Week 5  fell nicely in line for the NFL with nearly all of the favored teams handling their business with one big exception, the San Diego Chargers. But who knows, maybe Miami is ready to turn things around and make a run at the playoffs. Given the state of the AFC, anything’s possible. The NFC looks mostly like people thought it would less the Packers and the Saints. Still, the door is wide open for a lot of teams to sneak into the playoffs. And to the NFL, all of these things are GOOD and BAD.

GOOD

The Steelers finally got one over on the Jaguars and everyone in Pittsburgh rejoiced as our team is 4-1 heading into their BYE week, thank god. Pittsburgh won with defense and timely offense as they dominated the Jaguars in the first half, out-gaining them 300yrds to 46yrds. That is the point where a team changes their game-plan to adjust to what the other is doing. You’d think the Jaguars went into half and made some unbelievable adjustments… but you’d be wrong. The Steelers actually adjusted their game-plan, became much more conservative, and let Jacksonville back into the game. Why would they do this, because the Steelers offensive coordinator sucks. It’s been obvious through the first 5 games that he has no idea how to make the right adjustments and will fall into an extremely conservative offense if Pittsburgh commits a turnover early. Here’s one prime example of what I’m talking about.

During the first half the Steelers came out and threw on first down, gaining 4 to 6 yards each play and setting up second downs that could be runs or passes. This was very successful and the Steelers moved the ball at will, minus Santonio Holmes slipping and Jacksonville returning one for a TD. In the second half, the Steelers ran on first down and got zero yards. Now it’s second down and the defense knows what you have to do. The Steelers had two possessions in the third quarter gained about ten total yards on six plays, yuck. Guess what they did in the fourth quarter once they were down again? That’s right, they threw on first down.

BAD

I’m going to stay with the Steelers for the first segment of BAD this week and comment on something that happened late in the game. Jacksonville was deep in their zone and Garrard dropped back to pass, let me fly incomplete and was drilled James Harrison just as the ball was released. Amazingly, the ref called a roughing the passer on Pittsburgh. I was livid when I watched the replay and saw that the pass and the hit occurred simultaneously, with Harrison having no chance to pull up. This kept the drive alive for Jacksonville. It was almost like the refs wanted to keep the game going and Jacksonville every opportunity to win. For all of the cheap shots that Ben Roethlisberger receives with the defense never getting penalized, I can’t imagine how that was called.

The New Orleans Saints lost again when their field goal kicker failed to convert late in the game, giving the Vikings good field position. One pass interference call later and Minnesota is kicking the game winner. This is now the second time this season that Gramatica has missed a kick to give the Saints at least a chance to stay alive. The other occurred in Denver and would have been for the win. Who knows what would have happened had he made the kick Monday Night, but that’s two games lost. I think it’s time for a new kicker.

Fantasy Note

A very disappointing loss this week to the top rated team in my league. I had every chance to win the game and looked good going into the Monday Night game down only 11pts, but Drew Brees committed 3 turnovers for me, Reggie Bush returned 2 punts for him, and that was that, a 116 to 103 loss. It also didn’t help that Calvin Johnson grabbed a whole 2 points this week. Earnest Graham and Jonathan Stewart both had great match-ups and managed to score 12 points between them. Wow, what are you gonna do. I still sit atop my division at 3-2 and play a divisional game this week against the (1-3) Favre Hater Bandwagon.

Check out the league at:

http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/leagueoffice?leagueI
d=239543&seasonId=2008