2009 Game Reviews
NFL Week 11
by Jody Jamieson
25/11/2009
 
Dolphins 24 Panthers 17
 
We all wondered what would happen to the Dolphins without the King of the Wildcat. Ronnie Brown was placed on Injured Reserve during the week, but it didn’t matter as Miami hardly used the Wildcat (although they did score out of the formation, but don’t let that fool you) to see off a Carolina team who needed this game and played well, but couldn’t execute properly in the redzone. The reason they couldn’t execute properly in the redzone was because they took the ball out of the hands of DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart and put it in Jake Delhomme’s hands. Of the six plays the Panthers ran inside the Miami 10 yard line, 5 of them were passes. The pass plays went incomplete, incomplete, sack, incomplete, sack. They kicked field goals on both possessions. It was ironic that at the end of the game they heaved a pass into the endzone that fell incomplete in an attempt to take the game to overtime. If they’d stuck to their strengths they may have punched one of those possessions in for 7 points and thus would only have needed 3 points to tie on their final play. The final play was run from the Miami 26 which would have set up a 43 yard field goal.
 
The Panthers completely doomed themselves to failure with their play calling all game. Delhomme threw 42 passes (and was sacked four times) to just 25 carries for Williams and Stewart in a game they were never out of. Bear in mind they managed 27 running back carries in Week 1 when they were smashed 38-10 by Philadelphia in a game that was over before half time. He only completed 19 of them for 227 yards, a touchdown (to Steve Smith) and a pick (to Nate Jones). He was forcing throws into very tight windows as soon as they were down 14-3 and could have been picked three times in the third quarter alone.
 
Matt Millen noted in commentary that Delhomme had admitted to playing tight after a rough start to the season, and it was evident he was doing so again. As a side note for all that Millen was a disaster as GM of the Lions, his skills in the booth are very impressive. He understands that it’s almost impossible to dissect coverage while watching from the TV angle and did a good job pointing out on many occasions Miami went with a base two deep safeties/man under look against the Panthers. Despite seeing the same coverage almost all night, Delhomme was unable to make good decisions to the football and offensive co-ordinator Jeff Davidson was unable to make good decisions by making Delhomme drop back 46 times. Considering DeAngelo Williams gashed the Fins for over 9 yards a carry while Delhomme’s YPA was well below 6, you know there was something wrong.
 
Carolina found a great way to kill themselves on defense in this one too. Miami had a 3rd and 16 on the Panther 33 yard line. They handed off to Lex Hilliard for his first official NFL carry (he had an earlier one negated by a holding call) and he took it for 18 yards. Hilliard’s rushing style is dangerously upright, but he showed an ability to run over people and break tackles. The Dolphins will want to limit his carries though as he’s a sure fire candidate to get injured with such a high pad level. Three plays after Hilliard’s run on 3rd and 9 Chad Henne tossed a pass to Ricky Williams, who broke a tackle and took it in for a 14 yard score. Williams was the star of the game for the Dolphins, scoring all three touchdowns (two rushing, one receiving) while totalling 138 all purpose yards.
 
Steelers 24 Chiefs 27 (OT)
 
The Pittsburgh Steelers are in trouble. Roethlisberger is likely to play this weekend against Baltimore, but will he be 100% and ready to go? He’s going to have to be, because the Ravens are going to be a much tougher prospect than the Kansas City team they couldn’t get past on Sunday. Truth be told Big Ben (32/42, 398 yds, 3TD, 2INT) has been having a tough time recently despite an excellent stat line against the Chiefs, and will have to put the cape on down the stretch as the defending champions are teetering on the brink as a potential Wildcard. If someone else from the AFC emerges down the stretch, then the Steelers will have to improve fast so they are not left behind in January.
 
