It’s pretty easy to see that this year’s London Bowl was far superior to last season’s slop-fest. But anytime you matchup two teams that have electric offences and suspect defences, well the crowds will roar as they regret putting more money on the “Over” line. But what you really have to take away from the Saints victory over the Chargers is that San Diego — a pre-season Super Bowl favourite to some — is now pretty much finished. A team with five losses in 16 games isn’t really considered a solid title contender, much less a team with five losses in the first eight games. San Diego has got to stop with these perennial slow starts and get kicked into motion early to stop putting themselves in holes like this.
The Saints on the other hand, well at 4-4 and in the toughest division in football this season, well that’s no gimme either. They’re actually sitting in last place of the NFC South, behind 4-3 Atlanta who lost in Philly yesterday.
It’s nice to see that Dallas’ defence finally started playing the way a team that has five Pro Bowlers should. Although Jeff Garcia did look pretty bad — not as bad as Brad Johnson though. The Cowboys seriously need to look into getting a better backup to Romo for next season because third-stringer Brooks Bollinger is behind Johnson on the depth chart for a reason.
Are the Colts really done? The Titans are as tough as they come but that game last night was pretty much must win for Indy. They now have to finish 8-1 against a tough schedule to win the division — and that’s only if the Titans finish 3-6 (Thanks to Peter King for pointing out that one.). Peyton Manning might have a lot more time to shot commercials this off-season.
In case you actually cared, the Lions and Bengals are both still winless. At least the Lions looked like they were playing to win though. Cincinnati getting trounced by Houston with Kevin Walter scoring twice is pathetic and the future isn’t looking very bright either without Carson Palmer likely to come to the rescue.
Did you expect Ted Ginn to ever have a career day? This guy has been ridiculed since he was picked over Matt Leinart and he came through in a big game against the Bills.
Finally, so if both these teams have highly-talented tight ends that obviously aren’t working out in their situations, why don’t the Browns and 49ers just exchange Vernon Davis for Kellen Winslow? It almost makes enough sense to never happen.
And hey, I don’t think I’ve ever lost two picks on one Sunday by half points. That’s thanks to the Redskins kicking a field goal with less than two minutes left to win by eight and
This week: 5-6-1
This season: 56-47-2
Because of the playoff structure, a wild-card team would have a treacherous road to reach the Super Bowl. There is no dominant team in the A.F.C., but there are five or six very good ones. If we assume a 40 percent chance of winning any road playoff game, the loser of Monday night’s battle may have to win three straight road games to earn a trip to Cowboys Stadium for the Super Bowl; the odds of winning three such games would fall below 7 percent.