Article:NFL Week 12 Observations

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

The 10-0 Titans saw their perfect season come to a crashing halt yesterday when Brett Favre and the Jets came to town and beat up Tennessee, 34-13.

From the get go you could see upset written all over this one. Favre came out throwing on the opening drive, which ultimately ended up in a 14-yard TD pass to RB Thomas Jones. And it was over.

Well, not in the record books, but for all intensive purposes, the Titans weren’t coming back in this game.

The Titans have an outstanding defense, but at some point we all knew that the fairy tale was going to end. Good teams will begin stacking the line to take away the run and Kerry Collins just isn’t going to beat a quality team through the air anymore.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find one victory of the 10 against a championship level contender. The Ravens game they were given by poor officiating, 13-10; the Colts were 3-3 and a mediocre team when they were dropped on Monday Night, and until Sunday, Tennessee had yet to beat up a good team.

It’ll now have to wait.

Look, a loss was bound to happen, but Titans’ fans shouldn’t begin booking tickets to Tampa just yet.

On the flip side, the Jets were very impressive. With the insertion of TE Dustin Keller into the passing game and making more an effort to get Leon Washington more carries, this offense has begun to find its rhythm and is now extremely balanced.

Defensively they’re beginning to gel as well so the near future looks very promising for the J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!

But don’t start booking the AFC East title just yet Jets’ fans.

The Patriots may have been down earlier on, but they’re certainly not out. Injuries have ravished this team from game one, but Cassel’s development over the past few weeks has been nothing short of brilliant and his team’s thrashing of the Miami Dolphins yesterday, 47-27, served noticed to the rest of the AFC that the Pats aren’t going to go down without a fight.

To the not so good: the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos. In a must win game for San Diego, they once again failed to rise to the occasion and lost 23-20 to the Indianapolis.

And if you needed another reminder as to where the blame clearly lies, look at Norv Turner’s poor clock management at the end of the game. On a fourth-and-one from the 30, with 90 seconds left, instead of allowing another 35 seconds to run off the clock before trying the game tying FG, he called a timeout and left Peyton Manning 1:30 to go for the win.

And this is just what he (Manning) did. Now the Bolts fall to 4-7, but apparently the Union Tribune doesn’t think it’s over; the headline today is “Chargers still in the hunt after hard loss.” I’d think they were talking about a high pick in the NFL draft, but after what happened in Denver, I realize they’re not.

The Broncos allowed the Raiders, who hadn’t scored more than 10 points (offensively) in the past five weeks to come into Denver and blow them out 31-10. Unbelievable.

This is why the NFL is so difficult to predict; an average team who’s good at home is beaten by one of the worst (road) teams in recent memory. Can you say 7-9 or 8-8 AFC West Champion? I can.

Switching conferences…The Atlanta Falcons put on one heck of a performance to knockoff the 8-2 Panthers and move within one game of the division lead. I admit, I didn’t see this coming, but you’ve got to now take the Falcons for real. QB Matt Ryan is playing well beyond his years and the Falcons believe; two components to winning teams.

The Cowboys began to find their groove once again by beating the over matched San Francisco. After the game, we heard what we thought we would; Terrell Owens glorifying his stat line and claiming that he is the catalyst to the offense—and team for that matter.

Just another reason why he and the Boys will be sent home early in the playoffs: his selfishness. There’s no TEAM in Dallas; it’s a bunch of individuals who can win against the teams of lesser talent but not when the playing field is more even.

The Eagles are done. And so is the Donovan McNabb era, or the Andy Reid era, or both. Yesterday’s 36-7 loss was about as bad as it gets. McNabb was benched for the second half after committing three turnovers and second year man Kevin Kolb wasn’t much better.

Reid was able to dominate the NFC East when the Jim Fassel’s, Steve Spurrier’s and Dave Campo’s of the world were coaching in the division, but ever since Bill Parcells, Tom Coughlin and Joe Gibbs came back Reid has found himself in a number of last place finishes.

This year will be no different.

And lastly, the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. No Plaxico Burress, no Brandon Jacobs, no problem. The Giants put up 37 on the NFC West leading Arizona Cardinals and moved to 10-1 on the season. The depth on this team is second to none and as long as they can keep the key pieces intact, it’s becoming quite apparent to the NFL World that the Giants are looking poised for a repeat.