What a strange weekend of football. Just when you think you’ve got a few teams figured out, they come from left field (as only teams with baseball diamonds on their football fields can) and snatch victory from the jaws of atrociousness.
The Oakland Raiders, on the strength of their longest pass play since the first Reagan administration, somehow found a way to beat the Eagles.
After the game, Raiders coach Tom Cable told the media to stop giving his team so much heat. It was a glorified “I told you so” speech. I’m sorry, maybe I’m just a pessimist, but I’m not quite buying that the Raiders are back.
If Cable thinks this win is enough to get the media off his back, he’s got another thing coming.
The offense was still terrible, Russell threw two more interceptions and they beat an Eagles team that quite frankly isn’t very good. You don’t sign Michael Vick coming out of his tailspin unless you are in some kind of panic mode.
Eagles head coach Andy Reid apparently didn’t realize that Brian Westbrook was averaging 10 yards per touch, and decided he should probably only have six carries on a day in which Donovan McNabb couldn’t hit the ocean while standing on the pier at Pismo Beach.
Still, if you’re the Eagles, you probably didn’t feel the worst about your team by the time Sunday was over.
Clash of the Titans?
The Tennessee Titans were down 45-0 at halftime to New England. Tom Brady threw five touchdown passes in the second quarter alone. Yet inexplicably, Patriots coach Bill Belichick decided his team should come out throwing in the second half.
Memo to Bill, you don’t have to impress the BCS pollsters in the NFL. There’s no computerized ranking system that will give you an extra decimal point for blowing out Idaho State.
New England is extremely lucky that the Titans didn’t have a bitter, disgruntled player on defense taking aim at Tom Brady’s knees.
Speaking of bitter and disgruntled, I know Vince Young is trying to have a positive outlook on things after all the problems he had last year, but if he’s not named the starter now, he may never be.
The league seems to have a lot of respect for a venerable coach like Jeff Fisher, but is he really going to stick with 129-year old Kerry Collins as his quarterback forever?
The “Sanchise” struggling
Does anyone else remember back when Mark Sanchez was the next coming of Joe Namath? Yeah me too, because it was only three weeks ago.
I was on my way to Canton for his Hall of Fame induction ceremony when suddenly, Sanchez started playing, well … like a rookie.
In the last three games, Sanchez has one touchdown pass and eight interceptions with a fumble lost. The Jets have gone from a sheik pick for the Superbowl to a team most expect to finish 8-8 at best.
The fickle New York media has already turned on him with headlines like “Broadway Schmoe” after Sunday’s miserable overtime loss to Buffalo. Sanchez’s passer rating against the Bills was a crisp 8.9. If he could have just raised that to a 15.9, he would have been playing at Derek Anderson’s level and gotten the win.
But really, did people expect Sanchez to come in and lead the Jets straight to the Promised Land?
I was big against Sanchez declaring for the draft after his final season at USC, but I think he’s probably playing better than most people should have expected him to.
Most overrated 2-4 team in NFL history
Right now I’m going to give you perhaps the most interesting stat in NFL history. The record of the Washington Redskins’ opponents (at the time the teams played) is 0-14.
You read that right, through week six; the Redskins have yet to play a team that has won a game this season on the week that they played.
How is that even possible? The Redskins have had on paper, the easiest first six games in NFL history. Yes, I understand that in Week 1, they lost to the Giants, who have won some games, but they were 0-0 when they played.
Yet they are only 2-4 on the season. They’ve given the Giants, Lions, Panthers and Chiefs their first victories of the season. For teams like the Lions and Chiefs, they’ll be lucky to get another one all year.
Speaking of Kansas City, when did it become acceptable to do the Gatorade dump on a coach winning his first game in week six? I’m really hoping Todd Haley has higher expectations than that.
The real clash of the Titans
I think we’ve all known for a while that New Orleans has an offense that can score some points. But now that they also have a defense that can hold teams to fewer than the 50 points the Saints score, how can anyone expect to beat them?
The New York Giants certainly couldn’t get it done on Sunday a matchup of what some thought could be an NFC championship preview.
I know there are a lot of Chargers fans out here, but please spare me the whole, “I’m still glad we let Drew Brees go” routine.
Brees is right up there with Peyton Manning as the most accurate passer in the league right now.
Through a third of the season, I’ve got to say that the Saints look to be the NFC favorite, especially considering Darren Sharper’s eight-year relationship with current Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre as a teammate. He also played against Favre twice a year as a member of the Vikings when Favre was still a member of the Packers.
Sharper currently leads the league with five interceptions and should have Favre’s tendencies down by now.