NFL Week in Review: Week 7
By Loot, NFL Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
You know when players celebrate by jumping up and touching hips while in mid-air? Sooner or later, a team is going to going to suffer a major injury from this silliness. Head coaches should ban this madness. Injuries have already happened at the college level and it needs to be stopped.
With so many quarterbacks going down this year, we’re seeing a lot of guys you’d never thing would be in the role of starting NFL quarterback. Who would have thought that the following players would be getting multiple starts this season--Chad Henne, Thaddeus Lewis, Brian Hoyer, Matt Cassel, and Mike Glennon?
I know it’s old news, but maybe Tebow can latch on somewhere with some teams suffering through insufferable quarterback play or injuries. Looking back, it’s strange that Tebow can lead the Broncos from the dumps to the playoffs, get a postseason win, then never play again! Especially a former Heisman winner who is as well-known as Tebow. No one is arguing that he’s not a limited QB, but it’s still a strange way to end a career, if it is in fact over.
The Vikings are now faced with the backlash of shoehorning Josh Freeman into the starting role prematurely. It hurts the team, Freeman, and Christian Ponder in the event that they need to go back to him.
Even with the Jaguars stinking it up so badly, you would still expect Maurice Jones-Drew to get his. It’s a shame to see a talent like Jones-Drew wasting away like this. With 103 carries for 316 yards, he’s averaging 3.1 yards per carry.
DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN BET ON GAMES AT -105 ODDS INSTEAD OF -110? IMAGINE HOW MUCH MONEY YOU'D SAVE! FIND THIS GREAT OFFER AT 5DIMES
Carolina has one of the best defenses as a league. They have done it quietly and played well as a complete unit. Coach Ron Rivera’s defensive acumen is really beginning to manifest. The 3-3 Panthers are 5th against the pass, 4th against the run, and 2nd in points allowed.
The Colts are 5-2, but beyond that, they have beaten the 49ers, Seahawks, and Broncos. That’s a lot of quality and shows the Colts match up well among the NFL elite.
After a 3-0 start, Miami has dropped 3 straight in sinking to 3-3. Now it’s understandable why the national media didn’t get carried away in lauding Miami. But at 7-0, you’d think the Chiefs would be a bigger story at this point. Starting on November 17, they will play Denver twice in three weeks. That will put a lot of things in perspective.
This season is teaching us bettors to never etch anything in concrete after a team has a fast/slow start to the season. A lot of what we thought about certain teams after week 3 has been flipped on its head.
This first half of the season has been tough on some bettors. Don’t be so fast to switch up your approach, though. Sure, we can all stand to make adjustments when there is something wrong with our handicapping. But let’s face it--this season has been weird. And it could easily turn around for some of us.
The surprise above-.500 team so far has to be the New York Jets at 4-3. The surprise sub-.500 team award is more up for debate, with Atlanta, Houston, Washington, and maybe Minnesota vying for that honor. It’s not that those 4 playoff teams from last year are under .500, but they’re a combined 7-18. Awful.
It might sound nutty, but would it be a good move for the Vikings to pull a Herschel Walker in reverse? Think of what they could get for Adrian Peterson. That might be a rash move to go into rebuilding mode following a playoff season just because of a rough start. But they’re not going anywhere and they have a guy pushing 30 with a bad knee history. It’s blasphemous on some levels, but a slew of high draft picks is something that could pay off bigger down the road.
With the added awareness and penalties, why does it seem like the hits are getting more vicious? In every game, you see guys involved in collisions that are tantamount to major car accidents. Could it be my increased squeamishness with age or are the hits more hardcore?
