NFL Roundup: How 'bout them Cowboys?

There's pleasant, there's fun, there's riotously enjoyable, and then there's the Cowboys getting absolutely dominated in a game they were supposed to win going away... and picking the game correctly to boot.

Oh, and Jerry Jones? Excellent use of the trade deadline, sir. Your acquisition of Roy Williams,, and the immediate long-term contract that you signed him to, in a week where he contributed nothing against a breathtakingly bad secondary... truly, sir, you have never occupied a warmer place in my heart.

The simple fact of the Cowboys right now is that there is no part of this team -- even the presumably dominant offensive line -- that can be counted on. Tony Romo was clearly making that group look better then they are (Brad Johnson was sacked five times today by the previously punchless Rams defense). Marion Barber got his 100 yards, but a lot of it was on one run. Felix Jones made that OL look better too -- and he's out for a few more games. The defense got killed on the ground. The secondary wasn't the huge issue here, but only because the Rams were content to play conservative and kill them with Stephen Jackson.

What's next? Well, let's face it... Jones just tried to fix a team with a bad back-up quarterback and secondary with another wideout. He even got him from Matt Millen's old team, to complete the transition. In post-game comments, Jones was blunt in his unhappiness.

He can't release players. And he just spent his Sunday watching a team that fired its coach on its bye week come back with two unexpected wins against presumably better clubs. Everyone also knows that Wade Phillips is on a Win Or Else leash after the past two playoff washouts. Finally, thanks to the Giants surviving the Niners today, they are two games back in the division, and in real trouble for making the playoffs.

Would Jones fire the coach? Will Romo come back next week at home against the Bucs, even if it's not a very good idea? Will Owens melt down? Is someone (Bill Cowher) getting a phone call with a Name Your Price offer?

Honestly, there's nothing these guys won't try or do. Which is, well, why today was such a gift from Heaven...

> As for the Rams... well, heck. They've won two in a row, and they play in a division with the Niners and and Seahawks. Start thinking playoffs, baby!

> Just when you thought the AFC was getting back to normal... the Colts go to Green Bay and played abysmal football, the Chargers get worked in Buffalo with LaDanian Tomlinson looking spent, Miami returning to seed at home against a presumably reeling Ravens team, the Raiders taking out the Jets in overtime... yeesh.

> So all hail your Titan Overlords, the Last Unbeaten Team, and the club that no one outside of Tennessee really and truly believes in. Maybe we should, given that they've got a dominant defense and some really good work going on in the running game -- they carried the ball 40 times for 332 yards today, albeit against the I-AA Chiefs. People call Kerry Collins a game manager, but he's more than that, given the strength of his arm and the fact that he's won some playoff games and gone to a Super Bowl.

But still, it's hard to shake the idea that some club is going to put together a good game and show all of the reasons why no one thought the Titans were going to go to the playoffs this year, let alone have a three-game lead in the division. Next week at home against the Colts should be Highly Interesting.

> By the box score, today's 29-17 Giants win over the Niners was by the book and easy; the only reason the Niners were even in the game was their second straight week with a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown. But having watched most of the game today, I saw something different.

Shh... you remember Old Eli, the guy who made bad reads and gave the other team a lot of chances to make interceptions? He's back....

The Giants won this game because the Niners are, make no mistake, a terrible team. The defense did the job on Frank Gore (11 carries for 11 yards), and they ran the ball 29 times for 126 yards and two touchdowns. But Manning was only 16 for 31 despite having all kinds of time and places to throw to, and this game was close until JT O'Sullivan made sure it wasn't. The NFC East is wide open, people.

> Continuing the Winless Dream at home today were your Cincinnati Bengals. How bad is this team? Cedric Benson qualified as the Bright Spot. They didn't sack Ben Roethlisberger, and everyone gets to sack him. They gave up 120 yards rushing to Mewelde Moore. Their fans are selling the tickets as fast as they can.

So, um... what does Marvin Lewis have to do to get fired?

> The wackiest game of the day might have been in Chicago, where the Bears rode their No Boring Outcome defense to a 48-41 win over the Vikings. This game might have single-handedly saved the year for a guy in my points league, who had Bernard Berrian (81 yards and a touch), Adrian Peterson (130 combined yards and 2 touchdowns), Greg Olsen (74 and a touch) and the Chicago defense (3 touchdowns, 2 sacks and 4 picks countered by 41 points allowed). Not exactly what anyone expected, really.

