QUICK NFL THOUGHTS–WEEK 7

Here are some random thoughts about Week 7 in the NFL…

• It took two untimed downs and nothing may come of it, but for now, the Oakland Raiders 31-30 victory over Kansas City saved their season.
• Believe it or not, the current state of the Cleveland Browns got worse after Sunday’s 12-9 overtime loss to Tennessee.  It has now been 302 days since their last win, 742 days since their last victory away from Cleveland and 1,064 days since they last won on the road in regulation.
• Someone has to explain how the playing field in Miami, a place where it rains practically everyday and just survived Hurricane Irma, looked like it hadn’t been watered in months.  There is no excuse for an NFL franchise to host a game on a field in such a miserable and unplayable condition.
• The more Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff plays the more it proves that Jeff Fischer was an over-rated, blowhard of a head coach and an absolute idiot.
• From the files of “How Did They Win That Game”, the Chicago Bears defeated Carolina 17-3, even though they didn’t make their first first down of the second half until there were three minutes left in the fourth quarter.
• Based upon their first six games, it appears the Tampa Bay Buccaneers spent more time at training camp this summer hamming it up in front of the HBO and Hard Knocks cameras than they did preparing for the season.
• It isn’t a stretch for the Jacksonville Jaguars to ask the NFL to have all their remaining games played on the road.  This season, the Jaguars are 4-1 away from Jacksonville and 0-2 at home.
• Looking forward to Peyton Manning’s next Nationwide commercial with their trademark jingle and the tagline, “Denver wishes I still played”.
• There once was a time when the Dallas Cowboys waited for the trainers and the team doctors to tell them if someone on the roster was eligible to play.  Now they wait to hear from their attorneys.
• For those of you who thought the Atlanta Falcons wouldn’t suffer a hangover from their demoralizing loss to New England in last year’s Super Bowl, think again.  The Falcons are 3-3 and until they scored a meaningless fourth quarter touchdown Sunday in a rematch against the Patriots, they had gone the previous 91 minutes without scoring a point.  It also doesn’t help that their offensive coordinator from last year, Kyle Shannahan, is now the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and his replacement, Steve Sarkisian, had only one year of NFL coaching experience prior to taking over the offense in Atlanta.  It also worth noting that Sarkisian was fired as the head coach at USC over allegations he was intoxicated at practice and during games.  Makes that hangover thing a little more fitting, doesn’t it?
• Much of the talk heading into the Cincinnati-Pittsburgh match-up was about what a great rivalry this game had become in recent years.  But now that the Steelers have won eight of the last nine games against the Bengals, it is no longer a rivalry.  It’s more like a twice-annual ass-kicking instead.
• It’s obvious the Bengals have decided to place all their offensive faith, and therefore their fate, in quarterback Andy Dalton.  If that’s the plan, then for the love of God, the coaches and the organization need to find a way to protect him from being killed or at the very least, give him more than two seconds to find a receiver once he receives the snap from center.
• Apparently, the mood in the Bengals locker room after their game on Sunday was jovial and light-hearted, despite just having their ass handed to them by their division rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers, 29-14.  If that’s the case, and there are multiple reports to believe that it was, then this group of players are undisciplined, unfocused, heartless and resigned to the fact that they are just an average NFL team.  It is a mentality that comes from the top, an environment condoned and enabled by the head coach, Marvin Lewis.  It’s a situation that ownership can not tolerate and unless they expect to receive nothing more than ridicule and shame from the rest of the league, it’s time they end the Marvin Lewis era in Cincinnati and end it now before it does any more irreparable long-term damage.