Every week, Football Outsiders staffers e-mail each other with updates on Sunday's action as it happens. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"Seven minutes to go in the first quarter: two Vick passes, two Crumpler drops."

"I think the Titans have a very good chance of pulling off an upset, though I would rather that they never win a game with the light blue uni-color uniforms. Some decisions just shouldn't be rewarded."

"This is what it is to be a Lions fan: They're up 7-3 and have first-and-goal inside the 5. Do they score? Nope. Ball squirts out of Kevin Jones' hand, Patriots pounce on it."

"Props where props are due: On third-and-5, Vick play-actions, and hits Crumpler in stride for a 20-plus yard gain. Great throw, great catch."

"Wow. In the first half, Rex Grossman completed 3 of 9 passes for 22 yards and 2 picks. That, my friends, is a quarterback rating of 2.8."

"After trailing 14-0, the Falcons are now leading 17-14. The last TD resulted from Falcons' DL Chauncy Davis intercepting a Jason Campbell pass and returning it to the Atlanta 25-yard line. Two plays later, Vick gets time and throws a laser to Michael Jenkins who inexplicably doesn't drop it. By the way, the best thing about the Davis pick was that Grady Jackson was right next to him when he made the play and proceed to take two steps before seemingly saying, 'Look, you know I'm not going to run downfield and block, and I know I'm not going to run downfield and block, so let's stop kidding ourselves right now.' Jackson stopped running."

"Halfway through the third quarter, Grossman has three more incompletions and another pick. His rating is now the Big Blutarsky. Take it, Dean Wormer: 'Zero-point-ZERO. ' Right now, I'm picturing Grossman with a pencil in each nostril."

"The Steelers are way down the depth chart at WR. For example, on the last play Ben Roethlisberger threw a pass to Sean Morey and it was broken up by ... Phillip Buchanon. This is sad on so many levels."

"The Giants socks should have been hung by the chimney with care."

"At what point in discussing the problems of the Denver offense will somebody finally say the words 'Matt Lepsis'"?

"Bootlegs, scrambles, incomplete passes ... golly, Denver sure looks different tonight."

"I swear, they should just put it right on the ball: THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NFL FOOTBALL. DO NOT THROW THIS ANYWHERE NEAR CHAMP BAILEY."

"Okay, Seahawks fans - your team is 8-4 and your kicker is your MVP. You'll take it, right?"

For more, check out Audibles at the Line at Football Outsiders.

post by Mike Tanier

Marc: I know for a fact Denver plays a lot of man-to-man coverage with Champ Bailey, the leagues best CB, covering the #1 WR. According to your rankings, Denver is 25th in covering WR #1 and 4th covering WR #2. Could it be that Champ is used to cover WR #2 more than I had thought, or did you guys interpet the wrong WR as ace a few too many times?

Aaron Schatz: I can't think of a team with clearer "number one" than Oakland, and it sure looked like Champ Bailey was on Randy Moss most of the time. I don't have the charts on that game yet, but I thought I would go back to the three Denver games that have been charted and cleaned up, Weeks 1-3.

First of all, overall pass targets: Super Mohawk Williams has 25, Bailey 12, Dominique Foxworth 8.  So clearly, QBs are avoiding Champ Bailey.

Week 1 vs. STL: 14 passes thrown to Torry Holt. Williams covered 6, Bailey 3, others 5. All 3 covered by Bailey were complete, for an average of 8.7 yards.  Williams had 3 incompletes, 3 complete averaging 15.7 yards. Bailey was closest coverage on three other passes, and all three of those were complete too, but not for many yards: Tony Fisher for 5, Steven Jackson for 5, and Isaac Bruce for 4.

Week 2 vs. KC: 3 passes thrown to Kennison, that's it. Bailey 1, complete for 2 yards. Williams 1, incomplete. Ferguson 1, 37 yards.  Samie Parker is WR2, he had 2 passes covered by Bailey, 3 by Ferguson, 1 by Gold. The two Bailey passes are an 8-yarder on 1st-and-10 and an incomplete on third-and-6.

Week 3 vs. NE: This is a problem week, I think,because who the hell knows who is WR1 for New England?  I think I have it as Doug Gabriel.  Anyway, there are only 2 passes thrown at Bailey all game, both incomplete, one to Ben Watson and the other to Reche Caldwell. By comparison, 11 passes are thrown at Williams (Caldwell 5, Gabriel 3, others 3) and 5 at Foxworth (Troy Brown 4, Gabriel 1).

One thing that is important to remember is that DVOA is measuring success per play. If nobody throws at a guy covered by Champ Bailey, there can't be any success or failure or DVOA of any kind recorded for that play. The moral of the story is that any Denver problems covering the number one receiver are not related to Champ Bailey.

Post by Aaron Schatz