Week 6 revisited

My picks took a slight step back this week, from 11-3 in week 5 to 10-4 in week 6, bringing my overall record to 64-26. I'd like to be pleased with my picks this week, but three of the four games I missed involved the three teams which own my heart. Still, for preseason picks, I'd have to say my record has been beyond acceptable so far. On to the self-flagellation!

Lessons Learned from Games I Missed

Kansas City at Washington: I learned that even with my back literally turned to it for the entirety of the game, a football game can still bore me to death. Just knowing that that putrid display of heartless schmucks masquerading as NFL teams was going on behind me was enough to make me want to stop watching football. Todd fucking Collins played half of that game at quarterback, didn't even surpass Jason Campbell's 89 passing yards, and his team lost by a total of 8 points. Why? Because the Chiefs are every bit as bad. 6 field goals, and a last-minute safety, that's all your scoring in this game. I'm all for defensive struggles, but not when they're happening by default. It's just so sad that the Eagles are inevitably going to lose to the Redskins at some point this year.

Buffalo at NY Jets: As the second half of this game started, right about the moment the Eagles were finishing up their performance as tackling dummies at Raiders defensive practice, Michelle was ripping poor Mark Sanchez apart, despite a Jets halftime lead, for his struggles with the wind. At the time, I didn't really have much of a response, other than to say "he's a rookie from Cali, what do you expect on the first wintry Sunday of the year?" Since then, I've had some time to think, and I've come up with a better response. Eli Manning, Super Bowl winner, looked every bit as bad as Sanchez in the divisional playoffs last year against the Eagles. As did Brett Favre, Super Bowl winner, in the NFC Championship Game the previous year against the Giants. There are two common threads in all of these games: heavy winds, and immense amounts of pressure on the quarterbacks. It's easy to blame the wind, and to make fun of Sanchez, and there's probably some validity to it. But pressure makes every quarterback look bad, and until I see Sanchez missing open receivers on a windy day despite having time, I'm holding off on that. Truth be told, the biggest reason the Jets lost the game had nothing to do with the offense, and will likely be the biggest reason their season goes in the tank from here: Kris Jenkins left the game and was lost for the season, and immediately, the Bills started owning time of possession, field position, and the scoreboard. Unless the Jets can find a very, very large, very, very strong man to take his place, Sexy Rexy's defense is probably gonna get gashed by opposing running backs on a weekly basis.

Denver at San Diego: Despite my strongest hopes, I didn't really think the Chargers had much of a chance going into this game. They've proven themselves, on a weekly basis, to be a defense which just isn't capable of tackling anyone, and to make matters worse, they're also doing a worse job of protecting Philip Rivers with every passing week. They have no real running game to speak of, and of course, they're still coached by a complete fucking idiot. But I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the Broncos who, yet again, disproved a notion I had about them. San Diego essentially neutralized both the Broncos' running game, and their top two wide receivers, and Kyle Orton still played a nearly flawless game, connecting on better than 2/3 of his passes and continuing to protect the football as well as any passer in the game this season. I'm officially a believer in everything the Denver Broncos are selling.

Philadelphia at Oakland: As the 1:00 games came to a close, Michelle and I headed home from Josie's in spite of the Eagles not being on TV in NYC. My rationale, as I've found myself saying more and more frequently over the last couple of seasons, was "if the Eagles aren't gonna slaughter this team, I don't wanna have to watch it." Sadly, it's getting pretty damn easy to know which of those sorts of games I don't wanna watch. Just as much as you can take it to the bank that the Eagles are gonna win their first game after the bye as long as Andy Reid is the coach, you can pretty much count on them to play to the level of whatever competition they find when they go on the road. Sometimes, that means giving New England a hell of a scare during their 16-0 season, and much more often it means playing a shitty game with a 75-25 pass-run ratio against some pathetic excuse for a football team, in this case the Raiders. I can't even get mad about it anymore, because it wasn't even remotely hard to see it coming. It's cliche at this point to talk about Andy Reid's refusal to run the ball more, and obvious that it costs the team games. What I have to keep reminding myself of, and what I think just about everyone else in Eagledom has completely forgotten at this point, is that when it comes to games the team needs, the ones in late November, December, and January, he always remembers to run the ball. At this point, I have pretty much adopted the rationale that he ignores the run early in the season to keep his backs fresh. It's all that keeps me sane. But as long as Andy Reid is the coach, which is gonna be the case for a while, there are gonna be games like this.

