NFL week 4 thoughts: | 98Bones's Blog

Houston, Kansas City, and Oakland finally played pretty well against good teams. Sadly for them the Chiefs were the only ones to come away with a win. The way they dominated the Broncos makes me wonder a little about Denver, maybe their early season success is a little misleading.

Pittsburgh outlasted Baltimore in a game I thought was over by halftime. Hats off to them for their patience after being clobbered for 30 minutes. The Ravens let a few opportunities slip away but that's how it goes in close games. I was ready to write off the Steelers defense as overrated but they proved their true power late in the victory. They still need to iron out the running game problems if Parker stays out, or plays injured and it looks like they're doing that aquiring new RBs.

Matt Ryan and the Falcons fall to Carolina as the Panthers shut down Atlanta's O in the red zone. Atlanta's stats don't look too bad on paper but their inexperience will show somehow against the better teams they play. To their credit they didn't turn the ball over once and Ryan was only sacked twice for 8 yards lost.

New Orleans, Buffalo and Tennessee all played like they should as contenders. Adrian Peterson scored 2 TDs and ran for 80 yards and Frerotte passed well, unfortunately for Minnesota they gave the ball up 4 times. Inexcusable when you're up against a team playing as well as the Titans.

Speaking of turnovers... is that a misprint where it says Arizona had 7(!!) of them? Wow, they'd better hope that's an anomaly if they plan on success as a division leader. They deserve some credit for cutting down the lead to 34-21 after being shut out in the first half. After that, not much to commend...

Dallas lost to a good Redskins team and it seems like they've come unravelled. T.O. is sniping and everybody is wondering how to fix the machine. Sheesh, have a little grace in defeat guys, last year should have proven once again how difficult it is to 'win 'em all'.

Tampa beats Green Bay which didn't surprise me as the Packers' confidence was probably shaken in the Dallas loss. I don't think they'll fall too far. They've proven they can play well with Rodgers. Their offense was shut down though, and you should win when the other team throws three int's.

Philly looked really shaky against Chicago. Not on the same page, flustered... a lot like the Colts were in the first game against the Bears. If Chicago's D can do that to a team they have a good chance of winning with Orton IMO. Maybe even better than the year they went to the big show. However, the NFC has gotten better around them and how many teams are they going to be able to 'work' like this? If McNabb stays healthy I think the Eagles will be very strong by the end of the season. They need fine tuning work right now though.

Hmmm, looks like I covered everybody when I didn't think I had much to say, good thing football is so interesting, until preview time.... Bones