Week 1 of the NFL is in the books, except for the 2 Monday nighters tomorrow. The story today was definitely the Brandon Stockley TD in the final seconds of the Denver-Cincinnati game. Denver ended up with one of the luckiest wins you'll ever see in the NFL. The Bengals were completely in control of this game with just seconds on the clock with Denver backed all the way deep and trailing by a point. Orton stepped back to make another one of his mediocre throws towards Brandon Marshall, who looked clueless most of the day and was not even in same book, let alone the same page as Orton. In addition to all this, he was double covered and since Brandon Stokley was also around the same area, Stokley's defender followed the ball and left Stokley alone. This came back to bite the Bengals in the butt, though you can't really fault the defender for aggressively going after ball. Marshall's defender jumped up and tipped the ball away and just when you thought it was going to fall incomplete, it went straight to Stokley. Stokley caught it and was wide open. There was nobody between him and the end-zone and he scored the game winning, 87 yard TD rather easily. The most interesting part of the play to me was Stokley taking a detour before stepping in to the end-zone since there were no defenders anywhere near and he wanted to burn some more clock. Some guys are just smart like that. Of course his coach Josh McDaniels has been kinda making dumb moves all off-season, but he lucked out with a huge win.
Jay Cutler on the other hand lost the Sunday nighter to Green Bay on a 4 interception night. Aaron Rodgers gets a big 4-Th quarter win and he sure looked like Brett Favre throwing that game winner to Greg Jennings. GB's offense looked horrible, but A-Rod closed the deal at the end. Then Al Harris finished Cutler off with an interception which looked eerily similar to his game ending interception in OT a few years back in the playoffs against Matt Hasselbeck and the Seahawks. The offensive stud of the week though was Drew Brees. This guy is a spectacular QB. It took him a while to kick-start his career, but he has been super lately. I didn't like it when the Chargers let him go in favor of Philip Rivers, but Rivers ain't bad either. I sure hope Rivers aint bad, because I have him in my fantasy roster. But Brees made his fantasy owners very happy today throwing for 358 yards and 6 TDs. Some of his throws are so crisp and on target, it' awesome to watch him play. Speaking of fantasy stars, Adrian Peterson helped his owners today with 180 yards and 3 TDs. AP is the top dog in fantasy these days, but we have been talking about LaDainian Tomlinson like he had a horrible 2008 and he is way past his prime. But you know what, he had 1500+ yards from scrimmage and scored 12 TDs last year. How much were we really expecting from this guy last season? Granted, he didn't run for 1900 yards like AP or close to 2000 yards like he himself did the previous 3 years, but he still had a good season despite the injury and all. He might do great again this season too. He starts off against the Raiders Monday night and of course he kills them. The poor Raiders will start tomorrow and hope not to lose to the Chargers for the 800Th straight time.
Favre didn't look spectacular today, but he didn't have to against the Cleveland Browns. I feel for the Browns fans. The light at the end of the tunnel seems to be from another oncoming train. I don't know about this Brady Quinn dude. He didn't look good at all. Speaking of QBs who didn't look good, Kurt Warner looked very shaky today. The reigning NFC champs lost to the Niners, whose defense looks pretty robust. Their coach Mike Singletary seems to have really improved the team and he is getting a lot of run this season in the Bay Area. He has become the face of the franchise and it will be interesting to see how the Niners do. Matt Hasselbeck and the Seahawks seem to be healthy and good too this season. Cards and Warner better get their act together soon. Looks like the NFC West might be a three horse race. Mark Sanchez looked awesome today. I think the culture of rookie QBs are changing these days. After Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco did well last year - especially Ryan, Sanchez looked on target today (18/31 for 272 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT). May be more college programs are running real pro style offenses these days that prepares these talented guys. Matthew Stafford looked more like a typical rookie though. But he's got an awesome arm for sure. Both Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco did well today. They seemed to be continuing from where they left off. The other QB who seems to be continuing from where he left off is Big Benjamin Roethlisberger. I used to say he is over-rated, but he has become a great QB and in the season opener on Thursday, he did his 4-Th quarter thing again against the Titans after sucking for the first 3 quarters. He is fast becoming as big as the big boys Peyton and Brady. He is good! His pump fakes are awesome. Lets see how Brady does tomorrow coming back from the injury.
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