What an amazing Sunday! Many of the early games had major playoff ramifications, and almost every game went down to the wire. It was a fantastic day of NFL action, and no I?m not being paid to say that? $.01-- There were quite a few significant games on Sunday, but for my money the biggest message was sent by the Philadelphia Eagles. Philly absolutely stunned the host Giants with a frantic comeback, capped off by DeSean Jackson?s incredible punt return for a touchdown as time expired. The Giants led 24-3 at halftime and were in complete control of the game until deep into the 3rd quarter. The G-Men defense found ways to contain and frustrate Michael Vick, overpowering the Philly line and doing a fine job of disrupting pass routes and throwing lanes. Then the Eagles flipped the switch and showed why they are the most dangerous team in the NFC. Vick?s performance down the stretch is the stuff MVPs are made of. He ran at will, easily charging away from defenders and chewing up yardage. He was almost perfect throwing the ball, nailing just about every throw right on the money. Give ample credit to Eagles coach Andy Reid for coming up with in-game adjustments that countered what the Giants were doing defensively, but Vick made it all happen. It was an amazing clutch performance, showing exceptional perseverance after a miserable first half where his QB rating was less than his age. The special teams certainly helped, but this miraculous win was engineered by Michael Vick being the most dynamic player in the NFL. This win essentially wraps up the NFC East and no worse than the #3 seed for the Eagles, while dropping the Giants into a dogfight for the final wild card spot and an opening-round game in either Philly or Chicago, if they make it at all. Tom Coughlin will have to do a great coaching job to get his team past this one, and we?ll find out right away. Next week, the Giants travel to Green Bay in a game that almost certainly decides the #6 seed. $.02-- Indianapolis kept their season very much alive with an impressive victory over Jacksonville. Peyton Manning let all the criticism roll off his shoulders and led the Colts back to the top of the AFC South standings. He received an unexpected assist from RB Donald Brown. Brown ran all over the Jaguars for a career-high 129 yards that included a 49-yard scamper which featured 10 yards of Gerald Sensabaugh holding his hand, and another 43-yard TD run that started the third quarter the way the Colts desperately needed it. Still, the Jaguars were very game. It took a fantastic play by Tyjuan Hagler to salt the game away for the Colts. Hagler scooped up an onside kick attempt and charged untouched for a touchdown that ended the threat. That?s the kind of signature play that a team fighting for its playoff life can hang its hat upon. This game proved that the Colts are much more than just Peyton Manning, even though he had a strong game. Now the Colts have winnable games against Oakland and Tennessee to finish the season, and if they win both they continue their reign as AFC South champs. The Jaguars blew a golden opportunity, but all hope is not gone. They draw the dysfunctional Redskins (more on them later) and finish at the woebegone Texans. Two wins gets them to 10-6, and they?ll still win the South if the Colts stumble in either week. A wild card is a pipe dream, though, as both Baltimore and the Jets hit 10-4 with wins today and it?s extremely unlikely both teams lose out. $.03-- Baltimore answered the bell against the Saints, impressively hanging on for the win despite two incredible TD catches from Saints receivers. The win takes the Ravens to 10-4 and almost guarantees them a playoff berth, especially considering they finish with games against the Browns and Bengals, teams that have 8 combined wins--and two of those are against one another. The Ravens rediscovered Ravens football in this one. Ray Rice ran for over 150 yards and absolutely shredded the Saints defense. I?m not sure he went down on first contact all day. Baltimore?s offensive line dominated, and the Ravens defense had a lot more snarl than they?ve shown. Drew Brees still put up some strong numbers, but he was harassed and pressured all day. The Saints got over half their 27 yards rushing on two plays and either had no gain or lost yardage on 8 of their 14 rushes. That is Ravens football at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. Kudos to John Harbaugh for not putting it on his quarterback, Joe Flacco, to win the game. The Saints are surprisingly stout against the pass, and Harbaugh came up with a strategy that didn?t put too much pressure on Flacco to need to throw. When he had to be, Flacco was sharp; his TD pass to Ed Dickson was precisely the kind of perfectly accurate short throw that Flacco has been incapable of making so far. Unlike most games against good opponents, Flacco avoided the exasperating errors that have plagued his young career. With the rediscovery of their run game and defensive attitude, now Flacco can just manage the game and the Ravens still have a chance to win any and every playoff game they find themselves in. I still don?t fully trust in him, or the Ravens