Steelers 19, Titans 11
The Steelers defense is very good. This shouldn't surprise anybody. I'm not at all surprised that they made Vince Young curl up in the fetus position and then sent him to the bench. I think they may lose to the Ravens (maybe. Joe Flacco's playing about as well as whatever the Steelers start at QB), but a 3-1 start is looking likely, even without Roethlisberger. Damn I hate the Steelers.
Bengals 15, Ravens 10
Has Ray Lewis Ever lost a game in his career where he didn't blame the officials? You know what, other than those two roughing calls you're so pissed about, may have changed the game around, Ray? If you're quarterback didn't cough up 4 interceptions. That might have done it. Nice rebound effort by the Bengals defense. I thought they were better than what they showed against the Patriots.
Eagles 35, Lions 32
There's a lot of conclusions one can draw about this game that may not be correct. One would be that Michael Vick has finally learned how to pass and that the Eagles are foolish to go back to Kevin Kolb. I'm not sold on that one, but f*&k them either way. The other is that the Lions offense might actually be pretty good, meaning it's actually kinda impressive that the Bears held them to 168 yards. Either way, it sucks for Detroit that they blew this game. If Matthew Stafford were back I'd probably pick them to drop Minnesota to 0-3.
Falcons 41, Cardinals 7
Oh man. I didn't give the Derek Anderson-"led"-Cardinals a chance to win this game, but the complete and utter defensive meltdown was a tad unexpected. Looks like an even more brutal season for Arizona than I thought. They may be as bad as they were with a young Jake Plummer at the helm.
Dolphins 14, Vikings 10
Oh man. What a joy. I was up visiting my fiancee in the middle of Iowa this weekend (not a great place for picking up very extensive NFL coverage on the radio, by the way) and hit the road shortly after the Bears and Vikings games had ended. The only AM football station I could find was the Vikings post-game and it was glorious. Favre basically blamed Berrian for the two awful picks he threw in his direction, the fans somehow also found a way to blame the receivers, Paul Allen ripped Favre a new asshole (which, combined with this call, makes Paul Allen my hero), while the two meatheads running the post-game show also ranted about how rusty he looked. It was so beautiful that I shed a single tear.
Chiefs 16, Browns 14
The Chiefs win again despite Matt Cassel being a total liability. If they don't do something about him soon they're going to sacrifice what might actually be a totally-not-awful season for them. Oh, and Cleveland really sucks.
Buccaneers 20, Panthers 7
Called it. The Bucs are certainly much better than last year, even if they've played two awful teams. I think 7 wins or maybe even 8 could be a possibilty (Rams, Bucs, Lions, Seahawks, Panthers, Cardinals all left on the schedule and all games the Bucs could win).
Packers 34, Bills 7
This tells us absolutely nothing, really. Green Bay is good. Possibly really good. The Bills are most certainly dogshit. See you Monday, Aaron Rodgers.
Broncos 31, Seahawks 14
I probably shouldn't have picked the Seahawks, as one win may not exactly=turnaround, but damned if my malice toward Josh McDaniels isn't all consuming. The only thing I can draw conclusively at this point is that the NFC West is a wasteland, without even the presence of the above-average Cardinals of 08-09 to bail it out. 8-8 may win this divison. By several games.
Raiders 16, Rams 14
Sam Bradford isn't terrible and is still alive, so kudos to the Ram organization. The Raiders are the real losers here, as they've already benched Jason Campbell and have pretty much shot to shit any chance of the revival they were expecting this year.
Chargers 38, Jaguars 13
Yeah, the Del Rio Death March is in full swing.
Jets 28, Patriots 14
You win this round, Rico Mirerez, but the Patriots also allowed Carson Palmer to throw for the most yards he's accumulated since his right arm fell off in 2008. I have faith that you'll be right back to suck very, very soon. But nice job beating the Patriots. I may get tired of the Jets hype, but nothing compares to hating New England.
Houston 30, Washington 27
Matt Schaub had 497 yards passing. Donovan McNabb had 426. Those 923 combined passing yards are second in history only to Dan Marino and Ken O'Brien's 927 in a 51-45 Jets win over the Dolphins in 1986. Needless to say, this game was impressive. I'm slowly beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, the Texans won't screw me over for believing in them this year.
Colts 38, Giants 14
Upon further review, Perry Fewell may not have fixed the Giant's defense that quickly. Also, NBC played Five For Fighting's 100 Years in the background while showing Manning family photos because they hate you and good taste.
Saints 25, 49ers 22
Ouch. What a giant cockpunch for 49ers fans this game was. Mike Singletary is truly awful at in- game management, and I'm not even going into the alleged communications issues (key quote (for me) from that article: "Though Singletary said he was listening in on the headsets, the sources claim he isn’t an X’s and O’s guy and doesn’t know what a correct play call would be compared to an incorrect call"). He badly mangled his timeouts and he called an absolutely awful prevent defense that made Drew Brees' job way too easy on the last drive. I can see, therefore, why some Bears fans thought he'd be a great replacement for Lovie. I will say, however, that Alex Smith is a remarkably better quarterback now than he was before last year, only further proving my hypothesis that it takes a full three years (which would be 2005, 2006, and 2007 for Smith as he missed all of 2008 due to injury before coming back and taking the starting job last year) for a spread quarterback to transition to the NFL. Also: Drew Brees is really good.
That's it for now. NFL Prognostication Bukakke will go up Thursday.
