How bad is it in Philadelphia?
The Eagles have some serious deficiencies. The Eagles inability to punch the ball in from the three-yard line on six tries marked a sad performance against a Giants team that was being dismantled by their fan base after a poor Monday Night performance against the 0-3 Rams. The Eagles appear to be a bunch of moving pieces without an identity.
On defense they can’t stop the run, Mike Vick has exited the last two games due to injury, and their offensive line looks lost. The Dream Team will have to start gelling otherwise they may spend some time in the cellar of the NFC East.
The Bills are good and resilient. It would have been very easy for the Bills to say “were 2-1 and no one expected us to be, but that didn’t happen after being down 21-0 in the second quarter to the mighty Patriots. Ryan Fitzpatrick was better than his impressive numbers (27-40, 369, 2 TD, 2 INT’s). Fitzpatrick is making a case for a contract extension (a large one) instead of being ushered out of Buffalo for Andrew Luck, as most expected (including myself). The road is going to get tougher in Buffalo but they look to be in good hands with Ryan Fitzpatrick at the helm. They are not looking for a repeat of the 2008 season that saw them start 4-0 only to finish 7-9.
Antonio Cromartie had one of the worst days of any CB in the history of the game. Ok, that may be overstating how bad it was…but it was pretty bad. Aside from muffing the kickoff that led to an Oakland score, Cromartie had four penalties which resulted in four first downs for the Raiders. Factor those in with the fact that he still can’t tackle, received bruised lungs and ribs in this contest, and looked miserable in pass coverage and you have a pretty bad day at the office for Cro.
It’s fairly easy to catch three touchdowns in an NFL game. Two receivers caught three TD passes yesterday and one of them was a rookie. Torrey Smith of Baltimore just blew by Ram defenders on his way to three TD catches. Oh by the way, his 3 TD’s were the first 3 catches of his career. On the same day, Jermichael Finley snagged 3 TD’s from Aaron Rodgers. Somebody’s got to catch them in Green Bay.
San Francisco may be the “class” of the miserable NFC West. Arizona laid an egg against the Seahawks. Yeah,
Harbaugh's 49ers could be the class of the NFC West
those Seahawks. St. Louis is off to a 0-3 start and one has to feel for Sam Bradford. So, it appears the fighting Jim Harbaugh’s may be the favorite to win the NFC West. They are 2-1 despite their inept offense. Their run defense is 3rd in the league and their pass defense is 16th. Don’t get too excited, they have faced Seattle, Dallas, and Cincinnati. But it doesn’t take much to win that division.
The Falcons have a tough road ahead of them in the NFC South. The Falcons took one on the chin against the division rival, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They were coming off a solid win against the Eagles but couldn’t manage to avoid mistakes. They had three turnovers and gave up four sacks of Matt Ryan. The Falcons have a tough road ahead in the very competitive NFC South. They were a lot of people’s sleeper NFC Super Bowl contender but they may be lucky to make it to the Playoffs at this pace.
Matt Forte should be happy the Bears don’t want to pay him. The Bears tallied a whopping 2 yards on 10 carries against the Packers on Sunday. Only three of those runs went for positive gains. Ouch. Mike Martz is not known for his propensity to run the ball but 10 rushes in a game won’t instill any fear in a defense. The Bears have yet to meet the contract demands of the versatile RB Matt Forte but with Mike Martz at the helm of the offense, maybe he should be excited about that. Forte is one of the more complete backs in the game and may prosper in a system that would allow him to use his running abilities with his pass catching abilities.
