Andy Richardson

It happens every NFL season -- after a few weeks, you think you know everything, and then stuff happens to smack you in the mouth. I would have bet anything the Eagles would go into Oakland and stomp them into a little silver and black streak, and instead they don't even score a touchdown and lose. I figured the Jets would run the Bills off the field, and instead...well...they ran for over 300 yards and managed to lose anyway.

In any case, it was one of those "that's why they play the games" weeks that reminds you not to get too smug about what you think will happen. Yesterday's doormat will pull off tomorrow's huge upset; a backup quarterback who can't pass will somehow lead an upset, and teams like the Ravens and Jets will go from 3-0 to 3-3 quicker than you can say, "glad I drafted Ray Rice." OK, here we go....

Texans at Bengals: The Texans go on the road and beat a good team -- stop the presses. Interesting to think 3-3 Houston could easily have won every game since getting stunned by the Jets in week 1. Owen Daniels was huge; great diving TD grab during his 2-score day. Matt Schaub is answering all his doubters (which included me). And Steve Slaton, who I benched in one league, had a big day rushing and especially catching the ball. Particularly in PPR formats (where I did start him), you just can't bench backs like him, and it's fair to now say I shouldn't have benched him even in non-PPR. Starting running back who also catches passes in a powerhouse offense; you basically have to use him most weeks. For the Bengals, Laveranues Coles caught a touchdown, out of a four-receiver set; looked like the Texans forgot to cover him, perhaps assuming he'd recently retired since he shows up so rarely on game film. Probably won't happen again for a while. Cedric Benson looked OK, powerful on his TD run, but it wasn't the monster game you were hoping for if you started him. Maybe the emotion of the previous weeks' division battles caught up with the Bengals.

Ravens at Vikings: A lot to talk about in this game, which the Vikings dominated for three quarters but were fortunate to win. So: Ray Rice is indeed the breakout fantasy star it seemed like he would be. What a game against a good Vikings defense (albeit one that totally fell apart late). Brett Favre has plenty of football left, and when he gets time he's as good a passer, still, as anyone in the league. Sidney Rice is embarking on a breakout campaign -- Favre says when the ball is near him he expects him to catch it, and I agree. Great throw and catch to set up the winning field goal, although some poor coaching by Brad Childress to settle for the 3 when the 7 was available; taking another 40 seconds off the clock didn't seem as important as taking more than a 2-point lead. And indeed, the Ravens marched down the field for what should have been a game-winning field goal -- but they, too, got a little conservative, settled for a 44-yarder, and hooked it. Lucky win for the Vikings, but a great day for the Rice brothers (not actually), and Favre. Scary moment when Adrian Peterson got tackled with his left foot twisted underneath a defender; sure looked like an ankle injury. But he returned, so evidently he's fine. It appears he, like his team, got lucky. Oh yeah -- nice finish from Joe Flacco, who really took a beating out there but should have got the win.

Giants at Saints: You can't take anything away from the Giants, but we probably should have known that defense got a little too full of itself shutting down teams like Washington, the Bucs, the Raiders and Kansas City. Those teams barely play the same sport as the Saints, who didn't let anyone near Drew Brees and let him play pitch and catch all day with Marques Colston...Lance Moore (safe to drop Devery Henderson and pick up Moore toot sweet)...Jeremy Shockey....etc. At one point Colston caught an apparent touchdown, but a reversal led to it being ruled down at the 1. From where Brees threw a TD to ex-Giant Shockey, making you wonder if the Giants wish they'd rethought that challenge. Mike Bell replaced Pierre Thomas at the goal line for a TD early; Thomas got stuffed on his own goal-line chance later on. Reggie Bush, the one Saint you hesitate to start these days, scored a touchdown. And although Ahmad Bradshaw again out-fantasied Brandon Jacobs, Bradshaw got chewed out by Eli Manning for blowing a block on a Manning pick. He was right, but Manning himself had a lousy game, missing Steve Smith on a possible TD and being off target more than once, plus being saved from an interception by a roughing the passer call. The Giants haven't really been used to seeing an opponent put up a lot of points on them, nor in getting Manning hit as often as he did today. Saints, pretty good team. (Which means they'll lose next week.)

Lions at Packers: We may not know everything, but we do know that Matt Millen's legacy is a very talent-thin team. The Lions cannot play defense and will get torched by a good offense, as they did today. Their own offense was without Calvin Johnson, which basically is like playing with 10 guys against 11, no offense to Dennis Northcutt (who replaced him). With Calvin, and if Daunte Culpepper lost a little weight (I'm sorry, but the guy's posterior looks like a dualterior), maybe the Lions make a game of it, or lose 26-14 or something. As it was, they had no chance. I considered trading for Ryan Grant this week, but this game was the perfect evidence of why not to trade for Ryan Grant. The Packers simply don't let the guy score! It's terrible. They're passing the ball on first downs, they're throwing little flips to multiple different fullbacks, Aaron Rodgers is running it himself....I see no reason why Grant couldn't run for 12-15 TDs in this offense (not that he's a great player or anything, but he's OK, and the holes are certainly there), but that's not how they roll. Next week, Cleveland. Another fine chance for a big game. But he probably won't get it. Nothing else to say about the Lions, except, good time for a bye week.

