2007 NFL Week 3 Barometer

The Pats absolutely destroyed the Chargers on Sunday night by holding LT down and Randy Moss is still looking like the Randy Moss of old. After watching the how the Patriots beat the Chargers, you almost have to ask yourself if anyone can beat the Patriots. Where is the weakness on this team?

The Colts drop a spot in the rankings, but they still look like a team to beat. They won it all last year, and in my mind, until they are beaten they are still the champs. Their defense is playing well. With that offense, their defense only needs to play average for them to win games.

The Steelers move up 3 spots this week after riding Willie Parker for 126 yards and a touchdown. Mike Tomlin said this week that he intends to ride Fast Willie until the wheels come off. So far it has made them look like contenders. Pittsburgh Steeler football, tough D and strong running. You have to love that!

The Chargers drop a spot after being shut down by the Pats. The Bolts faced two of the toughest teams in the NFL in the first two weeks of the season. Coming out of those two games with a win is nice. The schedule can only get easier from here on out. Not every team can shut down LT. The matchup gets easier this week against the Packers. However, the Packers have looked pretty darn good as of late.

The Bears are the Bears. Their defense is great. Devin Hester is ridiculous. Their offense needs a quarterback. That’s about it.

The Cowboys win again! This week they travel to Chicago to prove they are for real. Romo is proving to be a decent field general. Once Tank Johnson plays, this team could move up the rankings even more.

The Ravens were led to a victory over the Pennington-less Jets by Kyle Boller due to an injury to Steve McNair. The Ravens have a lot of injuries to key players going into this week’s game, however last week it didn’t prove to be a huge problem. This week they face the Cards at home.

The Broncos continue to lean on Travis Henry and he looks good in that offense. They have won their last two games on the leg of Jason Elam at the end of the game. A win is a win and the Broncos are 2-0 atop the AFC West.

The Bengals dropped 5 spots in the Barometer this week as they showed that they have no defense. I’m thinking about trying out for their defensive backfield. I’ll take the league minimum to miss tackles and and not cover people. I think I’d be pretty good at that. Their offense looked quite good once again. They were playing a pretty weak defense, but they looked good against the Ravens in week 1 also.

Seattle lost a heartbreaker by fumbling the ball and giving up a game winning field goal at the buzzer to the Cards last week. This week there is no doubt they will score, but will they be able to stop the Bengals enough to bring home a win?

The Packers have been looking very good this year and hold the NFL’s longest regular season win streak. This week they play the San Diego Chargers, a team they have beaten four consecutive times.

The Texans have won both their games this year in convincing fashion. They lost Andre Johnson for this week which is a huge blow as he has looked absolutely brilliant so far. Matt Shaub may have been the answer they were looking for. This week they will have a tough time keeping that win streak alive against the Colts.

The 49ers got a great game out of Frank Gore and sacked the Rams nine times last week. This week they play the Steelers in what looks like could turn out to be a battle of the running backs.

Steve Smith, are you serious? This guy is a game changer, plain and simple. I don’t think you can really count the Panthers out of any game when he is on the field.

Vince Young kept the Titans in the game right down to the end against a very good Colts team. Now they face a New Orleans team that the Colts manhandled week 1.

Detroit won on an overtime field goal to beat the Minnesota Vikings in of one of the ugliest games I’ve seen in awhile. Detroit has a tough to stop offense and are 2-0, which is a fifth of the way to Jon Kitna’s prediction.

The Redskins took down their NFC East rivals, the Eagles, on Monday night and held Philly out of the endzone. They are 2-0 and face another NFC East team this week in the Giants.

The Saints just can’t seem to get it going this year. They have all the firepower they need. They had the #1 offense last year and only lost Joe Horn, yet they can’t seem to find that same magic. They play a Titans team that lost last week to Indy and has either won or stayed in most games since Vince took over.

The Vikings played a poor game against the Lions last week and lost in overtime. It’s starting to seem that their defense needs to score every game just to keep them in it. The D has scored 7 touchdowns in 6 games counting preseason. They play the Chiefs this week without quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, but that may be a good thing.

The Eagles have struggled getting into the endzone this year, now Brian Westbrook is hurt and had an MRI on his knee. It is supposedly not serious, but that would be a huge hit to the team if it became more serious.

The Jags are 1-1 coming off a win against the Falcons. This week they travel to Mile High to face the Broncos, who are a much bigger challenge. The Jags really haven’t performed to expectations this year. How do you have a guy in Maurice Jones-Drew that scored 16 touchdowns last year, yet you barely let him touch the ball? Lunacy.

The Rams just can’t get it together. This week Steven Jackson apologized to his team for their start and told them that they went 4-2 with offensive line injuries last year. They look to righten the ship in Tampa this week.

The Cards are coming off an emotionally charged last second win against division rivals and travel to Baltimore to face one of the league’s toughest defenses. Edge is playing like the Edge of old. Will it be enough for the Cardinals to get to 2-1?

The Jets were without Chad Pennington last week when they faced the Ravens. Kellen Clemens didn’t do a horrible job, but he didn’t do enough to get the win. The Jets are 0-2 and now face another 0-2 team, the fellow AFC East Miami Dolphins.

The Buccaneers had a Caddy sighting last weekend! Caddy ran for 2 touchdowns and so did Joey Galloway to take down the Saints. This week they need to figure out a way to stop Steven Jackson who is already upset about the first two weeks and wants to make his mark on this game.

The Giants surprised a few people this week when Eli Manning, who was rumored to be out, played the entire game. This week he isn’t even on the injury report. The question here is if their D can finally get it together. They are currently allowing an average of 40 points per game.

Lamont Jordan, where have you been? The guy exploded last week and looks like a flat out stud in that offense. I can’t even imagine what will happen next week when they face Cleveland.

Ronnie Brown and the Dolphins are last in the league in rushing. I don’t know how you can win many games without somewhat of a running game. At least this week they face another 0-2 team, one without their starting QB, the Jets.

Last week I said that Cleveland was hoping a change at QB was their answer. Well it sure helped, so did playing against the Bengals D. Can Derek Anderson continue his onslaught?

The Bills had a poor game and only scored three points against a very good Steelers team. This week they go to Gillette Stadium to take on the Patriots. For some reason I don’t think the score will be as close as 38-17 again for the Pats.

The Chiefs lose again and move down a spot. They just can’t seem to get anything going. This week they face a tough Minnesota defense, but a poor Minnesota offense. However, the Chiefs don’t lose that often in Arrowhead no matter how bad the team is.

I didn’t see last week’s loss to the Jags, but I did watch the entire loss to the Vikings. Signing Byron Leftwich can only help. I liked Joey Harrington coming out of college, but i’m not even sure he is a good backup QB anymore, let alone starter. Mind you this is coming from a Vikings fan and the Vikes have Tarvaris Jackson, Kelly Holcomb, and Brooks Bollinger.