Patriots 28, Bills 6
After rolling over Buffalo with minimal effort, Tom Brady and the rest of the Patriots called the Bills out to the 50-yard line for a big announcement. "We're so proud of you guys," Brady sniffled. "Who wants some ice cream?"
The Bills, who have lost seven of their last eight meetings with New England, were assured that no matter what the scoreboard said, they "were all winners!" "I kicked-ed a gold feel!" shouted Buffalo kicker Rian Lindell through a mouthful of vanilla soft serve. "Two! Two gold feels!"
"He means 'field goal,'" chuckled Brady, mussing Lindell's hair while smiling patronizingly. "You sure did, big guy!
You sure did!"
Broncos 17, Browns 7
Have you ever been dating someone and things just aren't working out, but there's no real reason you can point at and say, "That's where things have gone wrong?"
In fact, things might be going
really well, which makes it that much more difficult to justify why you want to break up, both to the other person and to yourself. Even worse is when there's someone else you'd like to be dating who is available and who likes you, but you can't see until you're out of your current relationship. So you start putting yourself into positions that might lead to a legitimate break up excuse and, in at least part of your heart, you hope things go badly and start down that road to Splitsville.
Replace yourself with the Broncos and your significant other with Jake Plummer and you'll understand the situation in Denver.
Against the decidedly terrible Cleveland Browns, Plummer completed fewer than half his passes for barely 200 yards, could only muster the team to 17 points and tossed away two interceptions, one of which set up a touchdown that cost the defense its first road shut out in nearly a decade and a half. Meanwhile, Jay Cutler is sitting on the sidelines, ready to be the next quarterback of the future. But as long as the team keeps winning, there's no excuse to demote Plummer. "That's okay," said Cutler as he closed the door to coach Mike Shanahan's office, "I understand how important Jake is to this team and I'd never want to come between him and Denver." Moments later, Stevie Wonder's "Part Time Lovers" could be heard through the closed door.
Jets 31, Lions 24
Rookie running back Leon Washington, sharing duties with Kevan Barlow in New York's backfield, took advantage of the fact Barlow is terrible to burst into the spotlight. Running for 129 yards and two touchdowns, Washington guaranteed he'll be the subject of much water cooler talk and a fantasy waiver wire darling... until he gets just seven carries for twelve yards and a fumble next week.
Detroit fans tried to care about the Lions sixth loss, but failed for the most part. "When I heard they came close to winning late in the fourth quarter only to fall short of victory," described one fan, "I tried to pretend like I was shocked and disappointed, but I'm pretty sure no one bought it."
Packers 34, Dolphins 24
Miami quarterback Joey Harrington set a team record for pass attempts, throwing the ball 62 times against Green Bay. If you're ever wondering whether your team is doing well or doing poorly in a football game, just ask, "Has our quarterback thrown the ball more than sixty times this game?" If the answer is yes, the odds strongly favor that things are going badly.
Likewise, if your team runs more than 80 plays in a game and only two of them go for touchdowns, as happened to the Fins, you're not going to be able to use "I'm watching the game" as an excuse to get out of yardwork for much longer.
Texans 27, Jaguars 7
No one was more surprised by the Texans upset of Jacksonville than the Texans themselves. "My hat's off to the Jaguars," a downtrodden Gary Kubiak said. "They're a great team and they came in here to our house and took command. We still have a lot of pieces of the puzz--what? Oh, right! We
won. Sorry, force of habit!"
Experts didn't give Houston a chance in the game considering Jacksonville was coming off a bye week that immediately followed a 41-0 thumping of the Jets. "In retrospect," agreed Jaguars running back Fred Taylor, "maybe we should have practiced or thought up a game plan during the past two weeks instead of spending our time off crank calling [Jets quarterback] Chad Pennington and doing shooters."