Usually I reserve this space to talk about the games that were decided in the last minute or so, or featured amazing performances. This week, the games of the week were almost entirely blowouts because they really showed how the face of the NFL is changing. There was a definitive changing of the guard, at least for this week, in many of the games that we saw for Week 7.

Games of the Week

St. Louis 34, Dallas 14: OK, no Romo, no Felix Jones, and Roy Williams (the safety) gets knocked out of the game. But these are the effing Rams! How is the consensus pre-season pick as the NFC champion supposed to not only lose to the Rams, but get completely dominated? Maybe because nobody seems to have learned that a collection of superstars does not guarantee anything other than a bloated payroll. That goes for not only the teams, but the "experts" who see 11 Pro Bowlers and ignore everything else about the team, including the fact that the pro bowl is a popularity contest. With the state of the NFC East, the Cowboys better get their act together, and fast, if they want to even make the playoffs.

Carolina 30, New Orleans 7: So much for the offensive juggernaut that was the New Orleans Saints. At this point you really do have to take the home team in these NFC South matchups, but you can’t expect the Saints with all of their weapons coming back, to be shut down to that degree. After that shellacking, the Saints now have a trip across the pond to look forward to without Reggie Bush. Where they face a beaten San Diego Chargers team thanks to…

Buffalo 23, San Diego 14: Power? We don’t need no stinking power? After a first half that featured as many power outages as touchdowns, the Bills proved that their fast start was not a fluke, by taking the experts pick for the AFC Champions and soundly beating them in all aspects of the game. San Diego was held to half their season scoring average and once again had an ineffective LT at their disposal. San Diego is fading, and looks more like a team that will finish somewhere around .500 than one that will run away with the conference. The Bills on the other hand, seem to have found the answer to their decade-plus long question: Who will be the heir apparent to Jim Kelly? If they can keep Trent Edwards healthy, this team finally has a chance to make some noise in January.

Chicago 48, Minnesota 41: Exactly the game that everyone expected. A shootout between these NFC North opponents was clearly what we all thought upon seeing this matchup. Imagine what the score would have been if the Vikings had someone competent playing QB, instead of someone who threw 4 interceptions? This game would have easily gone over 100 points. It was nice to see the Bears finally close a win out, especially after last week’s debacle in Atlanta. This division could easily see the winner have a record of somewhere in the neighborhood of 9-7. They continue to beat each other up week after week, and I see no reason why that will not continue for the next 9 weeks.

Other Thoughts:

Wow, the late games yesterday were brutal to watch.

Detroit almost staged an impressive comeback; no one cared.

Is there time to retract the "Indy is back" stories from last week?

Isn’t it great that we get to see Cleveland on national TV at least 3 more times?

OK, seriously, how bad are the Raiders? They don’t even understand the concept of the line of scrimmage? Three times on the opening drive the Raiders simply lined up off sides. They managed to do it again on a punt on 4^th and 4 to sustain a Jets drive. How they won this game is beyond me.

After all of this, how bad must the Jets be?

Monday Night Football

When the Pats lose is it acceptable for me to start looking at the magic number for the Bills to clinch the AFC East? Denver hasn’t looked great the last couple of weeks, but the Pats have been downright awful. If the Pats do lose this game, all of New England may shut down with nothing left to care about except the Bruins and the Celtics getting started. At least they have that lovely New England winter to look forward to. Oh, wait…