Unfortunately we'll need to wait until tomorrow morning before knowing whether they'll be anything awesome, abysmal or asinine from tonight's Tampa Bay Vs. Indianapolis, however, that doesn't mean we didn't get anything good from Sunday's games. Currently the New Orleans Saints are leading the division at 3-1, followed by the Falcons at 2-2, and finally the Panthers at 1-3; the aforementioned Buccaneers sit at 2-1 with a game in hand- they hold their own fate on whether they join the Saints at the top, or Falcons in the middle.
So without further ado lets look at the best, worst and weirdest of the weekend.
The Awesome: New Orleans' pass defense
Granted, the Saints were playing a rookie QB in just his second start, and the Jacksonville Jaguars don't exactly have the best compliment of receivers, but nevertheless they absolutely dominated Blaine Gabbert. The 1st round QB out of Missouri threw 42 passes, but amassed just 196 passing yards. Furthermore, he only managed 4.7 yards per pass attempt, which is ludicrously low; for comparison fellow rookie (and NFC South QB) Cam Newton averaged 8.1 yards per attempt against the Bears.
New Orleans fans should be very pleased with how their secondary managed to shut down the pass. Any time a QB is putting the ball in the air 42 times and only get 16 receptions you know you're doing things right.
The Abysmal: How close Seattle came to beating the Falcons
We've all heard the cliche 'on any given Sunday...' well, on Sunday the 2nd of October, 2011 the Atlanta Falcons made Tavaris Jackson look like Brett Favre. Thus far in 2011 Jackson has looked... well, like trash, as he's been throwing terribly under duress, and everything in between. The Falcons' pass rush should have managed to get to Jackson often, but they failed to register a single sack. This allowed him to pick apart the secondary for over 300 yards and three touchdowns; not even the two inteceptions they got were enough to keep the Seahawks' QB for registering a near 100 QB rating.
It's a relief the Falcons managed to resist a later Seattle charge, because this game could have ended up being the upset of the weekend rather than a narrow two point win.
The Asinine: The Carolina Panthers Defense/Special Teams
How does a team manage to generate over 500 yards of total offense while only turning the ball over once, but still manage to lose? If you're a fan of the Carolina Panthers then you know exactly what happened. Between a career day for Matt Forte where he rushed for over 200 yards, and a Devin Hester touchdown off a punt return it didn't matter how electric the Carolina Panthers offense was, because the other two phases of the game were so bad it didn't matter.
On the plus side Cam Newton looked very good again, but there's only so many moral victories one team can get in a season.