Week 3 — Mon, 26 Sep 2005

From: Jeff
To: mnf@doobie.com
Subject: It's Monday...

...and thanks to the well-timed bye, the Washington Redskins can savor their win over Dallas for another week.

Welcome to the end of week 3. There are still 5 undefeated teams, though at the end of tonight, it might be four. At 3-0, you'll find Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Tampa Bay. Washington and Kansas City are 2-0, and KC plays tonight. Down at 0-3 are the Packers, Raiders and Cardinals.

But lets talk about who's not undefeated. The Philadelphia Eagles, despite winning their last two games, are statistically at the bottom of the NFC East with a 2-1 record. 2-1 New England is behind 2-1 Miami in the AFC East. Green Bay is 0-3, putting them in 31st place in the entire NFL, just ahead of perennial bottom-dweller, Arizona.

The only 3-0 team that was in the playoffs last year is Indianapolis. You may insert commentary about the end of NFL legacy teams here.

The Bengals Bandwagon keeps rolling and rolling and rolling. This week, it rolled into Chicago, where the Bengals defense managed FIVE interceptions (by five different players, believe it or not). This is the second game in a row with 5 Bengals INTs, which makes it notable. The last time a team managed to pickoff five passes in each of two consecutive games was in the early 1970s. It's amazing that the 24-7 score was as close as it was. Between this defense, and Bengals QB Carson Palmer's having a whole field of decent receivers to throw to... could this be the year that the Bengals make it back to the playoffs for the first time since 1990?

Miami (yes, that Miami), beat heavily favored Carolina 27-24. Late in the fourth, with the game tied 24-24, Lance Schulters made an interception that led to the Olindo Mare's game winning kick with :04 on the clock. Miami only punted the ball once, and are looking like a completely different team.

Tampa Bay should've gone into Green Bay and simply wiped up the Packers, who continue to blow -- instead, it turned out to be a long painful to watch game of fumbles, bad calls, a missed extra point and a missed field goal... before finally ending with a 17-16 Buccaneer victory. Tampa Bay is 3-0, Green Bay is 0-3. Both of them deserved a loss yesterday. Packer Bubba Franks did not play in this game (he's got a knee injury)... this is the first game he's missed in 6 years.

Dallas, despite being behind to the 49ers for essentially the entire game, barely managed to pull out a 34-31 victory at Candlestick. How these two teams, neither known for much offense, managed to score 65 points remains a mystery. For three quarters, the Cowboys were outplayed, outmanned, and outcoached, and yet somehow they manage to score 15 points in the final 14 minutes of the game -- despite a missed extra point, a missed two point conversion, and Drew Bledsoe's first two thrown interceptions of the year. At least the 1-2 Niners are looking better than last year.

The game of the day yesterday was probably New England at Pittsburgh, which was the only 1:00pm CBS game this week. It was on broadcast TV everywhere in the country, except in Seattle and here in the Bay Area. Fortunately, it was available on no fewer than 8 orbiting satellites.

If you were somewhere with a dish on the roof, you saw the Steelers and Patriots trade the lead 6 times, in a game that didn't really come alive until the second half. Late-ish in the 4th quarter, the Steelers scored a touchdown to tie the game at 20 points, but due to some penalties mostly, and overall poor clock management, there was still 1:21 on the clock when the Patriots got the ball back. That is far too long when talking about this team.

Tom Brady and kicker Adam Vinatieri combined to do what they've done dozens of times before: move the ball down the field and then kick a game-winning FG with seconds to go. In this case, it was a 43 yard kick with :01, which sealed the game at 23-20 Patriots. Despite the score, the Pittsburgh Steelers are looking like quite a team this year. These teams will probably play each other again this year, but not during the regular season.

Speaking of games and broadcast TV, I've got to give a plug to J.P. Kirby's outstanding maps that show the game distribution in the US. If you've ever wondered which station(s) air which games, look no further:
http://www.gribblenation.net/personal/jp/2005maps.html

Which brings us to tonight's game:

Tonight the 2-0 Kansas City Chiefs go to Invesco field at Mile High in Denver, CO to take on the 1-1 Broncos, in front of 76,125 fans swilling Coors Light.

Denver, despite being a cold high-altitude location, prides itself on it's specially engineered natural bluegrass turf. Like other cold locations, Denver's field includes water pipes that make it possible to gently heat the roots, keeping it green through the coldest of winters. Special pumps can dry out the field in minutes after a rain or snowstorm. There are also nearly 20 million blades of plastic grass inserted among the natural stuff. It ranks consistently among the best fields in the NFL.

The Chiefs really want this win, which would give them another 3-0 start (see also: 2003, 1995), and put them all alone with a 2 game lead at the top of the AFC West. If the Broncos win, both teams would be 2-1 and Denver would be #1 in the division. Clearly this is an important game for both teams -- and considering that at least one of these teams is probably playoff-bound, this game might be a deciding factor under the NFL's tie-breaking procedures.

So you should expect to see players at 125%, with more on the line than we've seen anywhere else this season.

The Game:

2-0 Kansas City Chiefs at 1-1 Denver Broncos
Invesco Field at Mile High
1701 Bryant St.
Denver, CO 80204

The Line:

The Broncos are favored by 3.
The over/under is 47.5

The Smart Money isn't looking at all smart, having started this season 0-4. Tonight the Smart Money takes the Chiefs +3 and the Under. It also takes "over 24" for the first half.

The Bar:

After receiving a well-earned complaint about the Northernness of previous locations, and making a promise to stay out of the Marina for a few weeks, tonight we're headed back to a bar South of Market that many of us visited during preseason.

Ted's Sports Bar
398 7th St (@Harrison)

Less than a block from the 12, 19, 27 and 47 busses (and county Jail)

Kickoff is at 6:00
See you there?

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