In attendance: Chef Spouse, Shoegal (after a month's absence), Ex-Navy Cheesehead, two nOObs who are good friends but only made it for the first half of the game and have to at least hit a full game before they get named.
Menu: roast chicken, French style green beans, potatoes with butter and garlic, really good wine, chocolate chip cookies.
Stud of the week: Asante Samuel, who picked off Peyton Manning twice. Peyton only has four INTs on the season. And, less obviously but more importantly, Asante shut down Pierre Garcon. Kurt Coleman gets a shout-out too for being a gentleman about a BS "penalty."
This was an all-out team effort. Mike Vick was impressive, throwing for a TD, running for a TD, and racking up nearly 300 yards in total offense, also taking him within about 25 yards of overtaking Steve Young to go to #2 behind Randall Scramble on the all-time rushing list for QBs. LeSean had almost 100 yards and DeSean had over 100 yards. Maclin added another 50. Akers hit everything.
And our D. Well, let's talk about that for a minute. I was FLIPPING out about the bad officiating. Chef Spouse was all "calm down." HELLS no. During the Packers' shellacking of the Cowboys, I popped over to Blogging the Boys to see how the fans were taking it (unprintably not well, for the record), and COWBOYS FANS were talking about how the Eagles had gotten totes screwed on the officiating. When your biggest rivals are all, "Dude! That's not fair!" you know you're getting wrecked. It was epic. There's bad calls, and then there's bad calls that hands the Colts 14 points.
Austin Collie? Yeah, I'm sorry he got knocked out, and I'm glad he's OK, but he caught the ball, started running, got hit, coughed it up, and Quintin Mikell recovered and took off. Or not. Maybe you give the ball back to the Colts, who go on to score. And Trent Cole BRUSHING PEYTON MANNING'S HELMET?!? C'mon man! I'm sorry he's such a little girl that he gets upset if you muss his hair, but give me an f'ing break. Not only was it 4th down, which would've produced a turnover on downs, but Peyton then fumbled and once again, the Eagles recovered. Or not. Once again, maybe you give the ball back to the Colts, who SCORE AGAIN. Are we sure this team of zebras hadn't bet on the game?
Andy's now a perfect 12-0 after the bye. So clearly, if he's got two weeks to get the team ready for any opponent, he's unstoppable. Hm...what if all the teams played every other week? Between that and a proposed 18 game season, we could have football nearly year-round! Who's with me?
Oh - and that Sunday Night Football matchup with the Giants in two weeks? Epic. Can I get an "amen"?
Around the rest of the NFL...
I'm 10-2 on this week so far. Love The System. The System is the boss of you.
Falcons over Buccaneers: OK, so there's 5-2 and then there's 5-2. (Well, actually, now there's 6-2 and 5-3.) The Bucs are a nice story this year, but their schedule's about to get a lot tougher.
Ravens over Dolphins: One of my misses this week, and it wasn't even close. The Dolphins looked completely out of sorts all day long. Chad Henne threw 3 picks, and the Fins were only able to rush for about 20 yards in the entire second half. Not pretty.
Bears over Bills: The thing about the Bills is that they're mostly not getting blown out this year (other than the Jets and Packers, of course), but they just can't seem to win games. 0-8 is U-G-L-Y.
Saints over Panthers: Did I mention that the Panthers are really bad this year? I think John Fox is the second longest-tenured head coach in the NFL to Big Red, and the way things are going this year, Andy's about to be the undisputed king of that hill.
Browns over Patriots: OK, I missed this one, too, but did ANYBODY have the Browns? ANYBODY? (cue the tumbleweed and the coyotes)
Jets over Lions: The Lions are another team that's way better than their record. But Matt Stafford's shoulder is f-ed up again, and I'm starting to wonder how long his career's going to be. Also? Jim Schwartz? If your place kicker goes down, you might want to give your punter a shot at the extra point, rather than having Ndamukong Suh try it. Because, you know, your punter actually KICKS FOR A LIVING, rather than being a fairly talented defensive tackle. Really, DTs spend VERY little time kicking footballs on a regular basis. Trust me on this one.
Chargers over Texans: Told you so! Also, poor Former Team of Destiny. Also, you're welcome for the thing with the Colts, keeping you in the race for AFC South.
Vikings over Cardinals: I can't get excited about this. Funny how Brett Favre always seems to feel just fine when they win, and whine about how this, that, and the other thing hurts when they lose. Also, I don't know what's going on between him and Chilly, but it ain't good.
Giants over Seahawks: Man, I thought this was going to be the worst beat down of the week.
Raiders over Chiefs: Third OT game of the day, and apparently the officiating there was pretty poor, too. Think Jason Campbell's glad to be the hell out of DC? I'm going to go with "yes."
Packers over Cowboys: You know how I was saying just a minute ago that I thought the Seahawks' loss was going to be the ugliest of week 9? Not so much. Wade Phillips has been kicked to the curb, but frankly, I don't see that Jason Garrett is an upgrade. Also, looking at the even-worse disaster in Dallas since Tony Romo went down, I've really come to appreciate the fact that AR always seems to have a good QB in waiting. Well, other than in 2005, but that was some kind of cosmic thing, so I can't really blame him. Kitna? Not a good QB. Good luck, Jason Garrett (not really), and if I were you, I'd freshen up my resume.
Edited to add two things:
1. I would be remiss if I didn't give a big shout-out to the Eagles' offensive line. They busted ass to keep Dwight Freeney off Michael Vick. I'm pretty sure at one point, I saw SIX guys on Freeney. I'm not sure how that left anyone to do anything else, but they were largely successful. Good job, y'all!
2. Steelers over Bengals: SO close. Then again, there's a reason they're known as "The Bungles."
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