Jamaal Charles returned the opening kickoff for a 97 yard score, but the Steelers ripped off 17 unanswered points on the way to a seemingly easy win. Roethlisberger threw scoring passes to Hines Ward (10-128-1) and Heath Miller (7-95-1) before the Chiefs woke up in the third quarter and made a game of it. After putting up just 47 yards of offense in the first half, they went 62 yards on their first drive of the third quarter, with Matt Cassel finishing it off with a 21 yarder to Leonard Pope before KC tied the game on a Ryan Succop field goal after a long Andy Studebaker interception gave them a short field. Rashard Mendenhall made it 24-17 in the fourth quarter on Roethlisberger’s third TD pass after a Cassel strip sack game Pittsburgh a short field, but they couldn’t hold the lead. Cassel led a 91 yard drive that he finished off with a 2 yard pass to Jamaal Charles. Charlie Batch had to take over in the extra period when Roethlisberger picked up his head injury, and couldn’t finish off the drive. Cassel then hit Chris Chambers (4-119-0) for a 61 yard catch and run to set up a chip shot attempt for Succop. He made no mistake to give the Chiefs an improbable win.
 
Seahawks 9 Vikings 35
 
I actually thought Seattle would be shutout in this one, and after being drubbed in the Metrodome, they might as well have been. Seattle’s offensive line showed up and actually protected Matt Hasselbeck against a ferocious pass rush, but none of the so called skill positions showed up. Brett Favre destroyed the Seahawks defense on his march towards a potential MVP award as the Vikings were probably better value than the 26 points they won the game by. Favre was an incredible 22/25 for 213 yards and 4 touchdown passes. Percy Harvin, Visanthe Shiancoe, Bernard Berrian and Sidney Rice were the recipients of Favre’s TD passes before Tarvaris Jackson came in and threw a garbage time TD pass to Rice. Justin Forsett scored the lone TD for the Seahawks with a 1 yard run with the game well out of reach.
 
That’s about it really. Seattle got drubbed.
 
Redskins 6 Cowboys 7
 
It seems that Tony Romo’s December downfall has come a couple of weeks early this year. While he did have a big game winning drive with 4 minutes to go, he was lucky to even have a chance. Redskins kicker Shaun Suisham missed field goals of 36 and 50 yards that would have put the game out of reach for a Dallas offense that has gone from unstoppable to uninspired while Romo (15/27, 158 yds, TD, INT) had two of the easiest picks in history dropped by Rocky McIntosh and London Fletcher. They get the Raiders on Thanksgiving which should be a comfortable win leading into December, but after that it’s no cakewalk. Suisham was good from 45 and 31 yards before Romo hit Crayton from 10 yards out with 3 minutes to go to win the game.
 
Anyone else find it ironic that there was a six minute delay in this game because of a review and then an argument about a delay of game penalty? It’s funny that a team will be penalised 5 yards when a player spikes the ball, causing a delay of about 6 seconds at the most. Yet the referees can muck about for six minutes because they’re too incompetent to implement the rules and get the spot of the ball right.
 
Rock Cartwright replaced an injured Ladell Betts (who replaced an injured Clinton Portis) and put up a very admirable 67 rushing yards on 16 carries. Jason Campbell was an impressive 24/37 for 256 yards and a pick, but his inability to get his team in the endzone condemned Washington to defeat in a game they really should have won.
 
It’s funny to note that Wade Phillips started prattling on about the officiating hurting the Cowboys the past few weeks, then was asked what he thought about two Cowboys offensive linemen being quite clearly downfield on the game winning touchdown in this game. Phillips simply said “It wasn’t called.” I don’t mind a little bit of bias, but complete hypocrisy is just stupid. It is no wonder that no-one takes him seriously.
 
Browns 37 Lions 38
 
Good on these guys for putting on an amazing show. No-one thought this game would be worth watching. Foxsports.com predicted a 2-0 Browns win. I even had it down as a 10-10 tie. Both teams put on a first half offensive clinic before perhaps the most exciting climax to a game this season. On the final play of the game Detroit – down 37-31 – needed a miracle. Matthew Stafford scrambled away from pressure and heaved it into the endzone, taking a huge shot and suffering a suspected dislocated left shoulder. The pass was picked off but pass interference gave Detroit an untimed down on the one yard line. Stafford was quite clearly struggling, but bravely came in and tossed the game winning touchdown to Brandon Pettigrew. Stafford has had ups and downs in his rookie season, but this was an amazing day for him as despite throwing two interceptions he passed for 422 yards and 5 touchdowns. Cleveland meanwhile finally discovered the forward pass as Brady Quinn threw for 304 yards and 4 scores. Quinn gave the Browns a 24-3 lead after throwing long touchdown passes to Mohammed Massaquoi and Chansi Stuckey, before a more conventional 4 yard strike to Joshua Cribbs.
 
