(Also at UltimateFootballBlog.com)
The Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl last year and people immediately began thinking they could be a dynasty given their dominant defense, strong offense, and young core. In the opening game of the season, the Seahawks waxed the Green Bay Packers, shutting down one of the top quarterbacks in the league and showing growth as an offense.
A week two loss to the San Diego Chargers showed that the Seahawks weren’t unbeatable, but they bounced back with an overtime win over the Denver Broncos and an easy victory against the Washington Redskins.
That’s when things got weird.
The Dallas Cowboys were coming into Seattle, where the Seahawks are nearly unbeatable. People still weren’t quite sure what to make of the Cowboys, but they figured that there was no way that Tony Romo could lead this team to victory in Seattle. But he did. That’s right, the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Seahawks in Seattle and no one could believe it. Especially Seattle.
The Seahawks had only lost one home game in the past two years so losing to a Cowboys team that, on paper, they matched up well against had to be a pretty big blow to their ego.
Later in the week, the Seahawks made a shocking move by trading Percy Harvin to the New York Jets for a draft pick. This move was shocking because all we heard about during the offseason was how the Seahawks offense would be much more dangerous this year with a healthy Harvin. Things certainly looked that way in week one when Harvin had 41 yards rushing and 53 yards receiving. Then Harvin became invisible and was reportedly trouble in the locker room, which isn’t surprising given his history.
The funniest part about the Harvin trade is that Seattle actually called the Denver Broncos and asked them about Julius Thomas. You know. Julius Thomas, arguably the best tight end in the league right now. I’m sure John Elway had a good laugh about that one.
In the end, the Seahawks settled on shipping him across the country to New York where Geno Smith can not throw him the ball and Harvin can become even more frustrated.
With Harvin out of the picture, the Seahawks turned their attention to the St. Louis Rams. If you ever needed to bounce back after a loss at home and a surprising trade, surely the Rams would be the team you would want to face. Instead the Rams surprised the Seahawks using some trick plays and strong
special teams to upset the defending Super Bowl champions and sending them to 3-3 on the season.
With Arizona at 5-1 and showing no signs of falling off, the Seahawks need to figure things out quickly if they hope to make the playoffs. San Francisco is still a tough team who always gets up for games against Seattle and they’ll have to hope that one team from the NFC North and NFC East slip up and allow them to take a Wild Card spot.
The good needs for Seattle is that they play the Carolina Panthers this week and if you need to get on track, seeing a NFC South team on your schedule is a good way to re-establish your route.
Onto the rankings:
1. St. Louis Rams Trickery
A fake punt and a decoy punt return helped the Rams upset the Seahawks. Both plays were equally awesome.
2. Peyton Manning
Now the all-time leader in touchdown passes. And still really good at football.
3. DeMarco Murray
Another game. Another 100 yards.
4. Colt McCoy
So it looks like the Kirk Cousins era in Washington is over. McCoy came in and helped lead the Redskins to victory, once again deny Charlie Whitehurst and his ponytail a victory.
5. Ahmad Bradshaw Catching TDs
Five receiving TDs puts Bradshaw ahead of 97% of tight ends and wide receivers in the league. He’s the second string running back.
6. The INT Battle
Blake Bortles may’ve helped the Jaguars finally win a game (ok, so he really didn’t do anything), but he also became the first QB on the year to throw double digit interceptions. Kirk Cousins getting benched certainly helps the race for second. And don’t look now, but Teddy Bridgewater is coming up fast.
7. Matthew Stafford
Without his top receiver and down 23-10 with just over five minutes left in the game, Stafford helped orchestrate two touchdown drives to lead the Lions to victory. It helped that he played the Saints defense, but lets give the man some credit.
8. Steelers 3-Minute Offense
24 points in three minutes is something that we may never see again.
9. Denard Robinson
Not only is Denard Robinson in the league, but he’s the Jags top running back and he ran for 127 yards and helps the Jaguars secure their first victory of the year. That’s right. Denard Freakin Robinson
10. Biggest Game Of The Year
Prior to any games taking place on Sunday, CBS was talking up Thursday’s game between the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos as the biggest game of the year. Then the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Chargers and suddenly Chargers vs. Broncos isn’t the biggest game of the year. Isn’t that always the Super Bowl anyway?
11. Brandon Marshall Calls Out Jay Cutler
I love a good “WR calls out QB story” so I can’t wait to see what happens between Marshall and Cutler this week.
15. Sammy Watkins vs. Kelvin Benjamin
The Bills and Panthers are mediocre at best football teams, but Watkins and Benjamin have been good rookies for each team. One of these two men will win Offensive Rookie Of The Year.
20. Ryan Tannehill
Lets give Tannehill some credit. He’s 2-1 since he was rumored to be benched and would be 3-0 if his defense wasn’t stupid and Aaron Rodgers wasn’t relaxed.
32. Geno Smith
Geno actually wasn’t all that bad on Thursday against the New England Patriots. But the Jets still lost.
45. CJ Spiller Trade Value
Spiller’s name has been on the trade block for at least a year. But now he’s out for the season and will be staying put in Buffalo for the time being.
50. The NFC South
The Carolina Panthers are 3-3-1. That’s good enough for the first place in the NFC South. No team in the division has a positive scoring record either. So. Things are definitely going well in this division.
64. Jimmy Graham Fantasy Owners
These people probably rejoiced when they found out Graham would play against the Lions. These same people definitely lost their game this week if they started Graham.
75. Ties
There were no ties this week. But both the Panthers and Bengals, who tied last week, sucked this week. My theory is that because they tied, they didn’t know whether or not to prepare like a team that had won or like a team that had lost. So they didn’t prepare at all.
100. Johnny Manziel
Hoyer went 16/41 with an interception as the Browns lost to the Jaguars. This week the Browns face the Raiders. If Hoyer loses back-to-back games against the Jaguars and Raiders, doesn’t Manziel deserve to start on principle?
150. Thursday Night Games
Two straight good Thursday Night Games and a potentially good one waiting in the wings.
200. Sunday Night Games
For all the bashing Thursday Night Games have received, you know what have really sucked this year? Sunday Night Games. We haven’t had a competitive Sunday Night Game since week two and this week we get Relaxed Aaron Rodgers against a NFC South Defense. That should be fun.
1,000. Refs Ejecting Players
Two players got ejected for grazing a referee on Sunday. What a stupid rule. Refs get accidentally shoved all the time in the middle of piles, yet rarely does it amount to an ejection. But for some reason these refs wanted some screen time so they ejected the player.
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