In between all of that was the continuing emergence of Kyle Orton, who tossed up another 283 yards, 2 touchdowns and no turnover game. If anyone has ever seen a previously terrible quarterback become reasonable this quickly... well, I can't remember it.

> If picking games in the NFC South were a fight, it would have been stopped by now on cuts. At least the Bucs were able to take out the awful, awful Seabags; it feels like the first right call that I've made in that division this year.

As for the Saints' um, effort in Carolina... well. at least their next game on the road is in London against the Chargers. So both teams can not show up for that one...

> The late game here in the Man Cave was the Raiders taking out the Jets in overtime, in a game that should have had Jets Fan tearing his hair out. On a day where they got 159 yards (!) from Thomas Jones, Brett Favre went back to terrible, with 2 back-breaking picks and bad accuracy (21 of 38). The Raiders took away the Jet wideouts (Laverneous Coles had 4 catches for 51 yards, while Jerricho Cotchery was made complete invisible with 1 catch for no yards by Nnamdi Asommugha).

But the really notable thing to me in this game was how the Raiders won it; it will tell you that they aren't going to win very often. With three minutes let in regulation, the home team went ahead on a 37-yard Sebastian Janikowski field goal. On the next drive, the Raiders defense allowed Favre to escape pressure for a miracle conversion, and failed to make the plays (i.e., dropping interceptions) that would have prevented a tying Jay Feely 52 yarder.

Oh, and they also did that irritating Ice The Kicker thing, on a Feely miss. Can someone please, for the love of football, stop this already?

In overtime, JeMarcus Russell finally made a play to Zach Miller (like all bad QBs, he over-relies on the tight end). Three downs from there, after some remarkably conservative playcalling given that they were only on the Jets 40, the Raiders send Janikowski out to make a 57 yarder. Miraculously, he does it for the win. Had he missed, you have to think the Jets would have been able to move the ball 15 to 20 yards for the win from there, but never mind. It's not like you keep the coaching job in Raider Land from your intellect.

Jets Fan, you just lost a game to a team with a special needs coach. Sure hope that you don't need this game later...

The last temptation of Goodell

So this is just how random the NFL is now: the previously winless St. Louis Rams, working on their second dead-end coach (Jim Haslett, previously a washout in New Orleans with Aaron Brooks, and a historically awful team in their first five games, to the point that any number of people thought they could go winless... and then, um, they take out the Redskins at home with a late drive.

Next week, they get the Cowboys at home... and according to reports over at Yahoo, they might have to do it without their best / only cover corner, given that he's also an infamous recidivist who's being, well, coddled by his increasingly desperate new team, since he's their best / only cover corner. Roger Goodell is said to want to exercise his lone superpower as NFL commish, which is to mess with people who fail to Toe The Line.

Is it too much to ask for the Rams to come up with another win next week at home against the 'Boys? Of course; the Rams are a terrible, terrible team with a terrible coach, and they can't cover anyone in the passing game. If Tony Romo doesn't go for 300+ yards and 3 touchdowns, it's only because Marion Barber is scoring from in tight. And it's not like Marc Bulger set the world on fire today; the Rams won on turnovers and a defensive touchdown before making the single big play downfield to get into field goal position.

But, well, a man can dream... and even if the 'Boys do get past the Rams next week, it's not like they were built for depth or team chemistry. There's also Terrell Owens doing the post-game sulk and the in-game freakout (justified, perhaps, but still tiresome) on Andre Gurode for not blocking or falling on a fumble in the first quarter.

Add it all up, and all we need now is a Browns upset over the Giants in tonight's game to get us to that magical land of the NFC East perhaps still being the best division in football, but one with a good number of bloody noses. It also points to the following inexorable truth about the NFL...

No one knows anything...

Happy Birthday

The Philadelphia Eagles have been playing since 1933, which means that they have played 76 games that have qualified as home openers. They have never had an easier one than today.

How dominant was this beatdown? Just look at the numbers. 26 to 8 in first downs. The Rams did not convert a third down (0 for 11). Total yards were 522 to 166. Donovan McNabb was not sacked; Marc Bulger went down four times. The Eagles won the time of possession battle by 10 minutes, and just looked like a hot knife through butter all day.

When you beat a team by five touchdowns without a single turnover, special teams or defensive score, you've utterly humiliated them. And when Orlando Pace went to the locker room in the third quarter, it was hard to not see how the Rams were going to recover from this long enough to win more than four games the rest of the year. If you have Bulger, Stephen Jackson or Torry Holt on your roto team (or worse, all of them at once), it's looking like 2007 all over again.

