NFL Week 15 Recap

After having 5 games decided by a field goal or less, the Rams looking like a high school football team, again, and going 10-4 straight up, week 15 was pretty enjoyable.  Although, 8-6 against the spread, with one of those a push in the Raiders/Chargers game, could have been better.

Who would have thought the Bears would have hung 27 on the Packers and it taking a last minute hail mary, followed by a game winning field goal for Green Bay to survive? The packers may have found a future RB in their WR Ty Montgomery who looked impressive again, while Baltimore’s  top ranked run defense let Matthews run for 128 yards and a TD, but held the Eagles off and won by one point.  Houston, after benching their franchise QB came back from a 13-5 halftime deficit to win 21-20. They decided to stick with Tom Savage going forward with the Bengals next on their schedule.

The Giants continue to exceed expectations by holding the MVP candidate, Matthew Stafford, to no TD’s on the day. Eli Manning continues to keep his team in games, scoring just enough, while their defense continues improve and impress. at the right time of the season.  This team is shaping to be one that no one will want to face in the first round.  And what happened to the Minnesota Vikings?  Right in the middle of a playoff race at home against a, seemingly, weak Colt team, and they don’t even show up.  Give the Colts credit though, last week against the Texans, they did the same thing.  Most likely punching their ticket to the Pro Bowl, they went into Minnesota and took out some frustration on the Vikings.

The Titans pulled off the upset in Arrowhead Stadium Sunday afternoon on a winning field goal by the former Chief, Ryan Succop.  I was disappointed with the Titans decision to keep feeding Henry for the TD’s, but Murray ran for 89 yards, and Travis Kelce had his worst statistical game since Nov. 13th.

Tannehill who? The Dolphins may not be out of the playoffs just yet.  Matt Moore comes in to start his first game of the season, after Tannehill was knocked out of the rest of the season last week, and had the best game of his career.  It was against the lowly Jets, but 4 passing TD’s is 4 passing TD’s.  The Bengals, like I said, play the Steelers strong.  This game was no different, with Pittsburgh beating the 3 point spread by one.  The Bengals defense was able to hold Le’Veon Bell to under 100 rushing yards for the first time since week 10 against Dallas and held Antonio Brown to 58 yards receiving and 0 TD.  The Patriots did not put the points up that I expected, but took care of the,all but eliminated, Broncos, and the Falcons might be the scariest offense going into the postseason (including the Patriots.)

Washington looked terrible at home, all but sealing their seasons fate and Cam Newton looked like the MVP he was last season.  Jonathon Stewart could be one of the best RB in the league if his career wasn’t plagued with injury, but come next year will the Panthers have Kelvin Benjamin of this year, or two years ago?

Oakland didn’t cover, but they posted 145 rushing yards against the leagues 9th ranked run defense in a win that put them back on top of the AFC West and secured a playoff berth.  As expected, the Dallas/Tampa game was a close one, just went the opposite direction  with Dallas winning, but not covering.  Elliot took another step towards his ROY (possibly an MVP as well) rushing for 158 yds, a TD, and did some charitable work for the Salvation Army.

There’s the recap of this past week in the NFL.  Week 16 picks will be up before Thursday Night Football and if there is a team or game that anyone is specifically interested in and would like me to add, please leave a comment with that game and I will be sure to add it.  With the playoffs drawing near, I will be concentrating on the playoff contenders, so be sure add your game if you’d like to and tune in for the Picks of the Week.