secondary, enough to think it will happen. But it can happen, and that?s a big step forward for this team. $.04-- The Jets snapped out of their funk with an impressive win in Pittsburgh, one that will call off the dogs in New York for at least a week. Steelers fans will complain to the bitter end about the Ryan Clark ?launching? penalty (a valid call in my opinion), but the Jets made two key big plays that the Steelers couldn?t match. The opening kickoff return for a touchdown by Brad Smith was huge, but the play that won the game was Mark Sanchez with one of the best play fakes you?ll ever see, scampering for the first offensive TD in over three games for the Jets. Pittsburgh fought back valiantly but couldn?t quite find the end zone at the end of the game. Even so, they clinched a playoff berth thanks to some contrived tie-breaking scenario. But the real story here was the Jets finally coming up with a big win over a quality opponent, and The Sanchize playing pretty well in lousy weather. He avoided the turnovers that have caused Jets fans to lose their confidence in him and whatever sanity they had. The defense came up with a safety that forced Pittsburgh to need a touchdown and not a field goal to tie at the end of the game. The Jets haven?t had this sort of a complete game from all three phases in a while now. For Jets fans, it couldn?t have come soon enough. $.05-- A funny thing happened on the way from Green Bay to New England. The Packers unexpectedly stunned the world with a mighty impressive road effort against the vaunted Patriots, led by none other than Matt Damon?s long-lost twin, Matt Flynn. The young backup came out firing without fear, completing one short pass after another against a Patriots defense that had no prayer of keeping up with all the lateral activity of the Packers offense. New England ultimately escaped thanks to a 4th down red zone defensive stand as time expired, after Tom Brady coolly led the Pats on a hard-fought winning drive culminating in Aaron Hernandez?s second TD catch. Here are some random thoughts from the game: --The Green Bay offensive line is much better suited to face 3-man lines, but the Patriots did them a huge favor by not blitzing more. --Dan Connolly?s unbelievable kickoff return is the highlight of the century for every offensive lineman at every level of football. --Great game plan as conceived by Packers coach Mike McCarthy; pound the ball with inside runs, get the ball out of Flynn?s hand quickly with short slants and outside dumpoffs, and use shallow cloud coverage on defense to discourage Brady from hitting all those same sorts of routes. --I have a feeling a whole lot of people lost a whole lot of money on this one. The line opened at New England -10.5 and went up as high as 14.5 at some books. --Props to Flynn for quickly forgetting his pick-six. The subsequent drive that ate up most of the 3rd quarter and produced a field goal was masterful. Aaron Rodgers couldn?t have done it any better. --I?m amazed that Bernie Kosar?s record for most passes without throwing an INT lasted so long. Tom Brady eclipsed it in this game, and to me that?s one of the most impressive records in the books. More impressive is that the Patriots as a team haven?t turned the ball over in 5+ games. --Flynn should never attempt a throw longer than 20 yards. He makes Chad Pennington look like Jeff George in terms of arm strength. --For the second week in a row Packers tackle Bryan Bulaga committed a penalty on at least 75% of their offensive plays. He?s the least impressive of what has been a very underwhelming rookie OL class from the first two rounds of the last draft. The best? Maurkice Pouncey, and it?s not close. --Vince Wilfork gets the game ball for player of the game. Incredible effort. $.06-- Mike Shanahan made the incredibly unpopular decision to yank Donovan McNabb for Rex Grossman in Washington. His justification was that Sexy Rexy has looked great in practice and he wanted to see if it translated into game action. Shanahan also mentioned he wanted to see what 3rd stringer John Beck could do as the #2 quarterback, demoting McNabb all the way to game-day inactive clipboard holder. Whatever message Shanahan was trying to send, he chose a terrible delivery mechanism. McNabb has not been good, but any thought that Grossman could be a better option is simply delusional. What this move says to the rest of the Redskins is that the coach isn?t trying to win anymore. It also says that McNabb won?t be back in Washington, which means the rest of this team must face a rebuild on the fly with yet another QB. Never mind that the biggest problem on the field in Washington is their underachieving, porous defense. Never mind that the offensive line is subpar and the running game decimated by injuries. Never mind that Shanahan nuked whatever respect the players had left for him by making this move. In spite of all the negativity, Rex Grossman did a nice job in proving his coach?s instincts were correct. Grossman was relatively sharp and looked quite good in the red zone, putting up 322 yards and four touchdowns. Rex even had some nice moments in the final death-gasp 2-minute drill