In a week that was filled with upsets and injuries, the most upsetting injury was what happened to number 52 this Sunday. Ray Lewis, 16 year NFL veteran and still one of the best linebackers in the league, suffered a season ending injury against the Cowboys, which could possibly end up being a career ending injury. Just days after baseball legend Derek Jeter suffered a season ending injury, one of football’s most recognizable icons suffers the same fate. For the sake of the game I hope we didn’t see Ray’s final play on Sunday. Such a legendary figure should not go out like that.
On the topic of upsets, what happened to the Steelers this season? Pittsburgh is sitting at 2-3 and on the outside looking in at the playoffs. Don’t worry Steelers nation, its not panic time. They are a completely different team without Polamalu and Woodley, not to mention they are playing in a VERY week AFC. Houston and Baltimore are the only teams that have looked elite in the conference, and the Ravens we’re shellshocked with injuries this week. I would take a healthy Steelers over teams like San Diego, New York, Cincinnati, and Miami 9 out of 10 times. A team that was sitting in a similar position last week, the Green Bay Packers, made a statement on Sunday, laying the smackdown on the Texans on primetime television. The Pack looked eerily similar to last season’s team, with Rodgers back to old form, throwing for 6 touchdowns and 0 interceptions, three of them to 2011 touchdown machine Jordy Nelson. Green Bay’s defense held MVP candidate Arian Foster to 29 yards on 17 carries. Despite a barrage of injuries suffered in last weeks game, Green Bay bounced back in a big way, ending the Texans hopes and sending a message to the entire league. I honestly would not be shocked if we saw a rematch of this game come February.
I’ve talked about the NFC West’s serious lack of offense before, and it showed this week. Outside of Seattle’s victory over New England in stunning fashion, the rest of the division fell this week, with all three looking terrible on the offensive side of the ball. St. Louis’s defense looked fantastic, holding Miami to under 200 yards of total offense including 19 rushing yards, and despite 462 yards on offense, the story of their game has been the story of the last couple years for the Rams – they haven’t learned how to score touchdowns. Greg Zuerlein came back down to Earth, missing three field goals, and the Rams lack of a red zone offense cost the team. Arizona’s offensive output included 2 interceptions and a safety, and without their defense playing like the ’85 bears, they fell to Buffalo. And the 49ers, the best team in the division, we’re manhandled by the defending champion New York Giants. I still would take San Francisco over New York in a playoff game; but then again, so did everybody last year. Alex Smith played awful, the running game looked atrocious, and that cost them this one. If the 49ers want to win it all, Smith needs to start playing like Brad Johnson did many years ago by controlling the game and letting the defense do all the dirty work.
The Michael Vick Award for Best Performance goes to Aaron Rodgers. I already touched on this so I’m not going to go into much detail here. 24-37, 338 yards, 6 touchdowns. Rodgers is back. Honorable mentions go to Shonn Greene, who woke up after years of being asleep on the field, and Peyton Manning.
The Kyle Orton Award for Worst Performance goes to Phillip Rivers. Rivers looked like a stud to open the game, but sat back and watched Peyton Manning and the Broncos score 35 unanswered points. Not to mention Rivers had 4 interceptions and 2 fumbles, both recovered by Denver. Last week we thought Cam Newton’s QBR was bad, but Rivers takes the cake this week with an outstanding 2.6 QBR. Kudos to Phillip Rivers on playing possibly the worst performance of the season on Monday night, and next to Jay Cutler, Rivers is clearly the most inconsistant quarterback in pro football.
The Golden Tate Award for Most Deceiving Performance goes to the undefeated Atlanta Falcons. 6-0 and everything is good in Atlanta, right? Wrong. The Falcons played awful this week. If it wasn’t for Carson Palmer being absolutely terrible and the defense taking advantage of Palmer’s inability to play the game of football the way its supposed to be played, Matt Ryan would be getting blasted on every football talk show Monday morning. I still think Atlanta is a title contender, but they need to patch up some holes during this bye week.
The play of the week will sound pretty familier to most of you – Peyton Manning hits Brandon Stokley for the TD. http://www.nfl.com/videos/auto/0ap1000000080929/Week-6-Can-t-Miss-Play-Old-faithful