* I don't know which team is in a bigger free fall: the San Diego Chargers, who suffered yet another road loss to a team with promise in the St. Louis Rams, or the overrated Dallas Cowboys, making claims that they would be the first team to ever host the Super Bowl in their house. Let's look at the similarities: both Dallas and SD have monster talent on both sides of the ball (Tonly Romo, Miles Austin, Jason Whiten, DeMarcus Ware, Igor Olshansky for Dallas; Phillip Rivers, Antonio Gates, Ryan Matthews, Shaun Phillips, Quentin Jammer for San Diego), both were heavily favored to win their respective divisions again this year, and both have coaches that I personally like, but have proven that they're not HC material (Norv Turner should stick to being a play-calling genius, while Wade Phillips needs to be going back to out-coaching the OC upstairs in the coaching booth.) Both teams also lack discipline - San Diego can't win the games they're supposed to win against gimmie teams like Oakland and Kansas City; Dallas can't quit making dumb, costly penalties, and both teams are near the bottom of the barrel after six weeks, wtih another 10 left to go. One huge differnce separates these two lackluster teams: everytime the Chargers have found themselves in this position, they've been able to get their shit together, and win when it counts in Late October and going into November and December. Dallas wins in Novemeber, but crumble in December. Unfortuately, both teams share another common similarity - both teams windown of opportunity may have closen on them for this year.
* Everyone in the AFC West is damaged goods. The Chargers can't win a game on the road to save their lives (and this was after they had the leauge-best 7-1 record on the road last year) and guys like Malcom Floyd, Antonio Gates, Larry English are injured; the Raiders still have QB issues, despite talented draft picks. The Chiefs have a young and explosive talent at the Secondary, Kickoff Return, and Running Back, but with youth comes not knowing how to play in Nov. and December, and the Broncos just flat-out suck. So let's take out Oakland and Denver, and what we have left is a rejuvinated Kansas City club vs. Norv Turner, once again, looking for a miraculous winning streak to fend off fans who want noting more than bitch loud and long enough to convince him that he made a mistake, fire Norv, and hire Jon Gruden or Bill Cower.
* A quick thought on last Sunday's helmet shots: I understand the need for a LB to take the first shot they see - hell, it's one of the first things they are taught at Training Camp. I love seeing hits like that, as long as the other guy who took the shot doesn't end up in a stretcher. What I don't like seeing are the kind of hits that could seriously injure or kill a player on the field, like the one we saw from James Harrison of the Steelers. Time to take the foot off the peddle...just a little bit. Americans love hard-hitting defensive players, but we don't like to see one of our guys dead on the gridiron. BTW: if the NFL is freaked about tackles, they're gonna have a heart attack if they extend the regular season to 18 weeks.
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