A quick and analytical tour of Sunday’s games:
49ers 25, Lions 19
Jim Harbaugh has a habit of overshadowing his big wins with postgame run-ins. His tiff with Pete Carroll will soon take a backseat on YouTube to his scuffle with Jim Schwartz.
Too bad, too. It’s Harbaugh’s team that deserves to be talked about. The Niners are 5-1 after becoming the first Pacific Time Zone club since the ’96 Niners to win three-straight in the Eastern time zone. The 49ers play great defense, run between the tackles and put a ceiling on their quarterback’s opportunities for mistakes by relying on a heavy dose of underneath passes. It’s a formula that many great high school teams use, which is fitting given that San Francisco plays in the N.F.C. West.
The stories of this game (game, not postgame) were defensive end Justin Smith’s 2011 breakout performance (he’s a fantastic player who had been, by his standards, somewhat quiet this season), Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman’s brilliant coverage on tight end Brandon Pettigrew, Michael Crabtree’s sticky hands (77 yards on nine receptions, seemingly all of them being either third-down conversions or tight-rope jobs near the sideline) and Frank Gore’s 47- and 55-yard runs on wham plays off right guard, with tight end Delanie Walker blocking down off motion against Ndamukong Suh. The Niners these days are riding their stars and game-planning shrewdly. Perhaps there will be many more Harbaugh celebrations during the postgame handshake.
Falcons 31, Panthers 17
We’ve been tracking the Atlanta Falcons’ search for an identity all season. With Julio Jones (hamstring) out of the lineup, they found their old one, feeding Michael Turner the ball 27 times and getting 139 yards in return. Turner, like Chicago’s Matt Forte two weeks ago, feasted on off-tackle runs against Carolina’s Jon Beason-less front seven. According to ESPN, Turner ran outside 13 times for 105. He broke tackles with regularity and got stronger by the quarter.
Jones is a fantastic talent, but as we’ve been saying all season, the Falcons need to take a hard look at how much they’re incorporating their prized rookie into the offense. This remains a run-oriented team.
Bengals 27, Colts 17
Last season the Bengals looked as if they would head into their bye with a 3-2 record. But with 25 seconds left in their Week 5 contest against the Bucs, Carson Palmer threw an atrocious pick-six to Sabby Piscitelli, costing the Bengals the game and their positive outlook on the rest of the season.
In Palmer’s place is the rookie Andy Dalton, who completed 25 of 32 passes for 264 yards and a touchdown against the hapless (i.e. Manningless) Colts. Dalton’s Bengals are 4-2 heading into their bye. They’re still yet to be truly challenged, aside from a stellar Week 4 win against the Bills, but as they say, You can only beat who’s on your schedule.
Most encouraging for the Bengals is the steady success of their rookie quarterback. Dalton continues to be poised and accurate when his pocket is clean, and he’s benefiting from the friendly play-calls – such as play-action, rollouts and underneath throws on early downs – of the first-year offensive coordinator Jay Gruden. He’s also developing good chemistry with No. 4 overall pick A.J. Green (who seems to be the real deal).
Packers 24, Rams 3
The Packers have won 12 straight dating to last season and are 6-0 for the first time since 1965. (Full disclosure: this opening line was actually written before Sunday’s game against the Rams.)
Things have gotten bad in St. Louis, if for no other reason than things have gotten good in San Francisco, making it no longer easy to climb out of the basement of football’s worst division. Steve Spagnuolo deactivated the team’s prized offensive and defensive free-agent pickups, wideout Mike Sims-Walker and linebacker Ben Leber. Sims-Walker was struggling to get open; Leber had been playing too laterally against the run. Spagnuolo denied that these moves were made to shake things up. Then he shook things up by saying, “We just put out the guys out there that we thought would help us win the game.”
Giants 27, Bills 24
With Brandon Jacobs out for a second straight week, Ahmad Bradshaw had an opportunity to punch in three one-yard touchdown runs against the Bills. Bradshaw finished with 104 yards on 26 carries.
Perhaps more interesting is the running back situation for the Bills. Fred Jackson racked up 121 yards on 16 carries (80 of those yards coming on one play), but backup and 2010 first-round pick C.J. Spiller got no carries. Spiller did catch five balls for 39 yards. This seemingly verifies the reports from after Roscoe Parrish’s injury a few weeks ago that the Bills are inclined to make Spiller a regular at wide receiver.
