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Melissa's Monday Musings - NFL Week 7

By: The Football Girl | Posted: October 22, 2012

Welcome to Week 7’s version of Melissa’s Musings, where you get blasts of NFL randomness from my brain. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but since you're here you might as well find out!

 

Wish Upon a Fancestry

Actually, before we begin Week 7-speciifc musings, I would first like to thank everyone who has supported us in the Procter and Gamble Fan-cestry blogger competition. The contest ends tonight at 11:59 PM ET, and as a reminder, the winner gets two Super Bowl tickets to give away to readers. We also get two for ourselves, which I would donate to Make-A-Wish. Apparently Super Bowl tickets are one of he most requested wishes, so I really want to sin for them. If you haven’t already, please us this TFG specific link to create a Fan-cestry. It will take you three minutes (or less if you’re nifty with a keyboard), and I promise it’s not spammy and annoying. And if you really want to help (and increase your chances of winning due to good karma), please pass along to friends, family, co-workers and pets. Thank you!

 

Throw to Me in St. Louis 

Let’s start with the obvious – Rams wide receiver Chris Givens.  Givens is a guy who has previously been so low on the buzz totem pole that you literally have to part seas just to find his bio on NFL.com. Once you do, you will see that Givens has a pretty remarkable stat – one catch of at least 52 yards in each of his last four games.  We haven’t seen a receiver this exciting since the days of Danny Amendola.

 

Suggestions in a Box

If you want to see a defeated quarterback, Cam Newton’s performance following the Panthers 19-14 loss to the Cowboys is here for your enjoyment. The downtrodden Newton could barely keep his head above his neck as he muttered how “something has to change, because it’s the same old thing” during his post-game press conference.)

At least he was proactive with the ideas:

"I'm going to bring in a suggestion box. And I want your suggestions in that suggestion box, because I sure don't know. I really don't," said Newton.

Allow me to enter some suggestions in that box:

1)   Carry yourself with more oomph. If you’re depressing us this much, imagine how your teammates feel?

2)   Hang out with Steve Smith more.

3)   Don’t call a female reporter “sweetheart.” (See 2:38 in post game press conference video)

4)   Stay far away from New York City when the Panthers are selecting the number one overall pick for the second time in three years.

 

Class of 2012

The comparison between the 2011 rookie QB vs. the 2012 class are starting to heat up. But every mixed bag performance out of Newton, especially those with more rotten apples than fresh, local ones, makes the argument less and less relevant. Luck and Griffin are simply killing it. Luck is a different quarterback at home (3-1) vs. the road (0-2), but the one asset he carries everywhere, as does Griffin, is decisiveness.  I have always believed a quarterback not being stymied is perhaps the greatest asset they can have, more so than arm strength, speed or any of those other Combine measurable.

 

RG2 Lives

RG2 (Rex Grossman) was 2-0 against the Giants last year. RG3 is 0-1 this year. I smell a quarterback controversy.

 

Most Shocking Outcome 

Someone on Twitter asked me the most surprising game of yesterday, so allow me to share.  Houston’s 43-13 shellacking of the Ravens was quite the stunner.  When Aaron Rodgers put up six touchdowns against the Texans secondary last week it had to mean there were weaknesses to expose, even if many of Rodgers’ passes were in very tight windows.  Houston could win today but Joe Flacco was clearly going to have some success in the air.  WRONG! Flacco threw two picks (one a Johnathan Joseph pick six), was sacked four times and generally looked like a deer in headlights.  One flip of the channel to the Packers-Rams and you could see that Rodgers is hitting his peak again as he destroyed a decent Rams secondary. There were coverage breakdowns for the Texans last week, but that result (their first loss) was more of a product of Rodgers being all-worldly again than anything else.

So watching Rodgers on one channel while Flacco was getting annihilated on another, made the result less and less surprising as the game went on.

This week the Texans looked great in all facets, and at this point are far and away the best team in the AFC. (Which means they’ll probably get destroyed in their home divisional round playoff game.)

 

NFC Supremacy

While the Texans may look like the best AFC team by far, there are others contenders. OK, maybe just the Patriots. The disparity in talent in the two conferences may be even starker than the ratings between yesterday’s Jets-Pats telecast and the Jags-Raiders. In other words, massive.

To date, there are six teams in the NFC with records under .500.  They are the Redskins, Lions, Rams, Saints, Bucs and Panthers. All six are interesting teams who could beat almost anyone given the right stars aligning.

In the other hemisphere, the AFC has eight teams with sub-500 records. Say hello to the Jets, Bills, Bengals, Browns, Titans, Jaguars, Raiders and Chiefs.  Not quite as interesting of a group.  Within in this group of AFC bottom-feeders are three of the league’s four one-win teams (Browns, Chiefs, Jags).

Thursday Leftover: Brandon Jacobs Edition

Brandon Jacobs has been healthy for several weeks. Jacobs was finally activated this week and guess how much he played? Unless you count garbage, kneel-down time, not at all.  The 49ers even had a first-and-goal situation inside the 10-yard line and Jacobs was left on the sideline. It is baffling why he is on the roster. Clearly the team was trying to bolster its offense in the offseason, and Jacobs was not much more than a dart. But what’s the point of Jacobs if you’re going to draft a running back  f the future (LaMichael James), to add to your already solid combo of Frank Gore and Kendal Hunter? I don’t like seeing wasted roster spots and this Jacobs situation is clearly that. It’s not good for Jacobs, and it’s a spot that could be used to add depth to the offensive line or secondary, which could use the help. If  Gore gets hurt, go find Jacobs in free agency. He’d likely be there.

Israel Idonije was Born in Nigerian. Does that qualify?

Just a little violin for President Obama who instead of watching his beloved Bears tonight will be debating foreign policy with Mitt Romney. I can’t help put apply the old Southwest commercials to this situation.

At least he’ll always have this: