Week 7 Shocks

As I say every week the NFL always manages to throw up some surprises every week, week 7 went pretty much to form and the shocks were few and far between until a MNF upset made this article worthwhile !

5. Seahawks 3-6 Browns
One look at the score and you'd have thought this was played in an Ohio gale amidst driving sub-zero rain, unfortunately you'd be wrong.
Injury to Lynch coupled with Tavaris Jacksons season ending injury meant the Hawks were always going to struggle to move the ball and when Peyton Hillis appeared on the inactives list for the Browns it was difficult to know where the offensive yards from either team were going to come from.
Both teams combined for just over 200 yards of rushing yards, but these came from a staggering 61 attempts, the QBs combined for an average QB passer rating of 47 and it was left to the boot of Phil Dawson to secure the points for the Browns and move them to 3-3. You get the feeling 6 points may not win them too many more game though especially in the tough AFC North.

4. Colts 7-62 Saints
Had to sneak this one in, clearly the outcome of the game is no surprise but the fact the Saints only managed 62 was against as toothless a side I can ever recall seeing in the league is the big surprise.
Seriously, I've been following the sport for 20 years and can only recall one team mustering 60+ points and that came in the Jags mauling of the Dolphins in a play off game around 98/99 - famous for being legend Dan Marino's last ever game, so scores such as this are extremely rare. You need two things to happen to realise this, a very good team looking to score points and a very bad team incapable of stopping plays, and they both happened here.
Curtis Painter was so bad he was benched for Dan Orlovsky, a guy who arrived in Indianapolis via Detroit and Houston and with just 7 starts from a 7 year career before.
I think we all knew that Peyton was priceless to the Colts organisation but seeing what their combination of QBs have achieved this year it's become all too clear.
Saints made just five pass attempts after Brees threw for his 5th TD on the opening drive of the 3rd quarter, he was then benched in the ultimate act of humiliation for the Colts for back up Chase Daniel.
Colts are heading for the #1 pick, at least the management there have fully 6 months to decide what to do with their Andrew Luck voucher.

3. Chiefs 28-0 Raiders
I enjoyed this one.
Raiders were fresh off 2 straight wins and standing 4-2 in the West before Sunday, they were also on an incredible run of 6-0 inter divisional games stretching back to November 2009 (also a home loss to the Chiefs).
Chiefs have improved massively after losing some big game players early in the season but few could have expected them to shut out the Raiders in Oakland.
Raiders managed to pass for more yards and rush for more yards but the key stat in this one will be the turnovers - Carson Palmer was watching week 6 on his couch, 7 days later he was being talked up as the starter ahead of Kyle Boller after a panic trade with the Bungals, Boller was however given the starters job but 3 picks later he was benched for Palmer who himself threw 3 picks. 15/36 attempts, 167 yards, 6 ints were the combined QB stats.
Chiefs continue to go from strength to strength, Brandon Flowers was back to his dominating self at CB and Jackie Battle who has sat patiently behind a string af RBs in his 4 years at Arrowhead is finally getting his chance to shine and is making the most of it. Mention also for LB Derrick Johnson who had a career high 12 solo tackles on the day.

2. Ravens 7-12 Jags
I deliberately held back on this article from Monday as I could scent an upset in Florida. It's not that the Jags are a potential superbowl team but the Ravens haven't shown huge consistency this year, when Hasselbeck burned the Ravens secondary for 350+ yards in week 2 I guess the warning signs were there, not that Blaine Gabbert was ever going to put up numbers on that scale but the Jags do of course have a healthy Mojo who ran for over 100 yards - no easy task against that line.
I guess most people would have this down as their #1 shock but I get the feeling the Jags are a better team than they've shown so far, they've had a brutal schedule until now with opponents 27-10 on the season.
Some softer game ahead for the Jags who are not completely out of the South, Texans always capable of hitting the self destruct button and for the Titans read below.....

1. Texans 41-7 Titans
So a 3-2 team playing at home fresh of a bye playing a team on a 2 game skid and have lost those by an aggregate 30 points, just had to be a home win right ?
This is the NFL, take nothing for granted.
Matt Hasselbeck has found a new lease of life in Tennessee this year rolling back the years with a string of good numbers, the Houston pass rush got good pressure on Hass all day hurrying him up resulting in a less than 50% completion rate. Not only that but the run D wasn't too bad either holding CJ2K to 18 yards on 10 carries.
When the Texans had the ball Matt Schaub put in a faultless display and in Arian Foster they have probably the best RB in the league, he ran for 125 yards and decided he'd play main receiver as well and picked up another 119 yards with a combined 3 TDs for about 4000 fantasy points.
Texans are rapidly becoming a Jeckyll and Hyde team this year and one to steer clear of in your weekly acca, but when they get it right they're a serious team. As for the Titans, they still face the Colts twice and bar a couple of tough road trips their schedule is OK, if they can recover from this they'd still fancy their chances of a South title.

