Thoughts From Week 6

Giants 31, Falcons 10: Before everyone jumps on the Giants bandwagon, let's stop to consider who they beat in their four game winning streak. They get credit for edging Washington on the road, as they've been a solid team this year, but other than that they've beaten Philly, the Jets, and Atlanta A.V. (after Vick). The Eagles were missing Westbrook and most of their secondary, and yet were in it for most of the game. The Jets are just bad and Leon Washington has probably been their best player. The Falcons...two words: Joey Harrington.

The fact is, the Giants have lost to the only legitimate teams they've played. They'll probably extend their streak to six straight, with Trent Dilfer's 49ers and Cleo Lemon's Dolphins coming up, followed by the inevitable "Eli Manning is finally living up to his hype" talk. After that, the schedule gets a lot tougher. It reads as follows: Dallas, at Detroit, Minnesota, at Chicago, at Philadelphia, Washington, at Buffalo, New England. Would anyone be shocked if they lost six of those eight games?

On another note, during the game an ESPN analyst pointed out that one of Eli's strengths is his "amnesia," or his ability to forget bad plays and move on. First off, I could already tell that Eli doesn't care when he messes up. He always has the same blank stare on his face at all times. Second, isn't a quarterback with "amnesia" just another way of saying that a quarterback is bad? I'd rather have a quarterback remember his interceptions and fumbles so he can, oh I don't know, learn from them! I hope Eli forgot about last season's second half collapse, or he's going to have a severe case of deja vu this year. Finally, if I want a quarterback with amnesia, the first guy I'm calling is Trent Green.

Saints 28, Seahawks 17: I know I'm not the only one who did a double take when Reggie Bush ran up the middle for 22 yards in the first quarter. This game really seemed to sum up Bush as an NFL player. When he's running intelligently, he can be a force. He's a lot like Brian Westbrook, with his elusiveness and speed. Yet he insists on dancing around in the backfield, as if he's back at USC. That doesn't work in the NFL.

On the other side, Shaun Alexander was abysmal, with 35 yards on 14 carries. It was one thing when he struggled against Pittsburgh, but the Saints? Pathetic. I'll give the Saints special teams some credit for jump-starting the team with that botched punt TD, and to Drew Brees who had his first productive game of the season, but this looked more like Seattle stumbling than anything else.

Patriots 48, Cowboys 27: I have to give the Patriots credit for this one. They beat a legitimate team on the road, really for the first time all year. I was never sold on Dallas, who also hadn't played a tough schedule in the first five weeks, but they are by far the toughest team the Patriots have faced. The true test will be when they play Indianapolis, but blowing out the Cowboys at home is pretty impressive.

Meanwhile, the Cowboys weak pass defense was once again exposed. To be fair, can a team starting Roy Williams be expected to effective cover anyone? His strategy on every play seems to be torpedoing himself at the nearest opposing player. Sometimes he connects and does some damage, but most of the time he whiffs or just grazes the guy. He's like a power hitter who swings as hard as he can on every pitch. For every 500 foot bomb, there are 50 strikeouts. So there you have it, Williams is the Wily Mo Pena of the NFL.

Chargers 28, Raiders 14: Looks like the Chargers are back. There's nothing particularly impressive about beating the Raiders (although they were leading the AFC West coming into the game), but Tomlinson reverted to his MVP form. Even more important was that LT had more carries than Philip Rivers had passing attempts. Could Norv Turner be learning, or was this just a random sequence of events that led to this play-calling? They say a bunch of monkeys with typewriters would eventually write Shakespeare, so I'm willing to believe that Turner could get lucky for two weeks in a row.

Jaguars 37, Texans 17: Jacksonville has very quietly achieved a 4-1 record and they have a great shot at beating the Colts in two weeks. That could potentially be a more difficult game than the Colts game against the Patriots, just because Jacksonville's running game is so strong. I'll admit I was overambitious when I picked the Jaguars to win the AFC South, but they are a legitimately good team nonetheless.

Eagles 16, Jets 9: The difference in the game was a 75 yard bomb to Kevin Curtis, which is great, but doesn't exactly inspire a ton of confidence in the Eagles offense. If this team is going anywhere they should be able to put up more than 16 points against the Jets. At this point I'd say the Eagles are looking at a 7-9 season, unless something drastically changes.

Buccaneers 13, Titans 10: The Madden Curse finally got to Vince Young. But really, who could've foreseen a young scrambling quarterback without much talent around him succumbing to injury?

Packers 17, Redskins 14: How about Santana Moss taking himself out of the game? I guess I can't blame him after he dropped several passes and had more rushing attempts than receptions (1-0), though his rushing and receiving yards were the same (0). Even Sean Taylor made a few catches, though he dropped two easy interceptions. Meanwhile, Brett Favre had a pretty lousy game (19-37, 0 TDs, 2 INTs) and yet the ESPN headline reads that he "led" the Packers to victory. I must've stepped out for that part of the game. Moss did more to help the Packers than Favre did.

Chiefs 27, Bengals 20: Maybe Kansas City really isn't that bad...oh wait, Cincinnati has no linebackers (no, they're not in jail...yet). Meanwhile, Tony Gonzalez should enjoy his TD record while he can because Antonio Gates is closing fast.

Vikings 34, Bears 31: Adrian Peterson is just ridiculous. The Bears defense isn't as good as it was last year, but no one should be able to run all over them just like that. It was like a team full of Adam Archuleta's out there.