Stafford found Aaron Brown for 26 yards as these offensively challenged teams totalled 34 points in the first quarter alone. Stafford then hit Kevin Smith up the seam for a 25 yard score and tied the game with a 75 yard bomb to Calvin Johnson. Cleveland then had a bizarre end to the half when a fake field goal almost cost them a chance at points and a half time lead. Phil Dawson threw a pass to Mike Furrey, who didn’t get close to the endzone and was lucky to get out of bounds as Cleveland were out of timeouts. Luckily he just got to the sideline and Dawson nailed a 29 yarder for the halftime lead. Will Heller caught a touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford to give Detroit their first lead of the game at 31-27, but the lead was cut in half on their next possession when Stafford was flagged for intentional grounding in the endzone. It looked like Cleveland would win the game when Quinn finished off a 14 play drive with a TD toss to Michael Gaines, but Stafford’s miracle scramble as time expired and the PI call set up first and goal on the one yard line. Daunte Culpepper came in completely cold for the untimed down, but Eric Mangini called a timeout so he could whine at the referee about how unfair life is. It gave Stafford enough time to escape his team doctors and fire the game winner to Pettigrew.
 
Mangini complained that Detroit’s defenders went down “multiple, multiple, multiple” times to try and slow down his awesome no huddle offense and accused them of faking injuries to slow them down. Aside from the fact that using the world multiple multiple times is rather hilarious, I think he has higher priorities. How about your defense coughing up a 21 point lead? Maybe the fact you scored 37 points against Detroit and still lost should be your biggest concern? It’s always someone else’s fault with the Mangenius. Maybe that’ll explain why he’s been a disaster since having one reasonable season in New York. Making excuses is the best way to disguise your deficiencies, and when you’re masking the problems then they’re never going to be fixed.
 
Saints 38 Buccaneers 7
 
New Orleans got back to their early season form with a big win over Tampa Bay. After finding themselves down 7-0 early they rattled off 38 unanswered points in an easy victory. Josh Johnson’s ball security issues came up again as he fumbled once and was picked 3 times to set up 17 points off turnovers. Drew Brees had a rather quiet day (19/29, 187 yds 3TD) by his standards, but he’s been guilty of multiple, multiple, multiple turnovers (as Eric Mangini might say) in recent weeks but was solid and made no mistakes on Sunday. Robert Meachem caught the first two TD passes from Brees, before David Thomas hauled one in himself in the third quarter. Mike Bell added two TD runs late as both he (13-17-2) and Pierre Thomas (11-92-0) trampled all over the Buccaneers “stop unit” on route to an easy victory. Michael Clayton caught the opening score of the game after Freeman escaped pressure as the Bucs pretended to be competitive, but it was all downhill from there.
 
Falcons 31 Giants 34 (OT)
 
These are the overtime games I really hate. Both defenses were getting shredded and were completely gassed. The team that lost the coin toss was always unlikely to get the ball back for their offense and this proved true, as the Giants easily waltzed down the field for the game winning field goal. While the Giants finally got back to winning ways, their defensive frailties are still very evident. They were awful defensively during their 4 game losing streak, and weren’t much better against a Falcons team missing Michael Turner. Matt Ryan had his best game in a while, bringing his team back from 14 points down to force overtime, but they couldn’t quite come all the way back to win in the Meadowlands.
 
New York held a 17-7 half time lead after Eli Manning threw two touchdown passes to Kevin Boss in reply to a Jason Snelling rushing score. Snelling got back into the endzone from a yard out to make it 17-14 in the third, but Brandon Jacobs scored on the ground for the Giants to re-establish their 10 point lead. Atlanta put together an 18 play drive, but Michael Jenkins dropped a very catchable ball in the endzone, and the Falcons settled for three points. Manning to Madison Hedgecock made it a 31-17 game, but Ryan replied beautifully with two long drives late to force the extra period. Eric Weems and Tony Gonzalez had the touchdown grabs, but the Giants won the overtime coin toss, marched down the field, and The Pride of Scotland Lawrence Tynes kicked a 36 yarder for the win.
 
