NFL WEEK THIRTEEN WRAPUP

by Ryan Meehan

In Week Thirteen, Detroit Lions defensive end Ndamokung Suh found a creative way to become part of the news cycle again early Saturday morning.  At somewhere around 1:15 AM in Portland, Oregon Suh was driving his 1970 Chevrolet Coupe when he hit a curb, ran over a drinking fountain, killed three homeless people, and hit a pregnant deer before finally crashing his car into a tree.  Of course I made part of that up, but the beginning of it was true and things like that happen to you if you’re an asshole.  (Editor’s Note:  As someone who has been an asshole for decades, I can verify that this is true.)  Here’s the story if you’re interested:  http://www.examiner.com/sports-celebrity-in-national/ndamukong-suh-of-the-detroit-lions-is-back-the-news

Now as for the football, in some cases we saw some great games in week thirteen.  However, there were a few games that we could have done without.  One of those games was the Thursday game so we’ll go ahead and start there:  

Seahawks 31, Eagles 14

I am 100% convinced that a majority of the players on Philadelphia’s squad have given up completely.  This starts with DeSean Jackson, who has the talent and skill set to be a perennial MVP candidate, but unfortunately also has the attitude of an eleven year old girl who just got her period for the first time.  The sad part of all of this is that with such poor play in the NFC on Sunday, neither of these teams are mathematically eliminated yet.  It’s a shame Seattle got out to such a bad start, because they are playing well as of late and if you’ve read any of my stuff this year I love the effort Marshawn Lynch is putting forward.  As far as the Eagles go, at the moment the only one who does care seems to be…Vince Young.  So Happy Holidays to Jeff Fisher in that regard. 

Broncos 35, Vikings 32

Big props to the Denver defense for getting the job done here.  I’m certain that somewhere in that stadium they could clearly see that Oakland was getting lit up by Miami and they finally stepped their game up and Andre Goodman had an interception late in the game that set the Tebow show up for another dramatic finale.  Timmy threw for over 200 yards, and had a passer rating of 149.3 so he’s certainly showing everyone he’s not just a one trick pony.  The only downside for the Broncos here is the fact that for the most part if you have a defense that’s as talented as Denver’s is, there’s no reason to give up 32 points to the Vikings, even if it is on the road. 

49ers 26, Rams 0

Getting shut out is probably the most humiliating thing in sports unless you play soccer or hockey.  And even then, it’s got to hurt pretty bad.  The St. Louis Rams did everything wrong on Sunday and the scoreboard reflected their poor performance.  I understand that the Rams are low on options when it comes to who they start at quarterback, but I’m not sure that AJ Feeley is mentally capable of watering a houseplant right now.  The bad news for Frisco is that linebacker Patrick Willis was injured, which could be devastating if they pln to make a deep run into the playoffs.  Frank Gore also became the 49ers franchise career rushing leader, surpassing Joe Perry.  (The football player, not the angry looking dude from Aerosmith)

Patriots 31, Colts 24

The Patriots got way ahead in this game then they decided that they were far enough ahead that they didn’t need to wear themselves out, and that’s the ONLY reason the Colts scored 24 points here.  They started that Dan Orlovksy clown that was a stud in the CFL, and although he had a pretty decent day (30-37 for 353) don’t let the numbers fool you, the Colts never had a chance in this game and that’s precisely why NBC flexed the Detroit-New Orleans game in its place.  The Patriots have a very unique strategy.  They pretty much go out there and just announce to the world that they have two tight ends who are the most talented in the game today, and then get those guys a combined total of 15 to 20 touches and that’s all they need to get out of there with the win. 

Panthers 38, Buccaneers 19

This exactly the type of game the Panthers were expecting when they drafted Cam Newton.  He threw for a touchdown, ran for three, and broke Steve Grogan’s record of number of rushing touchdown in a season by a quarterback.  He’s still not putting up a lot of 300 yard performances, but remember they still employ the services of Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams so there aren’t going to be a whole lot of situations next year where Cam Newton’s going to need to throw 50 times to win the game.  What a disappointing finish to the season for Tampa.  Everything looked so promising and everybody was mentioning that Josh Freeman was going to be the quarterback of the future, and then it all fell apart. 

Steelers 35, Bengals 7

One of the things I think has been overlooked this year more than anything else is that the Steelers came very close to winning the Super Bowl last year.  It was no fluke, they’re 9-3 now and look just as god as the other three teams in the AFC with the same record.  The Steelers two biggest offensive weapons, Rashard Mendenhall and Mike Wallace, each had two touchdowns so this game was sort of unwinnable for Cincinnati from the get-go.  and it doesn’t get any easier here for the Bengals, who still have to play the Ravens and the Texans before the season ends.  I think Andy Dalton is going to be a good quarterback in the NFL, but unfortunately for him because of the division he’s in he may never be a great one if he stays in Cincy.  Pittsburgh, Houston, New England, and Baltimore are going to cause a massive clusterfuck once the AFC playoffs start. 

Packers 38, Giants 35

This is going to sound weird since my team lost, but I thought that so far this was the game of the year in the NFL and there isn’t even a close second.  It was neck and neck throughout the whole sixty minutes, went down to the last snap, and could have very easily gone into overtime.  With three and a half minutes left, Eli Manning led the Giants on a marvelous drive down the field AND scored a two point conversion to tie the game at 35.  The only problem is, they left Aaron Rodgers 58 second on the clock.  Well, to make a long story short Rodgers made sure the Packers gained over 50 yards in thirteen seconds on two plays, and before you knew it they had ran the clock down to nothing setting up a perfect opportunity for Mason Crosby to kick the game winning field goal which he did.  The pessimist Giants fan in me would say “How the hell does your defense throw in the towel like that when you know you can get a stop and have a fifty/fifty chance that you’ll get the ball in overtime?” but the optimist consummate NFL fan in me knows deep down inside that the real reason that all happened is because Aaron Rodgers really is that good.  To do that so quick, in crunch time, and on the road?  You have to respect that no matter who you root for. 

Ravens 24, Browns 10

Ray Rice = 204 yards.  That guy is crushing people’s dreams in the AFC North this year.  Lardarius Webb returned a punt for a touchdown for Baltimore as well, and if they can keep their special teams going they could really make a Super Bowl run.  They already own the tiebreaker over the Steelers, so even though you’re super tired of hearing the phrase “They control their own destiny” at this time of year, that’s exactly the predicament the Ravens find themselves in.  The Browns are going to need a serious overhaul of all sorts this offseason.  The worst thing that can happen to an NFL team is to be a losing team, and you could make the argument that’s exactly what the Browns are.  The second worst thing that you can be is irrelevant, since so much of a franchise’s income is based on ticket sales, jersey revenue, and licensing in general.  The Cleveland Browns are about as irrelevant as any other NFL franchise, save the Jaguars.  And since it appears that the other three teams in that division are going to be much better than they are for the next five or six years, they’re really in trouble and it’s going to be a struggle to get free agents to want to come play there. 

Dolphins 34, Raiders 14

Fuck the Raiders.  Seriously.  Much like I discussed about the Broncos earlier, the Raiders had to know that the Minnesota-Denver game could have gone either way and they still brought absolutely nothing to the table.  The Raiders offensive gameplan probably didn’t sit too well with Carson Palmer, since for the most part it consisted of “don’t block for the guy unless you really want to”.  Richard Seymour got ejected from this game for throwing a punch that he will likely get a one game suspension for, something the Raiders don’t exactly need at the moment with all of heaven rooting for them to blow that division so that Denver will win it.  Amongst all of the shit teams in the NFL this year, you have to give the Dolphins props for not giving up and giving it their all when they don’t have a prayer at getting in.  Especially that defense, as this was a shutout for the first two hours and ten minutes of the broadcast.  Miami’s won four out of their last five.    

Titans 23, Bills 17

Another big day for Chris Johnson:  153 yards.  Tennessee has to be pissed though, because they keep posting these above average showings, and the Texans (who they are chasing in the AFC South race) continue to suffer all of these brutal injuries but keep winning.  Fitzpatrick outgunned Matt Hasselbeck by doubling his passing yards, further proof that defense wins championships and a great running game will do you wonders.  You know what they say:  NO ONE circles the wagons like the Tennessee Titans.  If you are a Bills fan feel free to get upset with me and send me hate mail, and when I go to visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, I’ll put those same emails right next to all of Jim Kelly’s Super Bowl rings. 

Jets 34, Redskins 19

Now these are the Washington Redskins I remember.  I was getting worried there for a second that the team with the racist name was actually going to end up being the team that won their first three games before losing everything the next month and a half after that.  Of course the bad news is now we have to listen to Rex Ryan talk all week about how the Jets are still in it and how they deserve to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.  Virtually anything about Rex Ryan that doesn’t involve him being impaled through his brown eye with a sword until he eventually bleeds to death out of his asscrack is nothing that I want to listen to.  They are still in the race, but they’re the nine seed at the moment as they lose almost every tiebreaker with anybody else who has a 7-5 record.  I did also want to give some Iowa love to Shonn Greene who had two rushing touchdowns at the end of the game to seal the deal, and a total of three on the day. 

Chiefs 10, Bears 3

Man, Caleb Hanie suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks…If I was a Bears fan, I’d walk right into that locker room and kick him in the back of the head.  I’d plead guilty to doing it, and show up to my sentencing wearing a very, very nice suit.  And when the judge gave my black ass a hundred years, I’d smile and thank him for his work.  Thankfully I was not born a Bears fan so I get to stay out of prison, at least for the time being.  In Hanie’s defense, that offensive line is pretty terrible though.  I’m not going to spend a whole lot of room discussing the Kansas City Chiefs because that’s not what we do here, but I have to say I thought Dexter McCluster impressed the hell out of me.  I like the way that kid finds the hole and instantly exploits it.  His stats weren’t amazing by any stretch of imagination, but I really like the way he runs.  I don’t have a whole lot of information on the Matt Forte injury but I’m sure that we’ll know more as the week progresses.  There was a report Monday that Brett Favre said that if the Bears called he would consider the offer, but apparently they have no plans to make the call.  (Thank God)

Texans 17, Falcons 10

Remember last week how I said the Falcons look amazing when they are firing on all cylinders?  They didn’t seem to be firing on any during this one.  The Texans sure have overcome a lot of adversity this year.  And they may be facing more; as Andre Johnson may be seriously hurt again.  The one thing I know for sure is that God is definitely not a Texans fan.  They’ve struggled repeatedly since their inception and this year when they finally are in the position to make a playoff run, everyone and their grandmother gets hurt.  Don’t get me wrong I love the guy, but the Houston Texans make the man upstairs look like a real puppy kicker.  It looks like the Andre Johnson injury is his other hamstring (not the same one he injured earlier this year) and it isn’t serious, so we’re looking at maybe a few weeks but I would expect him to be back for the Titans-Texans game week seventeen.  In the meantime, it looks like they are going to stick with T.J. Yates.  What that basically means is Arian Foster is going to be getting the ball a lot more than usual, which is already a lot.  Falcons still holding down the last Wild Card spot at the moment because of losses by Dallas, New York, and Detroit. 

Cardinals 19, Cowboys 13

Hilarious.  If you hate the Cowboys half as much as I do, you’re going to love this.  For the most part, this game was unwatchable until the last ten seconds, but then things got really interesting.  The Cowboys were set up for kicker Dan Bailey to kick a game winning 50 yard field goal.  So he hits it, but for some reason Cowboys coach Jason Garrett had called a timeout so the play never happened.  Essentially what he did was ice his own kicker.  So Bailey goes back out there and not only is the kick wide left, it’s also short and the Cowboys are standing around wondering what just went down.  Arizona wins the coin toss, and Kevin Kolb hits LaRod Stephens-Howling on a screen play, who finds a hole and runs 52 yards all the way to the endzone.  Priceless.  The Cowboys have some bad luck in that stadium since 2008, but sometimes that’s what makes the NFL great. 

Saints 31, Lions 17 

I honestly can’t think of any team in recent NFL history that’s as cocky as the Lions are.  They could be down fifty points and they’d be out there doing some dance that Lil’ Jon has recently popularized.  It’s unreal how full of them selves they are.  And it’s not like they have any reason to be:  After their 5-0 start, they’re 2-5, have had their best player suspended from the league for two games, and have looked like absolute shit during that entire period.  It was another stock 342 yard passing performance for Drew Brees Sunday night, and I’d just like to say “good luck” to anyone who might have to play them in the Superdome wild card weekend.  Bonus comment:  Memo to every player in the National Football League:   You CAN NOT touch a referee during a game and if you do so you will for sure get fifteen yards, possibly ejected, and maybe even a suspension.  Really don’t know why this one is so hard to absorb. 

Chargers 38, Jaguars 14

For everybody that thinks this makes everything better for San Diego, you’re wrong.  This didn’t prove anything:  It was a game where Jacksonville was obviously testing out their players to see who will be around next year and most of those guys were playing poorly.  Now, if you need any proof that this was indeed the case, remember the botched snap on the field goal attempt.  I missed most of the fourth quarter because my cat was peeing and at the time I had the desire to see some sort of effort put into something.  Jon Gruden would not stop mentioning that the Jaguars should have taken Tebow a couple of years ago in the draft.  He kept bringing up how he’d be like “a rockstar” down there because it was his hometown and so forth.  Right, because I’m sure that wouldn’t mess with his head at all.  Philip Rivers and Norv Turner are still huge boners.

AFC Playoff Picture:

Division Leaders

1)  Houston Texans (9-3)

2)  New England Patriots (9-3)

3)  Baltimore Ravens (9-3)

4)  Denver Broncos (7-5)

Wild Cards

5)  Pittsburgh Steelers (9-3)

6)  Cincinnati Bengals (7-5)

On the Bubble

7)  Tennessee Titans (7-5)

8)  Oakland Raiders (7-5)

9)  New York Jets (7-5)

NFC Playoff Picture: 

Division Leaders

1)  Green Bay Packers (12-0)

2)  San Francisco 49ers (10-2)

3)  New Orleans Saints (9-3)

4)  Dallas Cowboys (7-5)

Wild Cards

5)  Chiacgo Bears (7-5)

6)  Atlanta Falcons (7-5)

On the bubble:

7)  Detroit Lions (7-5)

8)  New York Giants (6-6)

Bonus Comment:  At this moment, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Tom Brady are all on pace to break Dan Marino’s single season passing record. 

