A1: Parity Party
It’s Week 7 in the NFL, and you know what that means: It’s almost Week 8. That means we’re almost halfway home, and the season is taking shape — but right now it’s the shape of a bloated colon.
Through six weeks there are only 10 teams in the entire league with a winning record, and just remember 12 teams make the playoffs.
For the nine teams at or just below .500, the time to move is now.
Big Game: New York Jets (4-1) at New England (5-0)
This is the big game because of course it’s the big game, but just for fun here’s a little more on why.
This is the only game of the week that features two teams with a winning record. This is the only game where first place is on the line. This is the only game where the head coach of one team was the head coach of the other team for 24 hours before scribbling his resignation on a cocktail napkin. This is the only game where a starting cornerback used to play on one team then played one year on the other team — won a Super Bowl — and then morphed back into a mortal enemy. This is the only game where one team tattled on the other and cost the head coach $500K and a first round pick.
This is the only game between the Jets and the Patriots and there’s only one Jets/Patriots.
Conference Calls:
Philadelphia (3-3) at Carolina (5-0): The Panthers and Eagles get together for a battle of teams cheated out of a Super Bowl by the cheating Cheatriots and will never let it go.
Pittsburgh (4-2) at Kansas City (1-5): This week Andy Reid took the blame for Kansas City’s 1-5 start, ending his reign as the last person on Earth who hadn’t already blamed Andy Reid for KC’s 1-5 start.
Buffalo (3-3) at Jacksonville (1-5): The NFL continues its pledge to grow the game in London using only diseased American seeds.
Tampa (2-3) at Washington (2-4): It’s Jameis Winston vs. Kirk Cousins, so for one week “Redskins” won’t be the most offensive thing on the field in Washington.
Houston (2-4) at Miami (2-3): Will the Dolphins ever lose under Dan Campbell? (Yes. Next week in New England.)
Division Drama:
Dallas (2-3) at New York Giants (3-3): The Cowboys come to town—BUT WHO CARES THE METS ARE IN THE WORLD SERIES!
Oakland (2-3) at San Diego (2-4): Philip Rivers 14 career wins against the Raiders are the most by any quarterback in NFL history. Hmm, congrats?
Minnesota (3-2) at Detroit (1-5): The Vikings come in with the NFL’s No. 2 ranked defense. Not to be outdone, Jim Caldwell can count to two.
Everyone Else: The rest of the rest.
New Orleans (2-4) at Indianapolis (3-3): RUN IT AGAIN, CHUCK. They’ll never expect the same fake punt two games in a row.
Baltimore (1-5) at Arizona (4-2): Not the scenario the NFL envisioned when they scheduled this one for a Monday Night, but hey, it gives ESPN another chance to help Ray Lewis promote his book.
Cleveland (2-4) at St. Louis (2-3): The rookie record for rushing yards in a season is 1808 by Eric Dickerson. Todd Gurley might get there in one game against the Browns’ league-worst run defense.
Atlanta (5-1) at Tennessee (1-4): The Falcons are not a very good team, but that might not be apparent until Wild Card weekend.
Forecast: Last week it looked like the weather was about to turn but then Mother Nature slammed on the brakes. This week there’s only one kickoff temperature under 60 and that’s in London. Falcons at Titans is the only game that even calls for drizzle.
What gives?
Thanks, Obama.
Goodell’s Corner: As always, your weekly note from Commissioner Roger Goodell:
Hey gang. It’s your old pal the Commish here, and you know it seems like all I ever hear about these days is how the NFL always loses in disputes against its players. They talk about how we were overruled in the BountyGate case, and the Ray Rice case, and the Adrian Peterson case, and the Greg Hardy case, and of course in DeflateGate. They say the players run amok in this league and that our punishments — MY punishments — mean nothing.
WELL THEN, funny how I haven’t heard any of those detractors chiming in this week when the NFL delivered a knockout blow to player misconduct. You remember that little incident two weeks ago when Cam Heyward wrote his late-father’s nickname on his eye black? Yeah you do. And you remember that that’s when the league laid down the hammer. And now guess who won’t be doing that anymore? Guess who bowed to the mighty shield? Take THAT, decent human beings who want to honor their late parents — and never forget who’s in charge.
Until next week – go Jets!