Eli Manning had an excellent day, going 25/39 for 384 yards and 3 TD’s with one pick in what was amazingly his first ever 300 yard passing day at Giants stadium. It says a lot about the defensive struggled the Giants are having that Eli had a career day on Sunday and still need overtime to win at home. Mario Manningham paced the Giants in yardage with 126 off 6 catches. Tony Gonzalez was the standout for Atlanta with 8 grabs for 82 yards and the game tying touchdown with less than a minute remaining in regulation.
 
Colts 17 Ravens 15
 
I thoroughly enjoyed this game. It could have been amazingly high scoring, but both defenses knuckled down in the redzone and made some huge plays. Baltimore will be kicking themselves as they had three marvellous scoring chances, but could only come away with a total of three points from the three possessions. First, Billy Cundiff badly sliced a 30 yard field goal attempt. Their second failure was with first and goal at the 1 they couldn’t push it in and settled for a field goal. Flacco was then picked off late in the redzone by Gary Brackett on an inside screen when the Ravens were pushing for the game winning score.
 
Indianapolis scored the only two touchdowns of the day on an early Peyton Manning to Dallas Clark connection and a 5 yard rushing score for Joseph Addai. Cundiff kicked field goals of 46, 44, 38, 36 and 20 yards, but it was ex-Raven Matt Stover who kicked the eventual game winner from 25 yards. The Ravens then had a huge turnover when Ed Reed tried a lateral on a punt return but it ended up on the floor and was recovered by the Colts for the win.
 
Peyton Manning was solid on the first drive, launching a 66 yarder to Pierre Garcon before the TD pass to Clark, but it wasn’t Peyton’s best day as he was picked twice by Ed Reed and Dawan Landry. Manning should have had a second TD pass at the start of the third quarter, but Tom Santi fumbled on the goalline and the Ravens recovered. Joe Flacco was solid all round but made a terrible mistake when throwing the pick to Brackett when they were in game winning field goal range. Flacco has now gone three straight games without throwing a touchdown pass.
 
49ers 24 Packers 30
 
The score line doesn’t tell the whole story in this one. Green Bay absolutely whacked San Francisco at Lambeau Field and only a couple of garbage time touchdowns allowed the Niners to look respectable. Alex Smith was 3/7 for 5 yards in a dreadful half. After kicking a field goal on their first drive, their final four possessions of the first half were three and outs. Aaron Rodgers completely destroyed his boyhood heroes, completing 32 of his 45 pass attempts for 344 yards and two touchdowns. With the score 6-3 in favour of the Pack, Rodgers hit Greg Jennings over the middle and Jennings did the rest, taking it 64 yards to the house. It was 20-3 when Rodgers found Jordy Nelson for a 7 yard score, and another Mason Crosby field goal gave Green Bay a 20 point lead in a completely dominant first half showing. Rodgers had 247 passing yards in the first half alone.
 
Alex Smith had a much better second half, and cut the deficit to 13 when he hit Michael Crabtree for 38 yards for the 1st round picks’ first NFL touchdown. Ryan Grant rushed in from a yard after a turnover to make it 30-10 at the start of the fourth quarter to end the game. TD passes to Vernon Davis and Frank Gore made the score look more respectable than it really was, but there was no denying the Packers dominance on Sunday as they ran out the final 6 minutes without the Niners getting the ball back. After a promising start, the 49ers are completely floundering. They were lucky Jay Cutler was all over the place last week, and were lucky to only lose by 6 this week. Major improvement is needed if they’re going to have a chance in the NFC West, but with Arizona playing good football, it’s likely that San Francisco will have to win 5 of their last 6 to gain a Wildcard.
 
Green Bay on the other hand lost both Aaron Kampman and Al Harris with torn ACL’s and both will be placed on Injured Reserve. This is a major blow for the Packers who are stretched enough on defense without losing two key players.
 