Bonus Comment Number Two:  For a second during the Sunday Night matchup between the Lions and the Saints, I could have sworn I took my sleep medication early by mistake, dozed off, and briefly dreamed that NBC announced Madonna would be the halftime entertainment for Super Bowl Forty Six.  But then they mentioned it again, and I checked the interwebs to see if it was for real and to my horror I confirmed that this was indeed the case.  Aside from the fact that it’s been a substantial amount of time since Madonna put out a great record, I can’t believe how inaccurate the NFL is when it comes to nailing their target market.  In other words, I know of no hardcore football fans that are going to be thrilled about this.  And I don’t want to hear any of this noise about how “everybody watches the Super Bowl, not just football fans” because that’s a tired argument and it alerts us that every year the NFL bastardizes its product for one day just so nobody will feel left out, which we’d rather not admit. 

It’s been my take (as I’m viewed as a bit of a Negative Nick) for many years that the idea of having a halftime show at the Super Bowl is awfully stupid.  But this really should be the last year they do it.  Seriously, all of the “legendary” artists have already done it, Michael Jackson’s dead, and music is in such a slump right now that there aren’t any current artists that really deserve the slot.  It has to be done away with.  I would honestly much rather watch some sort of a telethon that raises money for burn victims than watch Madonna lip sync her way through “Dress You Up” at 53.  This is so far beyond being ridiculous it’s not even funny.  And usually I have something humorous to say about stuff like this, but I’m at a loss for words here because I just find this disturbing more than anything else. 

Thursday we’ll do picks and we’re bringing in some heat.  We have a guest that is kind enough to donate his time and talent to EEP yet raw enough to rip some of these franchises a new asshole.  He’s a published author and is much better at doing this than I am, and if his previous work is any indication of what he’s about to contribute, he’ll be fucking bringing it for sure.  See you then…
 
We are EEP.

Meehan

NFL WEEK TWELVE WRAPUP

by Ryan Meehan

In week eleven, I think I finally bought into Tim Tebow. Additionally, the Bills and Titans both lost, so hopefully we here at FOH are now getting others to realize they are toy. “Toy” is a term that taggers in the graffiti subculture use to describe artists who are just getting started and doing subpar or below average work. It’s supposed to be degrading because the more experienced, better practiced taggers don’t want any poor artwork done on their turf. Remind you of anything? The NFL has a lot of teams this year that are toy, and in some cases it’s more obvious than others. Keep that in mind as we span the globe and take a look at what happened in week eleven.

Broncos 17, Jets 13

As I write the intro to this piece, it’s Thursday night. Tim Tebow just drove the ball 95 yards right through the middle of the heart of the New York Jets defense to score the game winning touchdown with just minutes remaining. I was one of the writers who honestly did not believe that Tim Tebow was not capable of one twentieth of everything that he’s accomplished up until this point. But you have to hand it to the kid, he wins football games. The Jets are in serious, serious trouble. They can still make the playoffs and put together a run like they have the past two years, but they are going to have to take advantage of that soft schedule in order to do so, making almost no mistakes along the way.

Eagles 17, Giants 10

As a Giants fan this game was frustrating as shit to watch at the end. Nothing like getting your heart ripped out after a solid boost of adrenaline. Eli Manning got the ball back with two minutes down 7 points to go, poised and ready to make yet another one of those 4th quarter Manning family comebacks we’ve all become so accustomed to. So he completes this forty-five yard pass to Victor Cruz and the Giants are at the Eagles 20 yard line and appear to be in great shape. But then on the very next play Eli has the ball knocked out of his hands and Philadelphia recovers, winning the game. And such is the life of a Giants fan. I could almost see it happen before the ball was snapped. To be brutally honest, the Giants just weren’t the better team here at all. Vince Young did a masterful job working the clock on that last Eagles drive and for a guy who hadn’t taken a snap all season he looked awfully good doing so.

Cowboys 27, Redskins 24

For a second, it looked like Washington might pull this one off. They were in place for Graham Gano to boot a 52 yarder in overtime to win the game but the kick went all Scott Norwood and the Cowboys were able to flip the switch and create the same opportunity for themselves, only they cashed in and ended up emerging victorious. Sixth straight loss for the Skins, but it was nice to see Donte Stallworth in the endzone as opposed to behind the wheel of a car. Although the Packers are the best team in the league, the Cowboys are definitely the hottest.

Bears 31, Chargers 20

Although the Bears looked good winning their fifth straight in this game, about two hours after it was over word started to get around to the news outlets in Chicago that Jay Cutler had fractured his thumb and would miss six to eight weeks. So, thus possibly begins the much dreaded Caleb Hanie era in the second city. That’s of course if they don’t try and bring a veteran in there and see what they can make out of a really bad situation. When I was going to bed last night I heard ESPN’s John Clayton make the point that since Mike Martz is the Bears’ offensive coordinator he wouldn’t be surprised if the Bears brought him in for a tryout because of the current situation. Martz and Bulger worked together in St. Louis, but I just think that he may stay retired like he announced back on August 2nd. I would be calling David Garrard now that Carson Palmer has already been extracted from his previous engagement. Chicago is playing some inspired defense and I can only hope for their sake that the whole Detroit Lions thing doesn’t pan out as I’d much rather see Chicago wild card weekend than have to watch the Lions take cheap shots at everybody on the field while their grounds crew is out in the parking lot slashing everybody’s tires.

Seahawks 24, Rams 7

Here’s the wrapup sentence from the actual NFL website regarding this game: “Seattle improved to 2-4 on the road in a game notable for sloppy play and 19 punts, including a season-high 10 by the Rams’ Donnie Jones.” The only thing that would have been noteworthy here would be the power running of Marshawn Lynch, but it doesn’t appear flashy this week as he missed the 100 yard mark. Seattle has won two in a row and just the thought of the Rams has put me to sleep yet again, a streak that looks as if it may never be broken.

Dolphins 35, Bills 8

If you weren’t already convinced that the Bills were pretenders, I’m sure this did the trick. It seemed like just a month ago I was predicting the firing of Tony Sporano, but for a football team that clearly isn’t going anywhere he’s got them believing in something. I have no idea how the hell he’s doing it, but it seems to be working. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the Bills weren’t constructed for the long haul…I mean, how long can you win with an Ivy League Quarterback and a roster full of sixth and seventh rounders? Remember the toys I discussed in the opening paragraph? That’s the Bills in a nutshell.

Raiders 27, Vikings 21

And just like that, the Raiders are alone in first place in the AFC West. And for the most part, the way the Chargers are finishing (or not finishing) games has Oakland set up to enter the postseason quietly as a wild card team should the Broncos’ luck run out. Adrian Peterson got hurt during the first quarter, but it doesn’t matter as Minnesota’s season is toast already. Have they even cut Donovan McNabb yet? Michael Bush had another 100 yard day on the ground for Oakland, and more importantly Carson Palmer didn’t throw any interceptions. Darius Heyward-Bay got injured in this one so let’s hope it’s not too serious. (that’s a lie, I’m not really all that concerned about it)

Browns 14, Jaguars 10

Are you fucking kidding me? I shouldn’t even have to even write about this. The sad part for the Jaguars is that the rest of their team is so poor, we might never actually find out if Blaine Gabbert is any good at the pro level. If you’re a Browns fan and you chuckled at that, just remember that the same thing could likely be said about Colt McCoy. Of course I’m kidding, nobody talks about Colt McCoy.

Ravens 31, Bengals 24

Two words: Torrey Smith. Look, I get that a great wide receiver usually has a great quarterback to to throw him the ball, but Torrey Smith made everything happen for himself on Sunday. Even when the throws weren’t exactly where he wanted them, he still made the catches and Baltimore got the W. Most of them were anyway, and Joe Flacco should be commended for his role in all of this as well. Not to take anything away from the Bengals, they aren’t quite AFC North elite-level yet but you have to admit they are hanging with the Pittsburghs and the Baltimores pretty much all around the league. Controversial call at the end of this one that worked in the Ravens’ favor, I’m sure that you’ve seen it by now so all I will say is this: I’m not a big fan of the rule about having to make a “football move” to secure a touchdown. I was always raised to believe that if you broke the plane of the goal line, the play stops right there, the clock stops right there, and it’s six points. But the rules are the rules, and everyone has to abide by them.

49ers 23, Cardinals 7

San Francisco’s in great shape at 9-1 because if Green Bay slips up anywhere along the way, the 49ers are in perfect shape to steal that one seed and secure home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Tough road game ahead on Thanksgiving night against the Ravens that could go either way. Once again, Alex Smith wasn’t spectacular (267 but 20 for 38) but he didn’t need to be as their defense held Arizona to only eleven first downs the whole game. Frank Gore was back, but Michael Crabtree stole the show with 120 yards on seven grabs. I suspect that once the 49ers get to ten wins some of the skeptics will begin to take their season more seriously.

Falcons 23, Titans 17

Thank God. The Houston Texans finally got some good news. It came during a week where they didn’t play, which is a little weird but it still counts. Roddy White caught seven balls for 147 and Matt Ryan had a healthy and relatively mistake free day. Plus, their defense only gave up forty-one yards on the ground and you gotta love that. I think the way Atlanta performs in the next six weeks will say a lot about the way that franchise is headed in the decade to come. It seems insane to me that Michael Turner can be a part of the century club on Sunday, and then the very next day it’s not even mentioned on the radio. It’s like if the guy doesn’t bust one for sixty yards he’s a non-factor. Hmmm. Matt Hasselbeck suffered an elbow injury which brought in Jake Locker, the injury doesn’t appear to be serious but Locker did alright in relief considering it was his first game.

Packers 35, Bucs 26

This one was a lot closer than I had anticipated. I don’t believe that the Packers will run the table because about every other week or so they show this scary sliver of vulnerability. They’re still the favorite, but remember once the playoffs start no one cares what your record is. They need to be sure they don’t end up like the Falcons and the Patriots did last year. Aaron Rodgers had another great afternoon but once again here, it’s the defense I’m worried about, particularly that secondary. The Packers just need to avoid buying into all of the hype and they should be able to focus. As for the Buccaneers, I think this was it. Given how many bubble teams there are in the NFC, it’s almost unthinkable they will be able to win out, and even if they did they’d still finish 10-6 like they did last year when they also didn’t make it in.

Lions 49, Panthers 35

Well, Cam Newton certainly had a stat everyone is going to remember in this one: He threw four picks. On the other side of the ball, Carolina’s defense just doesn’t exist anymore. I get that the Lions are 7-3, but there’s no way their offense is really as explosive as they looked on Sunday. Five touchdowns for Matt Stafford? Come on, how many of you legitimately believe he’s really that good? The Panthers have a good running game, it just never seems to translate into enough points to win unless they are playing awful teams like the Colts, whom they’ll see next week. Have to give it up to Kevin Smith here for scoring 2 TDs and logging 140 yards during a very emotional week for him.

Patriots 34, Chiefs 3

The Chiefs never had a chance in this one. When your fans are your biggest weapon, and your playing almost a thousand miles from home on night during a short work week not a lot of your people are going to make the trip, and they didn’t. Rob Gronkowski is in full beast mode. What’s interesting about the Patriots is the fact that if Wes Welker does get hurt, they now have this other guy that’s an all pro who can instantly step in and take his place. Trouble for the rest of the AFC is, he doesn’t get hurt much so most of the time you have to worry about both of these dudes. Didn’t see much of this game but Tyler Palko had three interceptions. Wait, who the hell is Tyler Palko?

As of right now…

I know a lot of people can’t stand the “if the season ended today” argument, but I have to at least come up with an outline here to give you some idea of what the playoffs are going to look like. In the NFC, I see the division winners as Saints, Packers, Cowboys, and Niners. Your two wild card spots could be filled by any combination of the following four teams: Giants, Falcons, Bears, and Lions. So this has the potential to come down to the last week and get very exciting. In the AFC, I see your division winners as Patriots, Texans (they’ll get there, trust me), Steelers or Ravens (remember now, Baltimore owns the head to head tiebreaker), and the Raiders. Wild card spots are most likely to be filled by the Jets and whoever finishes second in the AFC North. The Titans and the Bengals aren’t mathematically eliminated just yet, but it doesn’t look promising.

Bonus tidbit:

I heard a rumor circulating on Monday about the possibility of the Washington Redskins picking up the remainder of Peyton Manning’s contract. Although it’s a great idea, it’s highly unlikely that it will happen because of the amount of guaranteed money involved. I can honestly say I don’t see him finishing his career in Indianapolis given what’s happened. Oh, how quickly the mighty have fallen…

We are EEP.

Meehan

NFL WEEK ELEVEN PREVIEW

by Ryan Meehan (Davenport, IA – US) and Brian Chapman (Huntington Beach, CA – US)
 
This week I am joined by Brian Chapman from doin-work.com to do some work on picking the games in week eleven.  The guys at DW just celebrated their thousandth post, and they run an awesome website that comes highly recommended with the much coveted EEP Seal of Approval.  The big news this week of course would be the fact that the Texans have lost starting quarterback Matt Schaub for the rest of the season to what he calls a “significant” foot injury.  So just when everything was set up for the Texans to win the division with the Colts having Peyton Manning out for the year, this happens and now Matt Leinart will attempt to guide the Texans into the 2011-12 NFL Playoffs.  You live by the sword, you die by the sword.  Let’s take a look at what’s going down in week eleven. 
 
NY Jets (5-4) at Denver (4-5)
  
EEP:  Denver must be good if they can win a game by 7 points having their quarterback only completing two passes.  And the Jets must be slightly out of focus if they just lost a home game by three touchdowns.  Given it was against New England, but there is something really wrong with the Jets.  Regardless, they are still better than the Broncos and it’s a must win for them, so I’m taking them to win.  Plus a loss would sink them to .500 and although it wouldn’t mean they were out of the playoff race just yet, it definitely would mean they’re standing on the slide ready to fall into the pool.  

Doin’ Work:  I’m not sure why, but I’m actually starting to buy into the whole Tebow is a winner thing. One thing I really like about Tebow is you know he’s not afraid to make a mistake or two, and brush it off one second later. He doesn’t let anything phase him. Having said that, I think the Broncos will lose Thursday night, and I picked a close score hoping for an entertaining game at least. Can Rex Ryan figure out John Fox’s foot fetish of a ground game? I have to believe he can get his guys to stay disciplined enough to pull out a win, at least more disciplined than the last two defenses.

