One week down, 16 more to go

Chris Duprau

Whew! Talk about an exhausting first week of football.

The entire opening weekend took a whopping five days. We now have half of the league excited at 1-0 and the other half nervous at 0-1.

Thanks to the lovely folks at The Wild Onion and their numerous TV’s and Direct TV NFL ticket, I was able to see the entire first Sunday pan out. (If you ever want to yell at me about a column or buy me a beer, I’ll be front and center at The Onion for the next four months.)

While watching, or at least checking in on, six games or more at once, I was left with some observations and bothersome questions.

Right now I’m not sure which to believe. Are the Eagles that good, or are the Giants that bad? Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get a plethora of different answers.

I really, and I mean really, hate to say this, but I happen to think the Eagles are good. When Terrell Owens is your top receiver, Todd Pinkston and Freddie Mitchell all of a sudden seem like pretty good two and three receivers. (I’m twitching just writing this paragraph.)

The Eagles do have the Vikings this week, though, who also looked pretty good last week. Let’s hope the Dante-Randy connection can top the Donovan-Owens connection.

Otherwise, I’m going to be hearing it from Eagles fans all year long.

The J-e-t-s Jets Jets Jets looked very good in their win over the Bengals. In this game though, I was left with a couple of mind-boggling questions.

Where the heck did Curtis Martin get a time machine to transform him into his ’98 self? He had over 200 total yards of offense! The odds in Vegas of that happening had to have been over 300-1. (Not that this column condones gambling.) I was happy to see Curtis have a good game, though. He’s one of the few really good guys in sports.

Oh, those Buffalo Bills. It’s come to the point where I really feel bad for Bills fans. People do not deserve to lose in as many agonizing ways as they have. They’re like that one friend everyone has who can hit every cup in Beer Pong, but never gets the last one, so they always lose.

The Bills always seem to do everything it takes to win until the very end. I almost spilled my drink when I saw that the Jags scored with no time left on the clock. (Key word there: almost.)

How many times has this team over the years had the game locked up and then lost? Poor Buffalo. Poor, poor Buffalo.

There were three surprise winners. The Browns, Chargers and Lions each put up a good showing.

For the Browns, Jamal Lewis who ran through the Browns last year like they were a Pop Warner football team, was held to a little over 50 yards.

The Chargers, who have the best all-around back in the NFL Ladainian Tomlinson, came up with a nice surprise victory over my surprise playoff team the Houston Texans. Dominick Davis, doing his best Tiki Barber impersonation, fumbled the ball twice, allowing the Chargers to hold on for the victory.

Finally, the Lions won a road game. That is not a typo; the Lions beat “da Bears” in Chicago.

The only way they could have been stopped was if they changed the name of Hurricane Ivan to Hurricane Ditka, and it traveled over Soldier Field. To put it in perspective, the last time the Lions won on the road, this year’s Villanova seniors were seniors in high school. Wow.

Now that we’ve covered this week, let’s take a look at the next one, and I’ll give you my picks (which should be used for entertainment-value only.)

Apparently, Shaun Alexander’s knee, which was going to have him out for three weeks, has turned into a three-day injury, which means that the Seahawks will run over the Bucs who looked pretty bad.

Those crazy Jets should improve to 2-0 as they take on the Chargers in sunny San Diego. With the Jets giving three on the spread, this game is my bet of the week.

The Bengals, formally known as the Bungles, will win their home opener and give Miami another loss. Note to Miami fans: Get used to this losing thing.

Finally, those Big Blue New York Giants. I don’t know, I just pray that they do better this week and maybe steal a win, but I wouldn’t bet on it.