Monday Morning Notepad

•How important was New England’s miraculous comeback win over Denver? It puts them 1 game behind the Broncos for possible home-field advantage plus the Pats hold tiebreaker if both teams do end up tied at the end of the season.


•By the way Bill Belichick was more talkative this week in his post game presser. Talk about a 180 from last week.


•Seems like for the 3rd week in a row the once high powered Broncos offense looks….well…..human. Clearly Peyton Manning played his worst game of the season. (19-36, 150 yds, 2 td for those scoring at home).


•26/38 294 3 TD 1 INT 106.7 QB rating. That’s Alex Smith’s stat line Sunday in a losing cause. Clearly he can’t be blamed for the loss to San Diego. First time this season the Chiefs defense let down.


•There is good news however for KC. With Denver losing at Foxboro, both the Broncos and Chiefs stayed deadlocked at 9-2 for the AFC West as they approach next week’s round 2 showdown at Arrowhead Stadium. If the Kansas City offense can play as well as it did this week I think they can regain the division lead.


•The AFC Wildcard picture is a big whole piece of hilarity for me. Six teams currently stand at 5-6 and three more are only a game behind. This is going to be a fun 5 weeks. Still sticking to my Pittsburgh Steelers pick that I boldly predicted on my weekly radio show a month ago and got laughed at. Doesn’t seem so far fetched now does it?


•If you are shocked the Arizona Cardinals are 7-4 and in position for a postseason berth you haven’t been paying attention. They were my “at large” team in the NFC during the preseason. Their upcoming schedule is interesting as their remaining 5 games have them going at Eagles, Rams, Titans, at Seahawks and at 49ers. Keep an eye on Week 17 especially if San Fran and ‘Zona end up tied for the last wild card spot going into that final week.


•As I told everyone last weekend on Twitter and beyond, the Giants 4 game win streak was fools gold. I love my team and will continue to support BUT you can’t get uber excited about wins over a terrible Vikings team, Eagles club led by the 2 headed conundrum named Mike Vick/Matt Barkley…(or as I affectionately call them “VARKLEY”), the sad Raiders and an Aaron Rodgers-less Packers team.


•No one is going to want to play the Tampa Bay Bucs the remainder of the season. 3 wins in a row and maybe savingGreg Schiano‘s job.


•Speaking of coaching jobs, I never thought I would say this 3 weeks ago but if Detroit misses the playoffs, there really should be consideration at a change at head coach. Jim Scwhartz should be put on notice. Look at the scope of the NFC North. The Detroit Lions have no excuse to be in a dogfight with Chicago and Green Bay. Both teams are missing their starting quarterbacks and the Bears especially have been battling injuries on both sides of the ball. The Lions should’ve ran away with this division 2 weeks ago. Instead they are the team in the NFC I least trust to finish the job.


•By the way QB Mike Glennon has been very solid for Tampa since replacing long departed Josh Freeman. Alot of of his progression and body language reminds me of Joe Flacco with the deep ball and his command of the pocket. Feel’s weird to actually agree with Greg Schiano but in this situation he made the right move.


•Next Monday’s showdown between Seattle and New Orleans looms larger for the Saints. It is clear on the Saints side the they are a completely different team outside the dome and while Seattle still tends to struggle on the road they do have a growing sample size of success playing outside CenturyLink Field. And I still hold firm if the NFC road to the Super Bowl runs through Seattle, no one INCLUDING the Saints will win there.


•I was in a depressive state seeing Derrick Rose go down Friday night in Portland. I’m even more curious how the Bulls move on from this in the short term. What makes this different than last season was Chicago was prepared to play most of the season without Rose. And the first performance this season post D-Rose? A 39 point loss at the hands of the Clippers. At least the Eastern Conference after Miami and Indiana is terrible so it may not be as dire to at least compete for one of the top 4 playoff seedings come April.


•Look, I get the Brooklyn Nets need time to gel and are dealing with some key injuries but no way in hell should they be 3-10 bad. Things are about to get ugly fast there if things don’t improve in the next few weeks. I know it’s early but Jason Kidd fell into a situation he may not be able to get out of and with this being his first career coaching gig, I wonder what future affect it will have.


•I’m remaining silent on the Jameis Winston investigation till all the “facts” come out. Too much info and misinfo out there to take too seriously.
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