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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

NFL 2014 Week 7 Snap Judgments

This week's intro was a bit more difficult to write than usual, but not for the reason you might expect.  Peyton Manning set the all-time touchdown pass record Sunday night, passing Brett Favre.  It's yet another record that Peyton has broken and rewritten in the record books, and there isn't another active quarterback who is in striking distance of breaking that record (the closest is Drew Brees, who is 35 years old and is currently 136 touchdowns behind Manning).  While setting the record is worthy of mention, what could possibly be said that is insightful or new about Peyton Manning and his career?  At 38, he clearly still plays at an elite level, and there's no sign that he is slowing down at all.  It's easy to take a player of Peyton's caliber for granted, especially considering it's tough to know what to say in reaction every time he crosses out another record in the books.  I've said before calling him the greatest regular season quarterback is a backhanded compliment, but it's hard to argue against including Peyton in the Mt. Rushmore of greatest QBs ever.

1. Not only are the Packers going to make the playoffs yet again, but they are one of the best teams in the NFC.  I was dead wrong on my preseason prediction about the Packers missing the playoffs this year.  They're currently tied with the Lions for the NFC North lead, and those two teams play once again in Week 17 (Detroit beat Green Bay in Detroit back in Week 3).  Given how much Chicago has underachieved this season (more on that later) and how generally bad the Vikings are, it's very possible that Week 17 match up could be for the NFC North title.  And anyone who said after 7 weeks the top three teams in the NFC would be the Cowboys, Packers, and Cardinals would have been lying through their teeth.

2. Reports of Cleveland's improvements may have been greatly exaggerated.  Cleveland shot themselves in their collective feet in Jacksonville just as many talking heads were starting to think they were turning into a decent team.  With less than 2 minutes left in the first half, the Browns were up 6-0 and driving down into Jaguars territory, but turned the ball over on downs on Jacksonville's 24-yard line instead of at least kicking a field goal.  The Jaguars moved quickly down the field and scored a go-ahead touchdown with 27 seconds left in the half.  The second half was the same old Browns story, and the Jaguars put up 24 unanswered points to get their first win of the season.  Rookie Brian Bortles didn't help his own cause, throwing 3 interceptions in the game, but he still got his first win as a starting NFL quarterback.

3. Seattle's Super Bowl hangover is starting to show.  The Seahawks dropped one against Dallas last week, and then they blew another one on the road in St. Louis on Sunday.  They have a great group of coaches who knew how to properly prepare them for each game between head coach Pete Carroll, offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, and especially defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.  The offensive line gave up 3 sacks to the Rams, but their special teams were what did them in.  Halfway through the second quarter, the Seahawks punted the ball away to the Rams.  Tavon Austin should thank the Academy for his performance in drawing nearly every Seahawk on the field towards him, allowing Stedman Bailey to field the punt and run it all the way back for a touchdown.  The icing on the cake came with just under 3 minutes to go in the game; the Seahawks, down by 2 points, stopped the Rams on 3rd down, forcing the Rams to punt.  Rams punter Johnny Hekker faked the punt and threw a pass to Benny Cunningham for an 18-yard gain.  These kinds of failures aren't what anyone would expect from a team considered to be one of the most complete teams in the NFL.  They parted ways with Percy Harvin late on Friday after he proved to be a locker room cancer for the second time in his career, so there could well be a lack of focus or preparation among the players at the moment.  There's still more than half the season to go, but the Seahawks are now looking up at two other teams in their own division.  They're going to need to move quickly if they have any hope to defend their Super Bowl title.

4. What a difference a competent offensive line makes.  Through the first two months of the 2013 season, Joe Flacco threw 8 touchdown passes, 8 interceptions, and was sacked 20 times.  The Ravens as a team rushed for 1328 yards in 2013 for the entire season and scored 7 rushing touchdowns.  Through the first 7 games of 2014, they've already rushed for 920 yards and equaled their entire 2013 season total of rushing touchdowns.  Flacco has already thrown 14 touchdowns and only 5 interceptions so far this season, and has been sacked 8 times through 7 games.  Quarterbacks notoriously get too much credit and too much blame for their performance on the field, and last year Flacco made plenty of bad decisions over the course of the season.  However, he clearly got too much of the blame, largely in part to the big contract deal he signed with the Ravens after their had won the Super Bowl.  The offensive line was terrible last year, and those few stats tell a large portion of the story.  It's almost like Ozzie Newsome, Eric DeCosta, John Harbaugh, and the rest of the Ravens' front office had a GASP! - plan or something on how to fix their very obvious problem.

5. The NFC South is going to make things a mess come January.  The NFC South is the only division that doesn't have a team currently over .500.  At this pace, we'd be lucky if the division winner even finished 8-8 on the season, which means we could well be staring at another case of a Wild Card team finishing with a record better than a division winner.  The NFL may finally have to think about its seeding policies for the playoffs.

6. The Goat of the Week Award goes to the Bengals offense.  The Bengals jumped out to a fast start at 3-0, which now feels like a distant memory.  They're 0-2-1 since then, having lost two games by 26 and 27 points.  They were without A.J. Green for the second straight week on Sunday and were shut out by the Colts, managing to put up only 136 yards of total offense during the game.  They are suddenly a very flat football team, and the Ravens have a chance to virtually bury them in the AFC North next week.

7. Kirk Cousins blew his last chance with the Redskins.  Cousins was already on a super thin thread going into the weekend.  He was pulled late in the first half after he threw his 9th interception of the season, a stat that he leads the NFL in.  Colt McCoy took over for the rest of the game (who knew he was even on the Redskins roster prior to Sunday?) and led the team to a win.  Jay Gruden has decided to go with McCoy over Cousins until RGIII returns, so the promising few starts that Cousins had over the last two seasons look like they're distant memories now.

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