Bills 15 Jaguars 18
 
Jacksonville made really hard work of the Bills on Sunday. It’s normally noted that any team who fires their coach mid-season and not during a bye week will be completely disorganised and will be steamrolled, but the Bills almost won this one. Despite the fact that Jacksonville were passing far too much in the early portion of the game, Maurice Jones-Drew ended up with 25 carries. The Bills defense had been giving up over 5 yards a carry this year, but they somehow contained one of the toughest runners in the NFL as MJD rushed for just 2.6 yards per carry.
 
Ryan Fitzpatrick got the start for Buffalo, and his first pass was picked off by Sean Considine, who returned it to the Bills 29. Just when it looked like the Jags were about to start the debacle, the Bills defense made a pretty good stop and limited Jacksonville to three points. Ryan Lindell then kicked two relative chip shots, before Jones-Drew powered in from 3 yards out to make it 10-6.
 
It was 10-9 going into the third quarter, and Buffalo started the half with a bang. With the Bills backed up at the two yard line after an Adam Podlesh punt, it was imperative that they changed field position. They did more than that. Ryan Fitzpatrick took a shot on the first play and found Terrell Owens for a 98 yard score. Give credit to the colour commentator in this one who circled Owens and said “TO right here, this might be a good time to take a shot up the field.” I can’t believe he thought it was a good idea backed up on their goalline, but what do I know? Interim Head Coach Perry Fewell made it his duty to keep TO smiling, feeding him 9 times for 197 yards and that monster score. Buffalo even had a long touchdown pass to Lee Evans brought back when Jonathan Scott was flagged for grabbing Derrick Harvey’s facemask. The Jags trailed till their final possession when David Garrard hit Mike Sims-Walker for the game winner in the final minute. Fitzpatrick fired one downfield in an attempt to set up a game tying field goal, but he was picked off by Anthony Smith as the pedestrian Jaguars somehow find themselves at 6-4 and currently hold the 5th seed in the AFC.
 
Cardinals 21 Rams 13
 
I actually quite fancied the Cardinals to come out flat and for the Rams to nick a victory here. I was very wrong. Despite the fact that Marc Bulger had two chances to tie the game, they should never have gotten that close in the first place. Arizona were walloping St Louis when Kurt Warner got knocked out of the game and Matt Leinart came in to replace him. Party Boy had a reasonable line, but could only add 7 points (on the drive Warner was injured), which allowed Bulger and the Rams to slowly get closer. Warner was already 15/19 for 203 yards and two scores when he was knocked out, while Party Boy was 10/14 but for only 74 yards.
 
Josh Scobee gave the Rams a 3-0 lead before Warner tossed TD passes to Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald. Chris Wells scored from a yard out to make it 21-3 and pretty much end the game. A third quarter Josh Brown field goal and a fourth quarter Steven Jackson TD run made it a one score game, but Bulger was injured himself on the final drive and didn’t look right at all. He couldn’t engineer anything as the Rams dropped to 1-9. Bulger is likely to miss 3-6 weeks with a broken leg and may have played his last game as a Ram. Despite performing a little better in recent weeks, the Rams will likely cut Bulger in the offseason and draft their future signal caller in April.
 
Jets 14 Patriots 31
 
Mark Sanchez is the hardest QB to get a true feel for in the NFL. He’s a rookie, so he’s got time to iron out the kinks, but you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes he’s swaggering about and throwing beautiful passes like Peyton Manning, and other times he’s throwing horrible interceptions like he’s Ryan Leaf. Unfortunately he was more Leaf than Manning in his first trip to Foxboro. He tossed 4 picks, finishing a disappointing 8/21 for 136 yards and a third quarter TD pass to Jericho Cotcherry. He started the scoring with a horrible pick six to Leigh Bodden, who finished with three of the interceptions. Randy Moss had a receiving touchdown and Laurence Maroney rushed in from 2 yards to make it 21-0 before the Jets even knew what hit them.
 
Brad Smith scooped up a blocked punt to make it 24-7 after a Gostkowski field goal, and the Jets got even closer when Sanchez threw a beautiful TD pass to Cotcherry, but that was as good as it got. Sanchez threw a desperation pick to Brandon Merriweather deep in Jet territory, and the Patriots took advantage of the short field on Maroney’s second TD run of the game.
 
