NFL Week 5 thoughts

Monday Night Football - Wowee, that was some turn of events during that game, eh? The Bills should perhaps have taken the field goal earlier which would have put Dallas behind, but I can't lie. I'm really beginning to like Tony Romo. Even though he's still making mistakes and against Buffalo he generally had a dreadful game, his confidence on that last drive says an awful lot. He's proved he can shrug off mistakes and keep playing, not being cowed by the pressures of previous errors. All he can do now is keep getting better. Unless you’re on the receiving end, there’s always something pleasing to see just to see sportsmen, generally slated as being overpaid prima donnas much of the time, being genuinely delirious with happiness as they get a win out of absolutely nowhere. Make no mistake though, with that field goal decision and a failure to throw the house at Romo to keep him on his toes the Bills invited the Cowboys onto them.

Nick Folk - The rookie kicker who shrugged off being hit with the latest attempt to emulate Mike Shanahan’s timeout timing against the Raiders to boot another one through from fifty-odd yards.

Kris Brown - I think other kickers will be wanting to know where Brown gets his boots from after hitting the Dolphins with three fifty-yarders in the one game. What a performance.

Trent Green - Surely this is it? A second major concussion in two years is bad news and, as much of a competitor as he is, Trent might want to follow in the footsteps of Mack Strong and accept that enough is enough.

Mack Strong - Speaking of which, what a loss this is to the NFL and to Seattle. He’s been excellent in my relatively short time watching the NFL and his reputation speaks for itself for his career as a whole. Apparently his injury won’t effect him long-term though, so good luck to the man.

Denver fans leaving early - By the time the fourth quarter came around the stands were much emptier than they’d started, and can you blame the fans? They braved awful weather to see that abomination. Denver are having trouble doing much of anything right now and need to use their bye week to sort it. The AFC West is still open as all the teams have had issues, so if they come out fighting after the bye there’s still a playoff spot to be won from it.

Cleveland receivers - Every week there seem to be spectacular catches from Browns receivers. Either it’s just chance that these plays have come in a glut over a few weeks or these guys are really fired up and are determined to grab everything. I’d like to think it’s the latter.

Washington Redskins - I didn’t give them enough credit heading into the last game, plain and simple. They put Jon Kitna well and truly in his place on defense to allow the offense to put out a tremendous performance.

Larry Johnson - 9 rushes, 12 yards, long gain of 7. When Kansas can’t even get Larry Johnson rolling at all you know they’ve got problems.

NFL Week 6

Game predictions
Cincinnati Bengals vs. Kansas City Chiefs
Larry Johnson has become another player that I can’t justify picking to do well until he’s done it once. It’s probably a weak way to look at it, but there we are. That means this comes down to passing game, defense and special teams. Well, there’s not a lot to choose from with the latter two and if it comes down to a shootout Carson Palmer would surely be the one left standing.

Houston Texans vs. Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jacksonville defense has been excellent thus far, and their offense has been in proved mostly due to David Garrard having been more reliable than Byron Leftwich. After losing to Atlanta and only just scraping past Miami thanks to the heroics of their kicker the Texans have gone down a little in my estimation. The Houston running game hasn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders so when it comes to facing a suffocating Jaguars D they might be forced to air the ball out more than they’d like. I see a solid win for the Jags here as they get it done on both sides of the ball.

Miami Dolphins vs. Cleveland Browns
Derek Anderson has looked good enough to me that I’ve got absolutely no problem with predicting him to go ahead and lead the Browns to a win, especially now that the onus is on him with Jamal Lewis missing this one. With Trent Green out again, the Dolphins are onto the backups and Ronnie Brown’s hurt foot could have an effect too, even though Brown is likely to play.

Minnesota Vikings vs. Chicago Bears
This one could well go to the Vikes, but I’m picking Chicago purely because their defense is facing a team who seem unwilling to allow Adrian Peterson, their biggest weapon, to carry them to victory. Unless that changes the Bears have what it takes to grind out what would likely be an ugly but crucial victory.

Philadelphia Eagles vs. New York Jets
If Philly had to come in and face a team with a huge pass rush then there would probably be more concerns given what happened against the Giants, but the Jets won’t cause the Eagles as many problems on the offensive line and Donovan McNabb should have plenty of time to succeed or fail based on what he does. He’ll likely succeed as well, with the Jets being as injury-riddled as ever I think the Eagles will ease to their second win of the season.

