• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Andy Richardson

A quick whirl around the league at the highlights and lowlights of the games I paid the most attention to on Sunday…

Dallas-Chicago: Nobody who watched this game can seriously believe the Bears will stick with Rex Grossman much longer. Forget Brian Griese; Kyle Orton would be an upgrade at this point. When receivers were open, Grossman was off-target; when they were well-covered, he tried to force the ball in there. He didn’t get much help from his receivers, as Bernard Berrian dropped what probably would have been a 34-yard touchdown and Muhsin Muhammad stopped on a route (or else he’s just really slow) on another possible big play. But the interceptions and poor decisions were generally on Grossman. Hopefully this column will be posted before Lovie Smith finally – finally – makes a move here. Cedric Benson, by the way, is the most ordinary looking top-5 running back ever, or at the very least he’s tied with the guy drafted right before him, Ronnie Brown.

Two notes on the Cowboys: First, Tony Romo might be the first young quarterback once compared to Brett Favre (as Grossman, and J.P. Losman were) who actually might live up to the title. Strong arm, great pocket presence, great playmaking ability. A very impressive young player; I’m glad I didn’t deal him away in my dynasty league two months ago. Romo’s ability to find Terrell Owens and Jason Witten while facing heavy pressure from the Bears defense was striking. He’s for real. Second, thanks to the sideline cameras for revealing that my wife and Terrell Owens have something in common. Both use the same brand of chapstick.

Green Bay-San Diego: Honesty here: Favre is my favorite player. I get a huge kick out of seeing him play well and quiet all the talk that he’s washed-up and never should have come back. That said, people should consider that Favre started strong in each of the previous two seasons, too. He had 14 TDs after six games in 2006, just 6 more the rest of the way. He had two 3-TD games the first three weeks last year, then threw 12 in the final 13 games. He might have a better top three receivers than he's had in recent years, and he'll face some more lousy defenses on the schedule (like Detroit), but he's going to come back to earth a little bit. Favre should be a solid option again this week against a Vikings defense that’s impossible to run against, but for the Packers to keep winning they’ll need to ask him to do less: run more, throw less, and play good defense.

As for the Chargers, at least Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates almost made the Packers pay for focusing on shutting down LaDainian Tomlinson. Small comfort to Tomlinson’s owners, but Rivers’ strong performance could help LT in the weeks to come. It was tough, though, seeing LT so somber after yesterday's loss. Even tougher -- or just plain strange -- to see him wearing a green-and-gold color scheme. Huh?

New England-Buffalo: The Bills are going to be a punching bag for a lot of teams this year. Their defense has been gutted by injuries – most recently, they lost rookie middle linebacker Paul Posluszny to a broken forearm Sunday – and this after an offseason of major free-agent departures. If your players face the Bills in the weeks to come, get them in the lineup.

As for the Patriots, what needs to be said? Maybe if Belichick hadn’t been cheating his team would only be scoring 35 points a game. Remember the theory some held that their offense would struggle without the innovative Charlie Weis? Yuh. Granted the Patriots have had a couple easy matchups so far, but this offense appears indefensible thus far. Oh yeah, they play the defenseless Bengals this week.

Jacksonville-Denver: I am really sorry I drafted Maurice Jones-Drew in three different leagues. For the Jaguars to rush for nearly 200 yards and Jones-Drew to get only 37 of them – well, that’s a bad sign for the rest of the year. Can’t Fred Taylor get hurt already? The best I can offer for Jones-Drew owners (because he’s clearly untradable right now) is that at least he came close to scoring on two occasions Sunday, brought down just short of the goal line after both a run and a reception on separate scoring drives. Sadly, Jones-Drew won’t score next week either: the Jaguars are on their bye.

As for the Broncos, the game was ample evidence that many overrated the Broncos defense based on their star-powered secondary. Hey, the Broncos had a great secondary even before they traded for Dre Bly. It’s their pass rush and linebacking corps that’s questionable. If the Patriots gave the league a primer on how to beat the Chargers two weeks ago, the Raiders and Jaguars, who put up huge rushing totals the last two weeks, might have done the same versus the Broncos.

Final thought: The games put up by Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and Kevin Curtis yesterday, and Derek Anderson, Jamal Lewis and Braylon Edwards a week ago, were stunning – but there’s a common thread here. The Lions have a very bad defense, as do the Bengals. There are a lot of really bad defenses in the league. If you can start very good players against a very bad defense, do it. And if you have the components of a passing game on a team that has a really bad defense, don’t hesitate to start them, too.

P.S.: I love the throwback uniforms (Eagles, Washington). Sure it’s about marketing and jersey sales, and sure a lot of them are ugly as sin. It’s still fun. Bring them on.

Andy watches as many games as he can each Sunday. If you do the same, feel free to add your own observations from the previous day’s games below.

• Comments [3]

Readers' Comments

Add a Comment

Already a registered user? Please sign in to add comments.

To add comments, you must become a registered user of our site. To register, please click here.