NFL Thoughts, Week 3

There needs to be a word that describes when teams perform exactly like everyone thought they did—except it happens exactly one year later. This year's Saints should have been last year’s Saints, when no one thought Drew Brees had fully recovered from injuries, their head coach was a green, Reggie Bush was raw and struggling to find his place on the team, their receivers were unheard of, their linebackers were mediocre, and their secondary was nondescript. 0-3 made complete sense…last year. But it seems like this happens with a few teams each year (see the Jets). It also happens in reverse with the Redskins and Buccaneers, who end up performing UP to the standards that everyone had for them a year ago.

Speaking of the Redskins, I could have won my pool this week had they not collapsed in the second half worse than a Simplicity crib. The play-calling in particular was dreadful against a woeful Giants defense, whose best player (Mathius Kiwanuka) was playing out of position, and whose second-best player (R.W. McQuarters) sounds more like a brokerage firm than a cornerback.

And speaking of the Bucs, Tampa Bay and the Panthers are now set for an NFC South “showdown” next week, although it will probably feature less drama and skill than a Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right. The Panthers improved to 2-1, but when you give up 361 passing yards to Joey Harrington and tie the game only because DeAngelo Hall had 67-yards in penalties for unsportsmanlike temper tantrums, it’s hardly a fulfilling victory. It’s kind of like winning $1,000 at a slot machine only after you’ve put in $950 dollars’ worth of quarters. “I don’t think how we played on the field today would have been capable of winning the Super Bowl,” Kris Jenkins understated severely afterwards. Clearly not, Kris, because it was barely capable of beating the Atlanta Falcons in Week 3.

Two other burning questions from Week 3:
1) What’s with the Phantom Circle? This occurs when the teams are lined up before the snap, and one of the announcers circles a random player with the tele-strator, but no explanation is given as to who or why. Then the ball is snapped and of course you, the viewer, end up focusing on that circled player, figuring he was highlighted for some reason, even if 9 times out of 10 he ends up having nothing to do with the ensuing play. Perhaps it’s just an accident, although it seems to happen a LOT during Troy Aikman-announced games.

2) What’s with Journeyman? It’s one of the many new fall shows, and it features that guy from HBO’s Rome miniseries, the one with the spectacular knot at the top of his nose (although I noticed it’s been airbrushed out of all the newspaper ads). Journeyman appears to be some sort of updated Quantum Leap-type deal about time travel, except that I saw in one of the prints a background that looked like ancient Rome. So is Journeyman a new stand-alone show or some weird spin-off? I didn’t see the Rome miniseries through to the end, as I simply assumed it concluded with Augustus taking over the empire as per ancient history, but I’ll definitely go back and check it out if they ended up revealing that knot-nosed guy to be a teleporting secret agent in the finale.

Offensive Player of the Week: Brian Westbrook, Eagles. 110 yards rushing, 111 yards receiving, and 3 touchdowns, plus he didn’t complain afterward about how versatile yet undersized black running backs are criticized more harshly than white ones.

Defensive Player of the Week: Keith Bulluck, Titans. Never mind that his last name’s “Bulluck,” here’s three interceptions for the linebacker extraordinaire.