What a Sunday of football, with a number of notable performances, and at least one team reviving a season that was nearly lost.
I’ll start with the Vikings, who rode Adrian Peterson, and some good luck, to their first win of the season. I’m still not particularly impressed with anything they do, outside of Peterson, but we can’t leave them for dead yet. Now they get the bye week, which I’m not so sure is a good thing. Can Favre survive 13 straight weeks of football? I have my doubts. Having an extra week to prepare for the Jets won’t hurt though.
The 49ers are a total mess, and Singletary’s days are numbered. They fired their offensive coordinator this morning, probably just the first of many jobs lost this season. Give the Chiefs credit though, they are 3-0, beat a bad team pretty handily, and did it with good play from Matt Cassel.
Steelers=best team in the league. Obviously they exposed the Buccaneers a little bit, but that defense is insane against any team. Charlie Batch only has to start one more game, and then Big Ben comes in, which makes that offense even more of a threat. Consider this, the Steelers opponents so far this season are a combined 6-3, their only losses are to the Steelers.
The Patriots defense is going to prevent them from being a true Super Bowl team this season. You can’t allow 30 points to the Bills. Their offense is still elite though, which means they will win plenty of regular season games.
C.J. Spiller is a star in the making, too bad it’s being made with the Bills.
Vince Young did his best game managing job yesterday, going 10-16 with 118 yards and a touchdown. Chris Johnson got 32 carries, most of them resulting in a hard hit or two from the Giants defense, but it got the Titans their second win of the season. The Giants inability to hold onto the ball once they got into the red zone played a big role as well, but the Titans defense should get a little credit.
I’m not sure why that Ravens-Browns game was close near the end, but it doesn’t matter now that the Ravens won. Anquan Boldin sure looks like the best pickup off the off-season right now.
The Bengals have a really good defense, but need more from Carson Palmer and all their loud mouth weapons if they plan on really doing anything this season. It isn’t every week you get to play the Panthers.
The Cowboys are back on track, at least for this week. Tony Romo exposed the Texans horrible pass defense, Felix Jones flashed his big play ability, and Roy Williams went ahead an earned a paycheck for once. Plus, their defense shut down a really good offense. The Cowboys aren’t out of it at all, especially with a fairly easy schedule the next few weeks. The Texans need to work on defending the pass if they want to continue winning games.
The Falcons and Saints looked like fairly even teams, with the Falcons kicker proving to be the hero. Hopefully both those teams can make the playoffs, because they are both solid on offense and defense. Matt Ryan isn’t on Drew Brees’ level yet, but he showed a lot of guts and leadership in overtime. The MVP of the game goes to the Falcons offensive line, which led a run dominated drive in overtime, that set up the winning field goal.
Michael Vick continues to be the big story in the NFL, and his play has been equalled by only a few quarterbacks across the league. 3 touchdowns throwing yesterday, plus a running TD. Kevin Kolb was trying to put on a happy face yesterday, but any hope he had to get his job back anytime soon is gone.
Missouri’s Jeremy Maclin (also of the Eagles) leads the NFL with four touchdowns, and appears to be Michael Vick’s favorite target.
Finally, the Jets are owed an apology. They sit here 2-1, after playing three of the toughest teams on their schedule. They are 2-0 in the division, and haven’t played the Bills yet. Mark Sanchez looks like he’s figured something out, gone are the stupid audibles from week 1, instead he’s looking downfield and hitting his targets. The defense did their job, and then the game was put away by a Rex Ryan favorite “ground and pound” drive. Now they get to play the Bills as a reward.