Quick Hits - Week Seven

Brief observations about every NFL game except for the Thursday Night game and the Seahawks game.

Atlanta 31 - Tampa Bay 23
For all of you that have Greg Schiano in the Coach Likeliest to Get Fired office pool, it feels like he is starting to build a sizable lead.  The Bucs have the second worst offense in the NFL in terms of yards per game and points per game.  They are one of the least disciplined teams in the league based on the fact that they are one of the most penalized teams in the NFL.  They have committed to playing the rest of the season with a rookie quarterback and they just lost their starting running back to a season-ending injury.  Added to all of this misery is the real sense that no one likes Schiano as a coach or a person, which includes the players in his own locker room.  If he is somehow patrolling the Tampa Bay sideline next season, it would constitute the biggest football-related upset since Appalachian State beat the Michigan Wolverines in the Big House.

Cincinnati 27 - Detroit 24
Can anyone figure out Andy Dalton?  He played horribly in a week four loss to the Cleveland Browns followed by an uninspiring effort in a narrow victory over New England only to post back-to-back 300-yard passing games for just the second time in his career.  He also threw for three touchdowns in consecutive games, which is also the second time it has happened in his short career.  His game against the Lions is probably his best professional performance.  If this version of Andy Dalton shows up on a more regular basis, then the Bengals are a legitimate Super Bowl contender out of the AFC.  Unfortunately, Dalton has too frequently settled back into being a game manager and, at times, something even worse.  It will be interesting to monitor his development over the rest of the regular season.

Buffalo 23 - Miami 21
It feels like just yesterday that the Dolphins were 3-0 and one of the early season surprises in the NFL. Funny how all of the goodwill related to the fast start has completely eroded as a result of a three-game losing streak that has been fueled by turning the ball over and not protecting the quarterback.  Four weeks ago, Miami melted down under the white hot lights of Monday Night Football thanks to four turnovers and four sacks.  The Monday Night debacle was followed by the Ravens sacking them to death and squeezing out a three-point victory.  Following a bye week, the Dolphins lost their third consecutive game in a similar fashion to how they started the losing streak to begin with.  The Bills, led by Mario Williams, sacked Ryan Tannehill four times and caused three turnovers to escape South Florida with a two-point win.  The Dolphins were never as good as their 3-0 start seemed to indicate and they are probably not as bad as they have played recently.  In an interesting note about bye weeks, teams that have had a week off are just 3-5 in their next game.

NY Jets 30 - New England 27
The Jets and Patriots have played nearly nine quarters of football this season and they have each scored 40 points.  However, the Jets have made the Patriots, and Tom Brady specifically, look really bad.  Brady has completed just 48.2% of his attempts and has thrown for an average of 206.5 yards.  One of the biggest areas of struggle for the Patriots has been their inability to convert third down opportunities into first downs. They have converted only 16.7% of their third down tries, which has led to an offensive stagnation that has been unseen in the Tom Brady era.  In some ways, Brady is getting a pass from the media because of the state of his receiving corps, but the future Hall-of-Famer needs to play better.

Dallas 17 - Philadelphia 3
In an unexpected defensive tussle, the Cowboys emerged victorious because their offense was slightly less horrible than the Eagles offense.  The two teams entered the game scoring a combined 58.2 points per game and allowing an average of 55.2 points.  However, one of the ugliest offensive halves of football in recent memory ended with Dallas holding a slim 3-0 lead thanks to the two teams combining for 13 punts in the first half.  In the second half, a spirited Dallas defense kept applying pressure until finally knocking Nick Foles from the game with a head injury and the Cowboys offense put together two scoring drives to put the game out of reach.  The biggest thing that Dallas can take from this win is that they are now in control of the NFC East as result of their 3-0 record within the division.  They will also take some solace in the fact that this game may indicate they have what it takes to win games when their offense is not clicking.  On the other hand, the Eagles saw all of Foles' positive progress go right down the toilet and wasted their best defensive performance of the season.  They also reinforced the belief that they don't want to see Matt Barkley on the field again until the 2014 preseason.  The loss to Dallas marked the ninth consecutive defeat for Philadelphia at home, which pretty much makes them the anti-Seattle Seahawks.

Washington 45 - Chicago 41
We started to see glimpses last week in Dallas, but this was the first full game where the RGIII from 2012 played in 2013.  He posted his best Total QBR and QB rating of the season, but more importantly he ran the football like the player that took the league by storm last season.  In the last two weeks, he has rushed for 161 yards after totaling just 72 yards in his first four games.  The key to his running success was the reintroduction of the zone-read play into the Washington game plan.  RGIII had eight zone-read rushes for 70 yards against Chicago, which matched the number of zone-read carries that he had had in all of the other five games combined.  Obviously, 2013 RGIII starting to play like 2012 RGIII is a huge development for Washington, but they are going to be held back by their atrocious defense that showed no willingness to tackle or play disciplined team defense on Sunday.  In their two victories, Washington has been the beneficiary of playing two back-up quarterbacks.  They pretty much made Matt Flynn look like a back-up, but there has to be great concern about the way that Josh McCown came off the bench and lit them up after Jay Cutler got injured.

