Week 5 Thoughts

No Minnesota Vikings. That's always an ingredient to an incomplete football Sunday.

There were some good early games yesterday. The New York Giants victory over the Atlanta Falcons was the only game decided by more than a single score. The Giants won 30-20 as they have quickly returned to relevance.

The New Orleans Saints had to come back against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win in overtime, 37-31. An early expected Super Bowl contender, the Saints doubled their win total of one in week 5. The Dallas Cowboys also needed overtime to defeat the Houston Texans, 20-17.

When the Vikings aren't playing, I often have tremendous difficulty settling on one game. Switching between games can be pointless as watching many games is like watching no games. You get no feel for any game. That's one of the reasons that I've never been a fan of the Red Zone programming. I can see the scoring plays on highlight shows. I'd rather see a game. Yesterday morning, I managed to stick with the Cowboys-Texans. It was a good game. The Cowboys led at the half 3-0. Some consider games such as this boring. It wasn't at all boring. Each team made some plays on offense. Each team made a lot of plays on defense. So many people only want to see offense. Defense does matter. Defense is entertaining. I'd much rather watch a defensive battle than an offensive shootout. The Cal-Washington St. game from Saturday had this very topic fresh in my mind. Cal defeated Washington St. 60-59. It was a ridiculous game. Cal quarterback Jared Goff threw for 527 yards. Washington St. quarterback Connor Halliday threw for an NCAA record 734 yards. There was zero defense on the field that night. The offenses might as well have been playing against air. I was listening to the game on the radio so I had no real evidence that the offenses weren't playing against air. I was happy that Cal won but the game was pathetic. Some people like games like this but it can barely be called football. It's Arena Football stuff. It's a track meet and it all comes down to the team that has the ball last. Cal won because Washington St.'s kicker missed a 19-yard field goal. He was probably too tired after kicking so many extra points. Anyway, the Cowboys-Texans game was an entertaining game. The first half was entertaining even though a field goal was the only score.

Texans running back Arian Foster looked like the back that was tearing up the league a few seasons ago. He looked great yesterday. When Foster is healthy and on his game, he just glides across the turf. He was doing that yesterday.

J.J. Watt is the best football player in the game today. He dominates games like Reggie White, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Greene have done in my lifetime of viewing football. Watt dominates plays and games even when he doesn't show up on stat sheets. He may physically occupy as many as three blockers and occupy the concerns of so many more on every play. The attention paid to him rarely seems to matter as he is always around the ball. He came out of the game often so a thigh injury seems to be hampering him. The injury never seemed to hamper him when he was on the field.

Defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli has the Cowboys playing great team defense. They lost defensive end DeMarcus Ware to the Denver Broncos in free agency and middle linebacker Sean Lee to an offseason ACL injury. Basically, the Cowboys defense was supposed to suck. Really suck. They don't. The defense is actually playing pretty great.

The Cowboys are a very surprising 4-1.

I like the San Francisco 49ers running combination of Frank Gore and Carlos Hyde. Defenses probably don't much care for either one coming at them late in games.

The 49ers haven't played all five of their games at their new home in Santa Clara. It just feels like they have.

The Denver Broncos-Arizona Cardinals game was a close game until Cardinals quarterback Drew Stanton was knocked out of the game. Stanton was already starting in place of injured starter Carson Palmer. Third-string/now-second-string rookie Logan Thomas entered the game for Stanton. He threw a short pass that running back Andre Ellington took for ar 81-yard touchdown. 24-20 Broncos became 41-20 Broncos pretty quick.

Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning had a decent game. Completed 31 of 47 passes for 479 yards and four touchdowns. Manning flew past 500 career touchdown passes. At 503, he's probably two games. maybe only one, away from catching Brett Favre's NFL record of 508. I remember when Fran Tarkenton held that touchdown record for about twenty years with 342.

When the Detroit Lions visit the Vikings next week, they could be without two of their top offensive weapons. Receiver Calvin Johnson aggravated his already injured ankle. Running back Reggie Bush suffered an ankle injury of his own. Rough Sunday as the Lions were stunned by the Buffalo Bills on a last-second 58-yard field goal. Bills win the game 17-14.

The 1972 Miami Dolphins are happy. No undefeated teams and it's only week 5.

College Upsets:

#2 Oregon lost to Arizona 31-24
#3 Alabama lost to #11 Mississippi 23-17
#4 Oklahoma lost to #25 TCU 37-33
#6 Texas A&M lost to #12 Mississippi St. 48-31
#8 UCLA lost to Utah 30-28
#16 USC lost to Arizona St. 38-34
#17 Wisconsin lost to Northwestern 20-14
#18 BYU lost to Utah St, 35-20  BYU also lost their terrific QB.

Shake up in the Top-10. Biggest winners were the Mississippi schools. The new polls have them tied at #3. Mississippi St. even received a couple of votes for #1. Bulldogs quarterback Dak Prescott has to be in Heisman discussions.

#5 Auburn destroyed #15 LSU 41-7. #14 Stanford lost to to #9 Notre Dame. #19 Nebraska lost to #10 Michigan St.

A lot of losses in the top-25.

HGH testing begins today in the NFL. We'll see how that goes.