Meehan’s Pick:  Jets 24, Broncos 18

Chappy’s Pick:  Jets 21, Broncos 20

Tennessee (5-4) at Atlanta (5-4)

Since I can’t stand the Hasselbeck era Titans, you can almost bet the farm that they’ll win here.  The Falcons have had to deal with questions all week about Mike Smith’s decision to go for it on fourth down at their own 29 yard line.  And it’s a shame they have, because it’s distracting the fans from the real issue at hand here:  That no matter how many times I write it I still can’t believe that Matt Hasselbeck has a job as a starter in the NFL.  And since the Texans just lost their starting quarterback it’s possible the Titans may end up winning the AFC South now.  Unreal.  So I’m hoping the Falcons win because I want to see the Texans make the playoffs, but I’m picking the Titans to win because not only am I a fan of reverse psychology, I also love being right. 

Titans 27, Falcons 23

Jacksonville (3-6) at Cleveland (3-6)

When I first contacted Chappy about doing these picks, he mentioned that he doesn’t pick all of the games every week.  I would assume that this was the type of game he was talking about.  Browns would be the most disappointing team in the league if anybody had actually expected anything out of them, which they didn’t so it’s not really an issue. 

Jags 19, Browns 6

Carolina (2-7) at Detroit (6-3)
  
EEP:  I think we can all agree that the Lions looked horrible against Chicago last week.  Not nearly as bad as Carolina, who appears to have given up after seeing “highlights” from that Titans game this past Sunday.  Much like the Jets have to have the Thursday night game, the Lions need this one big time because writers (like me) and fans are starting to think the beginning of this season was a fluke for them.  And it’s really hard to mention Detroit without bringing up how dirty of a team they are, so there’s your weekly standard comment on that.  

Doin’ Work:  Is it just me or did everyone completely discount the loss of Jahvid Best to this Detroit offense? Since he went down on his umpteenth concussion, they haven’t been the same team we saw in the beginning of the season. I think they had Stafford throw something like 60 passes last week, the polar opposite of what any team wants to do on offense. Either way they have zero running game without Best, and it’s hard to win throwing as much as they have lately, unless you have an elite QB, not sure Stafford is that quite yet.

Meehan’s Pick:  Lions 27, Carolina 11

Chappy’s Pick:  Carolina 30, Lions 24

Tampa Bay (4-5) at Green Bay (9-0)
  
EEP:  I like the Bucs to rebound from another shitty defensive performance but not enough to beat the death steamroller that is Green Bay.  It’s insane to think that both of these teams finished 10-6 last year and met such different fates.  I’m more worried at this point that Josh Freeman is going snap and shoot up a bank in the near future than I am the Buccaneers are going to go on a roll and win the NFC South.  

Doin’ Work:  I simply don’t see anyone stopping Aaron Rodgers and the Pack especially a younger Bucs squad on the road in Lambeau. The Packers defense looked much better against the Vikings on Monday, not sure if that’s really showing improvement or if the Vikings suck that bad. Maybe they’ve figured out that part of their team again. If so, that’s scary for the rest of the league…

Meehan’s Pick:  Packers 35, Bucs 24

Chappy’s Pick:  Packers 42, Bucs 26

Buffalo (5-4) at Miami (2-7)

Upset special.  Not only is Buffalo total bullshit, they don’t match up well against the style of football Miami’s been playing as of late.  In a twisted sort of way I’m not even sure this is really an upset at all.  Bills are only 23rd against the run and 27th against the pass…it should be considered a miracle that they’re even 5-4 to begin with.  The game is in Miami and that fact always fills some extra space. 

Dolphins 24, Bills 23

Oakland (5-4) at Minnesota (2-7)

EEP:  Since Chappy is our guest this week, I feel like I’d be a complete dick if I picked against the Raiders.  Luckily for me, I watched the Vikings get eaten by vultures Monday night so I don’t feel like I’m being a visiting homer by picking Oakland.  To be honest, right now if the Vikings played the Colts it would be a hard game for me to pick:  It’s that bad. 

Doin’ Work:  Ha, well you can pick against the Raiders if you truly think that the Vikings are a force to be reckoned with! Palmer is looking better and better each week, while the Vikings seem to be looking worse. If the Raiders lose this game, they don’t deserve to win the west. Is it strange that this line is only at 1 when the Raiders seem to play just as good on the road and have had 10 days to prepare?

Meehan’s Pick:  Raiders 29, Vikings 5 

Chappy’s Pick:  Raiders 35, Vikings 21

Dallas (5-4) at Washington (3-6)

EEP:  Washington is now on a six game losing streak, and here they run into the Cowboys who are one of the five hottest teams in all of football right now.  If you’re a fantasy guy and you own you some Dallas players, start every single one of them.  And I’m not sure how fantasy football even works but if there’s some bizarre way that you can start them twice at the same time go ahead and do that too.  This will be the game where Romo goes 31 for 35 and throws for 380, could even be a career game for him. 

Doin’ Work:  Last time these two teams met it was a field goal fest. One thing I remember about their first match up is Romo hit the ground a lot. Not sure if that will happen with the emerging Demarco Murray now in the lineup, but the Skins didn’t have a bad game plan against the Cowboys. These division match ups usually a little closer, so I feel like the Skins keep it to a double digit blowout even if they do completely suck.

Meehan’s Pick:  Cowboys 40, Redskins 19 

Chappy’s Pick:  Cowboys 22, Redskins 12

Cincinnati (6-3) at Baltimore (6-3)
 
EEP:  Since it’s the Ravens’ week to show up and play, Andy Dalton pays for it by laying on his back two weeks in a row.  It’s a struggle, but the kid’s going to have to beat both of those teams at some point, it just sucks or him that it has to be in a year where the Bengals finally have it together the way they did before this last week.  The Ravens are bipolar and/or schizophrenic and even after all these years, no one still gets mad like Ray Lewis, and with their only losses this year coming against the Titans, the Jaguars, and the Seahawks I can imagine he’s pretty upset by now.  If the Baltimore does lose the damage for this season may be mentally irreversible.  

Doin’ Work:  The cardiac cats are back. They seem to have a close game every week. The Ravens have been a huge anomaly this year, and seem tough to figure out from week to week, and I seem to always pick wrong when betting on their games. The Bengals get no love even though Andy Dalton is the ROY to this point, and AJ Green might be third on that list behind Cam. I’m taking the +7 on my bet this weekend with the Bengals!

Meehan’s Pick:  Ravens 30, Bengals 16 

Chappy’s Pick:  Bengals 31, Ravens 28

Arizona (3-6) at San Francisco (8-1)

EEP:  San Francisco is the real deal and given that they still have Green Bay and Chicago on the schedule they need to take advantage of as many games against teams like the Cardinals as possible.  Plus, John Skelton is not nearly as good as Philly made him look last week.  (There was really no reason for that sentence as everyone in America probably had that figured out by now)  What was really impressive about the Niners last week is they got zero rushing yards from Frank Gore and still beat a very good Giants team. 

Doin’ Work:  SF has proved themselves over and over, and now everyone is starting to believe in them the way Harbaugh did all along. I think if they win this game, they might officially have won the division, well unless Seattle wins too, then they’d have to lose every game the rest of the way, and Seattle would have to win out to tie. They still have plenty of motivation to win this game convincingly since I’m sure they want home field and a bye week.

Meehan’s Pick:  49ers 33, Cardinals 7

Chappy’s Pick:  49ers 27, Cardinals 3

Seattle (3-6) at St. Louis (2-7)

I talk a lot of shit about the Seahawks but you have to give them credit.  There’s almost absolutely no way for them to sneak into the playoffs and they came out and laid the Ravens out after the largest moral victory that team has had since Super Bowl XXXV.  Of all the players that didn’t get moved before the trade deadline, Marshawn Lynch has to be more pissed than any of them. 

Seahawks 18, Rams 14

San Diego (4-5) at Chicago (6-3)

EEP:  The Bears are on a roll and the Chargers are literally on the beach.  I’m convinced Philip Rivers has taken the entire year off, which is incredibly unfortunate because that division is up for grabs for pretty much everyone but them.  Or the Chiefs since Cassel is now hurt.  Or the Broncos because they got off to such a bad start, or Oakland because Carson Palmer…OK, how about we just talk about the Bears?  I look for Matt Forte to exploit a weak San Diego defense and can’t help but think how much of a field day Greg Olsen could have if he was still on Chicago’s roster.  The Bears defense looked extremely threatening and violent against Detroit so get ready for the hit parade, because it’s coming…

Doin’ Work:  Talk about two teams heading in opposite directions. Even the quarterbacks are on opposite ends of the spectrum from what were used to. Rivers now looks like Cutler did at the beginning of the season, and Cutler looks like what Rivers looked like last season. One thing that stands out is the o-line. Cutler’s o-line is healthy, Rivers o-line is not. No healthy o-line all adds up to turnovers, which the Chargers won’t be able to overcome. I see VJ getting loose for a couple scores after apologizing to his team this week, but that won’t help when they’re down by two TD’s and Forte is running wild on a D that isn’t great against the run.

Meehan’s Pick:  Bears 32, Chargers 15

Chappy’s Pick:  Bears 38, Chargers 30

Philadelphia (3-6) at NY Giants (6-3)

…And then the Eagles died.  Just Kidding.  Although it really wouldn’t shock me at this point.  This game is in New Jersey so the Giants will have that working for them, and it’s at night so all eyes will be on a Philadelphia team whose coach’s future may very well ride on the future of this game.  I still can’t believe that stat that the Eagles have blown five fourth quarter leads this year and if they hadn’t they’d be tied with San Francisco for the two seed.  Sad but true.  Of course I’m kidding…there’s nothing sad about it, it’s hilarious.  Vick has bruised ribs and that’s also funny. 

Giants 28, Eagles 21
 
Kansas City (4-5) at New England (6-3)

New England showed a lot of poise rebounding from the Giants loss the week before by cleaning the Jets’ clock Sunday night, on the road nonetheless.  Don’t have a whole lot to say about this one but the Patriots play very well against average or below average teams at home. 

Patriots 38, Chiefs 22

Bye Weeks: Texans, Colts, Steelers, and Saints

I heard one of those radio shows do the bye week joke today and I totally fell for it:  They said that not only will Matt Schaub be out this week, but that Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger will both be inactive as well.  Ha ha.  the Schaub injury could be death though:  It’s weird because if you don’t watch a lot of football you just figure if you have to switch to a left handed quarterback midway through the season, you just flip the playbook around and you’re all good.  I can assure that this is not the case.  Matt Leinart faces a huge challenge ahead and I can only hope he is up to the task.  As for the other teams:  The Steelers and Saints are fine, and as you well know the Colts are not. 

This article is going to have to be cut short here because I was just given a free ticket to go see Paul Simon about five minutes ago and since he probably won’t be around a whole lot longer, I’m going to take advantage of that while I can.  Thanks to Chappy for joining me this week and until next time, drive safely.  
 
We Are EEP.

Meehan

NFL WEEK TEN WRAPUP

by Ryan Meehan

 

One of the cliché things that I hate about a lot of sports blogs is the constant bitching about the officiating.  The reasons this happens so much is partially because we have all of the technology at home, coupled with the fact that the television networks have the ability to slow everything down to a crawl.  What we don’t realize a lot of times is that these officials have to make the initial call in real time, and then if it happens to be a judgment call they can’t go back and change their mind.  So the refs do get a ton of shit, and I don’t see anyone walking around in Ed Hochuli jerseys so the fans aren’t ever likely to view them as more as a nuisance.  All of that considered, we’ve seen some of the worst calls and no calls in the league this year.  I’ve seen more of the “payback” calls than ever this season, and the consistency has been terrible.  In some cases they can’t even remain consistent on consecutive drives (or plays) and it takes a huge chunk out of the precision of the game for me.  Nonetheless, there were still some memorable moments in week ten. 

 

Thursday:  Raiders 24, Chargers 17

 

Week ten began too early as Carson Palmer got his first win as a Raider.  The Chargers seem to be struggling more and more with each passing week, but it’s not like they’re putting forth contender-caliber effort so it’s hard to feel sorry for them.  This puts the Raiders in first place in the AFCW, and in a great position to take a two game lead over San Diego next week as they head to Minnesota to face the overwhelmingly error-prone Vikings while the Chargers have to head to Soldier Field where they most likely will get crushed by the Bears.  Sounds great, right Oakland?  Don’t get too ahead of yourself. 

 

Houston 37, Tampa Bay 9   

 

Chalk this up as a loss for me.  In all fairness, I did think that if the Bucs lost it would be bad.  Freeman still has the jitters (who wouldn’t) and it appeared for a second that we would see the Texans make the playoffs and win the AFC South which they deserve.  At least it did appear that way.  Late Monday night ESPN.com reported that Texans Quarterback Matt Schaub has a Lisfranc injury (in layman’s terms -a fractured foot) and will be out for the rest of the season.  So that means at 7-3 with the AFC South title in sight, all eyes are on Matt Leinart to take over the reins of this football team.  Houston is headed into their bye week but does expect Leinart to start against Jacksonville on the 27th.  I am not happy about this at all for all sorts of reasons, too many to list here.  You wouldn’t think that switching over to a left-handed QB would change everything so much (you’d think the playbook would simply become a mirror image of its former self) but just wait until you see this thing go to hell.  I was so pumped for the Texans this year, but who knows maybe Leinart will throw down.  And maybe a redwood will grow out of my asscrack.   

