Tuesday Morning Week 4 Recap.

Week 4 Predictions Heads up 10-4

Week 4 predictions against the spread 8-6

Record so far 27-18

This week was a week of both upsets and blowouts.  Jacksonville topples Indy at home, Cleveland beats the Bengals at home, and the Ravens squeak by at Heinz field. On the other end of the Ledger the Bills, Dolphins, and Cardinals all got blasted. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a weirder beat down than the one the Pats put on the Dolphins Monday night.  The Pats had 265 yards of total offense two offensive touchdowns yet won 41-14. I don’t think you can count on 3 picks, 2 blocked kicks and touchdowns from your defense and special teams every week. That’s probably the least telling of any game this week. But without further a due let’s get into some quick hits.

Maybe I should follow my intuition more often

T.J. Housyamamma yeah I spelled it right

I only really had a feeling about two games going into last week. I felt that that Donovan Mcnabb wasn’t going to lose against the Eagles in his homecoming and I felt that The Ravens would somehow find a way to beat the Steelers. Those were two of my correct picks in my best week of the year so far. The Eagles game was flukier in that Michael Vick got hurt and was followed by Kevin Kolb doing his best Mark Sanchez week one impression with check downs galore. The Ravens game was just a tight game throughout with Joe Flacco finding T.J. Housyamamma in the end zone with a few seconds left. That win was even more impressive because the Ravens were without probably their most dynamic player in Ray Rice for the duration of the contest. This win to me says more about the Ravens than it does the Steelers. The Steelers we’re already guaranteed a winning record without Big Ben which was more than almost any of us expected while the Ravens needed the win to avoid going 0-2 in divisional play. The Redskins on the other hand didn’t really tell us that much. Michael Vick was hurt on a touchdown run that got called back on a dubious holding penalty and the Eagles offense seemed to be getting into a groove against a suspect Washington defense, luckily for them he was knocked out of the game. Enter a seemingly unprepared Kevin Kolb who didn’t take advantage of two of the most explosive wide outs in the game in Desean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin. This development is even more interesting because it seemed bound to happen. Vick takes too much punishment not to eventually miss some time and now it seems he’ll probably be out a month or so giving Kevin Kolb an opportunity to get the fans back on his side, and we’ve already seen how fickle Andy Reid can be.

The Chargers might be really scary good

A friend of mine put up a pretty telling stat earlier today. The Chargers are the first team since 1987 to lead the league in total offense and defense in week 5.  So then why are they 2-2? Well obviously special teams plays a huge role in that. You give up 3 special teams touchdowns through 4 weeks and you’re going to be in trouble no matter who you are.  The Chargers passing attack is as dangerous as ever and they seem to have found something in Mike Tolbert to compliment their 1^st year back Ryan Matthews.  On the defensive side of the ball their second in the league in interceptions with 7 and have 3 fumble recoveries which  only gives them a plus 1 in the turnover category. Their special teams defense is part of the problem kick return wise they’re not as bad as I thought, even with the 2 kickoff returns for touchdowns they’re still 24th in kick off defense however in punt return coverage they're 31^st one away from dead last. However upon closer inspection who have the Chargers played so far. Kansas City, Jacksonville, Arizona, and Seattle. Maybe there’s one playoff team out of the bunch….maybe. The Chargers should definitely be 3-1 or 4-0. The fact that they’re not speaks more to their makeup as a team than their offensive and defensive rankings. The Chargers are always the team that scares the pants off everyone during the regular season only to fall apart during the playoffs. Maybe that was an LT thing, if it was we’ll probably find out this year. This is firmly Phillip Rivers team now and it will go as far as he takes it, so while he may have taken pot shots at L.T. with Antonio Gates right now they’re not looking too good as LT is tearing up the league with a 3-1 Jets team while their Chargers are off to their normal slow start. However it’s only October and the bulk of the season is yet to be played consider this story still under construction.

Bears play game without offensive line…..results mixed

He's still in Jay Cutlers nightmares

 Which is honestly a smart move, sometimes you have to concede the battle to win the war, the war being getting a playoff spot and their chances of that are much greater after not having Jay Cutler play that second half.  The questions coming out of this game are twofold. 1: Is this a condemnation of the entire Bears offensive line. I remember a game a few years back where Osi Umenyiora got six sacks on Winston Justice in a single game and the Eagles still managed to make the playoffs that year.  So all isn’t lost as a Bears fan this might just have been one of those games where everything didn’t go according to plan. The second question coming out of this game is about the Giants. They’ve had two games of absolutely dominant defense and two games of mediocre to absolutely terrible D. The question is which team is the real one. The one that sacked the bears 10 times and held them to 110 total offensive yards, or is it the team that gave up 410 yards to the Colts while not being able to breathe on Peyton Manning? When we know the answer to that question we’ll know whether the Giants have a chance at making some noise in the playoffs.