Not a whole lot to talk about as far as college football this weekend. Texas took care of business against Texas Tech. Tennessee was plenty competitive enough to prove Florida is not in fact the 07 Patriots reincarnate. The biggest thing to happen, of course, was USC being beaten by Washington. Amazing what a little coaching can do. A year ago Washington was completely hopeless, now they grab the USC offensive coordintaor and a year later beat arguably the most talented team in the nation. Guess Pete Carroll really needs somebody to lean on right now.
I'm going to try to cover the baseball playoff races tomorrow...for now, from the NFL....
I had to help move my cousin's stuff and after being promised we'd be done by 1, I of course, didn't get home until about 3. That said, from the bits and pieces of the Jets/Pats game that I saw the Pats continue to look pretty bland. Brady is missing open targets and looks a little uncomfortable preparing to take a hit. Underrated in the whole thing was that Wes Welker was out so Brady was missing his safety valve. Against a fierce pass-rush with a true lockdown #1 CB (Darrelle Revis), that is a tough thing to not have. Credit due to Rex Ryan and the Jets though. They got in Brady's face and shut them down. The first have they pounded the football and were very patient before opening it up for Sanchez a bit in the second half. Brilliant gameplan and execution, the Jets have now placed themselves in the driver's seat in the AFC East.
Oakland won in come-from-behind fashion? When is the last time that happened? Looked like a painful game to watch, but I could be wrong.
New Orleans has an offense.
Frank Gore and Chris Johnson went wild. Gore had over 200 rushing yards on under 20 carries. Meanwhile I don't even want to write out Chris Johnson's stats as he went for 50 points against me in my fantasy league dropping me to 0-2. By the way, the Niners are 2-0.
Buffalo beat Tampa in one of the most boring games I have ever almost watched. I actually stopped flipping over to it during commercials in the Pitt/Chicago game (and this was when it was a 6 point game). It just was so boring. Brought me back to being in Fredonia and seeing all the exciting looking scores at 1 o'clock as the only game on was the Boring Bills. Nice rebound off the heart-breaker, looked for a second like they might repeat the floppage.
Speaking of Pitt/Chicago, that was a pretty boring close game as well. I don't even know if I have a true comment to make about the game. Jeff Reed cost the Steelers the win missing some easy ones.
CBS switched over to the Baltimore/SD game after that. Philip Rivers carved up the Baltimore defense with a steady mix of dump-offs to Darren Sproles and deep balls to Vincent Jackson. Problem for the Chargers was that they missed Tomlinson's nose for the end zone when they got down there. They settled for 5 field goals inside thirty yards. On top of that, they decided to get into a power formation and run the ball with Darren Sproles on 4th and 2 at the end of the game deep in Baltimore territory. An absolutely terrible play-call after Rivers carved up the Baltimore defense to run the speedy but weak Sproles in a power set. That worked right into Baltimore's strength and Ray Lewis dropped Sproles about 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage. to ice the game.
How does it feel to usher your Hey Technology stadium in with a loss, Cowgirls fans? In all seriousness, my thoughts are this: the Giants were mighty fortunate to win last night. There was the interception off Jason Witten's foot. The Manningham bobbled TD after (though to be fair, despite fortune the said Philips interception should have been a TD, so maybe that was just karma). And at the end, the Ratliff deflected ball Eli threw to pick up the first down that resulted in eventually kicking the game-winning field goal. Hell, there was even the Felix Jones fumble that went right into Sinorice Moss's hands which he then fumbled just for the Giants to recover again.
The Cowboys absolutely carved the Giants defense up on the ground after Flozell Adams tripped Justin Tuck and had him sidelined awaiting a MRI. Obviously, Tony Romo is the reason the Giants won. He made a couple terrible passes that resulted in interceptions. The Cowboys secondary was as bad as the Giants run defense though. Giants wideouts were running wide open all day and Eli dissected them with relative ease.
All and all it was an even game that could have went either way and I expect no different when Dallas comes to New York later in the year.
Indy-Miami tonight has the potential to be pretty good. The Colts are missing #2 WR Anthony Gonzalez. The Dolphins got off to a poor start in Atlanta last week as Indy barely held off Jacksonville. Miami should try to get Ronnie Brown going a bit more this week but ultimately you have to expect Peyton Manning to find a way to get the win.
Overrated:
New Orleans Saints: They beat the Detroit Lions and the Kevin Kolb-led Philadelphia Eagles. From all accounts they seem to be the exact same team as the past couple years, explosive offense, no defense. Why are they suddenly considered the class of the AFC?
New York Jets: Like this team, I honestly do. Well-coached, for real defense. Great young quarterback. Going to need them to prove it against a team that can handle the blitz a bit though. Schaub was a statue and Brady looked scared. When it's all said and done the Jets are likely an 8-8 team.
Baltimore Ravens: The defense isn't what it used to be. Flacco has been playing better and a healthy Heap / Ray Rice getting more touches has the offense on the rise. I'm still not convinced they're very good and if the Chargers didn't settle for field goals numerous times inside the 15-yard line they would have beaten them.
Green Bay Packers: They are who we thought they were.
Underrated:
Jacksonville: Couldn't beat the Colts and has some misfortune with fumbles and a blocked kick returned for a TD that put them in a big hole vs the Cards yesterday. Long a quirky team, I feel strongly that this team is not dead at 0-2.
San Diego: Offense is a beast...if they can ever get Merriman to get back to beast status this team is going to be insanely tough.
Indy Colts: I'll say it before tonight..a) I think this is a game Indy could lose...b) No matter what happens tonight I think the Colts are probably the class of the AFC considering how poor New England looks.
One final note, not sure if anyone else caught the Money Mayweather-Manuel Marquez fight Saturday night. Couple things: Mayweather remains the greatest boxer I've ever had the joy of watching. He is far and away the most technically superior pound-for-pound boxer of our generation. He is a ghost. You can't hit him. When you do hit him, it's always as he's hitting you. Marquez is a hall of fame boxer and Mayweather made him look foolish - he didn't lose a single round in my eyes. Mayweather connected on nearly 60% of his punches, Marquez on something like 7%. Ridiculous. After the fight Sugar Shane Mosley bum-rushed a Max Kellerman/Floyd Mayweather Jr. interview calling out Mayweather saying they should fight. Things got quite heated and almost came to blows. Kellerman tried to continue the interview and switched topics, asking a question about why Mayweather chose to fight Marquez to which Mayweahter starting talking about something else..Kellerman asked him to answer the question again and Mayweather grabbed the mic saying "I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about because first off all, you talk too much." Kellerman refused to swallow his pride and ended the interview. After, he gave a speech about how Mayweather hurts himself acting like that. I disagree. Either way, Kellerman could rip it up on the mic, in case some of you are unaware check the video.
