NFL, Week 10 - College Football's "Wacky" Virus Hits the NFL, Full Throttle

[jdcord]

Proofs that College Football's "Crazy" bug has made its way to the NFL, fully infecting the League in Week 10:


1.  Of the 14 games in week 10, ...

NINE of them saw the "Home" team lose, several of them in quite embarrassing fashion.  Namely:

*  the Ravens:  21-7 to the defensively challenged Bengals, whose bottom dwelling defense held the Ravens scoreless for 58 full minutes, until Baltimore finally scored a meaningless, "garbage time" touchdown, and who held the Ravens to just 276 total yards, even though they came into the game allowing almost 400 yards per game!

*  the Titans:  28-13 to the Jaguars, who were led by a "who he?" back-up QB named Quinn Gray (??), whom the Titans held to an "impressive" stat line of 13 for 23, for 96 total net passing yards.  ..... How in the world do you lose that game??  What's worse, the Titans League leading rush defense gave up 166 yards, even though I'm sure they had to be putting 8, or even 9 men "in the box" pretty much the entire game.  How does that happen??  Especially at home?

*  the Chiefs:  27-11 to the previously spiraling, fast-falling Broncos - losers of 5 of their previous 6 games (including a 44-7 whooping in week 9).

*  the Panthers:  20-13 to the hapless, floundering, Joey Harrington led Falcons.

*  also receiving votes:  the Redskins, 33-25 losers to the previously flightless, Emu-resembling Philadelphia Eagles.


2.  Other Random, Miscellaneous Oddities:

*  San Diego beat the 2nd best team in the League 23-21, despite not being able to gain even 100 yards on the ground, nor through the air!  (91 net yards rushing, 86 net yards passing).  Oh yeah!, they also managed to gain just 11 first downs.  Gaining 20 first downs in a game is considered pretty "pedestrian";  11 is just downright comatose.

*  In the "fast-paced" battle between the Bears and the Raiders, neither team was able to manage the "pedestrian" 20 first downs, with the Bears "manhandling" Oakland for 16 first downs, while the Raiders sliced their way through the opposition for a whopping 12 first downs.  What an exciting game that must have been.     

*  Other games in which both teams failed to gain at least 20 first downs:  the Bills @ the Dolphins (15 first downs each), and the Bengals @ the Ravens (17 & 16 first downs, respectively).  But the "Crème de la Crème" of utter, first down futility had to be the Falcons @ the Panthers, where the visitors managed 12 first downs to the Home team's jaw-dropping total of 10.  Was there anybody still in the stands during the final minutes of that one?  And if so, .... Why?

*  The Cardinals seem to have become the "Giant Killers" of the NFL (especially at home), able to knock off top tier playoff contenders such as the Steelers and the Lions, but looking absolutely mediocre against hapless teams like the 49ers, Ravens, Rams, and Panthers.  ........ whatever.

*  The Packers ran 80 offensive plays against the Vikings. ... That's right, EIGHTY.  This made it so that even though the Packers ran 48 passing plays, they were still able to hold the ball for an astounding 40:40 of the game clock.  Wow!

*  Not surprisingly, in their 24-0 loss to the Seahawks, the 49ers were yet another team that in Week 10 was unable to gain even just 100 yards neither running nor passing.  ............ oh yeah, I almost forgot, they also managed a staggering, mind-numbing total of just 6 first downs for the entire game.

*  In the Vikings @ Packers game, the Vikings punted 5 times and Green Bay punted thrice.  Both punters averaged over 50 yards per punt!  (50.7 for Green Bay's punter, and 52.8 for Minnesota's).  What kind of punters are those guys?  Bionic?    *L* 

*  The Browns managed just 13 first downs and only 163 total yards, yet they scored 28 points.  Judging from that, the Browns may have had the halftime lead of 21-6, but they were never really in control of that game, ....... not ever.

*  The Giants were playing at Home, ran the ball better than the Cowboys, passed it just as well, had fewer penalties (for less yardage), and controlled the clock for almost a full 35 minutes, yet they lost 31-20.  Essentially then, they outplayed the Cowboys, but they still lost by 11 points.  ..... That's gotta be really aggravating.

*  Donovan McNabb had a very gaudy stat line for Week Ten.  20 of 28 passing, for 251 yards and 4 TD's.  But don't let those numbers fool you; they are surprisingly deceptive.  The reality was that McNabb looked simply dreadful.  His 8 incompletions were horrifyingly bad (way behind, ahead, beneath, or over his intended receiver), and many of his completions were bad passes that were somehow caught anyway.  Also, anywhere from 80-100 of his passing yards came from "shovel passes" (which are essentially pitched hand-offs, like on option plays, only they go forward instead of sideways); that includes the 57 yard TD "pass" to Brian Westbrook.  And while the Redskins somehow, mystifyingly, failed to intercept some of his badly inaccurate passes, McNabb did manage to turn the ball over on a fumble.  So don't get too excited about McNabb.  He's not "back".  His teammates simply bailed him out - something they won't be able to do on a weekly basis.