Consider: Would you rather miss a week of NFL action or find out your favorite football team is starting Derek Anderson? Trick question – the Browns don’t play football.

I’ve returned from my weekend excursion to the Green Mountain State where I was sequestered for an entire Sunday without the precious nectar of football. I did, however, fill that void with the equally precious nectar of hot apple cider, a treat whose magnificence is only fully realized when sipped on a blustery October afternoon savoring the natural splendor of a New England foliage. I did manage to catch the end of that wild Chiefs/Cowboys matchup and I listened to the second half of Broncos/Patriots on the radio – football without a glowing first-down marker, esoteric statistical trends, and ceaseless back-and-forth booth chatter? I truly rebelled in week 5. Since the Packers had an off week – and don’t think THAT didn’t factor into my decision to spend the Columbus Day weekend in the mountains – I can jump right into a review of the 28 teams who did play this weekend.

News Item: Mannings play football well! Eli and Peyton are a combined 10-0 this season, and already greedy media types are salivating over the potential of an all-Manning Super Bowl. The only way the Hype Machine (patent pending) could be any more overworked is if Brett Favre made the Super Bowl, cloned himself and started the clone on the opposing AFC team. It seems Eli’s plantar fasciitis was a tad overblown, as the Giants won comfortably. Then again, we’d never know, since they were playing the Raiders. Mel Kiper is already drawing up a Big Board of college players that can subsequently be ruined in Oakland. Peyton has only gone out and thrown for 300+ yards in the first five games of the season, not really even facing a challenge since a week 1 victory over the Jaguars. His performance is even more impressive considering the absence of future Hall of Famer/Belgian firearm enthusiast Marvin Harrison and the crippling injury to promising youngster Anthony Gonzalez. Reggie Wayne’s a stud, but Pierre Garcon and the rest of the Colts’ faceless offense is giving Peyton a chance to prove just how indispensable he is. Question: Is there a bigger disparity between starter and backup in the NFL than Peyton Manning and Jim Sorgi?

Peyton Manning even calls his own shots and the defense still can’t stop him.

Regressing to the mean does not apply in the NFL. Football does a great job endorsing “parity,” with balanced scheduling, division alignments, free agency stipulations, reverse-order drafting, and most importantly, revenue sharing. Yet this weekend, fans were forced to endure a bunch of crappy teams producing crappy efforts on the field. Tampa Bay, Tennessee, and the Missouri Compromised duo of Kansas City and St. Louis remained winless yet another week. Redskins and Lions fans were treated to their typical Disappointment Sundae. The Browns and Bills combined for a special middle finger to their fans, a 6-3 Cleveland win on a “thrilling” last-second field goal. Derek Anderson’s “winning” line: 2-17, 23 yards, 0 TD/1 INT. That’s unbelievably putrid. Drew Brees completes two passes for 23 yards in the first minute of a game. Hell, JaMarcus Russell could have even mustered three, maybe four completions in seventeen attempts. And that was the VICTORIOUS quarterback. Bills fans should demand a full refund owing to false advertising that their team would be on the field last Sunday. Attention, Toronto: Are you really sure you want to make a play for this franchise?

Everything’s bigger, or at least stranger, in Texas. This week, the Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Dallas Cowboys. If you read the previous paragraph, you know the Chiefs lost. Sorry for the spoiler. It wasn’t for a lack of trying – Matt Cassel and Dwayne Bowe led a pretty effective two-minute drive, capped by an impressive fourth-down touchdown to effectively force an overtime period. They even pulled out the stops and utilized their 60’s throwbacks from the Dallas Texans era, streamlined red-and-white beauties far better than the primary-color-confused trash they normally wear (although, I wonder if the outnumbered Chiefs fans were supposed to yell, “Go Dallas!”). Miles Austin broke free in overtime, just as he had in the fourth quarter, for the winning score owing to botched sideline tackles (more on those in just a second). To set the record straight, a team from Dallas went to Kansas City to face a team formerly from Dallas and beat said team with a receiver named Austin. Thankfully, Huston Street was not involved, as he was too busy wrestling the Blown Save Crown Trophy from Brad Lidge.

Let’s see: to intimidate visiting Dallas fans and inspire Kansas City followers to purchase merchandise, the league decided to have the Chiefs wear helmets emblazoned with the state of Texas where Dallas is marked with a gold star. Genius!

