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Week 13: Extra Points... and Opinions
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
By Tovash Hatcher
Ladies and gentlemen the NFL is entering its crunch time mode. It's Week 13 and the good teams are getting ready for the playoff push while mediocre teams are scratching and clawing their way to .500. With all of the bye weeks out of the way, each team is saddling up to make a run for the playoffs. And let me extend my condolences to the Raiders and Lions for being mathematically eliminated for this year's post season. Here is how Week 13 played out...
The NFL's hottest team is the Dallas Cowboys. With a new quarterback in Tony Romo and now a new kicker, the Boys are strutting their way to the top of the NFL. Don't look now, but they have worked themselves up to an 8-4 record and have been chosen as the #3 team in the entire NFL. The Cowboys found themselves to be the team on rise in Week 13 but the angry, self-imploding New York Giants staring them in the face. A win against the Giants would have Cowboys fans gleaming in the faces like children on Christmas morning. The Giants have been a team where they adopted that "us against the world" mentality. They took a large part of the criticism from the media all week and pretended to be angry hoping that they would find the cure for the finger pointing in the locker room. In this game the Giants did come out a little focused being able to find loud-mouth Jeremy Shockey quite often. Shockey chipped in with 6 catches for 65 yards and 1 TD. Eli Manning was able to hit receivers all day because he got no pass rush from the Dallas defensive front.
And speaking of the Cowboys' defense, they did not play up to their top 5 status. They let Eli Manning pretty much do what he wanted to the secondary. Nonetheless, Dallas kept the Giants scoring to a minimum. Mental mistakes killed New York on Sunday. By committing 9 penalties for 94 yards, the Giants took themselves away from some golden scoring opportunities. Plaxico Burress also committed a personal foul at the wrong time by hitting Keith Davis after a nice pickup for New York. The play took the Giants out of field goal range and the drive stalled. Tony Romo, Dallas QB had his first "just an average game" of the season. Romo threw two interceptions including an overthrow to intended receiver Terrell Owens. Romo hung in the game by connecting with TE Jason Witten for a 42-yard gain into Giants' territory with less than one minute to play. Talk about your poise under pressure, Romo has looked like an 8-year veteran this season by being able to keep his team in the game at tough times. The Cowboys then ran a few more plays and called a timeout with 6 tics remaining. The newly acquired Martin Gramatica was called up by Dallas a few days before Sunday after cutting the inconsistent Mike Vanderjagt. Gramatica made Bill Parcells' decision "look good' by knocking thru the 46-yard game-winning kick and giving Dallas a two-game lead in the NFC East.
Let the Jay Cutler era begin in Denver!! The NFL is a copy-cat league and when the Denver Broncos saw that the Dallas Cowboys had success in benching Drew Bledsoe, they benched their QB Jake Plummer. But unlike Romo, Cutler’s first game was a little tougher. He had to face the defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks in a very frosty Mile High Stadium. And yes I understand that they changed the name of the stadium, but it'll always be Mile High to me. This was an ugly game to watch but was still very interesting due to the fact the Seahawks are a team that is trying to get back on track. They have their MVP running back healthy after a 200-yard performance last week and Seattle is looking to get back in the home field advantage race in the playoffs. Alexander rushed for 90 yards on 26 carries and was able to give some help to QB Matt Hasselback who didn't have one of his best games on Sunday. Hasselback threw for 16/28 and 168 yards. There were a couple of bright spots for Denver as well when Cutler found rookie WR Brandon Marshall for a 71-yard TD pass. Marshall appeared to be tackled by 4 or even 5 Seahawks defenders on the play, but poor tackling, allowed Marshall to get away for the 71 yard scamper. But the Seahawks had the last laugh when kicker Josh Brown trotted onto the field to seal the deal for Seattle. Brown booted a 50-yard field goal with no time remaining on the clock to get his fourth game winning field goal of the season. That is an NFL single season record. The Seahawks win in Denver by the score of 23-20 and forcing a 3-game losing streak on the Broncos.
Vince Young was finally able to beat Peyton Manning on Sunday as well. The Titans for some reason have played their division opponents tough this season and have brought the Colts down to earth...well just a little. The Colts have dropped the 2 of the last 3 games but shouldn't be worried at all. They are 10-2 and still have the best QB in the NFL. But they have one problem and that's their run defense. The number 219 says it all. That's 219 rushing yards. They cannot stop anybody on the ground and Young and the Titans weren't going to be denied either. Tennessee jumped on the back of Vince Young to lead them to victory. However, they still needed a 60-yard field goal with 7 seconds left on the scoreboard to give the Titans the win.
Playoff time is getting close and teams are trying to get the victory the best way possible. Kickers are so important around this time of year and will continue to be that way throughout the rest of the season. Look out for tougher competition and Coaches pulling out all the stops. We are getting down to the meat of this NFL season. See you in Week 14.
I'm Tovash Hatcher
8:36 AM
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