 

Bears 37, Lions 13

 

Right after Devin Hester returned that punt for a touchdown, there was someone on my Twitter account going off about how Hester’s special teams crew gets away with a lot of blocks to the back on his kickoff returns.  Although he is extremely talented and it’s unlikely we will see a player with a similar talent during our lifetime, the Bears have been known to get away with a little bit of extra shoving when he fields a punt or kickoff.  Now, that’s not to say that it doesn’t happen on other special teams plays around the league (and definitely didn’t when Brian Mitchell was still active) but since it’s Hester I think it is a little more obvious and raises suspicion that the league wants to see a lot more kick returns, especially by Hester.  As for the rest of the Bears, they were really solid.  In consecutive weeks, I’ve seen some extremely impressive pressure brought by Isreal Idonije.  Idonije is one of the guys that will get left out of the Pro Bowl because it’s a popularity contest and not an accurate assessment of the players’ individual skill levels.  Overall, the Bears are in great shape.  They have the Lions’ number and may get into the playoffs after all.  It’s pretty safe to say that the Buccaneers won’t so if you’re a Bears fan the teams that you have to hope get really shitty are Dallas, New Orleans, and Atlanta.  The Lions are still a dirty team but now they’re a dirty team with three losses so it’s not nearly as special as it was week five when everything looked gravy.  The Bears’ stock soaring at the moment while the Lions’ stock dipped a whole lot Sunday. 

 

Jaguars 17, Colts 3

 

I’m trying to come up with a cool stat for this game, but in a matchup where both teams combined for 238 yards in the air they are hard to come by.  I bet Maurice Jones-Drew and Marshawn Lynch are really good friends because they are both doing really well but no one is noticing.  Those must be strange text messages to read.  Indy looks like they’re on antidepressants all the time.  And the Jaguars are an ideal team to fake it against if that is in fact the case, and the Colts couldn’t even get in to the endzone which would really help sell it.  It’s still very difficult for anyone outside of these two metropolitan areas to care about what’s happening here…and while we’re on the topic of nobody caring…

 

Rams 13, Browns 12

 

The Rams are on a two game winning streak (fucking humor me, I’m trying to make this sound exciting) and Stephen Jackson rushed for 128 (for all of you fantasy dorks lying to yourself that it matters) in a nail biter that went “down to the wire” with seven and a half minutes left in the game.  This is the type of matchup where I attempt to slang some kind of impressive statistics all the while thinking plenty of other things in parentheses (Aren’t both of these teams mathematically eliminated already?  Did anybody even attend this game?  Do I have to pick up cat litter on the way home?)  See?  It’s very easy to lose your focus.

 

Cardinals 21, Eagles 17

 

This game hurts Philly for several reasons:  First off, the Eagles lost to the Cardinals who aren’t all that good.  Second, this loss means they have the same record as the Cardinals, meaning if by some crazy occurrence both of those two teams won out and were fighting for a Wild Card spot, Larry Fitzgerald would be in the playoffs and Andy Reid would be at IHOP.  And last but not least, with everything that the Eagles expected out of this year, the reality is they are going to finish next to a lot of teams like Arizona.  I read a quote by Michael Vick after the game “Lord Willing, we can turn this thing around and finish 10-6”.  That’s seriously lofty.  Here’s the stat of the week:  If every NFL game this year ended after the 3rd quarter, the Eagles would be 8-1 instead of 3-6.  That’s pretty incredible when you think about it.  This might be Andy Reid’s last roll in the hay with the fat girl, especially getting beat at home by one John Skelton.  How could this get any worse?  (Oh yeah, and Michael Vick has broken ribs again now too…)

 

Broncos 17, Chiefs 10

 

Tebow completed two passes (pathetic) of 8 for 69 yards, but it was enough to win.  Denver did manage 244 yards on the ground, but that’s not unreasonable in a sixty minute NFL game and your offense has to have more of a sense of balance otherwise it’s going to be really obvious to anybody what’s coming next.  And then when you do get stuck playing a team with a stifling run defense like the 49ers, they’re going to shove your arm into your own asshole elbow deep and the next thing you know you’re going to be the laughingstock of the league again.  As I said last week, since the rest of the AFC West can’t get away from themselves the Broncos are very much still in it.  Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel suffered an injured hand in this game which is very fitting because I still think he’s a total jack-off. 

 

Steelers 24, Bengals 17

The truth hurts.  And the truth was (and still is) that the Steelers are going to be better than the Bengals all year.  Pittsburgh had to have this one and they got it.  Andy Dalton threw two interceptions, but that’s to be expected getting thrown to the wolves.  However, he’s going to see those same wolves an awful lot in the near future, so he’d better get used to it.  Nothing out of the ordinary otherwise, Mendenhall only had 44 yards on the ground but he did have two touchdowns.  And as far as the Bengals go, they need to focus on their running game a lot this week because they’ll be facing Baltimore who will likely go back to running the ball a lot so it should be a priority for Cincinnati to work on the pace of the game.  The Steelers also had 24 first downs to the Bengals’ 14 and it’s almost impossible to kick your way out from underneath that pile. 

 

Dolphins 20, Redskins 9

 

The embarrassing streak of failure continues for the Washington Redskins, as they have now lost six straight with this tank job against the Fins.  Grossman went 21 for 32, which isn’t atrocious but two of those incompletions were picks and you can’t have that.  Reggie Bush was the leading rusher with 47 yards as you might have seen had you been at the game, that is if you weren’t already at the box office demanding your money back by this point.  I can’t tell who I’m buying into less.  Thankfully for me it doesn’t matter now and it definitely won’t matter in a couple of months. 

 

Titans 30, Panthers 3

 

God do I hate it when the Titans win.  My buddy Acaeh is a huge Titans fan and I never really had that much dislike for them until Matt Hasselbeck showed up.  Now they just seem like every other mediocre team with a washed up quarterback.  And he’s not putting up amazing numbers (15 of 27 for 219) but I have to admit he’s getting the job done.  The Titans’ situation is similar to the Denver thing with Tebow in the sense that in the modern QB-protected era of the NFL you can have a guy like that lead your team to a couple of victories, but it just won’t win playoff games for you in the long run.  Like it or not, you’ll never see another 2000 Ravens or 2002 Buccaneers team ride an insanely talented defense off into the sunset on the back of an average QB ever again.  It just isn’t going to happen.  Carolina looked like an anal prolapse throughout the entire sixty minutes of this distraction from our regularly scheduled Sunday infomercials for Slap Chops and Snuggies. 

 

49ers 27, Giants 20

 

Eli Manning played very well early but their red zone offense clearly struggled.  They looked to be in control, but the Niners pulled a bastard move late in the 2nd quarter in this one:  They set up an onside kick with about three minutes left in the half and the Giants had NO idea it was coming.  The age old argument always goes:  Did Team A win the game or did team B lose the game?  The answer here is:  Team B lost it.  I can live with the fact that the 49ers defense is playing lights out and they won this game without getting a single yard on the ground from Frank Gore who left with an injury, but in that two minute stretch after the onside kick the Giants had the life sucked out of them and although they mounted a comeback late they wouldn’t have needed to if the 49ers hadn’t gone off like that in the first place.  New York needs to get Ware more involved with the offense when you consider all of the position player injuries and just in general banged-upness they are suffering through. 

 

Cowboys 44, Bills 7

 

Dallas opened up the second half of their season with a bang and showed everyone that maybe (I’m saying maybe) they fell victim to a tough early schedule and that they will fight this one until the end, possibly even coming up with the division title.  They’re only a game behind the Giants now and since the Eagles don’t plan on making a push the Cowboys could sneak up and win that division.  They won’t have the numbers, but they will have the victories and that’s all it will take.  Buffalo is once again back in the “eh…” pool with Detroit…teams that looked unstoppable the first few weeks and have recently gotten exposed.  To make it worse, the only Buffalo player to score a touchdown was that guy who was dating one of the Dallas cheerleaders so as you can probably guess that’s the one highlight Yahoo! Sports focused on in an week where there were some really awesome games. 

 

Saints 26, Falcons 23

 

New Orleans did get lucky here.  It was very risky for Falcons coach Mike Smith to do what he did, but that’s why it’s so ballsy to take chances:  Because those same balls can be smashed in a vice within the blink of an eye.  Speaking of testicles exploding, Marques Colston had some clutch catches in the final two frames and finished with eight catches for 113 yards.  It seems like I’m repeating myself here but Drew Brees threw for over 300 once again as the Saints remain completely ineffective on the ground but still manage to get it done.  These division games are statement ones, and this hurt for Atlanta as it happened in their front yard.  The Falcons can get back on track but they have to hope something really, really horrible happens to the Saints otherwise they will be staying home in January. 

 

Seahwaks 22, Ravens 17

 

To me this was the most disappointing loss of the week, even more disappointing than the Giants blowing it because of the manner in which the Ravens won last week:  It was in dramatic fashion, on national television, and I thought Flacco finally was able to show everybody that he was for real…and then this happened.  Ray Rice was relatively ineffective here with only 5 carries for 27 yards, and Ricky Williams only had three carries for eight yards.  My point here is that if Baltimore is going to expect Joe Flacco to put on a show like he did against the Steelers, they are sorely mistaken when it comes to the direction of where they hope to be headed.  The guy is high quality and gave an epic showing in the aforementioned game but there’s no way they can rely on him to win it for them by throwing 52 passes and certainly not with only 75 yards on the ground.  That’s exactly what happened in the Seahawks game and they paid for it with an extra hashmark in the “L” column. 

 

Patriots 37, Jets 16

 

Looking at the box score for this one I am very confused as Mark Sanchez did throw for 306 yards which somehow yielded only 16 points.  Sure, he had two picks and his 20 for 39 outing wasn’t nearly as impressive as Tom Brady’s was, but if you can’t get more than sixteen points out of a guy who throws for 300 plus, there may be a larger issue there.  Everyone who seems to be defending of Sanchez seems like they don’t have a choice:  Rex Ryan has to support him because he’s his coach, Plaxico Burress has to support him because he has to say whatever his publicist tells him to, and Antonio Cromartie won’t talk to the media at all because he’s probably terrified that it’s going to be someone from DCFS undercover trying to get him to take another paternity test.  The Patriots look very strong and I’m calling the Pats and the Pack in the Super Bowl here at the two-thirds mark. 

 

Packers 45, Vikings 7

 

Wasn’t too far off here, this what we thought was going to happen.  Was also good to see Green Bay get to point where they felt comfortable with sitting the first stringers down.  It showed a lot of confidence in their backups, and even those guys embarrassed the Vikings.  Minnesota has fallen into the “pathetic” category of adjectives where it’s just hard to find something constructive to say about their team or how they could possibly get better.  Obviously big story here is that the Packers are 9-0, but my boss is a Packers fan and admitted that he believed Clay Matthews had gotten away with a helmet to helmet hit on Ponder in the first quarter of this one.  It’s not really that shocking that the refs would turn their heads the other way for the sake of the Packers, but I almost shit myself when he said that because I don’t think I can remember a fan of any NFC North team ever admitting that they got away with a no call.  I was floored. 

 

Next Week’s Bonus Coverage:

 

Thursday afternoon we’ll be pressing a new column for week eleven as expected but it will be the start of our guest picks.  We will be joined by Brain Chapman from Doin’ Work to pick the winners and give you the news that you can use.  If you’d like to check out his site ahead of time, by all means do so…it’s right here:  doin-work.com  Until then, drive safe. 

 

Wea are EEP 

Meehan

NFL WEEK TEN PREVIEW

by Ryan Meehan

Week Ten brings the start of these Thursday games on NFL network that are totally unnecessary. In fact, I can’t think of any football player that believes in forward momentum so much that he would prefer to play on only four days rest. But I suppose any NFL happenings are a good thing considering this horrifying scandal that’s coming out of Penn State at the moment. I’ll address this in another column but for now let’s keep the discussion at the pro level. The New England Patriots have finally released DL Albert Haynesworth and the Washington Redskins have finally parted ways with WR Donte Stallworth. Neither should be a shock to anybody, what with Haynesworth being ineffective and out of shape for a few years now, and Stallworth carrying the extra baggage of that pesky manslaughter charge back in 2009. Considering that both of these things are simply news items and will not have an effect on the rest of the season, here are the picks for week ten.

Oakland (4-4) at San Diego (4-4)

Here is previously mentioned Thursday night game. Somebody has to win and take charge of this division. Don’t get me wrong it’s incredibly unfortunate that someone has to due to the current playoff structure, but it’s true. Philip Rivers went out of his way in the Packers postgame press conference to mention that he wasn’t hurt and I wondered why he did that. If you aren’t hurt, you aren’t hurt, but don’t come out and say that the shoulder feels great because then it just looks like you don’t know what you’re doing. In his defense, I can’t write this paragraph without bringing up just how much the San Diego defense has changed in the last five years: It all started with the Shawne Merriman HGH suspension, then they lost Antonio Cromartie to the Jets, and ever since it’s been just downright depressing. the only legit guy they have back there is Quentin Jammer and he lets his over-inflated opinion of himself get in the way of almost everything he does. (Barring of course penalties) The Raiders are a trainwreck on fire before it even hit the ground…my oh my how their season has changed since Jason Campbell got injured. Carson Palmer has six interceptions the past two weeks (well, technically one and a half weeks) but you can’t throw Terrell Pryor in there yet because he’ll die in the pocket. Gotta go with the lesser of two evils here, even though the short week favors neither team.

Chargers 32, Raiders 13

New Orleans (6-3) at Atlanta (5-3)

This should be a good one. Don’t expect it to end 9-6 like the Alabama-LSU game did last Saturday. Both of these teams are coming off recent hearty beatings of the Indianapolis Colts, but check out this stat: The Atlanta Falcons have forced a turnover in the last 27 straight games, the longest streak amongst any NFL team. This could prove to be very key against a team like the Saints, who make Drew Brees throw the ball a lot. The Saints are up and down, they’re up at the moment due to the victory over Tampa. Therefore I like them to be down again this week, and even though it pains me to say it, they’re due for a major injury here any day now and this might be the week that happens. Also watch for rookie Julio Jones to have another big Sunday against a vulnerable Saints defense.

Falcons 34, Saints 24

Detroit (6-2) at Chicago (5-3)

It was hard to not be impressed by the Bears’ road win on Monday night at the Linc. In a move very uncharacteristic of his usual play, running back Matt Forte fumbled twice, losing both. However, I don’t believe this is going to be a long term type issue with a simple motion. (e.g. Tiki Barber fumbling or Chuck Knoblauch not being able to find out where the hell first base is) I still think the Lions are a farce and this is the beginning of a set of games in which we’ll find out if that’s actually the case. Back to the Bears, several crucial tackles and batted balls late in this one lead me to believe that they mean business. I don’t know if they’re Super Bowl bound, but they are a better team at home than the Lions are on the road, so I’m taking them by just a field goal.

