The Good
Defense! Defense! Defense!
Giving some love to the players on the defensive side of the ball for the Ravens, Chargers and Bears! Oh My!
I know it is early in the season, but in consecutive weeks, these three teams defensive units have all but obliterated opposing offenses. In two weeks, these defenses have allowed a combined total of 20 points. The Bears blanked the Packers in Week 1 and followed it up by allowing a single TD (7 points) to the Lions in Week 2.
Baltimore held Tampa Bay scoreless in Week 1 and allowed 2 FGs (6 points) against Oakland in Week 2. And finally, a defensive unit that is becoming quite scary, the Chargers shutout the Raiders in Week 1 and held the Titans to just 7 points in Week 2.
The Chargers have a bye, the Ravens travel to Cleveland and the Bears visit Minnesota in Week 3. I expect these defensive units to excel again next week.
The Good Part II
Must give the Manning brothers some love along with some other QBs!
I know it is a bit early in the season to have a two part Good section, but I cannot overlook what some QBs did last week. Props to Manning, Manning, Brees and Palmer.
Just want to share there stat lines:
Peyton Manning, 400 yards passing, 3 TDs
Eli Manning, 371 yards passing, 3 TDs
Drew Brees, 353 yards passing, 2 TDs
Carson Palmer, 352 yards passing, 2 TDs
Brilliant!
The Bad
The Pittsburgh Steelers for rushing their QB back too quickly.
Ben Roethlisberger was in no way shape or from ready to come back to play football in the NFL 15 days after having an emergency appendectomy. Further more, the guy had a fever on Monday of 100.4 degrees. Why was he even on the field?
The Steelers opened the season with Charlie Batch against the Dolphins and he was more than adequate in handling the starting QB duties. Why rush Roethlisberger back and risk injuring him even further and risk your season.
His stats on Monday night left many fans scratching their heads at his sub-par performance. Big Ben was not so big in his first game back going 17 of 32 for 141 yards and ZERO TDs and 2 INTs. His passes were off the mark all night long and he did not look comfortable in the pocket.
A QB should not flinch when he is about to get hit by a blitzing linebacker, and Big Ben did just that on several occasions. He should have watched from the sidelines and the Steelers made a mistake rushing Ben back to the field so quickly.
The Ugly
The Carolina Panther’s Gamble fails!
With the Panther’s leading 13-6 and having just forced the Vikings to punt, Coach John Fox gambled with Chris Gamble and they lost the house, the boat, the farm, the chickens, the shirts off their backs and the game!
Midway through the fourth quarter, Chris Gamble caught a punt and for some unexplainable reason, Coach John Fox had Gamble throw a backward lateral to Richard Marshall. Well that failed miserably when the ball bounced around and was recovered by the Viking’s Jason Glenn at the 21-yard line. With that bad play call, the Panthers saw their momentum and lead disappear and eventually wound up losing the game 16-13 in overtime.
Why make this call when you are winning the game, late in the game on the road? Fox is done with that play, saying, “At that point in the game, we were trying to be aggressive and got too greedy. Obviously that was a mistake on my part. It was a bad decision. The buck stops here with that. All decisions in the game come through me. I don’t think we’ll see that one again.”
Let’s hope so because that was UGLY!