before a bad INT. Nobody really wants to hear anything positive about Grossman?s performance because most people view Shanahan with about as much sympathy as they show Dick Cheney. He yanked the team captain, the veteran he hand-picked to lead the team, in favor of a guy best known for being the worst QB to ever play in a Super Bowl. Grossman will never be embraced or respected by the Washington fans, or more importantly his teammates, no matter how well he might play. That?s not fair to Grossman, but the NFL is not about fairness. Shanahan has significantly set his team back by making the switch. $.07-- The NFC West is now assured of having no team finish with a winning record, as all four teams lost this weekend. Just how awful is this division? Nine of the combined 21 wins are against one another, which means the teams are 12-26 against the rest of the league--and three of those wins are against 2-12 Carolina. The division has registered just two non-divisional road wins, and they only have the opportunity for one more; no division has ever finished with less than seven before. The Rams continue to hold first place despite not having scored more than one offensive TD in any of their last three games, and just one win all year against a team with more than six wins now, a beating of the Chargers back when San Diego was still sleeping. This brings forth the argument of whether a team that wins a division with a losing record should make the playoffs ahead of teams in other divisions with better records. I say unequivocally they absolutely deserve that playoff spot. Successful teams are designed to first and foremost beat their division opponents. If you take away the importance of the division, why even have divisions at all? Why give anyone in St. Louis, Seattle, or San Francisco any reason to attend or even watch their remaining games on television? I have a feeling that if this were the NFC East in this predicament, we wouldn?t hear anything about having a division winner not make the playoffs. But because the NFC West operates largely in anonymity even when the getting is good, it?s easy to pile on and argue against it. Here?s hoping that the Rams or Seahawks win out and the argument is rendered moot. Here?s also hoping that New Orleans or the Giants--whichever earns the higher wild card slot--head west and win 40-10 in the playoff game. $.08-- 6 NFL quickies: 1. About the only thing I took from San Diego?s Thursday night ravaging of San Francisco was the terrible judgment of the umpire in ejecting 49ers defensive end Justin Smith. The umpire stepped into what was a minor fracas and quickly escalated it, hitting Smith with a forearm shiver and pushing him from the side. Smith reacted as any charged-up football player would, angrily pushing away the arm in his gut before he realized it was an official. It was a vulgar display of power made more egregious by the other officials shamefully covering for the awful actions of their colleague in not overruling his emotionally charged, completely nonsensical ruling. 2. As bad as Jimmy Clausen has been for Carolina this year, he is light years ahead of anything Arizona has at quarterback. Fellow rookie John Skelton looked like he hadn?t ever played the position before in a stunningly easy Carolina win. Humble prediction: no QBs that were active for this game will ever start an NFL game after this season?with good reason. 3. The long national nightmare is over! The Detroit Lions beat the Buccaneers in overtime for their first road win in over three years. The streak ends at 26 straight road losses, during which time every other team has won at least five road games. It took some iffy calls, but it?s about time Detroit was on the right end of those hoses. Good job Coach Schwartz! And the playoff dream is finally over for the injury-ravaged Bucs. 4. Buffalo also improved to 4-10 by beating Miami, thanks to Dolphins kicker Dan Carpenter missing four field goals. That makes the Dolphins 1-6 at home and 6-1 on the road, one of the strangest anomalies in recent memory. The Bills don?t mind? 5. Tim Tebow got the start for Denver and wasn?t awful, much to the chagrin of his legions of haters. He completed 8 of his 16 passes, including a miracle touchdown catch, and also ran for 78 yards, which included a 40-yard TD run that harkened to John Riggins. The Broncos got trounced by the Raiders, but it wasn?t Tebow?s fault. 