Bears 21, Lions 18

Pittsburgh (6-2) at Cincinnati (6-2)

I’m saying the Steelers show up pissed and the Bengals get exposed. Getting your heart ripped out of your chest at home like that stings something fierce, and the Bengals aren’t used to playing a team that’s that mad. And it appears that the Hines Ward injury is relatively minor and he will be ready to go here. This will be rookie Andy Dalton’s first taste of Steeler defense, so I hope the Bengals have plenty of diapers on hand. Eighteen points sounds about right.

Steelers 35, Bengals 17

St. Louis (1-7) at Cleveland (3-5)

The Browns have won three games? Against who? I demand a fucking recount. Were they in some kind of field goal kicking contests that I didn’t see? If I were to break this one down I’d probably find out that you could look for a big day on the ground for Stephen Jackson, but why even do that? That’s not fair to me or anybody else that might be reading this.

Rams 14, Browns 3

Buffalo (5-3) at Dallas (4-4)

Still not sure if Buffalo is all that and a bag of chips, but they are better than Dallas. They’ll need more than eleven points to win this one, and that should be doable against Dallas, who looks average or slightly above on paper (10th against the league in rushing and 16th against the league in passing) yet has become notorious for giving up the big play on third down in a crucial situation. And Fitzpatrick needs to make one of those big plays in order to get his stroke back. I’m puzzled that I don’t have more to say about this…Miles Austin will be out with an injury but I didn’t see him being much of a factor against that Bills secondary in this one anyway.

Bills 22, Cowboys 20

Battle of Ineptitude: Jacksonville (2-6) at Indianapolis (0-9)

In the words of the immortal Carl Brutananadilewski: “You have got to be frickin’ kidding me…” I have to bring back the “Battle of Ineptitude” here. We made it through nine weeks without it needing it but I’m afraid the NFL has left me no choice. The Colts have nothing to gain and everything to lose by winning any of their remaining seven games, and have got me thinking that maybe the NFL should adopt a system similar to the NBA draft lottery so that we can avoid teams tanking games towards the end of the season. Not only is it not fair to the teams who are trying to win every week, it’s extremely unfair to the season ticketholders. I have absolutely nothing to say about the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Jaguars 20, Colts 12

Denver (3-5) at Kansas City (4-4)

After seeing Kansas City failing to score a touchdown against a team that had been previously winless, it’s hard for me to think they’ll be able to compete with the Jerusalem Broncos. Speaking of which, you know what? I recant my statement from Tuesday. The Denver Broncos aren’t out of it at all in the AFC West race. Case in point: Remember a couple of years back when the Chargers were 4-8 heading into week fourteen and they swept their remaining schedule, winding up in the playoffs after all. The Broncos can do it. Don’t get me wrong, if they do they’re going to end up getting murdered but it is a possibility. 3-5 is not that far out.

Broncos 21, Chiefs 17

Washington (3-5) at Miami (1-7)

Once the team who came out of the starting gate looking great this season, the Washington Redskins stand dumbfounded and at the bottom of a tough NFC East wondering what the fuck happened. Although I realize that I’ve been harping on this for quite some time now, I don’t really believe that the Redskins ever had a true number on quarterback. I’ve been saying for a month now that neither Grossman or Beck are good enough to be better than a third stringer in the NFL. Miami did surprise me by putting up 31 points last week, but I’m not ready to give Matt Moore anymore credit than he might deserve.

Dolphins 27, Redskins 18

Arizona (2-6) at Philadelphia (3-5)

The Eagles are in real trouble. The home loss to the Bears did a lot of psychological damage as well as damage in the standings: Philly is now a game behind the Cowboys and three games behind the New York Giants. This put them in a very dark place to start the second half of their season. But this should be a game where they can make up some ground. Arizona put us through an agonizing 19-13 win over the Rams last week, stretching the game out to five excruciating quarters. Or at least they would have, had anybody been watching. No way Philadelphia blows this one.

Eagles 28, Cardinals 10

Houston (6-3) at Tampa Bay (4-4)

The Texans are a team that I like but it’s hard for me to pick them in games like this one. They have a great defense but if Freeman can get lit early it could spell trouble for Houston. This game might depend on how the Bucs can stop the Texans’ run game, which between Arian Foster and Ben Tate has been nothing short of fucking brutal this year. When Foster got hurt, I can remember saying “Wow, that Tate kid has really stepped up in his place”. Then Foster came back and they are slowly turning into a two headed monster. Don’t get me twisted, I love the Houston Texans. But whenever I pick the Bucs to lose games like this they end up winning so I have to take Tampa here. Accuracy > Hope.

Buccaneers 25, Texans 20

Tennessee (4-4) at Carolina (2-6)

My hope here would be that this is the game we’ve all been waiting for where Cam Newton burts through the wall like the Kool Aid Man after snorting a quarter ounce of speed and racks up the same type of numbers he did while he was in college. But I’ve got that “bear-trap-in-a-tennis-court” type of lucky streak, so I don’t foresee it happening. Make no mistake, Carolina is the better team here and they have lost several close games, but they still have a long way to go before coming up short every Sunday isn’t an issue. Almost all of us would rather see Newton have a great day than Hasselbeck.

Titans 33, Panthers 18

Baltimore (6-2) at Seattle (2-6)

Anybody picking this game to be an upset is doing it strictly for attention. Joe Flacco is coming off a game winning drive against Pittsburgh last week where we found out a lot about his ability to lead a football team on the road under a ton of pressure. If hadn’t have gone that 92 yards, people would have started to raise some questions about the validity of Baltimore as a contender: The loss to Jacksonville, the week to week instability, and even though Pittsburgh is a great team a loss to the Steelers coupled with blowing a chance to sweep the season series would have certainly done it. But now, they’re the belle of the ball. Seattle has been a good home team in recent years, but I find it hard to believe that Pete Carroll’s rah-rah attitude will keep him around in a division where there’s no excuse for being under .500 every year.

Ravens 27, Seahawks 6

NY Giants (6-2) at San Francisco (7-1)

This one I’m looking forward to in a big way. Expect this one to be a low scoring affair as both teams gave good defensive performances last week. I like the 49ers to have the upper hand not only because the game is at home, but because they aren’t getting a lot of the credit they deserve. This will be the nationally televised 3:15 PM game and for many fans it will be the first time they’ve seen San Francisco all year. It’s the perfect opportunity for Alex Smith to make it known to the world that the 49ers aren’t a fluke and I fully expect him to do so. Even though they played a good defensive set last week (particularly in the first half) the Giants are still having some of their standard tackling issues late in the game so if you’re a fantasy guy start Gore and assume at least 120 on the ground.

49ers 20, Giants 16

New England (5-3) at NY Jets (5-3)

In a perfect world neither of these teams would ever win anything, but I have to give the Patriots the upper hand here. Rarely do they lose two in a row, and they almost never lose three in a row so you have to assume they win here. It’s going to be a struggle because of course because the Jets are psyched after that big win in Buffalo, and they believe so much of their own hype to begin with I don’t think anybody on that team is going to bed this week. Mark Sanchez will need to step up big here and I don’t think he has it in him. (And to anyone who may be asking themselves why that is…What has he done in the past that might make me think he could do it here) Which is pretty sad, because the Pats are still ranked last against the pass. If I was Rex Ryan I’d make Sanchez throw 45 to 50 balls in this one, but we all know he won’t do that.

Patriots 17, Jets 13

Minnesota (2-6) at Green Bay (8-0)

The Vikings probably aren’t happy with the NFL’s scheduling this year, as they have to play undefeated Green Bay twice in a sixteen day span. But this won’t be like the game these two teams just played in the Metrodome, this game will be at Lambeau and the Packers won’t be fucking around. A blowout is not out of the question, as the Packers are going to beat at least one team by 45 before the season is over. I am getting a bit tired of the undefeated talk though…Everybody knows that no coach in his right mind with that level of talent is going to start any of his A guys the second they clinch home field, so why are we to believe that this year would be any different? Mike McCarthy’s a smart guy and I’m sure the minute the Packers have it in the bag their second team will be in there.

Packers 36, Vikings 10

What to watch for this weekend:  Not trying to sound like a homer, but it would be awfully hard to argue that the Giants/49ers matchup wouldn’t give us the game of the week. Patriots/Jets is always pretty heated so look out for that. You might also notice that there’s a full slate of 16 games this week, but don’t get too excited: This is not the end of the bye weeks. For some reason, the dumbass who put together the schedules seemed to think it would be a fantastic idea to start the byes a week earlier this year, skip a week towards the middle of the season, only to come back with a week’s worth of byes the following Sunday. It makes perfect sense if you’ve just suffered a stroke.

Poll Question: Who is having a better year – Aaron Rodgers so far this season or Tom Brady in 2007?

Wea re EEP.

Meehan

NFL WEEK NINE WRAPUP

by Ryan Meehan

In week nine I thought there were some questionable pass interference calls.  The word “uncatchable” is very hard to define because it’s hard to assume that there is absolutely zero chance someone can come down with the football.  This “defenseless receiver” delegation is also puzzling to me:  All of them are wearing helmets, it’s literally impossible for them to be defenseless by definition.  I can remember when the Dallas Cowboys had Michael Irvin, that’s why they were such a big threat:  Because they had a guy who was willing to go across the middle.  Nowadays, it seems like the guy going across the middle is protected more than the wideouts who hide over by the sidelines.  I guess I’m just confused as to how certain judgment calls are made.  Let’s go over what went down in week nine. 

Giants 24, Patriots 20

I have to admit that the Giants stole this one.  Yes, Eli Manning put together a very special game that many Giants fans will remember for years to come.  But there were a couple of pass interference calls where the Patriots got hosed in the fourth quarter.  Let it also be known that the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Mario Manningham which allowed for the Patriots to get great field position on their last drive.  All he did was spin the ball out of his hands, I’ve seen guys do way worse than that this year and not get flagged.  Tom Brady looked very rattled in the first half of this game.  He was letting his emotions get the best of him on the sidelines after drives, something he rarely does.  Although Eli’s stats were not impressive, his clutchness was undeniable.  A classic for sure.  And I’ll say it once again…I don’t understand how Wes Welker has never been the NFL MVP. 
 
49ers 19, Redskins 11

The 49ers are for real.  They’re 7-1 and they are already five games up in their division.  I heard Tony Dungy say on the Dan Patrick show Monday that he thought the 49ers weren’t in the NFL’s elite class.  He may be right, but we’ll find out next week when they play the Giants.  Gore had 107 on 19 carries, and Alex Smith put up about average numbers yet again.  Regardless of whether the San Francisco is for real or not, we’re going to have to start discussing their defensive prowess somewhere along the line.  Patrick Willis forced a huge turnover in this one, and the 49ers pitched a lot of low scoring games during this run.  You may notice I didn’t mention the Redskins.  Fair is fair:  Washington looked great out of the box this year, and has since lost 5 straight.  See?  I did it!  I’m so proud of myself.

Cowboys 23, Seahawks 13

You can expect to hear analysts blowing smoke up the Cowboys’ asses all week after they beat yet another mediocre team.  I don’t understand why everyone feels the need to constantly be stroking Tony Romo’s ego.  He still hasn’t really ever done jack shit, and today was another average 19 for 31 performance after which everybody was pointing out that the Cowboys were “back on track”.  It continues to blow my mind how many people think that for whatever reason Dallas deserves to go to the playoffs every year regardless of their record.  For the sake of my buddy Donovan I tried desperately to come up with something fascinating to say about the Cowboys…And I got nothing.  The only thing I will say about Seattle is I feel bad for Marshawn Lynch…he’s having a great year but the Seahawks are awful. 

Broncos 38, Raiders 24

I will say this about Tim Tebow:  Every game, he makes about three or four throws that are perfect.  The plays go exactly as designed and he looks brilliant.  In this game, Tebow became the first player with 100+ rush yards, 2 touchdown passes, and zero interceptions since Michael Vick in November of 2004, back before he went to prison.  Carson Palmer threw three interceptions here, and it appears that a majority of the AFC West teams are fluttering.  (That’s putting it nicely)  If Denver hadn’t gotten off to such a shitty start, they might actually have a chance in this division.  But then again if I was a world famous actor, I wouldn’t be a sports blogger and writing this shit while I’m at work.  We all make mistakes. 

Bengals 24, Titans 17

I’m so glad that the Titans won AND the Texans lost.  Every Sunday that happens, we get a little closer to actually having a respectable team out of that division make the playoffs.  The Bengals are 6-2, but consider this:  All six of their wins have come against teams that collectively have 15 wins.  That’s an average of 2.5 wins per team.  So I’m not going to be shocked if they end up getting pounded by the Steelers and the Ravens, whom they play two times each in the next two months.  I can even see them finishing at exactly .500.  As for the Titans, they currently ARE .500 but there are still a lot of believers out there.  This guy is not one of them.  I’m not going to use this space to make fun of Matt Hasselbeck because Matt Hasselbeck makes fun of himself. 

Saints 27, Buccaneers 16

Josh Freeman played well at moments during this game but Tampa struggled big time in the red zone.  He only had one more incompletion than Brees and didn’t throw a pick, but every time they were deep in Saints territory they looked like they were playing uphill.  I like that the kid’s got guts, I like that he blocks, I like the overall fire that he possesses.  But he’s still making a lot of mistakes that young players are prone to making.  There was a scary moment in this one where Tracy Porter left on a stretcher with a neck injury, I sincerely hope he’s okay as that’s some serious shit.  The Saints had to have this one with as bunched up as the NFCS is this year and they got it.  This was another disappointing outing for Drew Brees as once again he failed to throw for a thousand yards. 

Falcons 31, Colts 7

When I was compiling scores for this I had almost completely forgotten this game had even happened.  Rookie Julio Jones finally put up some decent numbers:  131 yards and 2 TDs on three catches .  It’s hard for me to judge the Falcons at this moment because so many different teams have beat up on Indianapolis.  The Colts may run the table in the reverse direction, and it wouldn’t shock me if they did.  I was a bit surprised Atlanta didn’t use Michael Turner more as he had less than 100 yards…maybe they figured early that they were going to have this one in the bag so they decided this wasn’t going to an event where he got more than twenty carries. 

