NFL Headlines for week 11

This week the NFL had more surprises than typical and that didn’t even include the typical Turkey Day festivities.

The Long Awaited Return

San Diego Chargers Wide Receiver Vincent Jackson played in his first game of the season. Well if you can call it that. Jackson played The Bolts first series against the Colts (three plays), then hurt is calf and was out of the game. So much for the Prodigal Son returning.

Jackson has been out all season due to a contract dispute and then a league mandated suspension due to a DUI from earlier in the year. All week there were reports about how he looked like he hadn’t missed a beat and looked great. Then he hurt his calf.

This proves that you actually need to do the work before you play the game, Jackson.

Childress Out

The long awaited firing of Minnesota Vikings head coach finally happened when owner Zygi Wolf announced he had let the coach go. Childress had lost the locker room a long time ago, while appearing to be incompetent of the job.

In his place, Wolf promoted Defensive Coordinator Leslie Frazier to interim head coach. It could be thought that Frazier deserved the head coaching job in the first place over Childress. But Frazier waited his turn, and waited, and waited. Finally his loyalty earned him the promotion to head honcho.

In his debut game, Frazier led the Vikings to a victory over the Washington Redskins. Maybe, just maybe, Frazier has a little Jason Garrett in him. If Frazier can pull out a couple wins, he might get the interim tag removed and actually be head coach next year, as he so truly deserves.

Spygate 2.0

Remember when the New England Patriots were caught taping the New York Jets practicing? The whole “Spygate” incident a few years back. We all thought we were passed the ridiculous situation until “New England West,” I mean the Denver Broncos, were caught doing the same exact thing against the San Francisco 49ers.

The head coach, Josh McDaniels, was a coordinator on the Patriots when it happened, and the sad thing? Steve Scarnecchia, the video operations director, was the person who did it for the Broncos was the same exact guy that did it for the Pats!

McDaniels is denying seeing it. The club and McDaniels were both fined $50,000. But how does Scarnecchia still keep getting jobs?

The Emergence of Bowe

Among the elite receivers, you typically say names like Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald and Brandon Marshall. Now you can add another name to that list.

Dwayne Bowe.

Bowe this season already has 58 receptions (14th most in the league) for 885 yards (fifth most in the league) and an NFL leading 14 touchdowns.

Bowe is leading in the touchdown category by three. Behind him is the aforementioned Calvin Johnson with 11 TDs and the next closest is five others with nine. To put that even more into context, Bowe has 13 of those in the last seven weeks.

In the past three weeks (currently on a two game win streak) Bowe has 32 receptions for 465 yards and seven TDs.

Bowe joined Jerry Rice and Jimmy Smith as the only three receivers since 1990 to have at least 13 catches, 170 yards and 3 TDs in a single game with his performance on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.

What is possibly one of the reasons for Bowe’s breakout season? He actually came to camp in shape this year, for the first time in his four year career.

With all of those numbers we now have to consider Bowe among the league’s best receivers.

Finnegan gets what he had coming to him

Tennessee Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan is one of the league’s best, while also being known as one of its dirtiest players.

There has been a devious history among Finnegan and Houston Texans WR Andre Johnson. This Sunday, Johnson had enough. Johnson and got into a scrum that can only be called violent. Ironic since it is a violent sport, but this was truly insane.

The fight lasted only 10 to 15 seconds, but both players’ helmets were ripped off, punches were thrown, and both sidelines came onto the field. Both players were ejected from the game.

In the end, I pronounce Johnson the winner. Finnegan got what he deserved and Johnson finally had had enough of Finnegan’s nonsense.

Say what you want about the fight and violence, but this was the second straight week an incident occurred were “punches” were thrown. Last week in the Raiders vs. Steelers game, Raiders veteran defensive lineman Richard Seymour was ejected for “open–hand” punching Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

I hope it doesn’t become a trend.