Coach from the Couch – Tuesdays’ look back on The NFL Week Four.

By Dave Wiley

Week four certainly contained some shockers. Some teams were validated, as others were exposed. Three teams remain unbeaten, while four still search for their first win and fall into the category of “Soundly beaten”. Looking at this from an Alan Parson’s perspective, “Where do we go from here”? What conclusions can we draw on from the first four weeks? Does your hometown favorite still have a chance or are you already looking at college football talent to improve next years’ chances. CFC continues to eat KFC and wrap up week four in the NFL PDQ. Thank you acronym Gods for a chance to use this horrifying line.

Entering week four, Seven teams went into the weekend undefeated. It was certain that only five could emerge as two games pitted undefeated against, well undefeated. It turned out three made it out unscathed. First game on the board and probably the best game of the week featured San Diego and Baltimore. Surely this would turn out to be a squeaker decided at the last minute. YES!! Baltimore scores nine in the fourth quarter, including a masterful Steve McNair drive downfield culminating in a pass to Todd Heap with 34 seconds to go, and Baltimore wins 16-13. While both teams deserved a win, only one escaped still perfect, and its Baltimore. Steve McNair once again demonstrated his ability to win in the clutch. Will the second game prove just as entertaining? Chicago and Seattle should go down to the wire as well, but NO!! Chicago has other plans, embarrassing the Seahawks to the tune of 37-6. And so our first two undefeateds join the ranks of defeated, while the other two undefeateds win and stay pretty much undefeated. Our next undefeated team, the Saints, coming off a huge win in New Orleans last week with the re-opening of the Superdome and knocking the Falcons from the ranks of the unbeaten, took on the Carolina Panthers. Trailing 7-3 going into the fourth quarter, both teams started moving the ball. While the Saints scored more than the Panthers in the fourth quarter, they only scored ONE more, and end up losing by three 21-18. Bye-bye zero as in 4-0. Saints move to 3-1 and Carolina crawls back to .500 after an 0-2 start. Next up we have undefeated Cincinnati playing a tough New England squad. Once again, the Patriots prove they are a force in the AFC by knocking the Bengals from the ranks of the undefeated. They win in a laugher 38-13 and make the Bengals look like paper tigers. Finally, Indianapolis comes in as the last undefeated. Playing the Jets, its assumed they will leave with the same zero representation in the loss column as they had when they came in. The Jets meanwhile have other ideas. Manning and the Colts score in the fourth with little time left to take the win, or do they? On the ensuing kickoff, the Jets run the ball back 103 yards and retake the lead!! Unfortunately for them, Justin Millar needs to run 100 yards roughly two minutes slower, because they have to kick off back to Indy with a little over that amount of time left on the clock. Manning completes six of eight, and the Colts go back on top 31-28 with eight seconds left. Game over? Maybe not. The Jets try out the ole’ grade school backyard “lateral-until-you-score-or-lose-the-ball” play, and it works for a while, until they lose the ball. Indy escapes undefeated. Second best game of the week!!

Games too close to call – Oddly enough, the real close games that did not feature undefeated teams featured all totally defeated teams with the exception of the 1-2 Miami Dolphins. Miami played Houston with the Dolphins already disappointed in their season. After going out and trading for highly praised quarterback Daunte Culpepper they would surely be 3-0 by now, not just 1-2. WORSE!! The 0-3 Texans beat them 17-15 and add to their woes!! Daunte Culpepper is soundly booed and Miami considers replacing him with a leaf rake. At least this way the opposing team won’t get more passes from the leaf rake than their own guys will get. (leaf rake disclaimer – the use of a leaf rake in this article should in no way be misconstrued as a side slam at the biggest bust of all time at QB Ryan Leaf). In the other close game of lowly 0-fer squads, Cleveland traveled to Oakland and goes down 21-3 before putting up a promising drive at the end of the half to pull to within 21-10. Surely the Raiders will prevail at home and get off the snide after staking themselves to a seventeen-point lead. NO!! The Browns come back and win 24-21!! Congratulations Cleveland, you are no longer an 0-fer. The Browns highlight reel for the week almost certainly contains all Josh Cribbs’ plays, who had a stellar return day.

Games too far apart to continue watching – Unless you are a Cowboys, Titans, Atlanta or Arizona fan, you surely turned off these no contests in search of another game or reruns of Andy Griffith. If you didn’t turn off the Cowboys / Titans game, you did get to witness the head stomp play. Even if you didn’t watch the game, such as me, you got to see the head stomp play over and over; proof you should have turned the channel and cannot use the lame excuse of watching the whole game so you could witness the head stomp play. Cowboys win 45-14. T.O. comes back from a horrible media invented suicide attempt to play well, and the head stomping guy from the Titans lands a five game suspension, longest on-the-field suspension in NFL history. Gee, after typing this up, it almost SOUNDS like the game was worth watching. Atlanta / Arizona had all the makings of a good game. First, Kurt Warner, starting QB for Arizona is supposedly benched because of poor play and Matt Leinart is allegedly the starter. Later in the week we learn this is yet again more media hype and Warner is the starter. He starts, is benched, and will no longer start for the Cardinals. Do sportswriters know more about coaching than coaches? In this case, it appears so. Atlanta wins 32-10. Leinart looks like Kurt Warner, but has a different number on his back.

Game pitting my two under-the-radar teams. Two of my favorite teams for sneaker picks played each other this weekend. Unfortunately, that meant one of them would have to lose. Buffalo beats Minnesota 17-12 to even both their respective records at 2-2. Both teams showcase teamwork and hard work. I still think they both sneak into the playoffs.

The Blowouts – Few would argue that Green Bay / Philadelphia was going to be a yawner of a Monday night contest. The few that did argue were, of course wrong. Philadelphia took Green Bay to the house 31-9. Favre ends up with some sort of head stinger that most people just call a headache, but in football terms all things sound worse when “stinger” is attached, so he has a head stinger. McNabb once again looks sharp for the Eagles, and did quite a bit of “his old self” running, joking that he had to keep up with Peyton Manning, who’d rushed for a touchdown one day earlier. (Note to people that don’t get this – McNabb is a good scrambler, while Peyton? Not so much). Finally, San Francisco appeared ready to start playing some ball last week, but this week they took a vacation. Kansas City was the recipient of the “Ferris Beuhler day off award”, and won 41-0.

Games of note next week – Pittsburgh / San Diego looks like a showstopper. Dallas and Philadelphia is always a hard fought contest of division rivals. Same with Washington and New York. Sleeper good game of the week will be Buffalo and Chicago with the upset going to Buffalo.

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