Seems Like Old Times

A scoring play on offense, a scoring play on defense and a scoring play on special teams and it all happened with less than a minute rolling off the game clock. How delightful.

At the beginning of the season, I was thinking about how the championship Patriots were effective in all three phases of the game; offense, defense and special teams. It seemed the Pats had become one-dimensional; they would win with Tom Brady or they would lose. As strategies go, it wasn’t exactly terrible. I mean, Tom Brady, am I right?

Then Devin McCourty returned a kickoff for a TD. It seemed like it had been a long time coming. We can add Julian Edelman’s punt return for a TD against the Colts and last night’s fumble return for a TD (thanks to McCourty’s crushing tackle that forced the miscue) to the list of special teams scoring plays.

The defense was still yielding yards – Sanchez passed for over 300 yards – but they continue to create turnovers. They lead the league in give/take at +24 after a +4 against the Jets and have now scored five touchdowns.

Somewhere along the way, New England rediscovered its running game. Back in the day (does 2001-2004 really qualify as “back in the day?”) the Pats could rely on Antowain Smith and Clock Killin’ Corey Dillon to pile up yards and set up play action. With Stevan Ridley, Shane Vereen and Danny Woodhead the Patriots can move the ball on the ground with the best of them. They have the #5 passing offense and the #6 rushing offense and the #1 offense overall.

New England has been doing this despite injuries to key players. Sound familiar? Thankfully, Julian Edelman has not seen the field as a defensive back this season but Logan Mankins has missed significant time, Sebastian Vollmer was a game-time scratch last night after missing some early season action and All-Galaxy tight end Rob Gronkowski is out with a broken forearm to name just a few. Hey, injuries are a fact of life in the NFL. You have to deal with it. Next man up isn’t just a cliché in New England; it’s how they roll.

Hang on a second while I find some wood to touch three times.

Oh, and Tom Brady is still Tom Brady.

Yeah. Seems like old times.

Am I getting ahead of myself? A little bit. As for the rest…

Turkey Sandwiches

The Lions are punks. Their head coach doesn’t know the rules (okay, it’s a crazy rule but it’s still a rule). Their best defensive player is an embarrassment to the sport. Actually, the entire roster is an embarrassment to the sport.

The Cowboys are clowns. Before the start of the game, they should drive out to midfield in a Cooper Mini and have all 45 members of the game day roster jump out of the car one right after the other while they play “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys over the PA system. All the offensive linemen should wear large red foam noses and the wide receivers should wear oversized shoes and big white rubber three fingered gloves. Jason Garrett should wear black tails and a top hat and when he challenges a call he should shoot the red flag out of a cannon with white and blue confetti.

Turkey Fricassee

Chicago 20, Minnesota 17 – Da Bears will be looking to put the memories of that Monday night beatdown behind them. Minnesota will be making a last desperate bid for a playoff berth. Okay, it might not be their last desperate bid so much as the first of their last desperate bids as they play Chicago and Green Bay twice in four of their last six games. Much will be made of the fact that the Vikings were 6-4-0 before they collapsed down the stretch to 8-8-0 but only one of those six wins came against a team that currently has a winning record (their inexplicable victory over the 49ers). The Vikings are better than bad but they’re not really good.

Cincinnati 42, Oakland 20 – The Raiders are not better than bad. They’re awful. The Bengals aren’t really good, either. Their single signature win came two weeks ago against the slumping New York Giants; by all that’s true and good they should probably be 4-6-0 instead of 5-5-0 but with Oakland, San Diego, Dallas and Philadelphia coming up, they could be 9-5-0 heading into their dream-crushing final two weeks of the season against Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

Pittsburgh 12 Cleveland 9 – With 37-year old career backup Charlie Batch and former Patriots backup Brian Hoyer – signed this week – the Steelers are still in better shape at QB than the Browns. More to the point, Cleveland QB Brandon Weeden will have to face the Steelers league-leading defense while Batch/Hoyer will face the far less good Browns defense. Tapes of this game will not be sent to Canton.

Indianapolis 35, Buffalo 31 – The Colts will be out to prove they’re better than they showed in Foxborough last week. I’m honestly not sure what the Bills are up to. Advantage Indianapolis.

Denver at Kansas City – This game should come with one of those “some content may be offensive to some viewers” warnings. And by “some content” I mean the Kansas City Chiefs.

Seattle 27, Miami 17 – The Seahawks have been the opposite of impressive on the road and they’re going East Coast with this game, a scenario that has not been kind to left coasters. I still like Seattle’s defense and their running game with Marshawn Lynch better than Miami’s defense and their running game with Reggie Bush. Also, Russell Wilson > Ryan Tannehill.

Tampa Bay 30, Atlanta 27 – The Falcons are 9-1-0 and getting no respect while the Buccaneers at 6-4-0 have pigskin pundits and bobbleheads chattering about their moxie and touting Greg Schiano for coach of the year. Atlanta does have some unimpressive wins on their resume (by 2 over Carolina, by 3 over Oakland, by 4 over Arizona) but all things considered that’s still better than humiliating losses. It may be a stretch calling the road victory over Minnesota a signature win but it's the only win on the Bucs’ curriculum vitae against a team with a winning record. Blah, blah, blah. It comes down to this: Tampa Bay wants to run the ball; Atlanta cannot stop the run.

Tennessee X, Jacksonville (X-Y) – The Titans win, the Jaguars lose, a nation yawns.

Baltimore 20, San Diego 16 – As horrible as Joe Flacco has been on the road this is the Chargers we’re talking about. Count on Philip Rivers to outsuck Flacco in this one.

Arizona 20, St. Louis 13 – I flipped a coin.

San Francisco 31, New Orleans 27 – Alex Smith is like Jim Harbaugh’s fallback girlfriend. First he’s flirting with Peyton Manning so Smith goes out on a date with J. Lo and then Peyton dumps Jim and Jim makes up with Alex even though all the while he’s got Colin Kaepernick stashed in a condo downtown while Alex thinks everything is cool now and he’s doing everything he can to make Jim happy when out of the blue Alex gets hit in the head and can’t remember what comes after four and then Jim dumps Alex for Colin and okay, Colin is hot but Alex is at least a Jennifer and Colin is not even close to being an Angelina so if you’re Alex don’t you have to ask, “Where is this going? I mean, I thought we had something here.”

Green Bay 31, New York (g) 17 – Inertia. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers remain in motion. Eli Manning and the Giants remain at rest.

Carolina 24, Philadelphia 23 – Seriocomedy. We can’t take this game seriously and it really won’t be that funny.