Josh Brown puts the stake in the Rams again and the Steelers get a big win at home.
Quick Shots:
Willie Parker and the Steelers ran towards a huge 38-31 victory over the Saints. Parker had a tremendous game in rushing for 213 yards on 22 carries and two touchdowns. Parker would have had two more touchdowns, but was tripped up inside the 10-yard line on two separate 70-plus yard runs. Drew Brees continued his case for league MVP by throwing for 398 yards and a touchdown, but was really outdone by Ben Roethlisberger who was 17 of 28 for 264 yards and three scores…With just under 30 seconds left to play in the Rams-Seahawks game, Josh Brown kicked a 38 yard field goal to propel Seattle to a 24-22 win over St. Louis. That’s twice this season that Brown has kicked a game winning field goal to burry the Rams and now Seattle can look forward to getting healthy again. Shaun Alexander and Matt Hasselback should be back soon for the Seahawks, which got great efforts from backups Seneca Wallace and Maurice Morris Sunday. Wallace threw two touchdown passes while Morris rushed for 124 yards…Denver had trouble with hapless Oakland, but the Broncos did squeeze out a 17-13 win. As the score indicates, nobody had a particularly great game. Jake Plummer threw two touchdown passes, but also added three interceptions while Randy Moss was sensational with one catch for eight yards…The Cowboys manhandled the Cardinals in the desert 27-10. Terrell Owens managed to actually catch a pass when he was wide open and finished with five receptions for 96 yards and a touchdown. Rookie Matt Leinart continues to struggle since playing so well against Chicago on Monday Night Football a few weeks ago. Leinart threw for 216 yards, but ended up throwing two costly interceptions in which Dallas turned into 14 points.
Most impressed with: Willie Parker was amazing for the Steelers. A lot of pundits questioned whether or not he could carry a full load throughout an entire season and I think he’s proving that he certainly can. I have to give credit to Ben Roethlisberger too, who I’ve hammered the past couple of weeks thanks to his shoddy play.
Least impressed with: Sean Payton gets his first criticism of the year. Why, with Drew Brees absolutely lighting up the Pittsburgh secondary all game, would Payton and OC Doug Marrone run the ball a handful of times with just over four minutes to play and the Saints down by just one touchdown? New Orleans basically ran two minutes off the game clock and only got the ball to midfield before Brees started throwing again. The way the Steelers secondary had been playing, the Saints could have scored three more times before the end of the game if Payton/Marrone would have stuck to the air attack.
