Best and Worst From The NFL Week 9

It's that time of year again. We have hit almost the halfway point of this NFL season, with things really starting to take major shape around the league. Teams continue to surprise people, like the jekyll and hyde type teams such as the New York Jets. They will be good one week, then play horrible the following week. Then we have teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars, who you just know going into the week are going to have a bad time. Some teams continue to surprise people and deliver, like the Kansas City Chiefs. Also you have teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who continue to leave their fans scratching their heads. We have also had more big name stars go down with injury. Aaron Rogers will miss playing time with a broken collar bone, while Broncos coach John Fox had to have heart surgery, and Texans coach Gary Kubiak collapsing at halftime, on the field, during the Sunday night game against the Colts. With all that going on, there were still some good and bad performances from this past week in the NFL.

Best:
New York Jets Running Game
Coming into the game Sunday against the New Orleans Saints, the Jets knew the Saints had a bad run defense. The Saints are ranked 25th in the NFL against the run this year. When the game started, the Jets didn't really use the run game very well and had no answer on defense for Drew Brees and Jimmy Graham. But the defense found its groove and shut the Saints down, while Chris Ivory had a solid day, with 18 carries for 139 yards and 1 touchdown. It is indeed safe to say that the Jets running game was in a groove on Sunday. And this performance goes to show that when the Jets running game is a success, the team, as a whole, plays better and comes away with wins that most figured they wouldn't.

Worst:
New Orleans Saints Offensive Line
Now when the game started, New Orleans had their offense in a groove and going. But at some point during the 2nd and 3rd quarters, the offensive line just sort of fell apart. Don't get me wrong, Drew Brees still had a very good day, but he was rushed during the middle of the ball game, couldn't get too many great throws off, and had a tough go of it during the day. The line didn't do much to help Brees during the middle of the game, and he had sort of a rough go of it, by his standards.

Best:
Nick Foles, Quarterback Philadelphia Eagles
Foles had a day for the ages Sunday against the Oakland Raiders. He went 22 of 28 for 406 yards. That's good enough. What made this day so special is he threw for SEVEN touchdown passes, the 2nd quarterback this year to do it (Payton Manning did it week one), and the 7th all time to do it. The performance helped power the Eagles to a 49-20 victory. Foles had a chance to go for eight in the game, but Eagles coach Chip Kelly not pulled him with more than nine minutes left in the fourth quarter. Still it was one of the top performances this year, and maybe the greatest game Foles will ever play in the NFL.

Worst:
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Late Game Defense
It's been a really tough year for Bucs fans down in Tampa Bay. The team is 0-8 on the year, sitting in dead last of the NFC South. Last year Tampa showed up for most of the ball game against the NFC's best team in the Seattle Seahawks. They only showed up for MOST of the game.  The defense chocked late in the game, giving up a 21 point lead, en route to a 27-24 overtime loss. The Bucs deserve the bulk of their 0-8 record, but certainly played better than that mark for three quarters on Sunday. It’s the closest they got to a win since Week 1, when Lavonte David’s questionable penalty on a late hit against the Jets set New York up for a game-winning field goal.

Best:
Chris Johnson, Running Back Tennessee Titans
This is the Chris Johnson Titans fans have been waiting to see all season. At one point during his career, he was a 2,000 yard rusher, who had a ton of talent and can be a top teir back. This year he had been a little on the quite side, coming into Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Rams without a touchdown or 100-yard performance. He broke free, against former coach Jeff Fisher and the Rams for 150 yards and two scores (including a 19-yard game winner with 2:54 left) as Tennessee left the Edward Jones Dome with a 28-21 win. So is this a sort of coming out party for Chris Johnson? Only time will tell.

Worst:
Baltimore Ravens Offensive Line
At some point the Ravens’ inability to run the football goes beyond Ray Rice. Joe Flacco led the team’s ground game with 25 yards rushing in Baltimore’s 24-18 loss to Cleveland, a game in which he was also sacked five times by Browns defenders. For a team to be good, even remotely good, they have to have an offensive line that can pass block with regularity. I'm not saying they have to be perfect all the time, but this kind of stuff can't keep happening if the Ravens want to get back to the promise land. If the reigning Super Bowl champs want to get any sort of offensive consistency, it’s going to have to start with the guys up front.

Best:
Tony Romo, Quarterback Dallas Cowboys
The fourth quarter is never boring with the Cowboys quarterback. After the Vikings scored with 5:40 left to go up 23-20, Romo’s pass to Terrence Williams was picked off by Minnesota’s A.J. Jefferson on 3rd & 9 several plays later. The signal-caller shook it off and led a nine play, 90-yard drive on the next series, which culminated with a 7-yard touchdown pass to Dwayne Harris with 35 seconds to play. This goes to show that Tony Romo is still one of the top Quarterbacks in the entire league during the regular season. Now if he could only play like this come playoff time, the Cowboys would be all set.

Worst:
Christian Ponder, Quarterback Minnesota Vikings
Despite Adrian Peterson’s best efforts, the Vikings couldn’t escape the performance of their beleaguered quarterback, who fumbled the ball in his own end zone for a Cowboys touchdown in the third quarter, threw an early fourth quarter pick and failed to convert any first downs following Romo’s key turnover late in the game. Given one last opportunity to throw a Hail Mary pass from the Dallas 47, Ponder’s last-second heave didn’t even reach the end zone. It's been a really tough year to play quarterback in Minnesota this season.

Best:
Tom Brady, Quarterback New England Patriots
After an underwhelming first eight games, Brady compiled a 151.8 passer rating in New England’s 55-31 win over Pittsburgh, hitting three receivers for over 100 yards each. With the Pats now 7-2 and a healthy Rob Gronkowski, Danny Amendola and Stevan Ridley at his disposal coming out of next week’s bye, the quarterback looks poised to put up some more Brady-like numbers in his final seven games.

Worst:
Pittsburgh Steelers Secondary
A week after they let Terrelle Pryor fly by them with a 93-yard touchdown run, the Steelers defense gave up a franchise record 55 points in a 55-31 loss to the Patriots. The team’s usually solid safeties were victimized by a series of big plays, including several by Rob Gronkowski on the Patriots’ second drive.

So there you have it. The best and worst from Week Nine in the NFL!