Jets 27, Bills 11

Just when I thought the Jets would finally shut up, this happens.  Fucking Great.  They made a very impressive fourth down stop early and the Bills never really recovered.  It would unfair of me to discuss this AFC East showdown without mentioning that Plaxico Burress is playing quite well for a dude that is only a few years removed from shooting himself.  And you know he was raped in prison because when he got out, his agent Drew Rosenhaus jumped all over him and started humping his leg like a dog and Plax didn’t even care.  Ryan Fitzpatrick is a pretty tough cookie, but he looked very intimidated on Sunday.  And if the Bills can’t block things like that out, they won’t be very successful in the playoffs.  That’s of course assuming they can even get there in the first place.  Looks pretty shaky at the moment. 

Texans 30, Browns 12

Here’s the stat of the day:  Matt Schaub had only 119 yards and Houston still put up 30 points.  That’s very impressive, and it also shows once again just how important Arian Foster is to their offensive gameplan.  And Foster’s replacement when he was out with an injury, Ben Tate, racked up an additional 115 on only 15 carries.  It looks as if now that barring some kind of disaster, the Texans will see the postseason for the first time in franchise history.  It’s hard to tell their defense played well even though they only allowed 12 points, because Colt McCoy blows and his offensive coordinator didn’t trust him to put the ball in the air this week.  Humorous, because just a month ago he threw 60 passes in one game.  I don’t get the Browns, but in my defense I don’t really think the Browns get the Browns either. 

Cardinals 19, Rams 13

This game went into overtime?  Holy shit that’s funny.  To all my atheist friends, this is very serious reminder that there is a God, and every once in a while he’ll play a prank like this on humanity and it’s fucking hilarious.  “If you guys were stupid enough to pay for tickets I’m going to make you all stay longer…”  That’s a gem.  Patrick Peterson ended the suffering of thousands by returning a punt 99 yards for a touchdown to give the Cardinals the win.  That Skelton kid was okay but I don’t see Kevin Kolb losing his job anytime soon with all of that money they’ve got invested in him.  

Dolphins 31, Chiefs 3 

I have to admit I did not see this one coming.  Maybe I didn’t think about it very hard, but even if I would have I would never have expected this to be the week the Dolphins would come out and look better than a D2 NCAA squad.  This was a very disappointing showing for the Chiefs, they were on fire heading into this, heavily favored, and a lock in most gambling circles.  Cassell had 253 yards, but only went 20 for 39 against a Dolphins defense that up until today had been porous.  It’s a brainteaser for sure, but don’t expend too much energy worrying about it as it shouldn’t affect the playoff picture unless everyone in the AFC West is 7-8 or 8-7 the last week of the season.  Actually now that I think about that for a second, this one may really hurt in Kansas City come Week 17.  And I’m not going to sit here and drool over Matt Moore’s numbers because it’s only one week and I really, really don’t care about Miami. 

Packers 45, Chargers 38

Green Bay’s defensive problems are going to catch up with them at some point, it just wasn’t this week.  They had a couple defensive scores, but it just seems like teams are getting closer and closer to beating the Packers with each passing week.  That being said, Aaron Rodgers has been incredible this year.  People are saying he’s playing “inspired” football, but I would almost call it “possessed”.  He has this very evil quality about him that I like and a killer instinct that no other player in the game can match right now.  It’s almost sadistic, like the kid in grade school who would steal your basketball, only to apologize and agree to give it back but then run away with it again the second you approached him and reached for it.  Rodgers lets the opposition believe that they still have a chance to win, but then he goes down the field and scores 7 more points, all the while chewing six or seven minutes of clock in the process. 
 
Ravens 23, Steelers 20

I’ve never seen a stadium get so quiet so fast as Heinz Field did after that beauty of a 92 yard drive that Joe Flacco put together to win the game.  What a badass performance and career defining moment for him.  So the Ravens sweep the Steelers this year, giving them the head to head tiebreaker which is huge.  John Harbaugh sounded pumped after this game, so who knows maybe the Ravens are a dark horse after all.  For a game that was supposed to be such a gridiron battle, it was interesting to see that the leading rusher for either squad was Rashard Mendenhall with 53 yards.

Bears 30, Eagles 24

Wow this was a ballbuster.  The Bears looked really, really good at the start but then they lost momentum and I thought that for sure the Eagles had this one wrapped up.  Matt Forte had two fumbles and things were starting to look really scary.  But the Bears didn’t freak out and maintained their composure, and ended up winning.  The Eagles are now 3-5, and looking up at a .500 Cowboys team who faces the Bills next week.  Urlacher looked good in the second half, and Isreal Idonije made a dominant tackle on one of Philly’s last drives that let them know the Bears weren’t kidding. 

Injury Update:  Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Miles Austin is going to miss 2-4 weeks so I’ll be continuing to monitor that situation, and it’s being reported that Colts tight end Dallas Clark is going to miss a significant amount of time which would be very important news in every year other than this one. 
 
We are EEP.

 Meehan

NFL WEEK NINE PREVIEW

by Ryan Meehan
 
Detroit Lions defensive end Ndomakung Suh met with NFL officials Tuesday.  Supposedly, the emphasis of the meeting was to review game film of specific plays with the Commissioner in order to gain a better understanding on the League’s perspective and rules when it comes to defensive play.  Suh claimed that he walked away from the meeting with a better understanding of the “ins and outs” of officiating.  This could be 100% correct and still be complete bullshit.  If he did walk out of the meeting with a better understanding that’s great, but really if he didn’t, what was he going to say?  That they didn’t explain it to him well enough and then wait for yet another fine from the commissioner’s office?  I discussed this with my brother in law last night and we are both subscribing to the thought that this was essentially a well crafted PR made by a guy who was quickly developing a nasty reputation as a dirty player.  Let’s examine what will be happening ON the field this weekend. NY Jets (4-3) at Buffalo (5-2)

 

So far haven’t heard any of the ridiculous smack talk that we’re becoming so accustomed to hearing out of the Jets’ camp.  I’d be guessing that would be the case because 1) Rex Ryan might have realized that providing so much bulletin board material for the other team isn’t a good idea, and 2) Coming off of a shutout against the Redskins, it’s very possible the Bills might end up slapping the fuck out of the Jets Sunday.  Which is fine with me…I still haven’t seen that epic performance from Mark Sanchez that we’ve been waiting for and on the annoying scale the Jets are somewhere bewteen sitting next to someone with halitosis who breathes heavily and being tazered to death while any Mariah Carey song plays in the background.  Maybe they love to be hated, but why?  That’s clearly not what the league wants as their main goal is to sell as many jerseys and beanies as humanly possible.  Jets lose another one. 

 

Bills 26, Jets 14

Seattle (2-5) at Dallas (3-4)
 

You have to figure that Dallas won’t come out as weak as they did in the Philly game.  Tony Romo may be able to talk smooth to the media, but when an opposing defense has him figured out, he struggles to come up with a plan B.  However, the Seahawks are terrible and play very poorly on the road.  Plus, Jerry Jones is pissed right now.  Fun fact:  DeMarcus Ware is on pace to break Michael Strahan’s single season sack record, which is fine with me.  Every team in the NFC West that isn’t the 49ers has a point differential of minus 40 or worse.  So when it seems like we mention that division blows ass every week, it’s well justified.  Kind of want to pick a shutout here but it should be insulting enough to assume that the Seahawks won’t even see the endzone. 

 

Cowboys 28, Seahawks 6
 
Atlanta (4-3) at Indianapolis (0-8)

Attention to anyone involved with fantasy football hooliganism should start Matt Ryan if they have the opportunity.  He should have a field day against the Colts, who haven’t won a game all year.  All you really need to know here is that the Colts are 31st against the run and the Falcons have Michael Turner.  I’ve developed this bizarre theory that if you play home games in a dome, playing in another team’s dome isn’t really a road game unless you’re playing the Saints.  All of the conditions are the same and you never have to worry about the elements.  Besides, the RCA dome isn’t exactly as rockin’ as it used to be to say the very least.  I would guess if you wanted Colts tickets right now it would be very easy to make that happen. 

 

Falcons 33, Colts 16 

Miami (0-7) at Kansas City (4-3) 
 

Just a month ago I was convinced that KC was one of the worst teams in the league.  And it wasn’t just their record, they were playing horrid.  Now they have the chance to win five in a row for the first time in eight years.  Additionally, they own the tiebreaker over the Chargers as of right now.  As for the Dolphins, any team that is better on the road than they are at home is beyond suspect unless there’s some unusual circumstance present.  Miami has virtually no running game:  Their lead rusher is Reggie Bush with 335 yards and NO touchdowns.  Ouch.  Speaking of touchdowns, Chad Henne’s only thrown four all season long.  Unbelievable.  Almost as unbelievable as me picking the Dolphins to score 10 points.  

 

Chiefs 41, Dolphins 10
 
San Francisco (6-1) at Washington (3-4)
 

 

 

Washington’s stock is plummeting and the 49ers are just one loss from being in the discussion of number one in the power rankings.  Frank Gore has been pure gold all year and may very well win the rushing title.  The Redskins are in a really shitty place because they have two guys competing for their starting QB job that would be third stringers just about everywhere else around the league.  I still say it was a great move to ditch Grossman, I’m just not sure ditching him for Beck was a fantastic tactical decision.  Alex Smith is having a good year, not putting up unbelievable numbers, but he’s a in a similar situationsuch as Flacco or Sanchez where the offense is based around the running game so he doesn’t have to be Joe Montana.  Regardless, you’re going to see a big day out of him and the 49ers winning percentage will improve to .875. 

49ers 27, Redskins 12
 
Cleveland (3-4) at Houston (5-3)
 

So I have to figure the Texans win this one, which means they will be 6-3, which also means it would be very hard for them to blow this division at the hands of the Titans.  Head coach Gary Kubiak said Friday that Andre Johnson will not play in this game, and that same day Browns running back Peyton Hillis got hurt again in practice, once again activating the Madden curse.  And when it comes to throwing for any distance Colt McCoy is pretty much worthless.  This game can be found on Sirius XM Satellite Radio on Channel 137. That’s all I got for this one.  

 

Texans 24, Browns 9
 
Tampa Bay (4-3) at New Orleans (5-3)

Who’s the more talented team?  The Saints.  Who’s got the bigger playmakers?  The Saints.  Will either of those things matter this week?  I doubt it.  To be honest, I’m calling this a lock if LeGarette Blount gets back.  The NFC South is the new NFC East.  It’s a fucking complete mess.  The top three teams could easily make it to the playoffs and the worst team in the division isn’t even bad, they’ve just lost a ton of close games.   So it’s hard for me to pick any game Falcons/Saints/Bucs.  Although I have to admit, I like Tampa to sweep the Saints this year.  Keep in mind Drew Brees could go apeshit any second and make me sound like the clueless douchebag that I really am as opposed to the semi-educated sprotswriter I’d like to believe I am. 

 

Buccaneers 28, Saints 27  (you may notice that’s sort of a bullshit score that I pick a lot when I feel two teams are very evenly matched.  That’s definitely the case) 

Denver (2-5) at Oakland (4-3)
 

There’s this new craze that the Lions started last week called “Tebowing” where a player from the opposing squad makes a prayer-like motion in the sacked or tackled player’s direction.  Truth be told, I don’t have a problem with this mockery of the man’s faith.  What I will start to get upset about is if these same guys are interviewed right after the game and say “I just want to give all of the glory to Jesus”.  Really asshole?  An hour ago you were making fun of someone praising him and now he’s your best bud?  Fuck you.  I believe the Raiders are on the way down, and fast.  Also Darren McFadden probably won’t play here. 

 

Broncos 20, Raiders 18
 
Cincinnati (5-2) at Tennessee (4-3)
 

Man, I hope so…As stated earlier this week, Andy Dalton is flying way under the radar due to all of the coverage other rookie quarterbacks such as Cam Newton and Christian Ponder are getting.  But the real story here has been the Bengals stifling run defense.  Also, the Bengals will get Cedric Benson back after serving his one game suspension.  An interesting matchup is going to be Cortland Finegan covering AJ Green.  Almost interesting enough to force me to watch a Titans game.  But in all seriousness, this game is going to be a hgue bullshit check for whoever loses it:  Both teams are performing much better than expected and are still looking up at a team (or in Cincinnati’s case two teams) within their respective divisions that is a lot better than they are.  Something’s Got to Give. 

 

Bengals 25, Titans 21
 
NY Giants (5-2) at New England (5-2)
 

This should be a lot of fun.  The Patriots average 29 points a game but are ranked 32nd in the league defensively.  (See, I told you Roethlisberger wasn’t that good)  Manning is third in the league in passer rating behind only Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady, who he’ll be up against this week.  Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw will start this week despite a cracked bone in his foot.  Now that Hakeem Nicks is doubtful for this week, Mario Manningham is going to have to have a huge Sunday afternoon in order for the Giants to win.  If he gets injured, then I don’t what New York is going to do.  I expect Tom Brady to have a huge day coming off that loss in Pittsburgh.  Plus, the Patriots rarely lose two in a row.

 

Patriots 24, Giants 23St. Louis (1-6) at Arizona (1-6)
 

I’m pretty hyped I don’t have to sit through this one.  This is usually the part where I compare one team’s strengths to another team’s weaknesses.  All you should really know is the Rams were able to shove the Saints around last week, and the Cardinals have lost a lot of close games.  This won’t be one of them. 

 

Rams 34, Cardinals 10Green Bay (7-0) at San Diego (4-3)
 

The Chargers are falling out of the “watch out for these guys” conversation more and more with each passing week.  I haven’t seen one single power ranking where the Packers aren’t ranked number one.  Their defense still struggles at times, but winning football games is a team effort and as long as they can come away with more points at the end of the game, having the 31st ranked passing defense in the NFL shouldn’t matter.  If this was any other 4-3 team I might be more inclined to pick the upset here.  The Packers look like a million bucks on the cover of SI. 

 

Packers 30, Chargers 11Baltimore (5-2) at Pittsburgh (6-2)
 

The Steelers should have the edge here coming off of a huge win against the Patriots, but this matchup is always an awfully heated battle.  Big Ben’s stats from last week appear a bit inflated, as the Patriots’ defense is still struggling to come up with an identity nine weeks into the season.  But remember, this is the team that represented a very strong AFC in the Super Bowl last year and came very close to winning it all.  And their defense has stepped up their level of play, particularly Lamar Woodley who will sit this game while continuing to monitor that hamstring issue.  The Ravens forced seven turnovers in the first meeting and although that defense reamins strong, I cetainly wouldn’t count on getting that many takeaways this time around.  But for some reason I just don’t see this game being as awesome as a lot of people are expecting.  I can forsee many fans wanting this one to be a barnburner and leaving fairly disappointed. 

