This past week was weird.  That is all.

Games not being written about: Seahawks vs. 49ers, Eagles vs. Cowboys, Lions vs. Bears, Colts vs. Redskins, Rams vs. Raiders, Vikings vs. Panthers, Browns vs. Bills, Texans vs. Titans, Saints vs. Steelers, Cardinals 😦 vs. Falcons, Broncos vs. Chiefs, Dolphins vs. Jets

No byes!

San Diego-34 Baltimore-33

If there were two teams in the league who needed a statement win, these were the two.  And boy, did they fight for it all.

This game featured two of the league’s better quarterbacks, Philip Rivers and Joe Flacco. Both QB’s had great games, which led to this one being a thriller.  The Ravens continued to run the football, with Justin Forrsett running for 106 yards.  The Ravens only rushing touchdown of the game though, came from Flacco.

The first score of the game came off of a Torrey Smith TD catch, which was phenomenal one handed grab.  It was the first of Flacco’s 2 TD passes on the day.

Late in the 1st quarter, San Diego drove down the field on a drive that took 7:28 and ended in a Philip Rivers TD pass to Keenan Allen.  Allen hasn’t had a season like last, but he’s still been very productive, and Sunday, he had 121 yards to go along with his 2 TD’s.  It’s a game plan thing with him.  Some days he’ll be more involved, some days he won’t.

More field goals in the second quarter gave the Ravens a 16-10 halftime lead.  San Diego, as usual, couldn’t run the ball, rushing for 64 yards as a team.

In the third quarter, the Ravens slowly started to pull away.  The Chargers kicked early field goal, which made it 16-13, but Baltimore answered with Torrey Smith’s second TD catch, putting them up 23-13.

Then the 4th quarter came.  The insanely exciting 4th quarter that was during this game.  The Chargers found themselves down three entering it, and soon after were down 10.  With 6:13 left, the Ravens lead 30-20, two possessions.

The Chargers really didn’t care.  They answered 2:33 later with a TD catch from Keenan Allen, cutting the lead to 30-27.  A quick Ravens field goal boosted their lead to six, but again, San Diego didn’t care.  They just answered right back.

With 38 seconds left, Eddie Royal caught a one yard TD pass from Rivers, capping a 80 yard, 1:44  drive, and gave the Chargers the crazy comeback win.

I’ve been defending the Ravens all year.  I been saying they’ll make the Playoffs.  In no way was Sunday impressive.  They blew a two possession lead with six minutes left.

However, they looked better than anyone else in their division at this point, as I’ll get into below.    Count them in, for now.

Cinncinatti-14 Tampa Bay-13

This game was ALOT more exciting than the score showed, and really, it shouldn’t have been this exciting at all.

This was the perfect example of well, multiple things:

• The Bengals are super sketchy
• Andy Dalton isn’t elite
• AFC North is literally impossible to figure out

Andy Dalton threw three interceptions, IN THE FIRST HALF.  It was 10-7 Buccaneers at halftime.

This was a game of bad QB play.  Josh McCown had 190 yards, and completed 51% of his passes.  Also throwing a pick, he had a horrible day.  I still can’t believe they put him in when Mike Glennon was doing decent.

There was two scoring plays the entire 2nd half.  An A.J. Green TD catch put the Bengals up 14-10 in the third quarter.  None of the  Cinciannti receivers had a good day, with James Wright (who?0) leading the squad.

The best part and saddest part of this game came at the very end, when Tampa Bay was desperately trying to win.

With 2:01 left, Tampa Bay started a drive at their own 20 yard line.  A screen pass to Bobby Rainey went for 29 yards, which got the Bucanneers to the Bengals’ 36 yard line.

Another big pass play made by the Bucs set them up perfectly, but as they were setting up, Marvin Lewis noticed they had 12 men on the field for that chunk play.  He threw his challenge flag.

The problem was, you can’t challenge inside of two minutes.

However, this proved to be smart.  It costed the Bengals a timeout, but it allowed the refs to review the previous play.  The refs determined that the Bucs did have 12 men on the field, and the chunk play was called back.

So that led to two Josh McCown incompletions, and a failed 4th down conversion, that gave the Bengals a totally lucky boy win.

(MIND-BLOWN)

Anyways, Cincy shouldn’t be feeling good at all about this one.  If it wasn’t for Marvin Lewis (good god that is a scary thing to type), the Bengals might have lost this game.

