Another week of football is in the books. College Saturday was a disaster as ASU lost to UNLV long before the so-called "big game" next week against Georgia. They may have been looking ahead, or they may just be bad. It's probably the later more than the former. It was a pretty bad week for the Pac-10 as Cal lost at Maryland and UCLA got blanked 59-0 by BYU. The only good news of the week was the Trojans crushing the overrated Ohio State Suckeyes 35-3. That'll shut them up for a week or 2. The surprising result of the week was Notre Dame beating Michigan 35-17. I mean they are both bad, but I am surprised every time the Domers win these days. Auburn beat Mississippi State 3-2. What? Is this football or baseball from the 1960's?
In the NFL, another interesting week. For the second straight week, Minnesota showed us how to waste the prime of a great running back. They lost 18-15 to the Colts since they couldn't score TDs. Adrian Peterson ran for 160 yards and all the Vikings could do with it was score field goals. Of course if you stay close to Peyton, he is going to pass you by sooner or later and thats exactly what he did. The Vikings D was so good, but you can't keep Peyton down for that long. You got to score TDs and put some distance and pressure on him. I think it's time for Gus Frerotte to step in. It's not acceptable that the Vikings are 0-2, the same record as Kansas City with 10 times the talent except for one QB.
How bad is Kansas City if they are losing 23-8 to the Oakland Raiders? McFadden rushed up and down the field for 164 yards and Justin Fargas and Michael Bush combined for 133 more. For the Chiefs, Larry Johnson looked listless. If he loses his job today, he might not even get a job as Michael Bush's backup. I would set 8 as the over-under for the number of games before Herm Edwards gets fired. His team is pathetic. Another coach in trouble could be Marvin Lewis as the Cincinnati Bengals continued their slide from last season with a 24-7 loss to Tennessee. How can the Bengals score just 7 points with Ocho Cinco, TJ Housh and Carson Palmer?
As for the good teams. Aaron Rodgers is a stud! He had a dream first half in his game against Detroit. He threw for 328 yards and 3 TDs in the game. The Giants won again, but then again it was against the Rams, another rotten team. New England won against Favre and the Jets as they scored just 19 points and won with an all-around game. Thats the new Patriots for you. Matt Cassel is not going to throw for 50 TDs this season and Moss may not run wild, but he'll win enough games as their starting QB. By the way, Sammy Morris had stats of 0 yds rushing and 1 rushing TD. Makes me very happy as the fantasy owner of Lawrence Maroney! Kurt Warner had 361 yards and 3 TDs as both Fitzgerald and Boldin went nuts for the Cards.
The games of the week were clearly the San Diego-Denver contest and the Monday nighter between Philly and Dallas. Philly blew a great chance on the road as they did everything right on offense for a while, but self-destructed late in the game. Donovan McNabb is great, but I got to say, he is still missing something. He doesn't seem to come through at the end. He muffed 2 hand-offs to Westbrook late in the game and the second one came at a very bad time. He seemed to have confused himself and faked a handoff to Westbrook only to actually try and handoff to him after a double-clutch. Of course they didn't connect and the fumble was lost. McNabb looked as good as Romo and the boys, but he just could not finish.
Romo is clearly one of the best QBs in the league. It's amazing how suddenly many of these young QBs are turning out to be very good. Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler and Philip Rivers being the other good ones. The surprise to me is Philip Rivers. He was shaky even late last season and he seems to have grown leaps and bounds since the playoffs last year under Norv Turner. Both him and Cutler were near perfect in that Denver-San Diego game. Shanahan pulled a big one when he went for 2 at the end. You almost never see this in football. May be in College once a year, but never in the NFL. Thats shows you his confidence in Cutler and the offense.
But the story of the game were the 2 bad calls that went against the Chargers. The non-call on the fumble at the end before the Denver TD, which even Cutler accepts was a fumble, was a horrible call. It was so obvious that I walked away from the TV when that happened and completely missed the ending because I thought the Chargers have sealed the win with that fumble. I was shocked later when I learnt that Denver won that game. Denver also got the ball on a supposed San Diego fumble in the first quarter which was not a fumble. Turner challenged it in time, but they couldn't overturn it because the replay machine did not work. What the hell is going on with the NFL? I don't know why bad luck always seems to chase Norv Turner. But at least he has a good team and a good QB. They should be fine eventually though LT looks a little hurt.
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