Week 7 revisited

The Eagles' less than impressive victory in Washington mercifully over with, week 7 of the 2009 NFL season is now in the books. My preseason picks, which every day seem sillier and sillier, went 9-4 this week, bringing my record to 73-30 for the season. On to the reflections and the rankings:

Lessons learned from Games I Missed
Buffalo at Carolina: I think everyone learned weeks ago that Carolina was a pretty shitty team, and everyone with their heads anywhere other than their asses always knew Buffalo was one. What's there to learn from this game other than that Ryan Fitzpatrick's brand of mediocrity may be slightly more efficient than Trent Edwards'?

Jets at Oakland: This was one of those games I would've never picked this way if I made the picks this week. Before the season, I thought the Raiders would be the second best team out west at 7-9. Nothing special, but I figured Jamarcus Russell would show some improvement, McFadden and Bush would make for a nice backfield tandem, and their defense would be just good enough to carry them to a handful of wins over teams like Denver and KC. Moreover, I thought the Jets would have a lot of problems offensively and perhaps defensively as well if Sexy Rexy's scheme didn't take hold quickly. Clearly, I know better than all that now. So what did I learn from this game? That even with a quarterback feeling queasy on the sidelines and your most explosive player going out for the season right off the bat due to a naaaaasty injury, there IS ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING EXCUSE TO EVER LOSE TO THE OAKLAND RAIDERS! Jamarcus Russell is still the worst quarterback in football, McFadden is still invisible, their defense is still a bunch of tackling dummies, and Tom Cable, charged with assault or not, is a pathetic excuse for an NFL head coach, hired by a senile old man purely because he was weak enough to be dominated. In other words, I learned, as I already knew, just how disgustingly fucking pathetic the Eagles' loss to Oakland was.

Chicago at Cincinnati: For starters, I owe the Bengals an apology. I declared last week that the wheels were beginning to come off in Cincy, after an uninspired effort both offensively and defensively, in Houston, and a down week for the NFL's leading rusher, Cedric Benson. Clearly, I was wrong. It boggles the mind to think, but after all those years of bungling their way to mediocrity, Marvin Lewis seems to really have his team's ear. I can't really say I'm learning anything seeing Jay Cutler do his usual dance between great games and horrid ones. Being a Chargers apologist of the highest order outside legitimate Charger fans, I've seen this movie plenty of times before.

Cardinals at Giants: The Giants certainly haven't shown well against good competition the last two weeks. Eli played his second straight bad game, which tickles me fuckin pink. Brandon Jacobs gained 76 yards and scored a touchdown to put up easily his best game of the season, but carried the ball a grand total of 13 times, as the G-Men made me seriously wonder if Andy Reid was doing a guest play calling stint, throwing the ball 37 times against just 25 runs. If not for the the Yankees clinching the pennant and the "sportswriters" acting like it's amateur hour at Caroline's, there would probably be some pretty intense heat coming down on Tom Coughlin for totally abandoning his offensive philosophy in a game in which he never trailed by more than 10 points. Why on earth, given how god awful Eli looked Sunday, would you pick that night to throw the ball 60% of the time? It isn't as if the Cardinals were dicing them to pieces, as they're sometimes prone to do. Kurt Warner completed just barely better than 15% of his passes, and the Cards couldn't muster any kind of a running game despite seeing pass coverage looks all night. So, ole red face, you might wanna give Mariano Rivera a call and perhaps send him a fruit basket for keeping the hounds off your moronic ass for a minute, because there is no explanation for that kind of idiocy.

Power Rankings

1. Saints - I genuinely don't believe there's a defense that can stop this offense when they need to score. Let me be the first I know of to say it: I could see this team staying undefeated all the way through the regular season.

2. Colts - Peyton didn't throw for 300 yards this week, for the first time all season, but still managed to emerge victorious from his third straight bye week. Things get marginally tougher the next couple of games with San Francisco and Houston coming to town, but let's be honest: even Peyton is probably getting anxious for his annual showdown with the Patriots in week 10, just so he can see something resembling competition.

3. Vikings - I know they lost. Common sense should dictate that I put the team that beat them, who were only a few spots back last week, ahead of them. But here's what I saw: two drives that likely would've won the game for the Vikings ended in the 4th quarter by long turnover returns for touchdown. Those are what we like to call "freak plays," especially the second one, a screen pass to the normally sure-handed Chester Taylor for what would have almost surely been a first down if he held on, which bounced right off of Taylor's hands, past his blockers, into the waiting arms of Kieran Fox. Play that 4th quarter 9 more times and I genuinely believe we wouldn't see another Steelers win.

4. Broncos - Common sense also dictates that the Broncos can't slide on their bye week. I'm not putting them ahead of Minnesota right now because, honestly, I still think Minnesota would rip the Broncos to shreds right now if you put them on the same field. So the guys in the bumblebee uniforms stay put for the moment.

5. Patriots - There were a few minutes, before the Bucs scored their lone touchdown in London, when the Patriots lead their last two opponents by a combined 80-0. Anyone wanna doubt Brady's knee or Belichick's scheme anymore? Their upcoming bye week is gonna give them the most competition they've seen in weeks. It should at least be interesting to see how things play out when the Dolphins head to Boston on Sunday, but given the Dolphins' likely fragile state of mind after blowing a big lead to the Saints, and the fact that Belichick has had 10 months to think about the fact that he let the wildcat-happy Dolphins beat him twice last year en route to winning the division, I'd be more surprised to see a close game than an absolute annihilation.

6. Steelers - They knocked off the previously undefeated Vikings, which made me thoroughly happy both because I have their defense in fantasy and the Vikings make me as angry as anyone or anything on earth right now, but objectively, what I saw was a defense that played the best 3 quarters I've seen them play all season, and still couldn't manage to stop the Vikings when it counted, if not for Chester Taylor failing to catch a screen pass. I could give a shit less about common sense, power rankings are about what teams I think are better than others, and right now, I think the Steelers got a lucky win against a better team.

7. Bengals - Last week, I ranked them by default. This week, I'm genuinely impressed. Not that there was any individual aspect of their win this week that stood out as something I didn't think them capable of, unless you count resiliency. I figured they'd crumble, as they always have, at the first sign of adversity, coming off their loss to the Texans and finding themselves suddenly tied with a Steelers team they'd beaten just a few weeks ago atop the AFC North. I was wrong, and for the second time, I apologize to the Bengals for underestimating their toughness, both mental and physical.

8. Cardinals - It wasn't a visually impressive performance, but that's all the more reason I respect it so much. The Cardinals went on the road and won a tough, grind it out sort of game against a good team, something which I literally didn't think they were capable of doing. Not even a little bit. If they can mix a couple of these sorts of games in with their typical 100+ passer rating 30 point home performances, there's nothing I can see standing in the way of a repeat as NFC West champs.

9/10. Giants/Eagles - It's a Philly/New York week, though suffice it to say the showdown for the NFC East lead is buried on the undercard for once. But with the two teams set to meet Sunday, and neither doing a damn thing over the last two weeks to inspire much confidence at all, there's really no reason to pretend I can tell the difference between them right now. They're both superbly talented teams, but neither of them can manage to play like it consistently, be it the Giants playing like midgets against the first couple of good teams they've seen this year, or the Eagles doing so against a couple of garbage teams. One of these teams will stay in the top 10 next week, the other one absolutely will not.