John Berger
Senior Editor
Most of the big games this week were played on Sunday, but the biggest news in the NFL happened on Saturday. Jovan Belcher, a 25 year old Chiefs player from Long Island, committed murder-suicide when he killed his girlfriend and then shot and killed himself at the team’s practice facility. This was obviously a terrible tragedy, and I won’t get into too many details, but you can read an article here that gives you more information.
Even in the shadow of this event, football went on as scheduled this weekend, even the Chiefs game against the Panthers. Here are my thoughts:
- For the first time in a while, there seems to be separation in the NFL. Four teams have already clinched playoff spots in the NFL, with three having already wrapped up the division. The Patriots clinched the AFC East, the Falcons clinched the NFC South, and the Broncos clinched the AFC West. The Texans also took a playoff spot. The NFC is a little more jumbled, but the top 5 in the conference are almost locks to make the playoffs. The NFL prides itself on parity, but this year that seems to be missing. It will be interesting to see how the playoffs unfold with that in mind.
- Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III are going to be really good for a really long time. Luck led the Colts to an unlikely comeback on the road against the Lions, winning 35-33, with two touchdowns coming in the last three minutes. RG3 followed that up with a win of his own on Monday night, as the Redskins beat the division leading Giants. Both have defied the rookie learning curve that most first year QB’s seem to struggle with. The Redskins and Colts have already eclipsed their win totals from last year.
- The Broncos are a Super Bowl darkhorse. It’s easy to overlook Denver, because they’ve been out of the national spotlight the last few weeks. But they’ve already clinched their division, and they have the fourth best point differential in the league. Peyton Manning will win comeback player of the year, and if they can beat out the Patriots for the second spot in the AFC, they will be very tough to beat because of their home field advantage.
- The Steelers just don’t go away. Ben Roethlisberger hurt his shoulder a few weeks ago and the Steelers lost their next two games. After last week’s eight turnover performance against the Browns it seemed like Pittsburgh was dead in the water, but then they go out and beat the Ravens on the road. Charlie Batch was tremendous and had a really good performance to lead the Steelers to a win they practically needed to have.
- I still think the Patriots are the best team in the league. Yes, the Texans and Falcons have better records, but the Patriots have been playing really, really well over the last couple of months. All of their losses were by very narrow margins. They have a ridiculous point differential of 170. The defense looks to be improving, but we’ll find out a lot more this upcoming Monday when the Texans come into town.
