Perfection is a hard thing to attain, especially in the oft-fickle National Football League, but it's a word that's following the Green Bay Packers around. Maybe now, after ten weeks, and with their record at 10-0, the word is more stalking than following. Talk of a perfect season - remember how well that turned out for the New England Patriots on that last night, Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Arizona - will intensify this week, after the Packers put the cleaners through the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night. The big thing this game wasn't so much the prolific Packer offense but their defense, which played lights-out. Clay Matthews, Charles Woodson, AJ Hawk, they all looked like their 2010 selves, rather than the unit that's given up yards hand over fist in 2011. If they get their defense playing consistently as they played on Monday night, watch out!
The San Francisco 49ers are for real. Jim Harbaugh has a good football team. Their victory against a good Giants team was no fluke, and it proves that their earlier victories weren't flukes. By far and away, this is the best team in the NFC West and they might just be the second-best team in the NFC. Much-maligned QB Alex Smith is having a surprisingly good season, doing enough not to lose games, making big throws when he has to, and the Niners running game led by Frank Gore has been incredible, the foundation of their offense. The status of Gore, injured last week, will be important going down the stretch, but it looks as though Kendall Hunter could at least take up some of the slack.
And so to another review of Tim Tebow's performance. Denver won and are 3-1 with Tebow as a starting QB, but I still don't buy that he's the second coming of John Elway. Tebow completed only two passes this week in a win over a not-very-good Kansas City team, got incredibly lucky - thanks to an onside kick - against Miami. Sure, Tebow cut Oakland to shreds on the ground, but there's only going to be so long before teams start to figure out this option offense and shut it down. Let's also not forget that they were smashed by a reasonably good team in Detroit. I'd like to see Tebow play consistently and win vs. good teams - say, Green Bay or Pittsburgh - before I anoint him the second coming of Elway.
Quarterback troubles in the league see Matt Leinart poised to direct the Houston Texans offense after starting QB Matt Schaub sustained foot injury that will have him out for the rest of the season. Disastrous blow for the Texans, who seem poised to eclipse the Indianapolis Colts shadow and win the AFC South. A potentially perfect situation for Leinart, who has enough weapons if he can make the throws, and a good running back in Arian Foster, to impress and silence some doubters. As a USC fan, really hoping Leinart impresses.
A similar situation in Kansas City, where an injury to the throwing hand of QB Matt Cassel seems to have sidelined him - if you believe the rumours - for the rest of the season. Thus, Tyler Palko, a rookie starter, gets the start, his first NFL start. You can't imagine that things could get any worse for the Chiefs this year. They've hardly won a game, and have lost star RB Jamaal Charles, TE Tony Moeaki as well as a slew of vital defensive players and now Cassel, too. Fans in KC will be praying for Season 2012. The only good news is that Palko's first start comes against the weak pass defense of New England, on Monday night. If there's one team you want to face first-up in the league this year as a starting QB, it's the Patriots.
Glad I'm not a NY Jets fan because the erratic and sometimes downright dumb play of QB Mark Sanchez would be getting right on my nerves. For a third-year quarterback who has started since his rookie year, you think he would be taking more of the offensive load for the Jets, yet it seems like the play callers in New York are almost afraid to give him much more than a few simple plans and rely, instead, on RB Shonn Greene to get the yardage, with LaDanian Tomlinson backing him up. I don't know if Sanchez has exactly regressed from this point last year but there's no noticeable improvement, either.
Devin Hester. What more needs to be said? This man is electric in the special teams game and it makes me wonder why teams ever kick to this guy anymore. I mean, usually they don't, usually punters and kickers angle the ball well away or kick it way out of bounds, but occasionally someone takes a chance, does the dumb thing, and Hester makes them pay for their stupidity. The big question is, can Hester, a middle-of-the-road receiver, get to Canton purely as a special teams player?
The wheels have really fallen off the now-empty Philadelphia bandwagon. The Eagles are a mess and now we hear stories of DeSean Jackson acting childishly again, resulting in him being benched for last week's game. Seriously, what is going on with this team? Michael Vick hasn't looked like the same player he was last year - typically, now that he's my starting fantasy QB - and the rest of the offense is the same. Head Coach Andy Reid keeps saying that they have to get better. It's his stock standard line now, that and talk about executing. The Eagles are both not executing and not getting any better. What an epic tumble it's been for the team many picked to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl.
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