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With their loss to the New Orleans Saints, the Atlanta Falcons have finally taken their first loss. The Falcons are still an outstanding team and are one of the best in the NFC.
After close calls against Oakland, Carolina and Dallas, the Falcons failed to pull out the late win.
The Falcons have no real concerns and losing to the Saints in New Orleans is no shame. After a disappointing start, the Saints are looking to be one of the most dangerous offenses in the NFL.
The Saints at 4-5 have finally started to resemble what is expected of Drew Brees and company. Their defense is still a significant concern both in pass and run defense but they are doing just enough to allow the Saints to hold on and win.
Although the Saints are playing an exciting and dangerous brand of football, they will struggle to capture a playoff position.
The Falcons hold a four-game lead in the divisional standings and the Saints find themselves behind Tampa, and it is abundantly clear that the NFC North will have two playoff teams in Chicago and Green Bay.
There will be intense competition between Seattle (6-4), Minnesota (6-4), Tampa Bay (5-4) and suddenly Dallas (4-5). Each of these teams are flawed in some respect but it looks as though it will be Seattle that will find themselves in the playoffs as the final wildcard. New Orleans ultimately will be doomed by their 0-5 start and quite frankly they should be.
The showpiece Sunday night football featured the red-hot Chicago Bears and AFC leading Houston Texans with an indecisive victory for the Texans. With Bears quarterback Jay Cutler out with a concussion, Chicago was forced to rely upon backup Jason Campbell.
Campbell was not particularly effective and was undermined by drops from his receivers. Both the Bears and the Texans defenses controlled the game in tough conditions but the game was won by the Texans running game.
This game was set up as a means to gauge both teams against elite competition and the Texans continue to look like the best team in the AFC. The Bears couldn’t quite make the case for themselves as one of the best teams in the entire league but they will again have an opportunity to do so next week against the 49ers.
The Philadelphia Eagles’ season is now over and with it coach Andy Reid’s job. Michael Vick suffered a concussion and the Eagles handed the win to the Dallas Cowboys through easy defensive touchdowns and revived the Cowboys playoff prospects.
The silver lining for Philadelphia is that with their season effectively over and Vick’s injury concerns clouding his return for the season, the Eagles now have a perfect opportunity to trial rookie quarterback Nick Foles.
Foles was excellent against the Cowboys, completing passes and moving the Eagles effectively while allowing Shady McCoy to run all over the Cowboys. Foles output will appear clouded by an interception that was tipped by two players and somehow landed in Brandon Carr’s hands and a strip sack fumble that was recovered for a touchdown.
The interception was a fluke play and in no ways Foles fault, but the strip sack was a result of Foles’ complete lack of awareness of the pass rush around him. Foles looked to be a bright prospect and the Eagles should trial him for the rest of the season.
With Vick possibly being shown the door at the end of the season, the Eagles could discover that they have an ideal successor in place for next season and years to come.
After devastating injuries to Lardarius Webb and Ray Lewis, the Ravens seemed to be treading water and looked to be a remarkably inferior team to the one that opened the season with a 31 point win over the Bengals.
After losing badly to the Texans, the Ravens have largely been forgotten. With their 55-20 win over the struggling Raiders, the Ravens reminded the league that they are still right at the top of the AFC and that they will easily coast to the playoffs.
Quarterback Joe Flacco was excellent, dicing up the Raiders secondary but their still remains concern over the Ravens defense after they allowed 368 yards of passing from Carson Palmer.
High yard totals are misleading in big wins though as the Raiders were passing continuously through to the end of the game. The Ravens will draw significant positives from this game and will enter next weeks blood rivalry game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football that might be without Ben Roethlisberger.
With the New York Jets slumping to another loss and another game of complete offensive futility, the calls for coach Rex Ryan to bench Mark Sanchez in favour of Tim Tebow grow louder.
Being manhandled by the Seahawks in Seattle is no shock and Sanchez has been disappointing as ever this season. Benching Sanchez would be a momentous move and one not to be taken lightly.
If Sanchez is benched the Jets are essentially saying that they have given up on the prospect of Sanchez being a part of their future.
After the vehement support Sanchez has enjoyed by Rex Ryan, starting Tebow infers that the Jets consider Tebow the superior option. There can be no rotating quarterbacks with both quarterbacks sharing time under center.
If Tebow is to start he will start for the rest of the season. If Tebow is to start, Sanchez will not be a Jet next season.
As much as decisions need to be made in a week to week basis and the Jets will be wanting to salvage the remainder of this season, benching Sanchez will have ramifications for years to come for the Jets.
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