 

Steelers 24, Ravens 13
 
Chicago (4-3) at Philadelphia (3-4)
 
You could make the argument that if the Eagles lose this game they won’t make the playoffs.  I don’t believe they will lose, but I would understand how motivation would start to disappear when you hit five losses.  Especially for a team that expected to finish 12-4 or much better.  I’ve heard some people around here bitching about the fact that the Eagles are seven and a half point favorites, but you have to look at momentum instead of records, and nobody in the NFL has more momentum like Philly. 

 

Eagles 22, Bears 19

 

Bye Weeks:  Detroit Lions, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings

 

The Lions should be fine, I don’t think Cliff Avril needs any more practice being a dick.  The Panthers will be teaching Cam Newton how to draw a W since he’s got just about everything else figured out.  And I don’t give a shit what the Jaguars or Vikings are doing in weeks where they’re playing, so obviously I’m not too concerned with what they’ll be working on in the bye. 

We are EEP.

 
Meehan

NFL WEEK EIGHT WRAPUP: THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE

by Ryan Meehan
 
We all remember the story of the tortoise and the hare.  Week Eight in the NFL proved that a lot of teams thought they would cruise to easy victories, and a majority of them were able to sneak out of it with a win.  So in most cases the hare won the race, but he still ended up looking like a complete buffoon in the process.  Let’s investigate:

Giants 20, Dolphins 17

Remember when I mentioned a few days ago that Trey Wingo said on NFL Live that the Giants scale back their intensity when they are playing teams they believe they are much better than?  Big Blue got housed for the majority of this game by a team that was winless and it was ugly.  Domenik Hixon got injured which isn’t good.  The Dolphins can go ahead and fire Tony Sporano any time now.  Nobody would notice or care.  They are most likely to draft a quarterback so they’re going to want to start over anyway.  You at least teach the guy how to clean the filter of the Dolphin cage as opposed to waiting until the year’s over to have the both of you come out and lay an egg on Monday Night against the Patriots opening week. 

Texans 24, Jaguars 14

Another 110+ yard performance for Arian Foster.  Awesome statistic for a guy with such an unfortunately pronounced first name.  See everybody, the Jaguars weren’t going to go on a tear after beating the Ravens last week.  Schaub?  I’d give it about a B-, he missed some big opportunities to blow this game wide open but he doesn’t need to be a lot.

Titans 27, Colts 10

Tennessee intercepted Curtis Painter twice and turned both opportunities into touchdowns as the Colts fell to 0-8.  If I were the Texans I guess I’d be afraid of the Titans but I’d probably be more afraid of myself.  I haven’t really viewed Tennessee as a dominant AFC team this year no matter what was happening.  I see that Hasselbeck put up 224 yards, which I know already without looking because he is kind of non threatening in that sort of “old-balding probably-shouldn’t be in the NFL-except-for-the-fact-that my brother is an analyst on television” sort of way. 

Ravens 30, Cardinals 27

So Baltimore gets down early, at one point they’re down 24-6 and it’s a total joke.  Kevin Kolb looks very sharp (haven’t heard that sentence fragment much this year) and it appears the Ravens are going to drop another game against a bad team.  But then Flacco gets hot and all hell breaks loose.  And then the Cardinals cave on defense, because they’re the Cardinals and that’s what they stand for.  Anquan Boldin gets his revenge, but everybody’s still suspect of Baltimore this week. 

Rams 31, Saints 21

I don’t even know what to say.  Before this one even started, I was actually hoping that the Saints would break the record for number of points in a two game set, but they didn’t look nearly as lit as they were last Monday.  I bet the Rams are wishing two things after this one:  That the 49ers didn’t get off to such a great start, and that they would have started A.J. Feeley from the beginning of the year.  By winning this game, they may have taken themselves out of the “Suck for Luck” race, but if they are confident that Sam Bradford is their guy then this is a huge win for them even though he didn’t play at all.  Saints had me believing last week but this hurts.  Most of the highlights from this game did revolve around 3 sacks by Long, and deservedly so.  Comparatively speaking, I guess you could say this was very similar to the loss to the Seahawks in the Wild Card round in that we figured there was no way the Saints were going to lose.  So much for that. 

Vikings 24, Panthers 21

Cam Newton is busting his ass, but the Panthers make the type of mistakes that cause you to come up short by 3 or 7 points quite frequently.  I feel bad for Olindo Mare.  It’s hard to tell what went wrong, I didn’t think the snap was that poor.  Adrian Peterson still looks good but other than that there’s not a lot to see here.  Although I do wish I was a huge Panthers fan so that I could paint the inside of my apartment that shade of turquoise and still avoid being committed to a mental hospital.  But I digress…

Lions 45, Broncos 10

Tim Tebow had a QBR of 3.4 Sunday.  There will be tons of fans jumping off the Tim Tebow bandwagon this week and rightfully so.  The Lions play really, really “dirty football” which some of you may know by its other name:  “Football”.  After the game an unnamed Lions player said that the Lions were talking to each other mocking the fact that Tebow is even strting in the NFL and of course they were jawing at him severly after sacks.  I’m not bothered by the way the Lions behave because Suh and Cliff Avril are bringing it every play and if they can back it up, good for them.  And on the offensive side of the ball for Stafford to look that good coming off an injury was very impressive.  The Lions just have to distance themselves from being viewed as a wild card tem.  They need to go out there and say “We CAN be 13-3” because if for some reason they can in the NFC North that would be incredibly tough. 

Steelers 25, Patriots 17

God dammit.  What’s odd about this (as bossman said) is the fact that New England had completely “pwned” the Steelers and Pittsburgh was beat up to all hell.  Roethliseberger: 36 of 50 and the Steelers are now 6-2 and headed in the right direction.  I’m not sure they always deserve it, but they deserve it more than a lot of other squads.  Pittsburgh was 10 of 16 on 3rd downs, and that’s where you make your money.  (New England was 3 for 10)  The Patriots have problems on defense that almost seem unidentifiable.  They have the athletic ability, but it just seems like at moments they lack the know-how to stop a drive in its tracks. 

Bills 23, Redskins 0

If the Redskins didn’t look fake earlier on in the year, they sure as hell do right now.  They went all the way to another country and didn’t bring back any points?  The nephews and nieces are gonna be pissed.  If we can all admit that we enjoy certain instances in sports where teams get exposed like that, I happen to enjoy this moment in NFL history a lot.  And here’s a take on Washington that you won’t agree with right away:  I still think it was a great idea to bench Grossman.  A great idea actually.  Listen, if he got benched with them on top of the division a third of the way through the season, what makes you think throwing him back in there is going to do any good?  I get it that Beck was terrible in this game but what are you going to do?  You made your bed, now you lie in it. 

49ers 20, Browns 10

For as much as I whiff with these picks, every once in a while I hit the nail right on the head by picking this one down to the point.  It’s a shame it’s suck a quarterback’s league when it comes to the individual awards, because I love the idea of Frank Gore as an MVP candidate.  He’s a smooth operator.  We’re getting into portion of the season where records are really starting to matter, and San Francisco is 6-1.  In an era where there ARE so many good quarterbacks it’s going to be hard for a team like the 49ers to go the distance with that style of football.  They don’t exactly use the west coast offense anymore:  They’re a ground and pound football team with a slightly above average QB (both in skill and in talent) that is hitting a hot streak at the right time.  Cleveland’s special teams played well and that was pretty much it. 

Eagles 34, Cowboys 7

Every week I watch at least one game with my father and this was it because there’s nothing we like more (other than seeing the Giants pull one out of their ass) than watching the Eagles and Cowboys beat the hell out of each other.  As it turns out, only one team would beat the hell out of the other team, and the Eagles were that team.  LeSean McCoy had 185 yards, ripped jersey and all.  Those were the Eagles that I thought were going to show up week one:  There they were.  It’s hard for me not to still bite on the Eagles because they can go out and do something like that when they are under the gun.  Regardless of the standings, they’re in great shape:  The Redskins are playing like shit, they obviously have the Cowboys’ number, and the Giants are by far the worst 5-2 team in recent NFL history. 

Chiefs 23, Chargers 20

San Diego blew this game.  They has the ball deep in Chiefs territory and then Rivers fumbled the snap.  Heartbreaking, but the Chargers didn’t exactly capitalize on the pace of this game:  They had 9 drives inside the Chiefs 35 and they scored 4 field goals and only one touchdown.  The Chargers have to realize that there are 60 minutes in a football game. 

Most Noticeable Thoughts from Week Eight:

Aside from the Saints collapsing the concept that grabbed me more than anything dates back to 2000 and Super Bowl 35 where the Baltimore Ravens abused the New York Giants all day long.  The Ravens and the Giants couldn’t be more alike right now.  They both  almost lost to awful teams today, they are both at the crests of their divisions and probably don’t deserve it, and they are most likely both frauds when it counts the most.  Other fact that kept coming up was that Pittsburgh held Tom Brady to 17 points without intercepting him once. 

We are EEP. 
 
Meehan

NFL WEEK EIGHT PREVIEW

by Ryan Meehan

Week eight should be a tad more exciting than some of the bullshit we saw last Sunday and Monday.  Monday Night Football was even worse than the previous week as the Jaguars beat the Ravens 12-7.  I couldn’t believe it…The Ravens beat the Texans, and then in the same year lose to the Titans and Jacksonville?  Confusing…  Tuesday Terrell Owens scheduled a tryout that was open to all 32 NFL teams and not one of them showed up.  Then, Thursday afternoon a report of yet another suicide attempt leaked to TMZ:  http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/terrell_owens_assistant_described_W7nkKbx52PKbz8FJhFt4WJ  Ugh.  Let’s see what’s crackalackin’ in week eight…

Jacksonville (2-5) at Houston (4-3)

I can only assume the Texans are back in business after their 41-7 drubbing of the Titans last week.  They have a great chance to stay above .500 at home against the Jaguars, who had to have gotten lucky last week, but that’s an entirely different story.  Texans WR Andre Johnson is still out even though he showed progress recovering from the injury this past week.  Once again, everything is set up for the Texans to win this division so let’s hope they can actually get it done and not blow it. 

Texans 26, Jaguars 11

Indianapolis (0-7) at Tennessee (3-3)

Boy oh boy, what ISN’T wrong with the Colts?  I don’t even know where to start.  There is plenty wrong with the Titans too, they just didn’t expect anything this year so everything over .500 seems like gravy.  Truth be told, I don’t really give a shit about either one of these teams, but the Titans are better. 

Titans 31, Colts 15

Arizona (1-5) at Baltimore (4-2)

Well I thought the Ravens could take pretty much anybody, but now I don’t know what to think.  At least this one will be a home game for them, and right now Arizona doesn’t look very good on offense at all.  This is a tough one for Baltimore no matter what because even if they win, very few people are going to be able to look past the fact that their only losses are to the Jaguars and the Titans and they were both inexcusable.  The Ravens should thank their lucky stars that this game is at home, they’re a far cry from being a good road team. 

Ravens 27, Cardinals 20

Minnesota (1-6) at Carolina (2-5)

The Vikings looked pretty decent for one half against Green Bay but then they slowly let it slip away, which could be attributed to the fact that they were starting a rookie for his first time.  Carolina has themselves a rookie too, but it’s a guy who’s going to make quite an impression once he works through his growing pains.  Speaking of Growing Pains, the guy who played Boner on that show is dead.  So slappeth the judgmental hand of God.

Panthers 28, Vikings 27

Miami (0-6) at New York Giants (4-2)

Giants running back Brandon Jacobs will play in this game, but has hinted to the media that this will be his last season in a Giant uniform.  As stated in last week’s article, I honestly believe that the Dolphins are worse than the other winless teams.  The Giants are coming off a bye and will be beginning the more difficult portion of their interconference schedule with the AFC East as they play the Patriots and Jets shortly thereafter.  But rememeber, the Giants did lose at home to the Seahawks.  Trey Wingo said something I thought was really interesting on NFL Live Friday:  In recent history the Giants have scaled back their level of play when facing weaker opponents.  Food for thought, but the Dolphins REALLY suck. 

Giants 40, Dolphins 13

New Orleans (5-2) at St. Louis (0-6)

Comapred to last week, this should be a relatively low scoring affair for the Saints.  It’ll be about the same for the Rams, who are part of low scoring affairs on an almost weekly basis with the only exception being when they have a bye. 

Saints 39, Rams 3

Washington (3-3) at Buffalo (4-2)

If you thought the Redskins looked flat last week, just wait until you see them without Tim Hightower on the field.  He was a large percent of their offense and they are going to miss him dearly.  The Bills on the other hand signed qaurterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to a 6 year/59 million dollar deal, so they are going to be expecting a big game out of him.  There was a bullshit comment from George Wilson about how since they’re playing in Toronto that it’s an away game, but real professionals don’t whine about stuff like that.  Reagrdless, I believe they will beat the Redskins, who aren’t fooling anybody anymore. 

Bills 20, Redskins 13

Detroit (5-2) at Denver (2-4)

So the Lions do play road games.  Huh, go figure.  What to watch for:  Champ Bailey vs. Calvin Johnson.  Sure, Bailey’s older and Johnson’s going to have a couple of inches on him, but I’ve seen Bailey win those wars before.  It’s too bad for the Broncos that the beginning of their season went so poorly, but I hate Broncos fans so in this roundabout way they sort of deserve it.  As for the Lions, they seem to have gotten too cocky too fast, and it’s started to affect the way they are executing on the field.  Plus, I’m on the Tebow Train.  Lions lose 3 straight.

