Sunday, December 2, 2012

Chanting, Upsets and Surprises

Week twelve in NFL football has come and gone with some intriguing victories, putting some teams in the right positions and others forced into a difficult situation. We'll take a look at the scores of some of the games (specifically the Thursday night games), how they got that way, and what major plays contributed to teams' victories, or in some cases defeats.

Starting off the week were three games on Thanksgiving day, overall a very happy day in football for me. The first game was a match-up between the Houston Texans and the Detroit Lions. What I thought wasn't going to be much of a game turned out to be a real stunner when the Lions scored the first touchdown of the game on their first possession, despite a sack from Houston defensive end and lead sacker J.J. Watt. From that point on the Texans, who has been one of my favorites for a few years now, were playing catch-up the entire time. The game took another exciting turn when Forsett of the Texans made an 81-yard touchdown. What makes this so special aside from the yardage? During the run, Forsett was actually down by contact , but the coach of Detroit illegally challenged the play, cancelling the booth review, resulting in a Texans touchdown and 15-yard addition to the distance of the extra point kick. The kick is good, setting the game at 24-21, Detroit in the third quarter. After the fourth quarter, the game goes into overtime at 31-31. Three field goal attempts later, Shayne Graham of the Texans finally makes the winning score at 32 yards, bringing the Texans to a 10-1 season and the Lions to 4-7.

The very next game was another hell of a game with a great performance from Robert Griffin III and the Washington Redskins. In the beginning of the second quarter, RGIII fakes a hand-off and makes a long pass to Robinson, resulting in a 68-yard touchdown. On the resulting possession for the Cowboys, Dez Bryant fumbles the ball, which is swiftly recovered by the Redskins and returned to midfield. The turnover ended in a touchdown by Washington for 14-3, Redskins. With less than 3 minutes left in the first half, RGIII throws another pass, this time to Garcon, who runs it into the end zone, out running both the players rushing after him. Redskins 21, Cowboys still 3. The ensuing Cowboys possession, veteran quarterback Tony Romo passes to Bryant, but is intercepted and eventually became a scoring drive for the Redskins, making it a 25 point game at the half. In the second half, the first Cowboys possession ends in a field goal, slightly lessening the gap between the two teams. Their following carry, Romo throws to Bryant, who runs it in for an 85-yard touchdown. In the beginning of the fourth quarter on a third and inches, a pass is made to DeAngelo Hall who rolls and runs backwards into the end zone with no one to cover him. Halfway through the fourth quarter, the young Redskins quarterback throws an interception, something that is few and far between for this player. Romo makes the touchdown pass and gets the two-point conversion, making it a one-score game. Each team kicks a field goal in the remaining time, ending the game at 38-31, Redskins. A critical win for them, they are now 5-6 to the Cowboys' matching season.

Surprisingly enough, the third game was as I expected: a complete massacre of the Jets by the Patriots. While the first quarter was completely uneventful, aside from an interception from Gregory of the Patriots, the second quarter was ablaze with one-sided activity. After a touchdown pass to Wes Welker, the Jets fumble twice (one of which quarterback Sanchez ran into his own guy) and score a touchdown on each one, racking up 21 points within a 53 second period. The first half ends 35-3, Patriots. The rest of the game was fairly uneventful as well, both teams scoring two touchdowns in addition to a Jets safety. Final score: 49-19, Patriots.
WC: 677

No comments:

Post a Comment