NFL Week 10 Rundown

• Watching New England fail. Regardless of whether or not you think it was the right decision to go for it, watching New England fail is awesome.
• College basketball is back!
• My Alma Mater is going to the WPIAL semi-finals. One step away from Heinz Field
• Steven Jackson. St. Louis is terrible but he is still playing his heart out. Larry Johnson, take note.
• Watching Notre Dame lose.

• Losing at home to the Bengals
• The NFC East
• Ralph Wilson firing Dick Jauron. Next step? Toronto.
• Larry Johnson signing with the Bengals. Clang Clang.
• San Francisco not capitalizing on Cutler’s 4 INTs and giving the Bears a chance to win at the end. Luckily, Cutler had #5 up his sleeve.

Since everyone in the league has won, we were just about to abandon the Futility Watch. Thankfully, as they are prone to do, Cleveland stepped up and provided us with some material. It has been 85 minutes and 33 seconds since the Cleveland Browns scored an offensive touchdown. That was on November 1 against Chicago when Derek Anderson scored on a QB sneak at 10:33 of the 3rd quarter. In Cleveland fashion, they botched the extra point. With their bye week, it has been over 2 weeks since their offense found the end zone.

Outside looking in: Jacksonville (5-4), Baltimore (5-4), Houston (5-4), Miami (4-5), NY Jets (4-5)

We’ve been saying for a while that we’re expecting Denver to tank down the stretch. San Diego should win that division easily. The Steelers still have a shot at winning the AFC North, albiet an outside one. It seems much more likely that we’ll be going the wild card route. Jacksonville, in our opinion, is overachieving, which means the final wild card spot will likely boil down to a battle between Baltimore, Houston, and Miami. Tennessee also has a lot of winnable games on their schedule, and could easily finish 9-7 to make a run at the last playoff spot as well.

Yes, Guerin scored the goal. But how much does Malkin mean to this team? They were dead in the water until he came back. What a spark he provided. What presence to make that cross-ice pass with 1 second left on the clock to Guerin. What a shot by Guerin as well. He gets the Kevin Greene “I’m Also Pretty Badass” Award.

The Patriots just haven’t been the same since they weren’t allowed to videotape opposing defenses anymore. There are a lot of people out there that agree with the decision to go for it, but the whole situation surrounding “the call” was also full of bad choices.

1. Wasting a timeout on first down
2. Throwing on 3rd down. If you know you’re going to go for it on fourth down, why not run the ball and try to get a little closer? Get yourself into a 4th and 1 or 4th and a half yard where you can run or QB sneak on 4th down. It’s not like the Colts run defense is good.
3. Taking their last timeout after throwing an incompletion on 3rd down.
4. Not letting Addai score on 1st and goal. I realize this might be a little unconventional, but really, when you have Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and Wes Welker on the sidelines and it would only take a field goal to win, you have to try to get them on the field. Indy has the ball at the 1 with over a minute to go, they’re going to score. Why not let them score on 1st down so Brady gets the ball back with over a minute to go? Instead, the Pats defense tackled Addai, allowing 40 seconds to tick off the clock and giving their offense no chance to come back after Indy scored. You really don’t think Brady and Company could have gotten the Pats into field goal range in a minute?