Showings of power

This sure was the weekend for a couple upper echelons of teams to show what they’re made of. New Orleans racked up 34 points by halftime against the No. 1 defence in the league and didn’t stop there. Minnesota jumped out to a quick start against Baltimore, surrendered the lead late and came back like it was nobody’s business. New England, playing in the snow as if it gave them magical powers, won by the largest margin in the NFL since 1976. Three bold showings by three bold teams showed that they’re true contenders and these tilts should be well remembered down the road.

As for the losers involved, the Ravens played a good game and were a few feet away from winning it on a last second field goal and the Giants did show some positives in their loss to the Saints. But for Tennessee, well, forget the Titans. This team will only be remembered for how epically poor it has performed after sucking in so many people last year with their undefeated run. Even if they were to replicate that this season, they probably still wouldn’t make the post-season.

How sad are the Washington Redskins? Losing to the Kansas City Chiefs is one thing but losing them at home is just plain horrible. How did it take six weeks for management to realize that Jim Zorn sucked at play-calling? It was obvious to anyone that watched them play but how could they let this slide for so long even though he was an offensive coordinator in the past? Shouldn’t this be his specialty? Dallas has played one fewer game than the Skins and they have scored 43 more points this season. The Giants have put 99 more points on the board for Christ’s sake. The Jim Zorn era needs to end or there may be NFL-related suicides in the DC area.

Speaking of sucking in the NFC East, how about the Philadelphia Eagles blowing every teaser and parlay out there this weekend? Going into Oakland favoured by 14, the Eagles managed to lose straight up to one of the worst teams in the NFL. Also, they were coming off of a bye week, so there’s no excuse of being tired. They even allowed the sixth longest TD in Raiders history and the longest TD by a Raiders tight end ever on Zach Miller’s 86-yard reception. You could say the team was looking ahead to their week seven game, but that’s against the pathetic Redskins. There’s no excuses for Philly here.

What in the world is up with Jacksonville? They come out limp in their first two games, catch fire the next two, get shutout last week and now it takes overtime for the Jags to defeat the worst team in football? What is wrong here? If patterns hold true, they’ll cruise the next weeks, but this team has to become far more consistent and have to do better at home if they ever want to sell out some games and let their local markets pick up their games.

And maybe this Mark Sanchez kid isn’t as good as we all thought he was. Throwing five interceptions against the lowly Bills really hurts his reputation as one of the better young guns in the game. Or maybe Buffalo just wanted to show the world that they’re not as bad as their 6-3 loss to Cleveland showed they were. Either way, one of the public’s perceptions was shattered in this game.

This week: 9-4 (plus Denver +3 tonight)
This season: 47-39