Sunday, October 09, 2005

A Near Run Thing...

God DAMN that was close; and ugly.

Good offense in the first half, but the Pats just sort of collapsed in the second, and let Atlanta fight back to tie it.

A couple unanswered touchdowns will do that.

But Brady and the boys stepped up, brought it down to well within field goal range, ran the clock down to the minimum, and once again gave it to Vinateri for the win: 31-28.

So it's 3-2 pats, and a Miami loss (as predicted a few days ago)and we're back in the division lead, and third in the AFC.

Of course there are only three undefeated teams left coming in to week five; the Redskins, Bengals, and Colts.

I think we can safely say the 'skins record is a fluke (they are a bye team), and the Bengals is a miracle. Indy is good, but really it's been their schedule more than anything that's left them in this position. Not that their schedule has been EASY, but it hasnt been too hard either.

I'd expect that later today Denver and Jacksonville will reduce that undefeated count to 1, but the chances of SF beating Indy are... well miniscule might be a good way of describing it.

Injuries are such a factor this season, for so many teams, that I really don't know whats going to happen.

I'm thinking the AFC playoff picture is going to look something like this

East: Patriots (the division isn't looking as tough this year as in past years)
North: Steelers (Even though their perfomance so far... they are still the best team)
South: Colts (no question. By far the best team in the div)
West: Broncos (but I'm not confident in that pick. Denver has been too inconsistent lately)

The wildcard picture is pretty muddled. I think Cinci has a real shot (4 more wins and they are there), KC, Jax...

And I'm not even gonna try and TOUCH the NFC. That picutre is just way too screwed up. I mean, Tampa Bay leading the division, and the Packers trailing it?