Week 2 Reaction
By Staff
Around the NFC East
You never know what you are going to get out of the Washington Redskins. I wasn’t sure if they could beat the New Orleans Saints, but at the same time I knew I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. The Redskins are an inconsistent team who can look like contenders on one Sunday and look like pretenders only a week later. Kind of like the New Orleans Saints, so when you put the two teams on the same field and have them play each other, well the game they produced is the exact game one would expect.
It was a BIG win for the Redskins who now have Arizona in Week 3 and Dallas and Philly looming in back-to-back weeks in 4 and 5. It was important for the Redskins to win yesterday because then it would have place a lot of pressure on them to beat the Cardinals otherwise they are looking at a possible 0-5 start with the Cowboys and Eagles following. There is still a good chance the Redskins end Week 5 with a 1-4 record, but it is a lot easier now for them to pick up a second win with no pressure as they have some breathing room with their victory against the Saints.
Around the League
I don’t know how anyone who loves football and the NFL can go without reading Peter King and his Monday Morning Quarterback every Monday on SI.com.
The San Diego Chargers better not be ranked in the Top 10 and possibly even the Top 15 of any of the major power rankings this week. The Chargers are the most overrated team in the entire NFL and I apologize to the Eagles and Cowboys for my comments at the end of last week when I called those two teams the most overrated. They still ranked 2nd and 3rd, but they don’t compare to the San Diego Chargers.
Here’s the deal with the blown call in the Chargers game. Don’t put yourself in a hole so big to the Denver Broncos that you have to fight and claw your way back only to then let the Broncos go down the entire field with little time left on the clock. Then, a botched fumble call is the reason that your team lost the game? Really? It reminds of hitters in baseball hit a grounder into a double play and then when they are hustling down the first base line to try to beat out the double play and they think they are safe, they argue with the umpire that they made it. Don’t put yourself into the situation where you are trying to beat out a double play, the same way the Chargers shouldn’t have put themselves in a situation where they needed Jay Cutler to create a controversial turnover.
The fact of the matter is that the Chargers have lost to the Carolina Panthers (2-0) and the Denver Broncos (2-0) and are now 0-2 themselves. They are just not a good football team.
The “Bill Belichick is a genius” club is out in full today to praise the “mastermind” coach. The Patriots are 2-0. They have beaten the Kansas City Chiefs (who lost to the Oakland Raiders, by the way) by a touchdown and the New York Jets by nine points. The old saying goes “you are what your record says you are,” but there are exceptions to the rule and this is one of them. The New England Patriots will not, that’s right, will not be a factor in the road to Super Bowl XLIII. And if their easy schedule (ranked easiest in the entire NFL) does somehow land them a wild card spot, they will dispatched in the first round.
Peyton Manning further proved why he is the best quarterback in the league (even when Tom Brady is active) with his performance against Minnesota. Down 15-0 late, showing no signs of life, with a backup offensive line, no running game, and a shaky Adam Vinatieri, Peyton Manning led the Colts to an incredible comeback win on the road to silence the critics that the Colts are on a downfall. If the Colts are capable of a game like that without Jeff Saturday snapping the ball to Peyton and without Dallas Clark in the lineup and with a roster of rookie offensive linemen, imagine what they are capable of when they get healthy. That’s right, the Colts are the team to beat in the AFC.
The Packers are off to a good start and it has a lot to do with Aaron Rodgers showing the nation why the Packers wanted Brett Favre out of Green Bay. While Favre was throwing interceptions in East Rutherford, Rodgers was stating a fourth quarter rally to bring the Packers to 2-0 on the season. Unless the Bears can pull off some big wins, the AFC North has already been clinched by the team from Wisconsin.
When Tom Brady went down for the season, I told my friends that given the Bills late season play in 2007 combined with the way they looked in Week 1, I thought they were now the favorite to win the AFC East. And what do they do the following? They go on the road and defeat another overrated team in the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Bills are now tied with the Patriots at 2-0 atop the division and have Oakland, St. Louis, and Arizona before their Week 6 bye. 5-0 anybody?
The Sunday night game was a close game, but it shouldn’t have been that close. A 10-6 win for the Steelers over the Browns in what easily could have been a two or three touchdown win for Pittsburgh. Mike Tomlin is not a very good coach and he showed it last night as he only allowed the Steelers to put 10 points on the board with some strange play calls and bad decisions against a Cleveland team that looked awful. Romeo Crenell’s Browns (0-2) better get their act together quickly or his contract extension will become a hot topic in Cleveland in the NFL news. All in all a so-so Sunday night game.
Things should get a lot more interesting tonight at Texas Stadium.