2009 Week 4 Recap

Bye Week, Sunday, October 4, 2009

In attendance: Just me & Chef Spouse, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I got home from a 4 day conference in Orlando mid-afternoon Saturday and was in need of a little downtime.

Menu: Chef Spouse's super-yummy cream of tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum!

Stud of the Week: DirecTV's Supercast, hands down. Sunday was killing me - Pats/Ravens playing opposite Bucs/Redskins AND Saints/Jets playing opposite Broncos/Cowboys. Short of running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, what's a football fan to do? Chef Spouse's big brain to the rescue. "Wait! Grab one of the laptops!" Within minutes, TWO games on at once IN THE SAME ROOM. Did you hear that singing? It's the football angels. I'm usually the farthest one can possibly get from being a corporate shill, but that seriously made my whole damn day.

In Eagles news, we managed to avoid the cavalcade of injuries that hit the NFC East yesterday by conveniently not playing. Good move, team! We have enough injured players, thank you very much. And with the Axeman back, it's like old home week. Who's next? Hugh Douglas? Wolverine will decide he's sick of the thin air in Denver and come on back? Jaws decides to drop the microphone and suit up?

In other news, it's great that the NFL strongly supports Breast Cancer Awareness month. Really - there are lots of of female football fans, and the males all at least have a mother, if not sisters, wife, girlfriend, cousins, nieces, daughters, etc. What's not great? Pink gloves and/or shoes with red uniforms. Purple? Sure. Green? Yeah, but not Jets green. Blue? Fo' shizzle. Orange? HELL NO.

OK, enough foreplay - on to the games.

Skins over Bucs. The Skins did EVERYTHING they could to hand that game over. Jason Campbell had an 18 QB rating in the first half. 18! It was painful to watch. And yet, they won. Conclusion? Yes, the Bucs really are *that* bad. Dear Josh Johnson: look down at your chest. Is it covered in a midnight green jersey with a big #5 in the middle? No? They don't expect to scramble around for 8-10 seconds and then make something happen, with your arm OR your legs. If you ain't McNabb, it ain't happening, son. Edited to add: the Bucs have fired placekicker Mike Nugent. Not surprising given the fact that he couldn't find the middle of the uprights with graph paper, a protractor, and his high school geometry teacher. Not that a few field goals would have helped against the Giants, but it made the difference Sunday.

Pats over Ravens. OK, am I the ONLY ONE who noticed that the officiating was TERRIBLE in that game? Look, if you want the Pats to win so bad that you're willing to call roughing the passer on any defender in the same ZIP code as Rocks Brady, you really need to quit being a zebra and run a Tom Brady fan club full time. Meanwhile, the refs were too busy passing Rocks mash notes to actually call anything on that Pats. Meanwhile? Coming after DMac? Chainsaws are allowed (on even-numbered weekends). By the way, Trent Dilfer is freaking out on this topic on Monday Night Countdown as I type this. You know what's common in all the roughing calls? White QB. You know what's common in all the calls that weren't made and should have been? Black QB. I'm just sayin'.

Bears over Lions. Do *either* of those teams have any defense at all? Has the NFC North become the "no D" zone? 48-24? And all the Lions games have been like that so far. Unfortunately, the Lions may have lost their rookie QB to a knee injury. OK, maybe NEXT year is the year they get it together.

Bengals over Browns. It took them all but 4 seconds of the ENTIRE overtime to do it, but the Bengals are 3-1, kids. Yep, leading the tough AFC North with the Ravens. Hm - that whole tie thing? Maybe it's the Bengals....

Texans over Raiders. Well, yes. Good teams beat teams they're supposed to beat. Average teams beat teams that really suck (see below: Redskins over Rams). Did you hear? Texans are showing signs of H1N1. That's not good.

Colts over Seahawks. Is anyone else worried about the fact that Peyton Manning just plays on, no matter what? No Tony Dungy - no problem. No Marvin Harrison - no problem. Is he actually the Terminator?

Jaguars over Titans. Man. The Titans were a sexy pick for AFC South this year. Not for me - I picked the Texans. Because I'm crazy like that. But still. 0-4 is not good. Ouch.

Giants over Chiefs. Um, yeah. But they only beat them by 11 points. Slackers. Also, they're reporting that Eli Manning's heel problem is plantar fasciitis. I've had that, and it hurts like a mo-fo. And can take MONTHS to go away (particularly if you're still active). Good news for us!

Dolphins over Bills. Just when I give up on the Dolphins, they win a game. What's the over/under on TO throwing Trent Edwards under the bus?

Saints over Jets. Drew Brees had a relatively bad day, and the Saints made Mark Sanchez look like the rookie he is anyway. Call me crazy, but I see another post-season Eagles/Saints matchup in this year's NFC Championship game. You know how I was all "the Ravens have O - be afraid." Well, the Saints have D, so you know what to do. Duck & cover.

Broncos over Cowboys. Kyle Orton did everything he could to lose that game, and Champ Bailey and Wolverine were all, "No way, man." And thank you for that. It wasn't pretty, but it was a win. And Tonyboy had another bad game, which always makes me happy, because it's bad for his fragile ego. Edited to add: Wilbon's column this morning reminded me of something I should have mentioned - THE play of the game was Brandon Marshall's sweet go-ahead touchdown, where he smoked about 1/2 the Cowboys defenders, slipped about a dozen tackles, and found the end zone. Wanna watch it again? Me, too.



Wilbon also wondered why Romo chose to throw at Champ Bailey so much. I don't think Romo *wanted* to throw at Champ. I think his thought process went something like: "Hmmm - where to put the ball? Option A: throw towards Champ. Damn, he's be to, like, 9.7 million Pro Bowls. That's not good. Option B: Shit! Is that Brian Dawkins?!? When did he become a Bronco? I'm still having nightmares about him from the last game of the 2008 season. And the last game of the 2006 season. Is he stalking me? Isn't that illegal? Champ it is."

49ers over Rams. On Football Night in America, Keith Olbermann was all: Spags is like, "Is there a spot on your coaching staff?" to Mike Singletary. HEE! Also, true. Poor Spags. The Rams are epically bad. Hey, they lost to the Redskins.

Steelers over Chargers. So the Steelers problem this year has been blowing 4th quarter leads. And they went into the half at 21-0. And the Chargers had a terrible first possession after the half. And the Steelers scored again, going to 28-0. And Chef Spouse and I went up to bed, thinking the game was O-V-E-R. And the Chargers brought it back to 38-28. The Steelers are not getting past the Ravens (who should have won their game with the Pats this week had everyone not been too busy kissing Tom Brady's ass) this year.

Final thought: Go Pack! Edited to add: the Pack, sadly, did not go. Their main issue seems to be that their QB has trouble completing passes from a sitting position. I know they've had some injuries, but their O line is REALLY bad. Y'all need to give that boy some protection, or he'll be on IR by week 8! And even with that, they ALMOST pulled it off. Damn. Another week (or maybe season) of "That Brett Favre. Isn't he DREAMY?" from all the commentators.