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NFL week seven recap + The Monday night pick
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There were only three games yesterday that were intriguing at all. The rest of them played out they way that the script was written for them. The Giants – Cardinals game offered up a few surprises as to vulnerability of the Giants defense. The Minnesota – Pittsburgh game gave a sneak preview of what to expect from Brett Favre in big games and the Miami – New Orleans game erased any doubt that folks might have about the saints.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Saints are the real deal. The boys from New Orleans traveled to Miami yesterday, where they immediately spotted the Dolphins 21 points. Three early turnovers put the Saints in the hole and gave the Fins what seemed to be an insurmountable 24-3 lead.
The trouble is that what seems to be and what is are two totally separate issues when you are dealing with Drew Brees. When you give a quarterback that is playing at the level that Brees is an offense that features two strong backs, a speedster and a reception committee that is the envy of the NFL, no lead is insurmountable.
Feeding off of a Darren Sharper pick six, the Saints turned the tables on Miami and scored 36 points in the second half to take home a 46-34 win.
It was the most impressive comeback win that I have seen in the 2009 season. The comeback answered a few questions about the character of the Saints team. Where as there had never been any doubt about the offenses ability to put points on the board, there had been mumbles about the defense and whether or not they would fold like a lawn chair in the face of adversity. It was obvious yesterday that they won’t.
The comeback also cemented the Saints as my favorite to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Philly be damned.
The Vikings went into Pittsburgh with an unblemished record and showed us exactly why they were six and half point underdogs going into the game.
Call this one any way that you see it, but when you get down to it, the Vikings got to see exactly what they bargained for in Brett Favre. You can argue that the fumble that was returned for a touchdown could have happened to anyone and I will agree with you. I will however throw in the caveat that a quarterback with nineteen years worth of experience in the league should not have been holding the ball like a loaf of bread while a pocket collapses around him. It just shouldn’t happen. I will further argue that these things seem to happen to Favre quite a bit in big games when the chips are down and the game is on the line.
You could argue that Chester Taylor should have caught the pass that turned into the pick six that sealed the deal for the Steelers and I will simply tell you to refer to my previous statement. These things either happen to Favre in big games, or he tries to do too much and things like pick sixes and fumble returns for touchdowns are the result.
Congratulations to Omar Epps, Dick LeBeau and the Steelers defense.
Some folks will call it a shock. Others saw it coming. The last quasi-surprise of the day was Arizona beating the Giants 24-17. The only thing that I can say about this game is that the G-men need to shore up that secondary if they are going to get back to the form that took them to a Super Bowl win a couple of years ago. The Saints exposed the weakness last week and the Cards exploited it last night.
There is another trend shaping up with the Cards. They are undefeated on the road this season. This is something that might bear watching.
Jake Delhomme threw another three picks yesterday. How long can John Fox stand by this guy??? Does the man not know that if he doesn’t make a change soon that he is going to be on the unemployment line with Jim Zorn at the end of the season??? The Panthers dominated the Bills in every statistical category….and still lost the game due to Delhomme’s ineptitude.
Maybe Fox can call on Vinny Testaverde or Gus Frerotte as a stop gap solution until he finds someone that can remember what color jerseys that Panthers are wearing on any given Sunday.
I am having trouble figuring Atlanta out. They Show up and act like studs for two weeks in a row and then let the Cowboys, (another team that is struggling with its identity), run them out of the stadium. I guess that the best thing that you can say about the Falcons right now is that they look like they might be one of the better second tier teams in the league and in the NFC, that should be enough to get them into the playoffs.
Oakland embarrassed themselves again. The Jets ran over them like a runaway steam roller in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Jamarcus Russell showed his finest bustdog millionaire form and by the end of the game, the Raiders were playing for an empty stadium. The strange thing about Jamarcus is that he took absolutely no responsibility for this loss. How in the world can Russell purport to be the leader of a football team and not even acknowledge his role in a beat down of this magnitude???
That’s why the Eagles loss to the Raiders amazes everyone. Andy Reid literally had to go out and find a way to lose to the Raiders last week.
Cincinnati took Chicago apart at Paul Brown yesterday. I do not know what got into the Stripes, but they definitely showed the Mr. Hyde side of their personality and ran roughshod over the Bears. They even left Cedric Benson, who felt as if he were maligned when he left the Bears, in the game when they were ahead by 35 points.
I do not know if Chicago is simply a team that will not or cannot perform on the road, but there seems to a trend shaping up with the Bears as far as road games go.
Take it from a guy that has lost bets on the Bears for the last two weeks: DO NOT BET THE BEARS ON THE ROAD….THEY SUCK OUT THERE.
As I said at the beginning of this article, the rest of the games shaped up pretty much like you would expect them to. The Chargers slapped the snot out of the lowly Chiefs. Indy took the Rams to task to remain undefeated. The Rams remain over defeated. The Packers simply housed the Browns and The Pats body slammed the Bucs in London.
The only other game that held any modicum of my interest was the Texans and the 49ers. Houston jumped out to a 21-0 lead before Mike Singletary benched Shaun Hill in favor of Alex Smith, who rallied the 49ers to three touchdowns, before falling 24-21. I would say that Smith reclaimed the starting job for the ‘Niners. He showed signs of the form that made him the number one overall pick five years ago. There might be some fantasy implications there.
In baseball news:
The World Series is set. It will be the Yankees that take on the Phillies. So much for my prediction of an LA freeway series. Look for one dinger after the next in this series. I am going to go with the Yanks, simply because I think that they have better pitching, but I honestly think that in the long run, this series is going to be about which team out slugs the other.
Tonight’s pick:
I am going to give Andy Reid one more chance to show that he has even a modicum of common sense. I am taking the Eagles and giving the points, despite the fact that the Redskins have the third ranked pass defense in the league and can’t stop the run, (sound familiar???). I know deep in my heart that this is going to prove too much of a temptation for Reid and he is going to throw the ball more than he did against the Raiders.
I was going to say that I have to go with the team that has actually beaten someone other than St. Louis and Tampa, but the Eagles wins are also less than impressive, so I guess that I’ll simply say that I think that Jim Zorn and Sherm Smith will bollix the’Skins worse than Reid will the Eagles.
As usual, thanks for stopping by and reading this tripe