6. Normally I only do five quickies, but as a Houstonian I?d be remiss if I didn?t mention Brian Cushing getting a penalty for fighting?with a teammate. It?s just this sort of ridiculousness that makes Richard Justice?s impassioned plea to Texans owner Bob McNair to fire Gary Kubiak all the more prescient. Kubiak?s reaction to the fracas was precisely his reaction to everything negative that continually happens to the Texans--he stood slightly hunched over, completely expressionless, and then stared at his play-calling chart for 2 minutes. That rampant lack of control, not to mention a pulse, is why Kubiak is a lousy head coach and the Texans are 5-9 after starting 4-2. $.09-- College/Draft quickies: 1. My beloved alma mater, Ohio University, got crushed in the R+L Carrier Bowl by Troy on Saturday night, keeping the Bobcats winless in bowl games. It was an ugly 48-21 defeat where the final score doesn?t indicate just how thoroughly dominating Troy was all night. At least a worthy adversary got to show off his NFL draft stock, as Troy?s Jerel Jernigan showed more of his Percy Harvin-lite skills. The shifty, slippery, small wideout has a solid NFL future as a slot receiver, return man, and gadget play staple. He firmly fits in the 2nd round and could be the best senior receiver this year. 2. December 17th was the deadline for underclassmen to apply for an evaluation of potential draft status. You?ll see and hear numerous names that applied and chose not to, but pay little attention to it. The advisory committee has no binding outcomes, and players routinely ignore the advice anyways. 3. One player that has announced he is coming out early is USC tackle Tyron Smith, and I think he made a smart choice. Though he lacks ideal weight and base strength, he fits the new breed of what many coaches want from their left tackles. The converted tight end has incredible footwork, good arm length, and has shown the ability to mirror block and slide outside to stop wide rushes. He also gets good pad level in run blocking, which helps mitigate his lack of bulk. He?ll never be a great run blocker but should be able to step right into the starting lineup for spread-happy offenses like New England or New Orleans, both of whom could be in the market for his services late in Round One. 4. Contrary to what the BCS bigwigs would have you believe, they do in fact play postseason tournaments in NCAA football. Congrats to Minnesota-Duluth and Wisconsin-Whitewater, the national champions of DII and DIII respectively. Eastern Washington and Delaware will play for the FCS title on January 7th, mercifully away from EWU?s home electric-red turf. 5. Spent some time checking out a couple of prospects that I had heard much about but had yet to really see. SE Louisiana tackle Kevin Hughes, like the aforementioned Tyron Smith, is really light for the position at about 290 pounds. He fared well against quicker rushers, but he must make a huge jump in level of competition and I?m just not sure he has the technical savvy or strength to make it happen. He?s greener that I anticipated and will need to have a very good workout season to justify anything more than a late-round developmental pick. The other player impressed me more, and that would be Lehigh guard William Rackley. His toughness and strength come across on film, and he is quite fundamentally sound. He plays tackle at Lehigh but he?s not a good enough athlete, nor as tall as desired, to stay outside. I love his leverage and obvious upper body strength though, and I think he?ll have a good shot to make a team as a rookie and develop into a starter down the line. He kind of reminds me of Vince Manuwai, only lighter. $.10-- Last week the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its class of 2011. As a native Clevelander that also happens to love rock music and visiting the Rock Hall, I always pay close attention to who gets in. This year?s class had two marquee rock names in Alice Cooper and Tom Waits, with Dr. John and Leon Russell both worthy inductees for their contributions. I freely admit to having no idea who Darlene Love or Art Rupe are, but the selection committee loves stocking up on pre-Elvis acts that somehow have an ancillary connection to ?rock?. But the name that got all the attention was one Neil Diamond. At first I thought it was some insanely premature April Fool?s Day joke, but it?s not. No, The Jazz Singer is incredibly in the Rock Hall. No offense to Mr. Diamond, but when thinking of adjectives to describe Neil Diamond the words ?he rocks? are about the 47,294th ideas that spring to mind. Neil Diamond is what people that hated rock music listened to. It?s not that his music isn?t technically a form of rock and roll, it?s just that his image and fan base are the very types of people that true ?rock? is always trying to distance itself from. Madonna isn?t exactly rockin? either, but her attitude and rebelliousness have always endeared her to the rock crowd. Frankly, I?m sickened by the watering down of the Rock Hall. Last year ABBA got in. I happen to really like ABBA when I?m in the right mood, but they have as much to do with rock music as Beyonce has to do with death metal. It?s sadly becoming the Hall of Fame for Music that Baby Boomers Once Liked No Matter the Genre. There are several rap acts now in the Rock Hall, and while millions of us love Motown, that music doesn?t exactly fit the tenants of Rock and Roll either. All this happens while several legendary rock bands are egregiously omitted. Jimmy Cliff in the Rock Hall but no Iron Maiden? ABBA but no Rush? The Dells but no Def Leppard, the best-selling group of the 1980s that actually played instruments? Neil Diamond seriously rocks more than Bon Jovi? Regardless of your own musical tastes and likes, you know rock and roll when you hear it. Apparently the good folks at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame do not. Jeff.Risdon@RealGM.com