St. Louis Rams vs. Baltimore Ravens
I always feel a little mean for not improving my expectations of a team after they seemingly fix some of their troubles, but I don’t think putting 31 points past the Cardinals is any sign that the Rams are ready to kick it up a few gears. The injuries are there, plenty of mistakes were still there and at the end of the day, they scored 31 but still lost by a field goal. Baltimore will go about their business and worry about their own game before they worry about the opposition and even that low-paced (and sometimes downright ineffective) offense will find ways to score against the Rams.

Tennessee Titans vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tampa deserve credit for doing a hell of a lot better than people were ready to say they would, and then going to Indianapolis and make the champions work for their win. It’s easy to go to a place like the RCA Dome and get a little overwhelmed to the point of giving up the ball too easily. The Bucs went there and refused to make it easy for the Colts. Staring them in the face is a match-up against the Titans. You can’t really judge Tennessee by who they beat and by how much because their game is often just about getting the win one way or another. There won’t be a lot of mistakes in this game so it’ll come down to which team simply plays best, and I see the Titans’ better-rounded offense helping them do just that.

Washington Redskins vs. Green Bay Packers
This is giving me more of a headache than probably any other game this one and I’m finding it one of the hardest to call of the season as a whole to date. The ‘Skins really got going last week, and they come up against the Packers who’s style isn’t entirely dissimilar to Detroit’s, just that they’re less explosive and their defense is tougher. On the plus side, there are times of the year when travelling to Green Bay would be much less forgiving weather-wise so if that doesn’t play a part I can see Washington getting the win as I think they’ve got more individual playmakers.

Carolina Panthers vs. Arizona Cardinals
As the quarterback carousel could spin once more to see veteran Vinny Testaverde behind center is David Carr takes one knock too many you can’t help but feel this really isn’t going to be Carolina’s year. Arizona are 3-2 overall and 2-0 at home, and I find it hard to make myself find reasons to think Carolina are going to buck that trend. If you get the ball into the hands of Steve Smith there’s a chance, but that’s presumably been the tactic over the past few losses as well, so…

***Game of the Week***
New England Patriots vs. Dallas Cowboys
I’d love to see Dallas win this, not out of any particular love for the Cowboys but just for the rest of the league to see that the Patriots can be beaten. I think the Patriots will probably edge this one purely because of the sensible notion that it’s surely not possible to stop every single weapon the Pats have on offense. The way to do it would be to keep getting to Tom Brady and knock him off his game but I’ll believe it when I see it. The ‘Boys won’t go down without a hell of a fight and they have the personnel to turn the tables and send the Patriots back to Foxboro with their first defeat of the season, it’s hard to pick against New England though until they actually show weakness.

Oakland Raiders vs. San Diego Chargers
LaDainian Tomlinson usually enjoys himself when playing against the Raiders and Oakland have a job on their hands going to San Diego and stopping the Chargers after they got back on the rails with an enormous win in Denver last week. Oakland are good running the ball and stopping the run, but it’s hard to stop Tomlinson AND Michael Turner getting it done on the same day, so on a day that could involve relatively low passing stats I can’t see the Raiders beating San Diego on the ground in San Diego.

New Orleans Saints vs. Seattle Seahawks
I think the Saints will come good as I’ve said previously, but then I thought that could be last week so before I get ahead of myself I’m going to pick Seattle and be done with it. This is Drew Brees’ cue to prove me wrong and decimate the ‘Hawks for five touchdown passes and 400 yards.

New York Giants vs. Atlanta Falcons
After beating the Texans there were whispers that perhaps the Falcons have what it takes to put a respectable record together before the end of the season. They then of course went 1-4 with a defeat to Tennessee but that’s nothing to be ashamed of, but even at home against a Giants outfit that can be hit-or-miss at times I think they’ll struggle for points as the Giants throw the house at Joey Harrington to try and make him crumble.

