Week 6 Wrap Up

Pennington Explains Poor Play due to Girly Arm, not Lack of Heart

Week 6 Wrap Up

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Well, you can pretty much set your watch to it by now; for the third week in a row Chad Pennington and the Jets screwed the pooch with less than three minutes remaining while driving for the lead or tie. The Eagles gave the Jets every opportunity to get back into the game, including two missed field goals by David Akers that would’ve easily put the game out of reach and a Philadelphia offense that became anemic in the Jets Red Zone. If Pennington’s performance the last three Sundays doesn’t convince Eric Mangini a/k/a Dennis the Menace to make a switch at QB, nothing will. This week, Chaditha was 11-for-21 with a measly 128 yards passing, no TD’s and an interception.
While the Eagles were unconvincingly “beating” the Titans Jets, Vince Young was finally felled by the Madden curse. Trying to scamper out of bounds, Young tweaked his quad and lay on the ground for a few minutes before eventually hobbling to the locker room. Tennessee brass says it’s too soon to tell whether or not he’ll start next week against Houston but if this is really the Madden curse his leg’ll probably turn green by Wednesday. With Young out, Jeff Fisher had no choice but to replace him with the strong arm and poor decision-making ability of Kerry Collins, who managed not to throw any picks, but also didn’t throw any touchdowns; resulting in a 13 – 10 Bucs win.
Another team I picked to win on Sunday before their starting QB went down was Arizona; unfortunately God Boy’s elbow went all gimpy and he was replaced by Tim Rattay; the same guy the 49ers and Bucs gave up on…I know. With Warner on the bench, the Immortal One, Vinny Testaverde, reached into the 1980’s, passing for 206 yard and 1 TD (no word on whether or not he was hanging out with Wham! the night before). While not especially impressive numbers, the guy is 43, hasn’t played in about 8 months and still had a better outing than Chaditha. One more note, Kurt thinks he’s got torn ligaments in his elbow. Usually, I’d say self-diagnosis is about as smart sharing needles with Pam Anderson, but Warner’s been hurt more times than Jennifer Aniston, so maybe he knows what he’s talking about.
The Dolphins continued their march towards a different kind of streak with a zero in it getting spanked by the Browns 41 – 31. Miami’s defense, the unit they used to rely on, looked more like the University of Miami allowing Derek Anderson to go 18-of-25 for 245 yards passing and 3 TD’s. Cleo Lemon meanwhile, had 2 picks to match his 2 TD’s. Miami isn’t just bad right now, they stink out loud.
Green Bay did just what I said they would do, and bounced back…although honestly, no one on that team seemed like they were really trying to win. Brett Favre set the All-Time interception mark, at 279, and was out-passed by Jason Campbell. Luckily for the gunslinger, his team played slightly better than the terrible play of the Redskins.
Kansas City, for all the badmouthing I’ve been giving them this season, has quietly made its way back to .500, while the Bengals have dropped to 1 – 4, and are winless on the road. Carson Palmer passed for over 300 yards, but that wasn’t enough to stop the mistake-free and relatively boring play of Damon Huard. Also in middle (small “m”) America, Baltimore was busily proving me wrong as they laid some pipe to St. Louis 22 – 3, and Jacksonville (which is actually the South, but that’s okay; they’re just as smart down there as they are in the middle of the country) was touching up Houston, piling on 21 in the 4^th Quarter to eventually win 37 – 17.
The much hyped “Duel” between New England and Dallas was interesting for about an hour, until it became clear that Dallas’s defense had no answer for New England’s offense and it was basically up to Tom Brady to decide when he wanted to score…kinda like how he does it when he’s off the field. In the end the Pats demolished the Cowboys and ran away from them faster than Britney’s old attorney’s.
Seattle’s troubles continued as they lost to previously winless New Orleans 28 – 17. The Seahawks were never really in the game and were down 28 – 10 at the half, although perhaps they can take solace in the fact that they outscored the Saints 7 – 0 in the second half…hmmm, no.
San Diego made themselves feel better by beating Oakland…the NFC’s version of the kid with the lazy eye and the speech impediment at the playground. Philip Rivers had another mediocre game, but he was immaterial as Tomlinson (I’m still not calling him LT) ran for 198 yards with 4 TD’s. Hopefully, someone will wake me up when San Diego actually plays a good team.
Last night the Giants continued their somewhat surprising roll, beating down the Falcons, in Atlanta last night. Now, I know that Joey Harrington is the Falcons QB, and I know Byron Leftwich couldn’t be “blessed” with a worse combination than if his legs were actually made from stone and he actually had a bazooka for an arm. Still, the Giants ran roughshod over the Falcons like time over Meg Ryan.

Random Observations:
Dan Rooney and Mike Tomlin look like geniuses, now that Joey Porter is playing more like Joey Buttafuoco.
Santana Moss took himself out of Sunday’s game saying, “something wasn’t feeling right?” Well obviously if the second best player on your team is feeling off you should let him sit out.
Apparently, in ESPN’s universe, beating the Raiders 28 – 14 constitutes a “rout.” I’d hate to find out what word they’d use to describe the beat-down Cowboys received in Dallas.
If this is it for Kurt Warner, it would probably be better for everyone if he just faded into obscurity like Sean Young.

Next Week:
Miami drops to 0 – 7 when the Pats come to town.
Indy faces a tough test when they travel to Jacksonville.
I decide to put a carnivorous earwig into my brain, rather than watch Atlanta play New Orleans.

Unsubstantiated Sport Rumor of the Week:
Belichick left his starters in on purpose to prove a point to Wade Phillips?