Do you know what I find alternately delightful and stressful about this NFL season? Outside of the NFC east, every single team in the league sort of sucks. Every Sunday becomes any given Sunday. How is a fan supposed to know if her 4-0 team is any good? Looking at the schedule, I thought the Bills would be tested for real in a couple weeks when they play the Chargers. But the Chargers got beat by the Dolphins today and the Bills got flat-out killed by the Arizona Cardinals.Apparently the only person more shook than Trent Edwards by the hit Adrian Wilson laid on him was, well, the entire Bills' defense. They spent the rest of the game after Edwards got KO'd missing tackles on receivers and getting no penetration and generally making an 80-year-old quarterback with two messed-up hands look infallible. I can't put it all on the defense, I guess. JP Losman can do some things, like throw a long bomb TD pass to Lee Evans or grow a whole mess of facial hair in a summer, but he can't eat up the clock, or avoid a sack, or win a game for you in the fourth quarter (RIP Trent!) He can sure turn the ball the fuck over in the fourth quarter, though. There were some dumb penalties, including Justin Jenkins' lining up off-sides on an Arizona field goal attempt, which gave them a first down, which ended in a touchdown. And there was the meekness of Dick Jauron, who looked like he was about to throw the challenge flag when the officials called a fumble on Robert Royal, only to...totally fail to throw it. I thought Royal's right knee was down, but no need for urgency when the Cardinals are about to take over possession of the ball deep in Bills' territory and the Bills defense has shown no ability to stop the Cardinals all game long. Hey, I'm indecisive, too, dude, but I'm not trying to be a head coach in the NFL.
I guess the Cardinals played a good game for a team I know next to nothing about except that they have a really old quarterback. I am starting to panic a little about the AFC east, y'all. Maybe even the Jets are better than us. How the fuck do I know?
2 comments:
It's true. There are only a couple of teams that are indisputably bad, and really, no one is jumping out like a world beater yet. Even the NFC East teams seem like they're kinda shaky week to week, and I suspect they will be enigmas all season long as they cannibalize each other. I mean, right now the best team in the NFL might be the Titans and they are starting Kerry Collins at QB. It's a weird season.
yeah, i think part of why the nfc east looks good is that it feels like they've exclusively been playing each other for weeks now in close games. dallas almost got beat by the bengals, i guess; not exactly domination of the league.
btw, i was born in detroit. i haven't paid my dues in the agony of being a lions fan, but i have a fondness for the team + the city. during the bills-cards game, once it had become clear that the cards were killing, one of the dumbfuck announcers said something about how "the fans of Arizona deserve this win," presumably because they don't win that often. i was like, uh, i think some fans in other cities have it on PRETTY GOOD AUTHORITY that that's not how it works.
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