So what’s the trick to beating the Indianapolis Colts?
Control the ball for large chunks of time? A lot of good that did the Dolphins.
Put a ton of points on the board? That helps, but the Patriots did that and still took an L.
Never, ever it is a good sign when an NFL owner talks on or off the record about the status of his head coach, but it’s Wade Phillips’s lot in life that Jerry Jones has never met a microphone that he didn’t like.
For those of us concerned that the undefeated Colts would just kick back for the rest of the season and make wagering on them the mother of all uncertain sciences, rest assured that Indy will keep the pedal to the meal for at least the next few weeks.
Here is what the 6-5 Giants will be sending out onto the field Sunday against the Cowboys in what is basically a playoff elimination game:
Where the Broncos went wrong this season is a serious topic of conversation in Colorado, even as the team uses its short week to get ready to play the equally dysfunctional Giants on Thanksgiving Day.
It’s about time to start protecting the good women and children in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It’s nearly December, and watching the Dallas Cowboys play in December has forced hundreds of thousands of football fans to avert their eyes.
A few months from now they will assemble in bars near Lambeau Field, look out at a few feet of snow and talk about how their team was so close to a playoff spot entering the final several weeks of the season.
Be honest. You didn’t see this coming, did you? Nobody figured the Giants to slide into the tank like this – four straight losses, after five straight wins to open the season, slip sliding to the point where today the East Rutherfords are just another team that will have to find a way to win some late-season games to remain relevant in the playoff picture.
“If you spend your life walking along the edge of a cliff,” said the teacher to the student, “one day you will surely fall over.”
So you have to wonder a bit about the Colts, who have pretty much locked up the AFC South but danced away from defeat for three straight weeks and now find themselves undefeated (9-0) heading into late November.
If you can’t run with the big dogs, the expression goes, then stay on the porch.
In Cincinnati, the Bengals have shown through the first half of the NFL season that they are capable of keeping up with the big guns of the NFL. They stand at 6-2 and share the AFC North lead with the Steelers. Every one of their opponents this season, with the exception of the Browns, is now at .500 or better.
Guess we’ll see what the Cincinnati Bengals are made of over the next two weeks. Even the Bengals concede that important AFC North games against Baltimore on Sunday and Pittsburgh the following week will go a long way toward shaping the division for the second half of the season and in particular determining just how far the franchise has come in re-shaping a team that has been in disarray for several years.
It’s fish-or-cut-bait time in San Diego, where the Chargers are planning for the most important two games of the season. Battles against the Giants this Sunday and Philadelphia a week from then will pretty much determine whether San Diego has the stones to stay within shouting distance of first-place Denver (or at least a playoff berth) in the AFC West.
With a rock-solid offensive line, a top-3 defense and a power running game, you’d figure that the Giants would be pretty much recession-proof. And starting the season with five wins only added to New York’s aura of invincibility. Losing to New Orleans by three touchdowns put a few dings in the driver’s side door, but those things happen –
Brett Favre is a good old boy from Mississippi, and he proved earlier this week just why the percentage of good old boys from Mississippi in Mensa is pretty low.
In a seeming never-ending effort to stick it to the management of the Green Bay Packers, who signed his hefty paychecks for some 16 years, Favre said that his current employer, Minnesota, is the most talented team he’s ever played on.
NFL Week 7: Eagles Try to Prevent another Embarrassing Loss
Game-day: 10/26/2009
Kick-off: 8:30 pm EST
The Philadelphia Eagles were thoroughly embarrassed last Sunday when they lost to the hapless Oakland Raiders straight-up, 13 to 9, as 14 point favorites on the road in the NFL sportsbook.
Up is down is up in Pittsburgh, where the running game is in shambles and Ben Roethisberger and Hines Ward have become the most dangerous pass-catch combination in the league.
The defending Super Bowl champs have basically re-invented themselves on the fly after early-season losses losses to Chicago and Cincinnati put them in an early hole in the AFC North. Gone is the reliance on the power running game, replaced by Roethlisberger firing the ball all over the field.