They’re still in every way sketchy, and we still have no clarity between which team is better (Pittsburgh, Cincy, or Baltimore) in this division.  It’s a cluster!

Jacksonville-25 New York Giants-24

I still don’t know how to categorize this game.  I’m pretty sure the Giants blew it, and the Jaguars really didn’t win it.

The Giants were up 21-3 at halftime.  Two Rashad Jennings TD rushes and a Eli Manning TD pass led to that score, with the Jaguars kicking a field right before the two-minute warning.

They dominated the first half.  Rashad Jennings, who has made a nice statement this year, was running all over the place.  He finished with 91 yards and those two 1st half TD’s.

The Jaguars couldn’t do anything in the first half.  Blake Bortles played decent, and was the team’s leading rusher with 68 yards.  He didn’t throw a pick or have a turnover, so congratulations!

Bortles was sacked seven times, which brought his QBR down to 34.4, but he completed 21/35 passes, and threw for 194 yards and a TD.

And behind him, the furious rally began.

Four minutes into the second half, Eli Manning fumbled.  One of his three on the day.  The fumble was recovered by the Jaguars, in the end zone, and gave the Jags there first TD of the day.

Later in the quarter, Bortles threw a 30 yard TD pass to Marquis Lee, which cut the once close to insurmountable lead to five points with a quarter left.

It’s the same story every year with the Giants.  They blow games they should win, and it kills them down the stretch.  Even though they haven’t been competitive over the past two years, there is usually one game that sums up their season, or decides it.  Whichever it is, this was that game.

And just like that, Eli Manning fumbled again, and the Jags took this one 41 yards back for a TD.  It put them up 22-21 with 12:56 left.  At that point, you probably had the feeling that it wouldn’t get any better for New York.

At one point though, it did.  The Giants drove down the field with 6:02 left and kicked a field goal to put them up by two points.  Giving how un-impressive the Jags have been this year, that would have been considered to be the game-winner.

Blake Bortles though, with however many picks he throws or how bad his game is, is a warrior.  The Jags got two chunk plays on a drive that started with 3:26 left, and kicked the game-winning field goal with 32 seconds left.

With that, the Jaguars got their second win of the season.  Both of these team’s seasons are over.  But hey, Jags fan deserve some kind of excitement this late.

Green Bay-26 New England-21

We’re going to have one heck-of-a game February 1st.

Now, I’m not saying this is my Super Bowl pick.  However, these two teams look they’re the best in the league right now.  One of them in particular.

However, to counter what I said above, this was competitive the whole time.  It was a great game.  It came down to mistakes, and that’s not something you judge on in a big game.

That mistake being a missed Patroits field goal with 2:40 left.  Though they were down five at the time, the miss was a killer.  If the field goal was made, all the Pats would need is a quick stop, beucase with Tom Brady playing QB, there’s a pretty good chance your going to get in field goal range.

It’s, unfortunately, what decided this game.  Neither team had a turnover, nor a stupid play.

The Packers did jump out to a 1st quarter lead of 13-0, led by two Mason Crosby field goals and a Aaron Rodgers TD pass.  The Packers had 478 yards of offense, 368 of them from Rodgers.

Both QB’s, obviously two of the tops in the league, had unbelievable days.  Rodgers had 368 passing yards and 2 TD’s, completing 24/38 passes.  Brady passed for only 245 yards, but had 2 TD’s and completed 22/35 passes.

The Patorits had some trouble running the ball against the Packers stubborn run defense.  I will say though, I’ve never heard of Brandon Bolden, and he ran in a TD in the 2nd quarter.  Eddie Lacy, on the other hand, ran for 98 yards.

The Packers are a offensive team.  They can attack from anywhere, mostly due to their large roster of weapons.  Their defense is sneakily good.  I picked them up on fantasy, which was a little bit of a mistake, because they don’t put up huge numbers. They’re great on paper though.

Green Bay is currently the league’s best team.  All around, nobody is playing better than them.  The case for Denver is there.   I said this on Twitter: The Packers are arguably the league’s best team, but in the NFC, there is a vivid gap between them and anyone else.

That was in the middle of the game, by the way.  New England and Denver are pretty equally matched in the AFC, and that’s all there is to it.  Let the bloodbath begin.

On to Week 14….