Hot Seat: Last week we pledged to rename this section the JIM CALDWELL Hot Seat until the Lions’ coach was removed — but then Chuck Pagano had to go and run quite literally the stupidest and most hilarious trick play in NFL history. In fact it was so ridiculous but there’s no choice but to assume that Pagano wants to be fired. He’s sick of Jim Irsay’s toxic insanity and Ryan Grigson’s slicked back sleaziness. The man wants out and you can’t blame him. For that we’re not going to rename the Hot Seat but we’ll remove the previous name. Step up your game, Jim Caldwell.
Infirmary: Game-time decisions that could turn game day results.
Dion Lewis (abdomen): Lewis wasn’t at his best in Indianapolis, and the Pats offense won’t be at their best without him. (Didn’t see that sentence coming two weeks ago.)
Marcus Mariota (knee): Four losses and a cheap shot to the knee later, and that week 1 masterpiece must feel like freshman year at Oregon.
Odell Beckham Jr. (hamstring): ODB didn’t practice last week then went out and caught seven balls and a touchdown. In other words don’t worry that ODB isn’t practicing this week.
Just Watching: How the BYE teams will spend their week —
Green Bay (6-0): Prepping for Week 8’s showdown with the undefeated Broncos.
Denver (6-0): Prepping for Week 8’s showdown with the undefeated Packers.
Cincinnati (6-0): Resting up with an eye on Week 8 in Pittsburgh, where the Bengals will put undefeated on the line.
Chicago (2-4): “One of these things is not like the others….”
Keeping the Faith: Good news in a league that specializes in bad —
A few weeks ago Daniel Fells almost lost his leg to a MRSA infection. In fact, he almost died. But this week — seven surgeries later — Fells returned home to an amazing and well-deserved greeting from his kids.
Life of Hochuli: Early Sunday morning, Ed Hochuli’s iPhone alarm goes off in his hotel room. It’s set to Eminem “You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you better never let it go . . .”
Hochuli: “Oh man, it’s morning already? What a night, boys.”
Hochuli (in a high-pitched voice, flexing his right bicep): “Dang right it was, Papa. We sure showed those fellas from 8 Mile a thing or two about rap battling!”
Hochuli: “Well, you know they didn’t call me MC Hoch in law school for nothing!”
Hochuli (in a deep voice, flexing his left bicep): “Oh will you two shut up. That wasn’t 8 Mile. Those were just two blacks guys at the bus stop, and to be honest, your rap was pretty racist.”
Hochuli: “Yeah, whaaaaatever party-pooper. No time to argue about that now. It’s Vikings/Lions time!
Milestones: With the Cowboys running game still in search of an identity, they’ll need a big performance from Matt Cassel against the Giants – like maybe four touchdown passes? If he can get four on Sunday (or at any point before Tony Romo returns) Cassel will have 100 touchdown passes for his career, and let’s please take a second to remember how absolutely ridiculous that is. Remember this is the kid who didn’t start a single game in college. Who only ever saw the field because of an injury to a quarterback who never gets injured. In the seven years since, he’s been traded three times, he’s been released, he’s broken a leg — yet here is on the verge of damn respectable NFL milestone. 100 touchdowns. That’s as many as Doug Williams and Jim McMahon. That’s more than guys like former seasoned pros Elvis Grbac and Rodney Peete and David Garrard and Scott Mitchell.
That’s amazing.
Numbers Game: As we mentioned above, it’s time for the mediocre masses to get their ass gear and make something of this season. The urgency is especially high for any 2-4 squads. Since the playoffs expanded in 1990, teams that start the season 3-4 make the playoffs at a 19 percent clip. Teams that start 2-5 make it at a three percent clip. In fact only four 2-5 teams have ever gone to make the playoffs.
The last one was the 2011 Broncos, but it’s not fair to compare anyone to a team that was touched by Tebow.
One True King: Here’s where we speculate about who will be the last NFL team to lose a game — and here’s something crazy: Of the five remaining undefeated teams, the Patriots might be the best bet to lose this week. Seriously. It won’t be the Bengals, Broncos or Packers because they’re not playing at all. It comes down to the Panthers hosting the Eagles or the Pats hosting the Jets, and you might look at that and remember that the Eagles already beat the Jets this year, that the Pats are favored by significantly more than the Panthers, and that this whole paragraph is garbage. But if this was a survivor pool and you could only choose one, the Panthers might be the less stressful choice.
