Sunday, January 04, 2009

NFL Recap: Both Underdogs Win

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In what has to be a first; every home team was an underdog going into the weekend. Yesterday, both home teams won.

In the Cards-Falcons game, QB Kurt Warner led the Cards to victory and showed that the old man can still play against the Rookie of the Year. Matt Ryan looked nervous from the outset and Atlanta never could get the ground game going with Michael Turner only able to accumulate 42 yards on the ground. The Cards defense was able to key on Ryan and was all over him notching three sack and numerous hurries. Larry Fitzgerald had his coming out party yesterday playing in front of a national audience and the world got to see what fantasy players have known for awhile, Fitz is a stud.

In the nightcap, the Chargers seemed doomed from the beginning with an injured LT and a banged up defense. Season MVP Peyton Manning was good but the bolts defense seemed to have a fix on what was coming and stopped the Colts streak. Amazingly, it was the Chargers punter Mike Scifres who was the key to the win averaging 52.7 yards per punt and continuously pinning the Colts back deep in their own end. Darren Sproles came up big as well at least figuratively. The 5' 6" all-purpose guy stepped in when LT didn't return and ran for 105 yards while amassing 45 receiving yards. He combined for more than 300 all-purpose yards.

Predictions for today:

Both road teams will win and set up some great games next week.

Ravens-Dolphins
I like Pennington and the Dolphins story this year was great but the Ravens defense will win it for them. Raven 20 Fish 14

Eagles-Vikings
Which birds team will show up? If it's the team that crushed the Cowgirls last week, they'll win convincingly. If it's the team who lost to the Skins two weeks ago, Adrian Petersen will run all over them. Brian Dawkins has been an unstoppable force of late and will be flying around as usual. Note that the Vikes had trouble selling out and of this moment the game will be blacked out in the Twin Cities area. I'm predicting the former: Iggles 31 Vikes 20

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