Carolina 30 - St. Louis 15
The Panthers haven't been a .500 team this late in the season since winning the final game of the 2009 season to finish 8-8.  In addition, with a victory on Thursday night against Tampa, they will be over .500 for the first time since 2008.  Obviously, this is a franchise that doesn't have a lot of experience with success over the last few years, but perhaps they are starting to put things together.  They have one tremendous building block in their defense that is ranked #2 overall and #2 in scoring defense.  Their defensive coordinator, Sean McDermott, has brought over the attacking, blitzing scheme that he learned under Jim Johnson in Philadelphia and the results have been magnificent in 2013.  On offense, they have all the makings of a good unit, but it all starts and ends with the performance of Cam Newton.  When he plays efficiently and within himself like he did against St. Louis, then the Panthers are a formidable foe, but when we tries to be Superman on every snap the locomotive goes off the rails.  Personally, I need to see more from the Panthers before I'm ready to declare them a playoff contender.  Keep in mind that it was just two weeks ago when they emerged from their bye week rested and presumable ready to play only to sleepwalk through a 22-6 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

San Diego 24 - Jacksonville 6
Count me as one person who is not going to get caught up in the "Chargers are surging" story line that is being trumpeted through the sports world after San Diego improved to 4-3.  The Chargers shouldn't get any credit for beating the lowly Jaguars.  Beating the Jags is something that everyone should do like taking care of your children and paying your bills.  Frankly, teams should have to play their back-up quarterbacks when they face Jacksonville just to make it even or, at least, spot them a 10 point lead.  If you break down San Diego's four wins, they have beaten one good team (Indy), one decent team (Dallas), one below average team (Philly), and the worst team in the NFL (Jacksonville).  Otherwise, they have kicked away two victories in come-from-ahead losses to Houston and Tennessee and they got handled by the mediocre Oakland Raiders.  This resume is not one that I'm going to get behind 100%.  However, the current state of the AFC has given the Chargers an opening to make a run to a wild card playoff spot.

San Francisco 31 - Tennessee 17
While Seattle and New Orleans are getting most of the media attention in the NFC, the 49ers are quietly stacking up dominating win after dominating win.  Since getting drilled in back-to-back weeks by Seattle and Indianapolis, the 49ers have reeled off four straight wins by an average margin of 20.3 points.  San Francisco has scored an average of 33 points during their current winning streak.  They have gotten back to running the football and leading with their defense, which has allowed Colin Kaepernick to play within himself and pick his moments to make a big play.  I feel like Kaepernick's big day throwing the football against the Packers inadvertently fooled the San Francisco coaching staff into thinking that the offense should be more heavily reliant on throwing the football from the pocket.  As a result, the team got hammered in back to back weeks and it took a public display of frustration by veteran Frank Gore to get the offense back to the basics.  With the 49ers rediscovering their winning formula, my feeling is that the NFC West is going to come down to the December 8th match-up between Seattle and San Francisco.

Green Bay 31 - Cleveland 13
One big thing to note from this game is that the Packers won this game easily despite playing without Randall Cobb, James Jones and Jermichael Finley (for part of the game).  Obviously, the victory speaks to the Packers' roster depth as well as the supreme talent they have at quarterback, but it also raises a great deal of questions about their opponent.  The Cleveland defense was supposed to be the strength of the team, but they allowed the short-handed Packers to score four touchdowns and move the football at will.  It might seem obvious to blame the defense, but I feel that the majority of the blame pie should be awarded to Brandon Weeden, who is steadily playing himself right out of Cleveland.  Weeden misfired on 25 of his 42 attempts and averaged a measly 3.5 yards per attempt.  He played so poorly that the Cleveland coaching staff is seriously considering benching him in favor of Jason Campbell.  It is truly unfortunate that Brian Hoyer suffered a season ending injury because I think the Browns had a chance to be a playoff contender with him at quarterback.

Kansas City 17 - Houston 16
I predicted that Kansas City would be a playoff team this year, but it is pretty inconceivable that they are the last undefeated team in the NFL.  Their offense is about as boring as watching CSPAN, but their defense has been a revelation.  Led by Tamba Hali and Justin Houston, they are the stingiest scoring defense in the NFL and they are sacking the quarterback more than anyone.  They are the first team to start a season 7-0 following a season when they had the worst record in the NFL.  Also, they are the first team since the 2006 Ravens to hold seven consecutive opponents to 17 points or less.  Most importantly, they now have the inside track to the AFC West title thanks to Denver's loss to the Colts.

NY Giants 23 - Minnesota 7
I'm just glad this game is over.