Arms reduction. Can we put together a fund to make a DVD of proper tackling techniques to circulate to NFL secondaries? I’m appalled at the amount of times a cornerback or safety has come flying toward a prone receiver, only to be flung to the side after applying a weak arm tackle. Miles Austin’s game winner (see above) is only a symptom of a larger endemic. In week 1, Mario Manningham made a name for himself and thousands of intrepid fantasy owners by breaking free from a DeAngelo Hall arm tackle on the sideline and scampering for an easy score. Last week, Brandon Marshall shredded the Cowboys’ defense on a long sideline route but only found the end zone due to poor angles and tackling. Adrian Peterson has made several defenders look like idiots by tempting them to flank him with arm tackles, then stiff-arming them to a faceful of humble pie. Listen up, chumps: wrap the receiver up, dive at the thighs, make yourself big, but do not think your biceps are especially big and burly enough to bring down a professional wide receiver!

Brandon Carr, seen here attempting to cuddle with Miles Austin, is only one member of a very inept League of Arm Tacklers.

Beantown blues. What a day for Bostonians. First, Jonathan Papelbon decomposes in the ninth inning and the Angels sweep the Red Sox right out of the playoffs. Later, the Patriots suffered a similar late-game breakdown and allowed the Broncos to tie the game in the fourth quarter, stall a Patriots drive on a Brady fumble, then win the game on a Matt Prater field goal in OT. The Patriots didn’t touch the ball once in overtime – let the howling of overtime reform begin! Every time a team wins in overtime “due to the coin toss,” sports pundits clamor for the NFL to adopt a system more like college, where teams can inflate scores and statistics with a silly short-field structure that easily provides the advantage to the offense. Let the system stand! Football is comprised of three basic elements: offense, defense, and special teams. Should one of these elements fail – say, a team’s pass defense in overtime – that team will generally lose. The Patriots had sixty minutes to prove they were the superior team. Overtime rules are not to blame.

Bungles no mas! Perhaps Chad “Eight-Five” Ochocinco was inspired to action by the NFL’s recognition of his obvious Mexican background with their Hispanic Heritage Month. Or maybe Ray Lewis is another victim of either a) the league’s vendetta against the Baltimore Ravens or b) the league’s vendetta against hard-hitting defenders. Either way, Lewis’ final-minute hit on Ochocinco drew the personal flag penalty and helped prolong a Bengals drive that culminated in a sweet touchdown pass to Andre Caldwell with less than half a minute remaining. The play design was relatively simple – Ochocinco and Caldwell ran mirror skinny post routes, the former down the left sideline and the latter down the right seam. Palmer easily floated the pass over the under linebackers (why are there two Ravens linebackers protecting against eight-yard hitches? All that matters in this endgame is keeping the opponent out of the end zone!) and right to Caldwell, who had the inside position. These Bengals are certainly giving Cincinnati heart doctors lots of money owing to their cardiac fourth-quarter behavior. Every single one of their five games this year has gone down to the wire, including three consecutive Cincy wins where they’ve scored the deciding points with less than a minute remaining.

The Bengals can’t sell out home games even though they’re 4-1, presumably because their fan base is suffering the worst collective case of angina in recorded history.

The No-Huddle… Even though the Jets lost to the Dolphins (memo to Rex Ryan: edge blitzes don’t work well against a run-heavy team), the Braylon Edwards trade already looks like a win. Maybe Edwards (5 catches for 64 yards and a touchdown with a second TD questionably overturned on review) just needed a new environment, or uh, just to get the hell out of Cleveland…What’s going on in San Fran? The Falcons torched the Niners at Candlestick with both the run and the pass. The trendy upstart in the NFC West is suddenly falling back to the Seahawks and Cardinals…Speaking of Arizona, how about that goal line stand against Houston? Of course, the inability of the Texans to punch it in from the one-yard line is more endemic of their lack of a physical presence up front than anything else. They’re a finesse team through and through…The Eagles and Vikings both won big, as expected, on Sunday. It’s a shame these teams don’t play in the regular season, but don’t be surprised to see a rematch of last year’s wild card game in which the Eagles took care of Minnesota. Of course, that team had Tarvaris Jackson at QB…

What I’m watching next week.
Hallelujah! The Packers are back in action for at least another 12 weeks, but their date against the Lions isn’t exactly being circled on calendars nationwide. Instead, I’m tuning into a battle of heavyweights: the New York Giants head south to take on the New Orleans Saints in a clash of undefeated NFC squads. The Saints took care of the other undefeated New York team two weeks ago at home. I suspect we won’t be feeling deja vu next week. If defense is more your thing, check out the scorned Ravens heading north to take on the Vikings in what should be a vicious, physical battle. Finally, a Sunday night duel between the Bears and Falcons may prove to be an important playoff tiebreaker down the road.