Author: Anthony Stalter (Page 1445 of 1503)

Monday night offered another dud with Carolina beating Tampa Bay 24-10, although I can’t entirely blame this one on the schedule makers. These were both playoff teams last year and went at it in the NFC South.

After watching this game, I think the old Bill Parcels quote of: “you are what your record is,” sums up the Panthers right now. At 5-4, Carolina is a borderline playoff team that is a meltdown away from finishing 8-8. The Panthers are terrible on third down conversations, can’t run the football consistently and Jake Delhomme continues to make bad decisions on a weekly basis. However, Carolina is getting exactly what it figured it would get with Keyshawn Johnson lining up opposite Steve Smith. A defense simply cannot load up on Smith anymore because Johnson is great at working the other side. Not to mention Julius Peppers is without a doubt the best defensive player in the game right now.

In my opinion, the jury is still out on this Panthers team, but Smith and Peppers are so dangerous that they can keep Carolina in the hunt for the rest of the season by themseleves.

Most impressed with: Peppers will give rookie tackle Jeremy Trueblood nightmares for weeks. As noted before, Smith is impossible to cover one on one with no safety help. Ronde Barber (one of the best defensive backs in the league) found that out again tonight.

Least impressed with: Rookie QB Bruce Gradkowski had a rough night. He under threw two open receivers, which turned into two Panther interceptions and also lost a fumble after he had already scrambled for a first down in the second half. Cadillac Williams doesn’t look good to me either.

Bears 38, NY Giants 20
Not to beat this play down like John Madden and Al Michaels did, but it never seizes to amaze me how a game can change directions on a drop of a dime. Down 13-3 late in the second quarter and facing a third and 22 from its own 28-yard line, Chicago looked more like a flawed team than one that should be in conversation as one of the best in the NFC. Then Thomas Jones breaks off a 26 yard run into Giants territory with still a minute remaining in the half. Four plays later, Rex Grossman finds Mark Bradley down the left sideline for 29 yards and a touchdown.

If the Giants stop Jones short of a first on that play and wind up taking a 13-3 lead instead of a 13-10 margin into halftime – do the Bears come out and control the second half they way they did? Who knows? But no one can question how good this Chicago team is now. Not after going into a tough Meadow Lands and beating a read hot New York team. Sure, the Giants are beat up, but the Bears laced a defense that had been playing well for 28 points in the second half alone.

Most impressed with: Rookie Devin Hester has a fumbling issue, but he’s a true playmaker in every sense of the word. Hester turned a short field goal attempt by Jay Feely into a 108-touchdown return to break the game open for the Bears in the fourth quarter. Thomas Jones deserves a lot of credit for the Bears success tonight too. Jones ran hard (30 carries for 113 yards and one score) all night and Muhsin Muhammad also came up huge (seven catches for 123 yards and a touchdown).

Least impressed with: For all Plaxico Burress’ talk this week about how the Bears are beatable, he certainly had an average night. Four catches for 48 yards and your team loses Plax? Eli Manning (two INTs) didn’t help, but Burress should learn to shut his mouth before playing a Bears defense that is nasty even when opposing players aren’t making bulletin-board comments throughout the week.

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.