Steelers 17, Jaguars 13
The box score says this was a low-scoring, defensive slugfest highlighted by Rashard Mendenhall’s 146 yards rushing. It was. But don’t think this means we’ll see the return of black-and-blue Steeler football. A major component of Pittsburgh’s gameplan was attacking the Jacksonville safeties deep with Mike Wallace. Wallace, maybe the most dangerous big-play receiver in the game, finished with two catches: a 28-yard score early in the second quarter and a 48-yarder two possessions later. Wallace is now the first player since Terrell Owens in ’04 to have a 40-yard reception in five straight games. Make no mistake: these Steelers are still a pass-first club.
Eagles 20, Redskins 13
Rex Grossman completed nine passes to the Redskins and four passes to the Eagles. He reacted to phantom pocket pressure all afternoon, ultimately taking his jitteriness and poor accuracy to the bench in the fourth quarter. Cue Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors.
Three of Grossman’s interceptions wound up in the hands of Kurt Coleman, Philadelphia’s backup safety, who started in place of injured Jarrad Page. Don’t be surprised if Coleman keeps the starting job. He’s not a consistently dynamic player, but Page has been a major liability against the run this season. Run defense was not an issue for the Eagles this week. They held the Redskins to 42 yards on the ground (150 less than Philly’s offense generated).
Raiders 24, Browns 17
The Raiders honored Al Davis’s memory in their first home game since his death. Team greats were on the field at halftime and John Madden lighted a caldron in the Coliseum that will allow fans to remember Davis. Then the Silver and Black went out and finished the deal against the Browns.
The victory moved Oakland to 4-2. It may have been a Pyrrhic victory, though, as quarterback Jason Campbell left with a broken collarbone. He’s reportedly expected to miss the season. Kyle Boller, in relief, was not as impressive as his solid 8-for-14, 101-yard stat line suggests. In fact, those who witnessed Kevin Boss’s fake field goal touchdown reception might even argue for punter/holder Shane Lechler to get snaps under center.
Ravens 29, Texans 14
The Texans are now 0-2 without Andre Johnson. His absence is reflected in the team’s stagnating rushing numbers: 70 yards on 25 carries against the Raiders, 93 yards on 25 carries against the Ravens. Running lanes tend to narrow when defenses don’t fear your receivers over the top.
As for the Ravens, expect most Tuesday power polls to have them as the top team in the A.F.C. Their defense remains nasty, and their offense is somehow producing with a quarterback barely completing 50 percent of his passes.
Patriots 20, Cowboys 16
A surprisingly low-scoring game was headlined by the stellar performance of both defenses. The Patriots may have set a template for attacking Rob Ryan’s defense. The key is tempo. The Patriots moved the ball with relative ease when they went hurry-up in the second half. Ryan’s men did not have time to communicate or mill about and disguise looks before the snap. They played reaction football, and were damaged by a few solid ground gains early in the fourth quarter and a patented Tom Brady dink-and-dunk game-winning drive late in the fourth.
Part of the reason the Patriots can make defenses hesitant is their two tight ends. Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski are potent run-blockers (Gronkowski especially) who are also capable of beating cornerbacks (Hernandez especially). There’s no defensive personnel package that can adequately match up to them.
Bucs 26, Saints 20
Just in case you thought head coaching wasn’t important…
The Saints lost play-caller and decision-maker Sean Payton to a broken leg in the second half (Payton actually called most of the first-half action with his leg in a temporary brace and elevated on the bench). In the fourth quarter, trailing, 26-20, with over 3:00 to play and two timeouts remaining, the Saints faced a fourth-and-two at the Bucs’ 4-yard line. Assistant head coach Joe Vitt chose to go for it. Drew Brees wound up scrambling to his right under pressure, failed to see a wide-open Robert Meachem to his left and threw an interception in the end zone. A failed running play would have at least kept the Bucs backed up near the goal line.
Bears 39, Vikings 10
Here’s a question to ponder and debate with friends: what are the five most exciting plays in your football lifetime? Not single plays, but types of plays. Example: my football lifetime began in 1994 (I was 8; that’s when I started really following the N.F.L. closely). The five most exciting types of plays for me (in no particular order): Devin Hester returning a punt/kick; Randy Moss going long; Michael Vick scrambling/buying time; Deion Sanders returning a pick; and Barry Sanders running.
This discussion changes based on when one’s football lifetime began, but Hester has to be involved in plenty of them, no?
Andy Benoit is an N.F.L. analyst for CBSSports.com and founder of NFLTouchdown.com. He can be reached at andy.benoit@NFLTouchdown.com or @Andy_Benoit.
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