This week in football 29 Nov 2005

The NFL and NCAA football seasons are coming down to the wire and the races are heating up. We take a look at where the teams stand and the likely playoff and bowl game scenarios in a look at football this week.

For those spectators looking to criticize the Indianapolis Colts, you’ll need to wait another week. The Colts proved they can play smash mouth football as well as playground football with a dominating defense to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 26-7 in the Monday Night game. This takes the Colts to 11-0 and continue their quest to finish an undefeated season and more importantly, lock up home-field advantage for the playoffs.

In other action around the NFL, the Chicago Bears, picked to finish last by most experts in the NFC North, ran their record to 8-3 with a 13-10 dogfight victory over Tampa Bay. The San Diego Chargers strengthened their playoff hopes with a thrilling 23-17 overtime win against the Washington Redskins as LaDainian Tomlinson scored 3 more touchdowns to raise his season total to 22. The Chargers raise their record to 7-4. The Kansas City Chiefs also kept pace at 7-4 with San Diego after an impressive 26-16 win against the New England Patriots. The Seattle Seahawks, in a search for respect around the league, defeated the New York Giants as kicker Jay Feeley, missed 3 field goals in the 4th quarter and overtime before Seattle kicker Josh Brown finished the game with a 36-yard field goal to run their record to 9-2, while the Giants dropped to 7-4 and remain tied with the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East. The Cowboys were defeated by the Denver Broncos on Thanksgiving Day in an overtime game. Atlanta beat up Detroit in the other Thanksgiving Day game 27-7, which has eventually led to the firing of coach Steve Mariucci.

In the race for the 1st round pick in 2006, the Houston Texans (1-10) showed why they are the favorites to get the 1st round pick (Reggie Bush from USC), when they blew a 21-point lead against the St. Louis Rams and lost a 10-point lead with less then a minute to go and wound up losing the game 33-27 in overtime. The San Francisco 49ers continue to play tough, but lost to the Tennessee Titans 33-22 and remain in the race for the #1 pick as they fall to 2-9 and the Titans raised their record to 3-8. Houston and San Francisco play each other on 1 January and that may well decide which team gets the first pick in the draft.

Philadelphia defeated the Green Bay Packers 19-14 as the Eagles won their first game without quarterback Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens. On a side note: Did anyone notice that McNabb was in the luxury boxes with his family? Just thought it was curious that McNabb is the leader of the team and instead of helping his replacement on the sidelines, he chose to spend it away from the field where he couldn’t possibly lend a hand. In an earlier article, I commented that the Eagles may be viewed as petty in how they handle Terrell Owens if they spent more time trying to make him pay rather than fighting their opponents on the field. The Eagles are trying to charge Dallas owner Jerry Jones with tampering after Jones commented he might be interested in Terrell Owens. Why worry about who wants your trash if you already establish you have no interest in it. T.O. is going to come back with some team and I can almost guarantee that Philadelphia will pay for releasing him one way or another in the near future.

Some of the key match-ups for week 13 will see Pittsburgh facing off against Cincinnati, Atlanta vs. Carolina, Denver vs Kansas City, and the New York Giants vs Dallas. All of these games have playoff implications with first place on the line in each game.

The NCAA is in the homestretch as teams are officially accepting bowl invitations. The USC Trojans face the UCLA Bruins with their stake in the BCS championship game on the line. If USC wins, they will face the Texas Longhorns if Texas defeats an overmanned Colorado Buffaloes team that just got blown out at home against a struggling Nebraska team. Penn State is number 4 in most polls, but is #3 in the BCS standings just ahead of LSU. The controversy in the BCS standings is all about Notre Dame. The Oregon Ducks have had an outstanding season with a 10-1 record and their only loss coming against #1 USC, but are the likely team to get left out of the dance as Notre Dame and Ohio State are the odds on favorites to get the at-large bids for the BCS bids. Fresno State were the big losers last week as they were upset in Nevada 38-35. Fresno State was coming off of a huge win two weeks ago against rival Boise State and narrowly missed knocking off #1 USC. The loss to Nevada knocked Fresno State down 9 spots and their dream of finishing in the top ten in the final season ending polls. Nevada and Boise State will now likely finish tied for first with Fresno State in the WAC and that will qualify all three teams for a bowl game. The WAC only guarantees the top two teams a spot in a bowl game.

Utah played in the $14 million dollar Fiesta Bowl last year, but only claim receiving $3-4 million because the Mountain West splits the money up amongst their teams in the conference. Other conferences also have different rules to follow, but this demonstrates why teams want a fair shot at earning a big money bowl game to fill their coffers just like Notre Dame, which isn’t ligned up with a football conference and can keep everything they earn in a game.

Several teams have accepted bids to date to play in bowl games. The following teams have accepted invitations to play in bowl games.

Arizona State and Rutgers (Insight Bowl), Boise State (MPC Computer Bowl), BYU (Las Vegas Bowl), Colorado State and Navy (Poinsettia Bowl), Fresno State (Liberty Bowl), Louisville (Gator Bowl), Texas Christian (Houston Bowl), Toledo (GMAC Bowl), Utah (Emerald Bowl)

Happy bowling and we’ll keep you informed on the status of the bowl teams in the upcoming weeks.

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