival in their own building. Now bring us back up to regular time, and what do we have? We have a team that looks beaten, that seems to have quit, and a whole lot of questions to answer. How does one focus on anything positive after this team has scored a grand total of 3 touchdowns on offense in the last 4 games? I really don't know the answer to that question, maybe it's just the whole we've seen you guys score like crazy, we know that you can do it. At any rate, the Broncos seem to have lost all hopes of getting themselves a playoff spot with a very tough finishing schedule. At this point, games against the sorry Chiefs and Raiders, which should be no brainers, aren't a guarantee. McD better think of something quick!
TO! Just wow, what a huge day! 197 yards is not usually a receiving stat that you see from any receiver. Yet TO has had these kinds of days in each of the last couple of years. It seems that Buffalo is finally figuring out how to use him! Need 98 yards? Well, you've got a guy who can give that to you. I don't know why they hadn't been trying to use him more. This guy is a beast! The bigger moment of that game happened when Mike Simms-Walker caught the game winning TD, 91 yards of his own in this game. He proceeded to salute TO, not in a mocking way at all, with his celebration, and asked him for his jersey after the game. Definitely good to see that kind of respect. This guy knows that TO is the type of receiver that changes the way people play the game, and he is showing him the proper respect for his ability. TO's personality has always left something to desire, but nobody can argue with his on-field ability.
Couple of big upsets! KC took down the Steelers. Pittsburgh really needs to have a look at their special teams, because there is something seriously wrong there. I think most coaches would agree that there is never a reason that any kickoff should be run back for a touchdown. Punts you can see more, but kickoffs? You're literally running downfield with a wall of people from your team against a team that is backpedaling. It really just shouldn't ever happen; yet it has happened to Pittsburgh two weeks in a row. The worst of the upsets comes from the Bengals. They didn't only lose to the Raiders, they let the Raiders come back and beat them. I suppose they must have figured the game was over after taking a 14-0 lead. The fact that they lost isn't such a bad thing, in and of itself, losses happen, we know that. The bad part about it was that Cincinnati knew that both their chief rivals had also lost before their game even started. 7-3 is not a bad record, but they could have been 8-2, with Baltimore at 5-5, and Pittsburgh at 6-4, having swept the season matches with both of these teams! That would have put both teams in dire straights. Now, Cinci is just one 2 game losing streak away from possibly letting the division slip from their hands, they need to come to play every single game now.
Vince Young has been quite a catalyst for the Titans. I was talking about him with one of my students this week, and we both agreed that he's not a very good quarterback. He showed that when he was replaced by Kerry Collins last year after his poor display of off the field attitude. Your QB has to be your rock, no matter what situation he finds himself in, and Young is far from that. At any rate, he still gives you a chance to win games simply because the guy is impossible to tackle. You might say, run the wildcat with him, but why bother? Just have him drop back to pass and take off. He does have a big, albeit not very accurate, arm, so the defense has to respect a pass. Plus, they have to dedicate at least one guy to spy him in case he decides to take off! So that's one less guy that can cover. Plus, Young versus most individuals in a 1-on-1 situation, Young will win that. Titans are far from a contender anymore, but they are at least winning a few games again.
Who'd have thought the best game of the day would have come from the Lions and the Browns. I mean, epic quarterback duel between....wait, is this right? Brady Quinn and Matthew Stafford? I'm older than both these guys, and I'm only 27! In all seriousness, though, this was an amazing game. You'd expect the Lions to just roll over after allowing 24 points in the first quarter, while scoring only 3 of their own, but they fought back. What an ending sequence, also. The unfortunate part about this is what happened after the game. Instead of railing against his own team for blowing a 21 point lead, Browns coach, Eric Mangini, came out and accused the Lions of faking injuries so they could slow the game down. Then said that the pass interference call, in the endzone, shouldn't have been called because Stafford was "out of the pocket." Ok, firstly, you guys had a 21 point lead. If you can't keep your team motivated to play after you have amassed that kind of lead, no matter how fast you did it, then you're not a very good coach. Don't accuse the other coach of cheating, accuse your players of lolligagging. Then, the only penalty that I know of that is negated by leaving the pocket, is intentional grounding. So because the QB moves out of the pocket, all members of the secondary should immediately try and tackle their receivers no matter where they are on the field? Seriously Mangini? I urge everybody to go look at the replay. Yes, it was a hail mary, and some incidental contact is expected during this; but the Browns player literally shoved his man out of the endzone as the ball was coming down. I'm sorry, that is pass interference. Physically preventing a receiver from getting into a position where he could make a play, that is the textbook definition of pass interference, and it doesn't matter where the QB is. So please, Mangini, hold your players accountable, not the other team's.
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