Patriots Place™: The Patriots are favored by eight points on Sunday and that’s just way too much. It was too much when the Jets were bad, but now that they have a running back, a pair of receivers, a decent quarterback and a mentally stable coach to complement that deadly defense — EIGHT POINTS IS WAY TOO MUCH. We all know that it is. So then why is the line so high? Because Vegas always knows.
Prediction: Patriots 30, Jets 14
Quiz Show: With Matt Cassel on the verge of 100 touchdowns, you should know that there are 10 active QBs with at least 200 career touchdowns. Can you name them?
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1) Peyton Manning (537); 2) Tom Brady (406); 3) Drew Brees (403); 4) Eli Manning (270); 5) Philip Rivers (264); 6) Ben Roethlisberger (255); 7) Tony Romo (245); 8) Aaron Rodgers (241); 9) Carson Palmer (238); 10) Matt Hasselbeck (206)
Reunion: It will be fascinating to see what the Jets do with Revis on Sunday. While in a perfect world it would be nice for the Patriots to have a classic No. 1 receiver, in this case that vacancy means that there’s no classic No. 1 receiver for Revis to cancel out. Brady’s top two targets are speedy slot guy and mammoth tight end – neither is ideal for Revis on his grand return to Foxboro.
Survivor: If you’re still alive in your survivor pool, congratulations. You’re a genius. The alphabet is jealous and hates you. But at any rate, you’re probably at the point where you have to take some chances. Especially with three really good teams on a bye. So for that there’s only one choice this week: Rams over Browns.
Trash Talk: As you know, the Patriots tweeted out a butt fumble photo on Thursday, and then erased it a few hours later. As you know, erasing means nothing in the age of screen shots. That tweet will live on forever and — unsurprisingly — still sits on ESPN.com’s top headlines page more than 24 hours later. Either way, the important question remains: Who was stupid enough to tweet that in the first place? And do they still have a job? How terrified will they be every single time they see Bill Belichick from now until eternity?
On one hand, yeah, the Pats have tweeted out that photo in each of the last two years so maybe the tweeter thought it was OK – but come on. It’s different when the Jets stink. It’s different when Rex is on the other side. For a game like this, nothing will anger Belichick quite like unnecessary trash talk and it’s truly amazing that someone in the organization lost sight of that.
Upset of the Week: The 49ers beat the Ravens last Sunday so the U of W improved to 3-2 on the season. This week we’ve got three legitimate upset candidates:
Jacksonville (+4) over Bills. All bets are off in London, plus Blake Bortles is getting better while the Bills are about ready to implode.
TENNESSEE (+4) over Falcons: If Mariota was healthy? Sure. But he’s not, so we won’t.
LIONS (+2.5) over Vikings: There’s obviously the Jim Caldwell factor, and the “Lions suck” factor, but when in doubt take the home team getting points within the division.
Vegas Values: A few fun (and real) prop bets for Week 7
Rob Gronkowski over 150 receiving yards (+2500): The Jets have an unbelievable defense and Gronk’s been used as more of a decoy these last few weeks. That said, he’s always a threat to explode and for those odds (a $10 bet pays $250!) you roll with it.
Sam Bradford over 2.5 interceptions (+800): Bradford has thrown at least two interceptions in four of six games this year, and threw three last week. Meanwhile Carolina has the second most interception in the NFL and will beast at home.
John Brown over nine receptions (+2500): Brown has a sore hamstring but he also had a sore hamstring last week when caught 10 balls for 196 yards against Pittsburgh.
Worst of the Week: Congratulations, ESPN. You’ve outdone yourself.
X Marks The Controversy: The Johnny Manziel bandwagon has hemorrhaged passengers in the two plus years that JFB has been in the league. When he got a chance earlier this year, he rewarded the remaining backers for their patience. But the dude just can’t stay out of trouble. Something is out of whack. He’s running out of chance as the bandwagon speeds towards the edge of a cliff.
Yesterday’s News: The Seahawks still probably aren’t that good but the 49ers are definitely not that good.
Zee End: That’s it. Enjoy the games.
Follow me on Twitter @rich_levine