Monday Mash- Week 6

Not the greatest weekend for New York football. Though losses are rarely encouraging, the defeats by the Giants and Jets were particularly worrisome. The Jets got outworked and embarrassed at home by an inferior Buffalo team without their starting quarterback. The Giants were never truly within striking distance as the Saints put up 7 touchdowns.

We'll take an extensive look at the Jets later in the week, so we'll focus on the Giants today. Maybe it was just me, but I had just one thought on my mind from the get-go: Wasn't this how Super Bowl XLII was supposed to be?? The record-setting, high flying Patriots offense ready to stomp on the Giants and complete their perfect season.

Yesterday, the G-Men looked like that big underdog ready to get smoked. Their pass rush, that manhandled and harassed Tom Brady into submission, let Drew Brees do absolutely whatever he wanted yesterday. And he was more than willing to accept, as Marques Colston, Lance Moore, and others ran wild in the Giants secondary. Maybe Mark Sanchez's debacle starting at 4pm looked so much worse because many fans saw Brees' mastery starting three hours earlier. Bottom line: both New York teams have a lot to do. But hard work at 5-1 is a lot more comfortable than hard work at 3-3. As far as the rest of week 6:

The Montauk BeverageWorks Delicious Performance of the Week:
Tom Brady, Patriots. Fair is far. 380 yards with 6 TD's before being pulled in the 3rd quarter. Pretty delicious.

• A big thank you to Brady for flushing my upset perfiction down the toilet. It's been a real up and down year for the upset of the week picks. Things looked great at the start, with the Niners over the Cards and Jets over the Pats. The things got rocky as the Chargers dismantled the Dolphins and the Niners modestly beat the Rams 35-0. After the Browns came through against Buffalo, the Titans couldn't quite cover the 10-point spread, going down valiently by the score of 59-0.
• Tommy was the posterboy for what was really a ridiculous week for NFL quarterbacks. Peyton Manning may have been on a bye, but look at these numbers! Eight guys going for 300 yards or more. The low point (besides Sanchez) can be found in the Pats-Titans box score. ESPN was required to put Vince Young (0-2, 0 yards) as the top passer. The reason? Kerry Collins passed for negative seven yards. Great job, Titans. Great pick, Conor.
• Speaking of the upset pick, who in the world saw that coming from Oakland? Just a week ago, the Eagles beat Tampa Bay 33-14, and the Raiders lost to the G-Men 44-7. Simple math tells us that....the Raiders don't allow a touchdown and go on to win?? Crazy.
• I beefed up the Redskins a lot yesterday, hoping they would beat the Chiefs handily. I started Campbell, Portis, and Moss. Therefore, I had all the bases covered and would get points on everything except Washington field goals. The result? Two field goals, Campbell pulled at halftime, Clean Sanchezes lose. Thanks, 'Skins.
• Game of the week has to go to Baltimore-Minnesota. It was pretty pedestrian until the 4th quarter, where all hell broke loose. Minnesota had it, then lost it, then had it, then should have lost it only to end up having it. Favre magic I suppose. But is his Jet-like swoon coming?
• Teams helping my preseason prediction for them: the Cardinals beating the Seahawks and the Rams losing a close one to the Jaguars (1-15 for St Louis lives on.)
• Broncos vs. Chargers tonight on Monday Night football. Unfortunately, the Bolts are my Super Bowl picks. Too soon to turn back now. Chargers 17, Broncos 13.