411's NFL Round Up 10.07.08: Week 5 Edition

Posted by Emmett Wilks on 10.07.2008

News and notes from a surprising NFL weekend in this edition of NFL Round Up!

Hello everyone, and welcome to Week 5 edition of NFL Round Up! I need to mention that I will be taking a two week hiatus from the column so I can go get married to the girl of my dreams this weekend. We're doing a wedding at Disney World in Florida , and if I may say so, it is going to be a rather lavish affair. We shall follow that with a honeymoon in beautiful Las Vegas, easily making this the most anticipated trip of my life. So, the NFL will unfortunately not be atop the priority list, but rest assured, I am very confident that the NFL will go on without me. Another quick thing. For all readers who keep pestering me about mentioning their respective favorite team, I say as politely as possible, ENOUGH. Really, I am attempting to be good-natured about the whole thing. There are a lot of teams in the league, 32 actually. Some are very good, some are very bad. I mention the ones who did something that I personally found compelling, whether that be good or bad. Those people, who keep clamoring for me to mention their team, relax. Your like the folks at concert who keep calling out for a certain song. I'll get to you, don't worry. Keep reading, and every team will be addressed at some point this year. That I promise you.

But enough about me, this is a football column. So, onto the Round Up!


QUICK NOTES


Can anyone properly describe the Arizona Cardinals? A week after an embarrassing, 6 TD passes allowed game against the Jets, the Cardinals defense, paced by defensive end Travis LaBoy's 2 sack, 7 tackle (2 for loss) effort, held the previously unbeaten Bills to just 3 points in the 2nd half for a 41-17 win. Meanwhile, QB Kurt Warner and the offense put up over 40 points against one of the NFL's better defenses. Like I said last week, I will not buy into this team yet, not until they really show me something. But I don't know of any other team that can be as up and down as this crew has demonstrated.




Ernie Sims and the Lions, as well as the Rams, are on the path of historical awfulness

The Detroit Lions and the St. Louis Rams defenses are both flirting with all time worst status right now. Both teams are allowing 36.8 points per game, well above the legendarily awful 1973 Houston Oilers team that allowed an NFL record 447 points for 31.9 points per game over a 14 game season. While each team still has 11 more games to go on their schedule, they still have plenty of time for improvement. But with each team, I have this creeping feeling that we may indeed see a historically bad defense unit, perhaps from each. St. Louis has more potenial for total failure. Not only are they not very talented on defense, they are also inept and miss countless asignments. Each team will win a football game; the odds are in their favor, but as for the final totals for the abysmal defense played by each team, that is something we'll all be watching for.

The new direct snap to the running back craze is really, really fun. When the Dolphins Ronnie Brown used it to help propel his 5 touchdown performance against the Patriots last week, you just kind of knew that this was going to stay in the Dolphins repertoire. Now, other teams have followed suit, including the Patriots who were trounced by it, and are now using the old single-wing, or Wildcat formation. It's things like this, new wrinkles (or more appropriately, newly utilized old wrinkles) that make the NFL game so much fun to watch each week.

While no one in their right mind would debate that Tom Brady was and is the most important New England Patriot, I don't believe it is overly blasphemous to suggest that right now, with Brady done for the year, Randy Moss has taken that distinction. His 66 yard TD catch from QB Matt Cassel in the 1st quarter tied the game at 7 all, but more importantly, changed the whole complexion of how the 49er's were playing the game. After the touchdown (over two defenders), San Fran played back, nervous for another big bomb. That in turn set up the short passing game and efficient running game the Pats used to garner a 30-21 victory. This Pats team is not version 2007, but, even with the Miami debacle, this is still a largely intact crew who went 18-1 last season. With Moss, they still have a big-time play maker, and as he goes, so shall the Pats offense this season.