PFC Staff Fantasy Picks

If you’ve been following this column, you’ll have read the fantasy football game between a few of the PFC staff we’re running for a bit of fun and maybe a few fantasy football pointers

Kevin Figg picked Jon Kitna, Lendale White, Torry Holt and Dallas Clark, meaning 0 for Kitna’s nightmare against Washington, another 0 for White, 8 for Holt and 6 for Clark, giving Kevin just 14 thanks to two almost unbelievably poor performances from Kitna and White.

Chris Pokorny selected Tom Brady, LaDainian Tomlinson, Steve Smith and Tony Gonzalez. These players got him 23, 4, 6 and 4 points respectively. This gets Chris a week 4 sum of 37.

And lastly, I selected Matt Schaub, Edgerrin James, Roy Williams and Dallas Clark. I got 4 for Schaub, 2 for James, a big fat zero for Williams (thanks, Jon!) and topped off with 8 for Clark meaning I got a lowly total of 14 like Kevin.

With me and Kevin both getting very poor scores from our quarterbacks and receivers, Chris leads the week by a mile as his own low-key picks are saved by Tom Brady.

Kevin Figg - 164 ½
Chris Pokorny - 154
Ian Hetherington - 136 ½

After a week or two of threatening to do so, Chris finally capitalises on poor weeks from me and Kevin to both leapfrog me into second spot and get within range of Kevin. It’s a lot closer than it was, but it’s my turn to foot the standings! With that cheery thought in mind, onto the next set of picks.

Kevin Figg:
QB: Kurt Warner (Cardinals) vs. Panthers - Warner gets all of the snaps for himself this week. Look for him to take adavantage of a weak Carolina secondary.

RB: Ronnie Brown (Dolphins) vs. Browns - Brown is Miami's only legitamate offensive threat right now. And, the Browns defense is ranked 30th in the league against the run.

WR: Wes Welker (Patriots) vs. Cowboys - With Dallas putting all its focus on Randy Moss, look for Welker to have a lot of opportunities to make plays.

TE: Antonio Gates (Chargers) vs. Raiders - The Raider linebackers play a lot of zone coverage, loook for Gates to have plenty of room to work, over the middle.

Chris Pokorny
QB: Carson Palmer (Bengals) vs. Chiefs - Returning against a tough Chiefs defense, the Bengals will benefit from having the bye week off.

RB: Brian Westbrook (Eagles) vs. Jets - Looking to renew their success from back when they beat the Lions, Philadelphia will utilize the ground game against a vulnerable Jets defense.

WR: Braylon Edwards (Browns) vs. Dolphins - Miami's pass defense may be solid on paper, but that's because teams have kept it on the ground against them. When Anderson works off of playaction, he loves going deep to Edwards.

TE: Tony Gonzalez (Chiefs) vs. Bengals - The Bengals defense won't improve much after the bye week, allowing Tony Gonzalez to build upon a rather quiet season.

Ian Hetherington
QB: Carson Palmer (Bengals) vs. Chiefs - The Kansas defense isn’t particularly special at anything just now, and with Houshmanzadeh having a great season to date and Chad Johnson out there as well you can’t help but feel Palmer’s going to enjoy himself.

RB: LaDainian Tomlinson (Chargers) vs. Raiders - San Diego aren’t all of a sudden back to their ’06 form just because of a victory over a dire Broncos team at Mile High, but it’s got them back on the rails and this division is still there for the taking. LT is going to be the star for San Diego this week.

WR: Plaxico Burress (Giants) vs. Falcons - Burress has been immense thus far as he’s proved to be Eli’s favorite outlet by far and he’s hauled in seven scores. He’ll find he gets the ball in his hands a lot against Atlanta on Monday.

TE: Kellen Winslow (Browns) vs. Dolphins - Miami aren’t having a good time of it at the moment, and Derek Anderson will try to establish a good connection with Winslow to inflict more punishment on them.

SCORING SYSTEM:
Quarterbacks: Touchdown = 6 points; 50 yards passing = 1 point; interception or fumble (lost) = -½ point

Running back: Touchdown = 6 points; 50 rushing/receiving yards = 2 points; fumble (lost) = -½ point

Wide receiver: Touchdown = 6 points; 50 receiving yards = 2 points; fumble (recovered by defense) = -½ point

Tight end: Touchdown = 6 points; 50 receiving yards = 2 points; fumble (recovered by defense) = -½ point