Thoughts on this weekend's NFL games

by Graham Email

Quick thoughts:

1. The Patriots are almost unbeatable in the Winter. They demolished the Bills, who were in danger of being shut out until they got a late TD.

2. The Colts' win was very important. This gives them home-field advantage for the playoffs, which will at least ensure that if they have to meet the Patriots, they will at least do so at home.

Best Play of the Week
2nd quarter, Cowboys vs. Chiefs. Drew Bledsoe hands off to Marion Barber on what looks like a standard run play, with Barber about to run up the middle. The Chiefs' secondary moves up, expecting to shutdown the run. Barber pitches the ball back to Bledsoe, who throws deep to Terry Glenn, who ran an "out" route and then converted it to a post route. Completion, touchdown, with no Chiefs player able to get anywhere near Glenn. Beautiful to watch.

Worst Plays of the Week.
Lions at Packers. Needing a TD, the Lions find themselves with 1st and goal at the Packers' 1 yard line. The Packers DL is anchored by Grady Jackson, who has been giving a convincing impersonation of The Immovable Object all evening.
The Lions proceed to run straight at the Packers for 3 plays, They gain no yardage at all, with Jackson pushing Lions players back the other way every time. On 4th down, after a timeout, the Lions go for it (good decision; even if they fail, Green Bay is pinned against its own goal line). But what is this play? A quarterback sneak. It fails and Green Bay has the ball. Once again, Grady Jackson pushes back the Lions players like they are lightweights.
Let me think about this...you fail 3 times running the ball straight up the middle, using a running back. You now send a mobile quarterback to try for a fourth time, when you could have called a running play, run a rollout and possibly even had the QB run the ball in? Ye Gods. No wonder the Lions are in such a mess. That is the sort of play-calling that would get a high-school co-ordinator fired, let alone an NFL co-ordinator.

First Terrell Owens Franchise Discipline Imitation Award
...goes to the Buffalo Bills, who have apparently sent Eric Moulds a letter threatening to recover a portion of his signing bonus if he commits further infractions.
Frankly, this boggles the mind. Eric Moulds is about as far removed from T.O. as you can get and still be playing in the NFL. He does not have any sort of established reputation as a selfish prima donna. Yet, after a one-game suspension because he surfaced his frustration at what is currently a lousy Bills offense, and after he has apparently accepted the suspension with good grace, he is being threatened with discipline like a naughty schoolboy?
Come off it, Buffalo. What is good for the Eagles is not good for all franchises. This is pathetic macho posturing behaviour by the management of a floundering franchise.
Unless...this is all part of the posturing that appears to be infecting the whole collective bargaining landcape, with the NFLPA dismissing arbitrators and filing grievances up the wazoo over Terrell Owens' deactivation. Since anybody with half a brain who follows the NFL could tell the NFLPA a whole host of reasons why T.O. is about the last person they should be supporting in a fight, I have to wonder whether all the to-ing-and-fro-ing over player discipline has now become part of the larger game being played out over the extension to the CBA. We are getting dangerously near the point where the impasse over the CBA extension has to be resolved, or we will be looking at an uncapped year, which could seriously disturb NFL franchise economics and stability.