WEEK 4 BREAKDOWN


Game of the Week

Atlanta- 27 Green Bay- 24

Apologies to my friend and life long Packers fan Derek, but this loss may very well spell the end for the Packers playoff chances. Yes, it is still early, but Green Bay has now lost three straight, and have a schedule that is far from easy. With games against the Indy, Tennessee, Minnesota, Chicago, New Orleans, and Carolina, the Packers may have dropped a "must win" or "easy game" early in the year that will come back to haunt them. With the Bears finally finding their niche in Chicago, it will be tough for Green Bay to make a run at this relatively weak division. But another story came from this game that is just as important. Folks, right now, at this point in the season, the Rookie of the Year debate is not a debate at all. Falcons QB Matt Ryan is one hell of an NFL quarterback. The rookie from Boston College is fast erasing the long, pervasive shadow of Michael Vick and "take the money and run" coach Bobby Petrino. Yes, he did throw a near disastrous interception in the fourth quarter that led to a Packers touchdown, but he and the Falcons held on, securing the win and a 3-2 start. While I still doubt this is a playoff team, there must be some very substantial credit award to Ryan and what he has meant to this team. Through five games, he is 71-for-131 (54.2%) for 863 yards, 4 TD's and 3 picks. Nothing special of course, but this was a 3-13 team last year with few offensive weapons to speak of. He has made teammate Roddy White into an emerging star, and the offense feeds off him. A very wise draft pick indeed.


PLAYER OF THE WEEK



Portis trounced one of the NFL's best rushing defenses in Philadelphia

Clinton Portis- The Redskins running back has been a major factor in the Washington Redskins success this season. And he was the biggest contributor for the Skins in their divisional win against the Philadelphia Eagles. For the day, he rushed 29 times for 149 yards (5.1 YPC) and a TD. Making it all the more impressive was that the Eagles had given up just over 53 yards rushing per game entering the contest.

Runner Up-

Brandon Jacobs- NY Giants running back made the smallish Seahawks unit look like a JV team when he trounced them for 136 yards and 2 TD's in the Giants 44-6 spanking of Seattle.

Ben Roethlisberger- Steelers QB delivered a gusty 302 yard, 3 TD performance to take out a tough Jaguars team. Started the game with a interception for a touchdown, only to be nearly perfect the last three quarters.


BUST OF THE WEEK



It has been a long time since one player so single handedly lost a football game

Sage Rosenfels- Sorry folks, I going to call that leap for a first down in the 4th quarter what it was; STUPID. With a whole collection of commentators needing to preface the play with "it was gutsy" or "it's what you want to see from your quarterback," I was getting really annoyed. This isn't Madden 2009 or the movie Any Given Sunday, plays like that lose you football games. That fumble, forced by LB Raheem Brock, was the big play the Colts defense had been waiting for all day. And to top off the Sunday with a cherry (pun intended), he throw the pick on a potential game winning drive on the Texans last offensive play. Never should one game define a still young NFL career, but I believe it's safe to say the vocal Texan fans who are calling for Rosenfels to become the full time starter will quite down this week.

Runner Up-

San Diego Chargers offense- You can never really tell until after watching film whether it was bad offense, good defense, or a combination of both that leads to just 10 points. My impressions though were more bad offense. The o-line for San Diego looked terrible, LaDanian Tomlinson was a non-factor, and Phillip Rivers was very erratic. Still think this team can win 11 games, but the offense needs to be much, much more consistent than this.


BIGGEST SURPRISE OF THE WEEK

The Tennessee Titans are 5-0

But did anyone believe that this Titans squad would be 5-0 in this first week of October with the way Vince Young started the year and making Kerry freaking Collins as the starter. Their defense has been nothing short of amazing, the running game among the best in the NFL, and the coach Jeff Fischer having each of the 53 guys on that roster buying into the system like never before. Yeah, the Giants are 4-0, the only other unbeaten team.

-tie-

Kyle Orton is the best QB in the NFC North! Count that as a sentence I never thought I would type in this lifetime, but Orton has been sensational the last two weeks, and the once afterthought Bears are atop the NFC North, will a very good outlook for the year. The Brian Urlacher led defense is great, and now they have a playmaking, minimal mistake QB to take the reins of the offense.


LEAST SUPRISING DEVELOPMENT

A Peyton Manning-led football team will win games in the fourth quarter, and will always be competitive.

Now, while most of the success for the Colts this weekend can be directly attributed to the ineptitude of Sage Rosenfels, Manning still deserves his credit as well. Down 27-10, Manning did toss two TD passes with four minutes left in the football game to help lead the Colts to a 2-2 record. While some say the Colts have been lucky, and may very well be 0-4, they could just have easily won their game against the Jaguars and now sit at 3-1. It's all come down to just a handful of plays. Manning has been the most integral part of the whole machine. Now, while that's far from a new statement, it is important to recognize that this aging, injured, and smallish team is still in a competitive place so far this season. And much of that credit showed be given to Manning.

That's it for me, see you all in a couple weeks a married man. Have a good one.