Week 8 In The NFL Highlights Some Surprises And Follies

Denver got t-boned by Detroit. Pittsburgh stole the show from New England. Buffalo buffaloed Washington. Cincinnati clawed their way to victory over Seattle. Philadelphia soared over Dallas. Whoopsy San Diego made a late game mistake that cost them a victory. But, the shocker of all shockers was St Louis ramming New Orleans into the wall of shame.

The Rams going into their contest with the Saints were 0-6. The previous Sunday they were pummeled by inconsistent Dallas. Meanwhile. the Saints thoroughly embarrassed Manningless Indianapolis, scoring 62 points. So, what the heck happened to the Saints, who I would not have picked to lose in a million years against the Rams? The answer is quite obvious, Steve Jackson and a relentless defense. The Ram defense took Drew Brees out of his usual rhythm. While on the otherside of the ball, Jackson ran for 159 yards and two touchdowns. The rest of the NFL teams, take note.

Detroit rebounded in a big way. They needed to reaffirm their legitimacy. Sure, it was just Denver, but a win is a win. Matthew Stafford had a career day. He threw three touchdowns on a total of 267 yards with a rating of 130.8. Tim Whoop-tee-do Tebow didn't have a bad day, running for 63 yards and throwing for 172 yards and one touchdown. His one huge blunder was a pick that went for a hundred yards and a touchdown. Tebow runs out of necessity because he gets easily flustered and can't find the open man. Running quarterbacks just don't go to the Super Bowl.

Buffalo is one of the surprises of the year. They are staying on pace with New England. One of the reasons, Fred Jackson is having a great year. He didn't score a touchdown in this one, but he accumulated a total of 194 yards of offense. Ryan Fitzpatrick threw two touchdowns to Scott Chandler. Buffalo faces a tough, opportunistic Jet defense that raise havoc a a quarterback. Jackson will be their ticket to victory.

Their were alot of borderline penalty calls that went against the hard luck Chargers in the Monday Night Follies. It was raining yellow flags from the beginning to the end. Game altering official calls that took scores away from the Chargers. That been said, San Diego shot themselves in the foot on numerous occassions. They could only get the ball across the goal line once. All the other times they entered the red zone, penalties and mistakes forced them back. Kansas City didn't fair much better, but came away with the win on an overtime field goal. The Chargers are looking eerily like the Browns of old.

Pittsburgh handled the Brady Bunch quite nicely. New England fought right down to the final seconds of the game when their final possession ended up sailing in the wrong direction and out the back of the end zone, courtesy Polamalu, after a Brady fumble. The result was a safety. The offense can't advance the ball on a fumble, but there is nothing ruling against the ball going backwards 25 yards after being slapped. Roethlisberger and Company controlled the ball twice as long as the Brady Bunch. Ouch. Now Pittsburgh faces a gauntlet of AFC North teams in the back stretch. Though, I don't think they need to worry too much about the touchdownless Browns. Unless, the Browns coaching staff gets their heads out of their keisters about the wide receiver dilemma. And that's another story.