After Sidney Rice had over 200 receiving yards without a score last week for the Vikings, Wes Welker almost repeated the feat. Welker had an astonishing 15 grabs for 192 yards without getting into the endzone.
 
Bengals 17 Raiders 20
 
I saw it, and I still cannot believe it. Cincinnati romped out to a 14-0 lead on two Carson Palmer one yard runs and then made loads of silly mistakes. Cincinnati fumbled an incredible five times (three lost) including one killer fumble by Andre Caldwell, who put the kickoff on the floor in the final minute to give Oakland a short field which set up Sebastian Janikowski’s game winner.
 
After falling behind 14-0, Gradkowski led a nice 71 yard drive and finished it off with a touchdown pass to Zach Miller. The Bengals led 17-10 in the 4th when Gradkowski again led an excellent drive. He converted a 4th and 10 before lobbing one onto the corner for Louis Murphy who fought his way into the endzone for the game tying score. Caldwell fought for one too many yards on the kick-off return and was stripped by Brandon Myers. Gradkowski was far from spectacular (17/34, 183 yards, 2TD, INT, lost fumble) but was infinitely better than JaMarcus Russell has been, and looked poised as he lead his team down the field to tie the game late.
 
Darrius Heyward-Bey continued his totally awesome rookie season, catching one pass for 7 yards. It doesn’t matter who the quarterback is, as DHB hardly ever gets open, and when he does, he has horrible hands.
 
Chargers 32 Broncos 3
 
I actually don’t think the commentator in this game knows the rules. First when Darren Sproles was stuffed on third and two with just over a minute left in the first half, he kicked off because Denver didn’t take a timeout. Denver was out of timeouts. That can be put down as a little slip. Then when Kyle Orton was picked off by Antonio Cromartie near the sideline on the next play he exclaimed that “Denver will have to challenge that play! Wait, Denver has no timeouts left so they can’t challenge!” There were 19 seconds left in the half and everyone knows the booth would control any review.
 
Josh McDaniels apparently challenged the San Diego Chargers before the game, letting some defensive players know “We own you!” during the warm ups. That went well. He also deemed Orton too injured to start the game, but then inserted him in the second quarter because Chris Simms was playing horribly. Orton (15/29, 171 yds, INT) started well when he came in but could only lead his team to three points as he regressed badly. Knowshon Moreno did fumble down at the goalline, but Denver just couldn’t sustain a drive. Moreno and Correll Buckhalter ran the ball well, totalling 115 yards on just 15 carries combined, but Orton couldn’t keep them on schedule. Phillip Rivers was an economical 17/22 for 145 yards and a touchdown as his running game and defense did most of the hard work. San Diego totalled 203 yards and two scores (LaDanian Tomlinson and Mike Tolbert) on the ground. Rivers lone TD pass went to Legudu Naanee. For the second season in a row Denver have lost a 3 game division lead in just a month of football as the Chargers now hold the aces Knowshon Moreno and Brandon Marshall had a shoving match on the sideline as the Bronco bubble has long since burst.
 
Eagles 24 Bears 20
 
Philadelphia have lost this type of game multiple, multiple, multiple times over the past few years. Close games in prime time have been a case of close but not close enough (Eagles had lost their last 8 Sunday Night Football tilts), but they got over the top in this one. Andy Reid went a bit pass crazy in the middle of the game and unsurprisingly this was when the Eagles went nowhere, but he allowed LeSean McCoy an unprecedented 20 carries. McCoy carried the ball for 99 yards and a score on route to an Eagles win. What a crazy concept! However, the Eagles were very fortunate in this game as Jay Cutler clearly is suffering a confidence crisis, and missed many wide open receivers. He had both Greg Olsen and Devin Hester open on consecutive plays for easy touchdowns, but somehow overthrew them both and settled for a field goal. He also overthrew Johnny Knox late in the game on what would have been a touchdown and a 27-24 lead. On another day, the Bears could have scored 30-odd points, but Cutler is in a major slump. Too often it’s been his offensive line and his receivers that let him down, but he was protected well on Sunday, but was wild an inaccurate.
 
