Week 11 NFL Recap

What an exciting Tuesday for this sports lover! Things are really looking up with the Memphis Grizzlies starting the season 10 - 1, the very best record in the NBA after routing a very good Houston Rockets squad. Oh wait, this is a professional football blog? I have to discuss the Saints or any portion of the NFC South? Well nevermind then. Here’s your Week 11 recap, starting with the good stuff:

Week 11: The Good Stuff

The St. Louis Spoilers - I demand an immediate transfer of the St. Louis Rams to the NFC South where they could win out and not be a total joke in January. Although the Rams have only four wins this season, they are arguably the best four wins of any team in the NFL, and when you consider St. Louis’s total portfolio of work, they’ve had some very respectable losses too that make this team much better than their record. First, they ran special teams circles around the Seahawks for their first wild west kind of upset. Then, they sacked the Colin Kaepernick 8 times and managed a spectacular goal line stand in San Francisco. But none of that compares to holding Peyton Manning’s Broncos to 7 points on Sunday. Even though Denver had some very tough game-time injuries to overcome, there’s no diminishing how the Rams’ defensive front came alive, keeping Manning off his mark all afternoon and forcing a rare multiple-interception game from the great one. Are you not entertained?!

Mike Evans' Transcendence - If there’s a dark horse moving up swiftly for Offensive Rookie of the Year, it’s Tampa’s lone bright spot WR Mike Evans. Evans was enough to save Josh McCown’s starts for another week with 200 yards and 2 TDs against the reeling Redskinks on Sunday. In fact, he’s the first rookie receiver to put up at least 100 yards and a touchdown three weeks in a row since Randy Moss in 1998. That’s a big freakin’ deal. And since the football gods clearly have a sense of humor about everything I love and hold dear, you can’t even rule the 2 - 8 Bucs out of the playoffs since they’re only two games back from the 4 - 6 Falcons. Not the way Evans makes this offense look suddenly more than functional.

The Red Bird Rasputins - Every time it looks like the Cardinals are about to regress to the mean with another injury and another formidable opponent, they flip you off and keep on winning. At this point, there’s nothing accidental about Arizona going 10 - 6 last year or having the best record in the league through 11 weeks in 2014. That defense and passing game are legit no matter who’s on the field. And Sunday was another proof point for the league’s most resilient team: Carson Palmer out for the season, journeyman backup Drew Stanton in his place against a ferocious Detroit defense, Calvin Johnson returning to give the Lions some much-needed stretch on offense. It wasn’t pretty, but the Cardinals came away with yet another improbable win and looked very much in control the whole time they were doing it. I’m falling in love and making no inferences about how they’ll do in the postseason lest I doom them with my usual blogging jinx of death.

Nailed It!  My Best Week 11 Prediction - In the end, it seems like a no-brainer, but the Colts were favored at home to get the upper hand against the Patriots.  Too bad I deleted that whole section I was going to write about Jonas Gray's breakout from the practice squad...:

• [Brady has] played lights out ever since the Gronk returned to full health, and the Patriots have simply beaten better teams this year than the Colts.  Throw in the fact that Bill Belichick has had two straight weeks to prepare for this one, and I'm sticking with New England another year.

Week 11: The Bad Stuff

Seattle's Worst on Fourth Down - To be fair, I don't blame Pete Carroll's team for going for it on fourth down on three consecutive drives Sunday.  The first time, they were down by four at the goal-line, but Russell Wilson missed Doug Baldwin in the corner of the end zone.  Then they started running out of time and gambled on a 4th-and-1 with Marshawn Lynch, which usually works.  Not against the run-stuffing Chiefs.  Their last 4th-down was a desperation attempt with a minute to go in the game.  But in every case, the Seahawks' offense, which has done practically anything it wants to at times this season, looked tentative and relied heavily on Russell Wilson trying to improvise his way out of sack after sack at Arrowhead.  A lot of credit goes to the Chiefs too now that this defense is back at full-steam, but Seattle fans should start getting nervous about the state of the NFC West if this team doesn't turn it around on offense ASAP. 

Saints No More, 'Aints Again - True story: I told my husband the Saints were going to lose the moment I saw the pre-game huddle with Drew Brees on Sunday. Nobody was into it, and the few players trying to humor him were way out of sync. I could go on about the lack of confidence, the foregone sense of urgency, and outright miserable third-down defense well before I get to any excuses about injuries and age for this team. But these two plays against Cincinnati pretty much sum up everything wrong with the Saints this year: 1) Jeremy Hill’s 62-yard gash up the middle on a halftime draw play; and 2) Marcus Ball committing one of the most hilariously bad encroachment penalties I’ve ever seen.  (No video, but he pretty much ran full-force into the Bengals' offensive line without waiting for the snap). I’ve definitely shifted my wishful thinking in hopes that New Orleans tanks the rest of the way this season - there’s no need to miss out on whoever the top-rated defensive back of 2015 is going to be and the Saints have no business in the playoffs.

The Bad of Eli - They may be three games back in the NFC West, but you can’t count out the 49ers just yet after their defense absolutely dismantled the Giants. Having Aldon Smith back on the field next to one of the biggest rookie breakouts of the year in Chris Borland will do that. But Manning also helped things out with a 5-interception whopper of a passing performance.  They were mostly awful throws too - two into double/triple coverage, two that were off-target to open receivers and a real dagger deflected at the goal line in the fourth quarter that could have put the Giants in the lead against the sputtering 49ers offense. It's a wonder to think where Eli Manning would be today without two miracle Super Bowls with New York. In a deal with the devil, I guess a lot of Giants fans would gladly take 10 years of misery for two postseason runs that now seem especially unreal given Manning's past three mistake-riddled years.

Shanked It! My Worst Week 11 Prediction - Boy did I think I’d be dodging a bullet when it was announced Arian Foster would not start for the Texans. That evaporated pretty quickly. One thing I feel totally comfortable predicting: J.J. Watt for DPOY.

• In a move I'll almost certainly regret, I'm making a last-minute switch to the favored Browns.  The Texans have a real shot here with Arian Foster against a shaky rush defense and Mallett, whom Cleveland has almost zero film on, but maybe the Browns are actually good while the Texans are mediocre.