The Good
Chiefs offensive line under Friday Night Lights in the NFL!
In a rare NFL Friday night game, the Kansas City Chiefs pulled out a 30-20 win over the Miami Dolphins. The Chiefs, who were told Thursday about the game schedule change, flew and landed in Miami around 6 hours prior to kickoff.
However the Chiefs offensive line found energy enough to allow Priest Holmes to carry for 90 yards and 2 TDs and Larry Johnson for 93 yards and 1 TD. A dominating performance against a team that was allowing just 98 rush yards per game.
The Bad
The Cincinnati Bengals defense!
The Bengals proved they were not ready for the big time as they stumbled at home against the division rival Pittsburgh Steelers. The bad in this game has to be the Cincinnati defense that allowed the Steelers to rush for a season high 221 yards. That’s 102 yards more than what the Steelers were averaging for their first 5 games, and that included 206 against Tennessee and 135 against Houston.
One can say the Bengals are not for real. None of their wins have come against a team with a winning record. Their wins have come against Cleveland (2-4), Minnesota (2-4), Chicago (3-3), Houston (0-6) and Tennessee (2-5); while their losses have come against the Jaguars (4-2) and Steelers (4-2).
Now before all the Bengals fans jump on me, consider this, if the trend of winning against teams with losing records and losing against teams with winning records continues Cincinnati will end the regular season at 11-5 which should be enough to put them in the playoffs. The Bengals have Green Bay (1-5), Baltimore (2-4) twice, Cleveland (2-4) again, Buffalo (3-4) and Detroit (3-3) still to play. However they should expect loses against Indianapolis (7-0), Pittsburgh (4-2) and Kansas City (4-2).
The Ugly
The improper use of instant replay.
There is a flaw in the instant replay system currently used by the NFL. The job of instant replay is to get the call right. RIGHT! I don’t care if the call goes FOR my team or AGAINST my team, I just want the call to be made RIGHT!
The New Orleans Saints got shafted by officials for the second week in a row, this time by not reviewing a critical play. Now I know the rules were followed by the officials, and true, the Saints did not have any time-outs left, but something needs to be done when a call is so blatantly wrong that anyone watching could have told you the officials called the play wrong.
The NFL has to allow the booth official to review a play that is going to cost a team the game. In this instance, the player (Saints TE Ernie Conwell) was down by contact – heck he was laying flat on his back when the ball was taken out of his hands by Rams safety Mike Furrey. Furrey returned the “interception” 67 yards for a touchdown and it put the game out of reach for the Saints.
I want the call to be correct, I don’t want to see a game won or lost because an official made a call incorrectly. Timeouts are used to stop the clock to save time and regain control of the ball, not to make challenges via instant replay. Why is a team responsible for putting up one of its timeouts, to make sure the officials have made a call correctly? Is it just me, or does that seem wrong?
Steven,
I definitely want to agree with you that it’s cool as hell to be able to talk football with your wife. Well, not me talking with your wife, per se. But being able to talk with your own wife. My wife loves football. She’s not quite as analytically capable as Tricia, but she loves it and she’ll sit there with a beer and watch with me. And we’ll talk about it. And you know that she’s not doing it just to make me happy. She’s doing it because she loves it.
Tricia (sp?), don’t feel about picking the Bears. I would never want you to not pick them. Pick away. I love it!
I loved the game! Nailbiter. And the Bears are above .500! Woo hoo!!!!
Tricia, laugh at your hubby! Mock him for not believing!
Oh, and I will declare my love for the Bears in virtual print. I know I said this tends to jinx the Bears. But, hopefully, these next two weeks will be relatively easy for them. And they will march out at 6-3.
Sorry about the multiple posts. I’m posting as I’m listening to the podcast.