The Eagles mixed the run and pass well on their first two drives and came out with a 10-0 lead. Michael Vick ran for 34 yards on a 3rd and 1 to set up a field goal, and then McNabb hit Jason Avant on a screen for a 13 yard touchdown. Robbie Gould then made it 10-3 with a field goal (set up by a 72 yard Khalil Bell run on his first NFL carry) as Andy Reid went pass crazy. The Eagles added no more points till the third quarter due to their unbalanced offense, and Gould added 3 more field goals to make it 12-10 Bears. The Eagles began to run the ball after this, and this set up a 48 yard play action bomb over the top to DeSean Jackson, but the Bears went right back down the field and Cutler hit Kellen Davis for a 15 yard score. LeSean McCoy fumbled on the first play of the next drive, but made up for it by rushing in for the game winning score with just 5 minutes to go. The Bears were pretty casual on their final possession, travelling 14 yards in just over a minute. Just when they started to show a little urgency a Cutler pass was tipped in the air and intercepted by Sean Jones to win the game for the Eagles.
 
Titans 20 Texans 17
 
I really enjoyed this one. Titans-Texans is developing into a pretty solid rivalry and there was a lot of needle throughout the contest. But you may have noted I haven’t ranted incoherently about something that really angered me this week, but writing this report is about to become very therapeutic for me. Jerome Boger and his crew put on an absolute clinic in ineptitude. Here’s a quick list of the stupid things his crew did in no particular order.
 
- The Titans ran the option and Vince Young flipped a quite obvious backwards pass to Chris Johnson. Boger - after a long meeting - had to pick up a flag that had been thrown for pass interference.
 
- Boger whistled a play dead for a false start, then almost signalled for a holding call before correcting himself.
 
- Boger called a “major facemask” penalty, completely forgetting that there is no incidental 5 yard facemask anymore in the NFL. It’s probably worth noting that the penalty probably would have been of the 5 yard variety under the old rules.
 
- Boger announced that a 15 yard penalty would be “assessed at the end of the run.” The play was an incomplete pass.
 
- Alge Crumpler made an excellent grab towards the end of the game, but it was ruled incomplete. The booth buzzed down and Boger reviewed it. He still somehow managed to rule it in incomplete pass. I even joked “that’s an obvious catch, so Boger is guaranteed to ruin it incomplete.” Boger seemed more interested in looking like he got the call right in the first place than actually making the right decision overall.
 
- Houston had a big 27 yard completion from Schaub to Kevin Walter, but the refs somehow missed left tackle Duane Brown get off the line about half a second before the snap.
 
- Vince Young dropped back on third down and was blatantly tripped up by Zac Diles, but the referees ruled it a sack rather than a 15 yard tripping penalty.
 
- John Busing chased down Chris Johnson and tackled him by grabbing the number on his jersey. He was flagged for a horse collar.
 
Vince Young had a bad fumble, and should have been picked on a horrible throw in the third quarter, but other than that was marvellous. I’ll keep rambling on about this, but Vince is now 4-0 with the same team Kerry Collins led to an 0-6 record. His stat line wasn’t the greatest (12/22, 116 yds, TD) but he was efficient and careful with his passes. He was also an absolute nuisance when he broke the pocket, totalling 73 yards on 11 carries. Rookie Texans linebacker Brian Cushing was having a marvellous game until Young ran around him twice to gain first downs. Cushing was visibly frustrated by the speed of Young and started over pursuing and generally lost his discipline. If I was a linebacker, Vince Young would probably drive me bananas too.
 
Houston took leads of 7-0 (Schaub to Slaton for 3 yards) and 14-7 (Schaub to Johnson for 12 yards) but Tennessee replied with a Young pass to Kenny Britt and a one yard rumble by LenDale White. Both kickers missed long field goal attempts at the start of the fourth quarter before Rob Bironas nailed a 50 yarder. Kris Brown chipped a 26 yarder to tie the game, but Bironas nailed a game winning 53 yarder with a minute remaining. Gary Kubiak called a play for Matt Schaub to fall over in the centre of the field to set up a 49 yarder for Kris Brown as time expired. I find it surprising that Kubiak trusted Brown to make a 49 yarder more than he trusted Schaub to not be sacked or picked off, but Brown missed horribly as the Texans dropped to 5-5 and are amazingly only a game ahead of Tennessee in the AFC South.