Broncos 23, Lions 21

New England (5-1) at Pittsburgh (5-2)
 
Can’t wait to see this one.  The Patriots are coming off of a bye week and will be rolling into the city of steel looking to prove AFC supremacy since Baltimore is no longer a valid part of that conversation.  ProFootballTalk.com is reporting that it is “highly unlikely” Hines Ward will play on Sunday.  There was this goofy story that came out this week after a picture surfaced of Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski shirtless with some porn star named Bibi Jones wearing his jersey.  I honestly don’t know why this is even news.  He issued an apology, but why?  Now athletes aren’t supposed to be into hot women?  That’s insane.  What I hate the most about all of it is it’s overshadowing the fact that Gronkowski, Wes Welker, and Aaron Hernandez are becoming quite the trio of receivers.  Easily the game of the week and even though it’s in Pittsburgh I like the Patriots to pull this one out, but just barely. 

Patriots 26, Steelers 24

Cincinnati (4-2) at Seattle (2-4)

It’s hard for me to talk shit about Seattle because they did beat the Giants in week five, but honestly they are terrible.  The Bengals have surprised me, and Andy Dalton seems to be flying under the radar quite nicely, what with all of the publicity surrounding Cam Newton and Tim Tebow.  But he’s had a hell of a year so far…

Bengals 28, Seahawks 12

Cleveland (3-3) at San Francisco (5-1)

If you throw away all of the talk about how poor the NFC West is overall, the San Francisco 49ers have had a great year.  Whereas previously we would expect the division winner finish 8-8 or 9-7 (or in last year’s case 7-9) the Niners could easily finish 12-4 and they would be taken seriously.  The Browns should be an easy game for them, especially at home where the fans are really starting to get behind that team. 

49ers 20, Browns 10

Dallas (3-3) at Philadelphia (2-4)

As a Giants fan, I hate to pick these games but I love to watch the Eagles and the Cowboys beat up on each other.  Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan said before the year started that Philadelphia was an “all-hype” team.  Given the fact that the Eagles’ record is pretty much the opposite of what it should be, he may be right but I’ll never understand why opposing coaches do that.  It almost always ends up biting them in the ass.  (I guess in Ryan’s case maybe he’s got so much ass to bite he figures he might not even notice)  Tony Romo will play well here but in the end the Linc will be rowdy as hell and the Eagles will get the win. 

Eagles 30, Cowboys 27
 
San Diego (4-2) at Kansas City (3-3)

I’m only picking the Chiefs to win here because lately I’ve become furious with the lackadazical approach that the Chargers seem to have towards being a professional football team.  They just showboat their way into the playoffs with almost no effort every year and I”ve about fucking had it.  Kansas City showed some real promise last week shutting out Oakland, but the Raiders didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground in that one.  If the Chargers do want to make a statement that they are for real, they need to go out there and score at least 35 points against a defense that’s just seven days removed from pitching a shutout.  I don’t see that much determination on that roster so it won’t happen. 

Chiefs 27, Chargers 19

Bye Weeks:  Altanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, New York Jets, Oakland Raiders, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Falcons head coach Mike Smith said that he’s going to give his team the entire week off a day after a postgame conference in which he mentioned that his team needs to “get on a winning streak”.  I’m not exactly sure how those two things add up, but I hope for his sake he knows what the hell he’s doing.  The Bears don’t need to make a whole lot of adjustments, but also don’t need to let their ego lead them to believe that they still don’t have work to do.  The Packers looked shaky at times in the first half against the Vikings, but don’t kid yourselves the Packers don’t have shit to worry about at the moment.  It would take at least two straight losses to get me to believe that they would be in trouble, and even then it wouldn’t be serious.  The Jets are going to continue to come up with new ways to make sure that we talk about their coaching staff even though they aren’t even playing.  Oakland has a lot of explaining to do and it may be a hole to deep to climb out of.  Tampa?  We’ll see…

A couple facts about my balls

It is commonplace in most cases for one testicle to hang lower than the other.  This is not the case with mine, as they both hang the same distance from the shaft in perfect symmetry. 

My balls also have their own central nervous system that includes a brain and allows for them to experience and display human emotions that no other individual’s balls can. 

What to watch for this weekend

Obviously, you’re going to want to watch for a fight in the Cowboys-Eagles game.  It will also be interesting to see how many points the Saints score to follow up that 62-7 beatdown they put on the Colts last Sunday night.  Also be watching for any new facts about my balls that may be brought up during the broadcasts.

But seriously, if you can only watch one game on Sunday check out Steelers-Patriots.  Those games are always top shelf and this one should be no exception, even smack dab in the middle of the season.  This has become a great conference rivalry in recent years and I love the way these teams match up this year. 

Enjoy the games!

Meehan

NFL WEEK SEVEN WRAPUP

by Ryan Meehan

For the most part week seven brought us some very poor football. There appears to be a little bit of controversy over what was said or what wasn’t said by Cliff Avril and Ndamokang Suh after they sacked Matt Ryan and it looked as though he was going to be injured badly. As fate would have it, Ryan is fine and Suh and Avril are getting blasted on the air and will likely face some sort of fines. Oh, and Vikings defensive end Brian Robison kicked Packers guard square in the crotch, there’s very little debate about that because it was captured on film. Let’s take a look at what else went down:

Bears 24, Buccaneers 18

This game was played in London, England and we gave the Brits a good product this time. Matt Forte is hands down the NFC Offensive player of the week, with 145 rushing yards and a touchdown. Cutler didn’t have a great day, but was able to run the offense well even though I’m sure he’s still not cool with all the play calling. Chicago almost let this one get away, thankfully Josh Freeman is still very much in the developmental stage of NFL quarterbacking. Devin Hester caught 4 balls for 46 yards, which should excite you if you’re a Bears fan because it means they’re trying to work him into the offense more. He can’t run a reverse to save his life though, maybe it’s too obvious the ball is coming his way.

Chiefs 28, Raiders 0

Yep, you read that right. I have to admit I had no idea this was going down. Oakland used both Kyle Boller and Carson Palmer, switching to the latter in the third quarter. Each threw three picks (one pick six each) and looked very shaky at best, and combined for a QBR of 19.8. The Chiefs are back to .500 but trust me, they’re really nowhere near that good. This is a rough loss for the Raiders because this is one that could literally destroy their whole year. Think about it: They got shutout at home by four touchdowns against a Chiefs team whose quarterback went 15 for 30 and passed for only 161 yards. They deserve all the shit that will be talked about them this week and then some. End transmission.

Broncos 18, Dolphins 15

To be brutally honest with you, even though Tim Tebow engineered a great come from behind victory in this one we didn’t really learn any new information about him. We already knew he was a tireless worker and wouldn’t give up, and that he is a born leader. Beating the Dolphins in overtime doesn’t really show me a whole lot. The biggest question mark here is why Tony Sporano decided to go for the two point conversion instead of the extra point, which would have won the Miami the game. I don’t give a shit what that chart says, if it’s a 6-0 game through three quarters and both teams are struggling to get across the field, you settle for having 13 points and you’re happy with it. I expect Sporano to be fired here sooner rather than later, and personally I think he’s trying to expedite the whole process.

Texans 41, Titans 7

I told you the Titans were toy. And I knew that once the Texans’ schedule eased up they’d be able to show people what they were truly capable of. I wasn’t exactly sure who Tennessee thought they were kidding besides themselves thinking they could actually win the division, even with the Colts playing as poorly as they have been playing. Arian Foster caught a screen pass that he took 78 yards to the house, proving that a running back that can catch short passes can end up being the most valuable player on your roster. Schaub shut a lot of his fairweather haters up in this one.

Browns 6, Seahawks 3

If you pay money to get into see a pro football game, somebody better score a touchdown. But then again, if you paid money to see the Browns play the Seahawks, I don’t really have a whole lot of sympathy for you to begin with. The stat sheet from this game is nothing short of hilarious. I was watching NFL Live earlier and there was a receiver from the Browns that caught a pass in Seahawks territory and the promptly got up and made the move all of the receivers are making where they mimic the official’s first down signal, only he did it in the wrong direction. That was pretty much this entire game in a nutshell.

Steelers 32, Cardinals 20

When Ken Wisenhunt wakes up this morning he’s going to have a lot of thinking to do. The Arizona Cardinals are 1-5 and it looks as if they are stuck with a quarterback that is in way over his head. Kevin Kolb is missing easy throws and looks very uncomfortable. He’s not exactly getting fantastic pass protection all of the time, but even when he is it still looks like he doesn’t have a very good concept of the overall pace of the game. The team as a whole is in a very rough spot when you consider that San Francisco is running away from the other three teams in a division where there’s absolutely no chance of producing a wild card whatsoever. Ben Roethlisberger had a hell of a day, going 26 for 39 and throwing for 361 yards. But this was a game that I expected them to win, and I’m sure they will find it to be more of a test next week when the New England Patriots come to town.

Packers 33, Vikings 27

As formidable as the Packers look in the win column, teams are slowly finding ways to expose their weaknesses but in the end it never seems to be enough. Minnesota controlled the first half of this game and the Packers had me legitimately worried. Aaron Rodgers completed his first 13 passes, and the fourteenth was placed perfectly in Randall Cobb’s hands but he dropped it. For the life of me I can’t figure out how Green Bay only scored 33 points here. They were behind the entire first half, but what I really like about the Packers is they remain calm when those types of things happen and end up on top. Christian Ponder made a couple good throws but overall he only completed 13 of 32 so he’s got a lot of work to do.

Jets 27, Chargers 21

It’s safe to say that the team that needed the victory the most prevailed here. Whereas this didn’t have to be a game that the Chargers expected to win, Rex’s Jets had to have this one and they were lucky enough to mount a comeback. The Chargers can afford this loss especially when you consider what happened to the Raiders. But they are going to likely keep it in idle and coast their way to another AFC West Championship. I heard a really, really dumb quote from San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers after the game. He said something along the lines of “For the last six months everybody’s been talking about how the regular season doesn’t matter, and now everybody wants to talk about the regular season all of a sudden”. Couple things about that verbal abortion: If you don’t play well in the regular season, chances are that you aren’t going to get to the playoffs to begin with. Also, the media is concerned with what’s happening right now…BECAUSE THEY ARE THE FUCKING MEDIA AND THAT’S THEIR DAMN JOB. If the playoffs were in progress right now, everybody would be discussing that. And for as much as these guys say that they ignore what the media is saying, they sure seem to be well-versed with what’s been said about them the second they start losing. And here’s another reason I don’t play fantasy football: Think about how many people benched Plaxico Burress this week instead of someone else. He would finish with three touchdowns on the day.

Falcons 23, Lions 16

And just like that, the Lions have lost two straight home games. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time considering the Bears are now red hot. I’m hearing some debate on sports talk radio today about whether or not the Lions are a dirty team. I don’t think they are necessarily a dirty team collectively but I think a couple of those guys (and yes, Suh is one of them) need to scale back the excessive celebration. It’s just a sack anyway, it’s not like it’s a Safety in the Super Bowl. I understand that some of them are pumped, but seriously…settle down. The real news here is that the Lions could be in real trouble as Matthew Stafford might have injured his ankle on the last series. (As of Monday night coach Jim Schwarz is saying he’s day to day) As for the Falcons, they have no real reason to change their gameplan. Give the ball to Michael Turner between 20 to 30 times every game, then split everything in the air between White (who made a hell of a touchdown catch Sunday), Douglas (who is a bit of a third wheel but is playing excellent football right now), and Tony Gonzalez (who passed Cris Carter on the all time receptions list and is now number two). Monday their coach Mike Smith gave them an entire seven days off due to their bye week next Sunday.

Panthers 33, Redskins 20

So Washington played very poor defense in this game. Looking back on it I can’t really say that this was even an upset. The Redskins aren’t nearly as good as they appeared to be a couple of weeks ago. And while they had previously been able to avoid the injury bug that had bitten other teams so severely, they’re in real trouble because they just lost leading rusher Tim Hightower for the rest of the year to a torn ACL. It’s a shame because he was having a great season. Now, let’s look at Carolina. Previously on the Cam Newton show, he had been putting up some great stats but not getting the Ws. Sunday he went 18 for 23 with no picks and they got the win. Go figure.

Cowboys 34, Rams 7

Rookie running back DeMarco Murray rushed for 253 yards against the Rams, which was a franchise record. While 253 yards is usually a pretty large number that you would expect to be a franchise record, remember that this is a Dallas franchise that in the past employed the services of both Tony Dorsett and Emmitt Smith. That’s the fascinating thing to me, that neither one of those guys ever had a game where they had that many rushing yards. The passing game looked to be spread around pretty well: Both Jason Witten and Dez Bryant had a touchdown. Other than that, nothing much to see here as I expected Dallas to win big.

Saints 62, Colts 7

I actually enjoyed watching this even though it was a blowout. The “Suck For Luck” campaign has started for sure. For a moment, I thought the Saints might actually make it to seventy. You know a game is getting out of hand in the middle of the season when a team pulls their starting quarterback before the third quarter ends. Drew Brees had 5 touchdown passes and passed for a measly 325 yards, and Sproles would have had a lot more than 88 on the ground if they had actually needed a running game. Marques Colston also have seven receptions, two of which were touchdowns. Hopefully Mark Ingram’s bruised heel won’t be a long term issue for the team in the weeks to comes.

Jaguars 12, Ravens 7

I have to take serious issue with this because Baltimore was my dark horse. Explain to me how this works: The Ravens beat the Texans, but lose to the Jaguars AND the Titans? I don’t understand that. Jones Drew had 105 yards and Scobee kicked 4 field goals and that’s all it takes to beat the team that a lot of analysts were saying was the 2nd best team in the league Monday morning? I’m very, very disappointed in the Ravens. I think age might be finally catching up with them.

Bonus Comment for the week:

Since “Suck For Luck” seems to be a popular tending topic on Twitter, I’ll go ahead and address it now. And now is a great time to address it because I don’t want this bullshit clogging up the internet week fifteen when we should be spending our time discussing good teams that are vying for playoff positioning. There are three teams that are currently winless in the NFL: The Colts, the Rams, and the Dolphins. The Rams can’t be the worst team because their schedule is pretty tough this year. And it can’t be the Colts, because even with Manning on the bench, they’re still a very talented football team that employs the likes of Dallas Clark, Dwight Freeney, and Robert Mathis. The Dolphins are easily the worst team in the NFL. They have no idea who they want to be their quarterback, they play like shit at home, and have one of the worst coaches in the history of professional sports. So at the moment, they deserve Andrew Luck the most. They certainly are doing their best to suck, that’s for sure.

We are East End Philadelphia and we don’t fuck around.

Meehan