Formwatch - every team loves a bye week, time to get players rested and healthy right ?
Teams this year are 3-9 coming off a bye....

Grizzly, you only included the Chiefs because of your allegiance. I wasn't surprised to see them win given the weeks events. If Palmer had a week of practice with the team under his belt, then I'd have expected a better result, but I defy any QB to lead a team with 3 days to learn the playbook etc.

Biggest surprise to me is the Ravens-Jags game. Will the real Ravens O please stand up?

A little surprised with the Browns. They don't lack weapons (Hardesty has filled in adequately for Hillis), but they can't get their passing game going.

Titans isn't a surprise. They need investment in their OL. No RB or QB is going to be productive behind a sieve.

Last night's game was gripping, despite the lack of offense from the Jags. 9/20 completions for 93 yards, with a longest pass of 24 and a longest run of 12.

On the other side the Ravens didn't get a 1st down until the 3rd quarter, and apart from the scoring drive never looked like producing anything.

All the talk before the game was about the Ravens and all the ESPN pundits went with the Ravens. A result like this is why the game is so great!

Bit worried about the formwatch comment, with the Pats coming off a bye against the Steelers next week though.

Skins - going on the road banged up to play your biggest rival in an inter division match up and handing them a 28-0 dicking not a shock ?

Tennessee losing by 5 scores has to be shock - they're not a great team but this is the Manningless South, no-one's great, and coming off a bye I expected them to win, as did the Vegas casinos.
You need to start betting pal.

Sky - Ive never known results after bye weeks like it, up until a few years ago it was 60+% them winning, I know we're only 6 weeks in but it has to improve...

I expected the Colts to lose but didn't think they would have been that awful.

Grissly - my comment about he Titans needed expansion - given the Texans D has improved a fair bit, I'm not surprised they had their way with the Titans OL. That said, maybe the margin of victory was a little surprising.

As to the Raiders, I think the biggest impact in that game was actually losing McFadden. They're used to running people over and Bush was never going to do that, so they had to lean on the passing game. Makes me think that maybe Campbell was underrated...

I think the titans may have the best tackles in the league, I think its their guards and center that need drastic improvement, that being said, a vertical threat may open up some lanes

skins4ever wrote:Grizzly, you only included the Chiefs because of your allegiance. I wasn't surprised to see them win given the weeks events. If Palmer had a week of practice with the team under his belt, then I'd have expected a better result, but I defy any QB to lead a team with 3 days to learn the playbook etc.

I'm sure the 6 picks including a pair of pick sixes and a shut out were the surprise aspect.

Niner - your tackles are most crucial to the passing game and your G-C-G combination are crucial to your running game (particularly the interior). Whilst they are all needed, you can get by with a decent passing game if you have good tackles and an above average interior, but you won;t do well in the run if your interior guys are getting trampled, because NFL defenses are too fast for you to run outsize too much.

Crazy - Have you ever watched Boller play before?

The titans haven't even used cj2k in the screen game much, he was really good coming out of the backfield the last two years and that sort of served as part of the run game itself as it kept the opposing D wary

1st and 10 at JAC 45-J.Flacco pass short right to D.Pitta to 50 for -5 yards (D.Smith).

2nd and 15 at 50-(Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short right to R.Rice to 50 for no gain (T.Knighton) [T.Alualu]. PENALTY on BLT-M.Oher, Offensive Holding, 10 yards, enforced at 50 - No Play.

2nd and 25 at BAL 40-J.Flacco pass incomplete short middle to R.Rice.

3rd and 25 at BAL 40-(Shotgun) J.Flacco scrambles left end ran ob at JAX 46 for 14 yards. PENALTY on BLT-M.Oher, Offensive Holding, 10 yards, enforced at BLT 40 - No Play.

3rd and 35 at BAL 30-(Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short middle to J.Flacco to BLT 22 for -8 yards (P.Posluszny). Ball batted.

4th and 43 at BAL 22-S.Koch punts 58 yards to JAX 20, Center-M.Cox. M.Thomas to JAX 27 for 7 yards (B.Ayanbadejo).

Most screens rely on your G-T or C-G combination getting out in front of the RB. Could be the same issue that their OL is so bad that the screen doesn't have time to set up before pressure is on Hasselbeck?

Nice post twelve, had a good giggle at that!

Pr4wn wrote:Nice post twelve, had a good giggle at that!

Best thing about that "drive" was the punt.

skins4ever wrote:
Crazy - Have you ever watched Boller play before?

A couple of times... I try and avoid it...