Here's the intriguing thing about this Eagles team, that makes me think that what happened in this game was more than a beatdown of a bad team. They just had a swarm, a feel to them that was plainly visible. It's more than the adrenalin of a home opener. it's what you get when a healthy Brian Dawkins and Assante Samuel turn Sean Considine and Lito Sheppard from iffy starters to outstanding nickel backs, and Joselio Hanson into a fantastic special teamer. For the first time in years, the Eagles look dramatically more talented at the tail end of the roster.

It's also on offense, where rookie DeSean Jackson just has this poise and presence as he runs his routes and adds to their time of possession with home-run hitter (and, to be fair, big misses) punt returns. His presence, added to the ferociously inept Rams secondary, gave the Eagles three wideouts with over 100 yards -- Jackson, Greg Lewis and Hank Baskett. And even the special teams look like world-beaters today, with Sav Rocca playing punt and catch on two downed balls inside the five with Quintin Demps. I'm even down with the fact that the world seems to just be ignoring the whole thing, between The Brady Nightmare, the Favre Start, the Cowboys and all the rest. It's hard to under the radar with a 35-point win, but there it is.

Oh, and it all went down on the Shooter Mom's birthday, as me and my siblings wrapped up a weekend of good times away from our kids and spouses, to just roll with the remarkable person that made us all who we are. It was nice of the Eagles to add the present of an utter laugher to everything else that we did this weekend... and to make me cautiously optimistic going into next week's showdown in Dallas. But only cautious.

NFL Wrap Up, Week 1

Great googly moogly, has there ever been a greater shift of power in the first week of the season? Let's review everything we no longer know about the league.

(I'm also going to ignore the MNF games for now, and hopefully later, in that the Raiders will be involved. Let's just move on.)

> After the Brady injury, the Patriots are no longer the favorite to win the AFC East, let alone the Super Bowl.

Will they miss the playoffs without Dreamboat Brady? They shouldn't; they still have great wideouts, a reasonable line, some good running backs, an above average defensive line, good special teams, a ruthless coaching staff and, most importantly, a kitten-soft schedule. Matt Cassel can win games against bad teams. More than that, not so much.

> The teams that everyone thought were the challengers to the Patriots' throne -- the Colts, Chargers and Jaguars -- all lost, and mostly looked terrible in the process.

The Chargers gagged up a home game against a Panthers team that most people thought was a .500 club, and didn't even have the terminally stupid Steve Smith. Don't be fooled by the last-second play; the Panthers were the better team today, especially in the first half.

The Colts were simply punched in the mouth repeatedly by the Chicago Bears, and looked like the old-time finesse team that could be run on with impunity. There was also a huge mistake from Marvin Harrison opening the floodgates to a shocking loss, and Peyton Manning looked rusty and immobile.

The Jaguars lost to a Titans team that got more yards out of the running back than the quarterback, with mistake-free David Garrard turning it over three times. The division is too tough to lose manageable games, especially if you're entertaining dreams of a Super Bowl run.

Add it up, and if you're a Steelers fan, you're probably dancing in the streets right now. It's all breaking your way.

> The Browns look to be a 6 win team. At best. It's no shame to lose to a team with as much talent as the Cowboys, but when you were never really in it for your home opener, that's a whole 'nother kettle of suck. They can't defend the pass and got brutalized in the pits, and some good skill players on offense aren't going to paper over that.

> The best division in football is now the NFC East. You've got the defending champion, doing exactly what they've done during the stretch run last year. The Cowboys gave Tony Romo so much time against the Browns, he looked bored. The Eagles took out the Rams in the easiest opening game victory in the history of the franchise, in a game that's probably going to annoy the coaching staff, in that if will leave them very little to work to improve. Only the Skins look bad, and yes, they are very bad.

> I'd say something about the Jets, but the rest of the world will do that to death. Let's just leave it at the idea that my frequent picks of Jericho Cotchery (2 leagues) and Thomas Jones (2 leagues) don't look so bad today.

> Oh, and let's just call a spade a spade here... if Brady really is done for the year, his decision to walk off the field rather than take the cart, is not a moment of bravery or honor or courage. It's a defiantly selfish act from a player who cared more for his reputation than his team... because if the knee really is done, his responsibility is to get well. Period. Not stalk off the field through the pain and be muy macho.

Epic Drop: Top 10 Reasons The Rams Will Go Winless

Your list is here, and man... are they bad. When Gus Frerotte is your back up QB... well, I'm not sure there's anything else that needs to be said, really. It's hard to imagine, really, but there it is.