Bills at Jets: Rough week for the Jets. First the quarterback, well, he played well enough to win at Miami on Monday, and poorly enough to waste 300 yards of rushing at home against a terrible Buffalo team (and they are terrible) on Sunday. Braylon Edwards was targeted a lot, which it seems like Bills kind of figured out fairly quickly, hence Mark Sanchez's 5 interceptions. The Jets had some good plays in there, but obviously not enough, and none in the passing game. Rex Ryan's rookie season as head coach isn't all Aces lately either; he failed to use timeouts he should have in Miami, and used at least one he shouldn't have yesterday. Jets were in position to win in overtime, but a foolish holding penalty and botched field goal attempt scotched that. Oh yeah: Kris Jenkins might be out for the year, which is terrible news for New York's defense. Looked a lot like a Marshawn Lynch-Fred Jackson committee, which is terrible news for the value of both, because this team's offense isn't good enough to produce two good running backs. Trent Edwards concussion, Terrell Owens no-show. Again.

Titans at Patriots: Snow! Who doesn't love football games played in snow. Unless you're counting on passing games, but guess what, that worked out OK for New England, too. Sweet flea-flicker touchdown pass from Tom Brady to Randy Moss, against a secondary which normally doesn't require much trickery to give up huge plays. A long completion to a wide-open Wes Welker, who post-reception looked like he wasn't sure where the end zone was -- watching on TV, I definitely wasn't either. And then the madness of 5 second-quarter touchdown passes from Brady to Moss, Welker, Faulk et al, putting the "ugh" in laugher. Sammy Morris got hurt, so Laurence Maroney might be a popular waiver claim this week (BenJarvus Green-Ellis, too). And the Titans, well, I don't know if you'd call this a good or bad time to have a bye, but after losing 59-0, I guess it couldn't hurt.

Bears at Falcon: Entertaining game between two teams led by young quarterbacks who are going to win a lot of games in this league over the next decade or so. Granted there were some turnovers, and a fantastic finish was done in by a pair of veterans in Orlando Pace (a horrible false start penalty on 4th and 1) and Desmond Clark (dropping the final pass), but still, a good game to watch. This is why I refuse to trade Jay Cutler to the Bears fans in my dynasty league. The guy is a fantasy star. Better defensive efforts than I was expecting, too. I don't know how the Falcons are doing it, exactly, but it looks like they've got some underrated young talent there. And hey, their blowout loss in New England doesn't look so bad right now. Some big plays by Matt Ryan. And as for Matt Forte, well, pretty terrible game. Either the Falcons run defense is better than expected or the Bears line (and Forte himself) are worse. Most likely, the answer is both.

Other random notes: I've given JaMarcus Russell a lot of heat, so I'll give him some credit now. On consecutive plays he scrambled for a first down -- juking a defender to pick up the extra yards -- and then threw a dart to Zach Miller for a first down. And this was after a long touchdown to Miller. I don't know what happened in the past week, but Russell looked like an actual quarterback. Not that he has any value, of course, but at least Miller does and can reasonably be picked up off waivers in your league. ... You've probably seen, or will, the ridiculous cheap shot by the Panthers' Dante Wesley on Tampa Bay's Clifton Smith. Next time you want to give a football player too much grief for, I dunno, wanting more money, or joking that he should wear a skirt or something, watch the way Smith just gets leveled on that play, or watch the knee injuries to Kris Jenkins or concussion for Trent Edwards, or any of the various injuries or near injuries that could happen at any time on any play. It's a rough sport.

Monday, Monday: Kind of think this game might go a little differently than the 52-21 Chargers win in week 17. We'll be able to say for sure if Denver's defense is as good at it's looked so far after this one. We'll have a better idea if these people saying that LaDainian Tomlinson is "still one of the best at..." and "he's healthy now..." and all that other stuff that I heard just yesterday are right, or very wrong. And we may be talking about Knowshon Moreno's breakout game, because San Diego's defense is just hopeless right now. Mostly, I'm wondering how Kyle Orton will do in the spotlight. I'm not a believer, even with San Diego's lousy defense. Denver can't keep winning with Orton, an upstart young head coach, and that thrown-together defense, right?

You can't count on much in the league, but you'd like to think that Denver coming back to earth after a fast start is one of them.

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