Power Rankings

1. Saints - The Saints made Eli Manning look like Kevin Kolb. Down the road, that probably isn't gonna seem like that big of a stretch, from what we saw of Kolb in his second start, but it tells me a hell of a lot about the Saints' defense right now. They come to play every single week, and even when they give up some points, they have the pass rushers to make quarterbacks hang balls up in the air, and the center fielder in Darren Sharper to run under it and make them pay. I can't call them a complete team because when they have it their way they don't run the ball very much, but they're a team capable of winning all types of games now that their defense can stand up to legitimate offenses.
2. Colts - After a pair of bye weeks (one of which came against the Titans) the Colts get back in action this Sunday in St. Louis. How is it fair that the Colts get to take three weeks off from football and get two wins in that time?
3. Vikings - I hate this team so much it makes me wanna cry. It's completely irrational, they've done nothing to me, but they just make my stomach turn. Fuck Adrian Peterson for making it look so easy. Fuck Brett Favre for existing, and for thus far this season looking like the most disciplined, and best, quarterback in the NFL not named Brees or Manning. Fuck Percy Harvin for being friends with Tim Tebow and for not sucking like I expected him to. Fuck all of it. I cannot wait to see it somehow fall apart. It's gotta happen. It simply has to. Doesn't it?
4. Broncos - As I said earlier, I'm sold on this team. How sold? When I picked games before the season, I had them 1-5 entering their upcoming bye, and 2-8 after. If I could amend those picks now, I'd have them winning 8 of their final 10 games, with the only losses on the road at Baltimore and Indianapolis.
5. Patriots - Impressive as it was, a 59-0 win against the Titans really didn't improve the Pats' standing in my eyes at all. But then again, I'm one of the only people in the world who hadn't jumped off their bandwagon to begin with. They jump up two spots because the NFC East teams once ahead of them left no doubt in my mind that right now, the Pats are a better team.
6. Giants - If the Giants had just lost to the Saints, I would've probably only dropped them a slot or two, but they lost quite convincingly, and more importantly, they still can't get Brandon Jacobs going. Ahmad Bradshaw is a perfectly nice complementary back, and he sure did torch the Raiders last week, but if they're gonna be even a decent offensive football team they need play action off of Brandon Jacobs to be a huge weapon, and right now they can't afford to give him the carries needed to establish it. Combine that with injuries to their defensive back seven which, as they seem to for the Giants every year, are beginning to mount, and you have a team which still looks like the best in the NFC East, but not particularly like one of the elite teams in the league.
7. Steelers - People can suck on Rashard Mendenhall's dick all they want, and lord knows they seem to want to right now, but the Steelers didn't run the ball particularly well either of the last two weeks, against Lions and Browns defenses which flat out suck. The good news is that Mike Tomlin and co. have clearly moved on from the idiotic notion that they can suddenly make their offense a power running offense when that just isn't what they are. I spent over a year feeling like the only person in America who noticed the Steelers had an elite passing offense, and finally, the world seems to be catching up. But until they play against a couple of decent teams, it's hard to have much of an idea right now where their defense is. From the looks of it, I don't think it would've held up to any of the teams ahead of them if they had played them in the last month.
8. Falcons - I saw exactly none of this game, thanks to the Phillies' 11-0 beatdown of the Dodgers which was on at the same time, but I'm surprised/mildly impressed to see the Falcons holding a decent offensive football team like the Bears to 14 points. Then again, the Bears continue to get absolutely no production from their running game. Jay Cutler had more yards on one of his three carries than Matt Forte had on his 15 combined. I'll be more willing to consider the possibility that Atlanta's defense doesn't suck when they shut down a team with some kind of balance.
9. Bengals - The wheels may have already started coming off for the cardiac Bengals, as the defensively challenged Texans managed to hold Cedric Benson to 44 yards, which is much more like the Cedric Benson we all know and make fun of. Without being able to use the ground game to control the clock, the Bengals didn't really stand much much of a chance Sunday, and saw their defense allow a season-high 28 points. They don't need huge numbers out of Benson, but they need him to grind it out to have a chance, and I still don't think he can on a weekly basis.
10. Eagles - I don't like putting the Birds here this week. I feel like I should be punishing them for that pathetic excuse for a football game they played in the black hole. But when I look, even through my haze of disappointment, at the bunch of 3-2 teams I've left myself to choose between for the 10 spot, I just can't find one I really believe the Eagles aren't miles ahead of. Playing the way the Eagles did, losing games to the likes of the Raiders, running the ball 14 times in a game, these are all hideous acts unbecoming of one of the top 10 teams in the NFL, but that doesn't preclude the team which committed these sins from being among them. It just makes me wish I could bring myself to hate them.