Power Position Betting Quick Hits: Week Two Football Review

Wow. What a Sunday. This is one of those days I’ve been waiting for, a lazy Sunday full of great games and good food. Forget about fantasy football, forget about sportsbooks results, forget about everything and just let this day soak in.

It all began with the Giants versus the Eagles, in Philly. I’m a Giants fan, been one my whole life, and at halftime, you should have seen me—head hung low, quietly sipping a beer, looking like I just found out I had to put my dog to sleep. It wasn’t good. The third quarter came and went and we were going to be oh and two.

Then Eli woke up and the Eagles fell asleep in the fourth, and slowly but surely, the comeback started. Westbrook fumbles, we recover, Toomer touchdown! Toomer touchdown! What a monster game he had, and how about Feely? Everyone was betting on whether he would hit or miss but I stayed away. I do not put my karma on that, and when he hit it, I knew we won—even after we gave the Eagles the ball in OT. No worries. What a game, first time they came back like that since 1970…what a game.

The other games weren’t too bad either, as could only be expected of a day featuring loads of divisional matchups. Two OT games—and when do officially stop calling the Rams the greatest show on turf? In Baltimore, we got to see a 310-pound lineman return a fumble almost sixty yards, a sight that always beings a smile to my face. Peyton lit it up, throwing for 400-yards and giving us a good show against a Reggie Bush-less Texans squad.

Vick cracked a hundred rushing yards against a defense that usually gives him fits, and the rest of his crew rushed for three hundred—a new club record. Duckett who? Chambers made a nasty catch, in garbage time, but it showed how great his hands are.

Speaking of hands and legs, how good was Laveranues Coles today for the Jets—we all thought we were going to see two comebacks today, though we are still split on whose td-catch was nicer, his or Cotchery's.

I knew the Bears D was good, but come on. You didn’t think they would be even better than last year, did you? And with an actual offense? I know, I know, wait for a good team like Seattle in week 4—but still, I like what I see. This is the football of the old days, a.k.a. championship ball.

Monster QB games all around, starting with the afore-mentioned Manning’s, but McNabb, Carson Palmer, the ageless wonder (looking a lot less lost, though still in a losing effort), and don’t count me out just yet Pennington all broke three hundred yards. It’s good to see McNabb, Palmer, and even Pennington healthy and playing well again. It’s good for the NFL, and good for us fans.

Speaking of good for us fans, can someone tell me what Carolina was thinking? That backwards pass was unintentional comedy gold for anyone who got a chance to see it. That play was worse than what you can see in a Pop Warner league. And speaking of Pop Warner, I would like to spend this space to declare the Oakland Raiders as the “team that sucked my soul out of my bones.”

They got me. I fell for Art Shell and Aaron Brooks, thought he would be the missing link for Moss, Jordan, and company. I thought they would all rise above their pasts, would forge on ahead to a bright silver-and-black future—but instead, this is what I get. It’s like falling for that girl who cooks, cleans, and looks like a supermodel, only to discover she’s a crazy hungry lizard in disguise, hell bent on your destruction.

I hate the Oakland Raiders, though I do hope they turn it around, because why not. We are all football fans, and we do not all want to watch games like the Chargers versus the Titans (glimpse of Vince Young notwithstanding)—for everyone who read my fantasy draft preview, was I right about Tomlinson or what? I knew something smelled a little fishy in Kansas City—and by fishy, I mean what you do to a fish after you catch it.

I do hope the Raiders turn it around, but even if they don’t, as long as the rest of the Sunday’s are of similar quality, then let the good times keep rolling. Here’s hoping T.O. heals quick, that Favre builds from this game to another Favre-like year, that Chad Johnson has many more great catches, semi-great dances, and that there are tons of more crazy games for us to talk about.

All right then, enough for now. Enjoy the games—that’s why they are there.

PPB Monday Play—

Steelers in a close one. Why bet against the Champs? Big Ben will return, I just know it, and I expect a good football game. It will not be an easy win, but if the Steelers are going to be any sort of team, it begins here. This is the game where they show why they are the champs, and that all the drama of the past few months is behind them.