Week 9 — 8 Nov 2004

From: Jeff
To: mnf@doobie.com
Subject: It's Monday...

...and apparently 59 million Elvis fans can be wrong.

This week, in a defence-laden matchup in front of 37,000 people, the Saskatchewan Roughriders beat the Edmonton Eskimos 14-6, securing a spot in the Western Division Championship game, and a day off next weekend.

And yet, the play of the week belongs to Kenny Wheaton of The Toronto Argonauts, who returned an fouth-quarter interception 116 yards in the Argonauts 24-6 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

116 yards? Match that, Deion!

Now, in the NFL this week, as if on cue for mid-season, there has been a definite shift in momentum.

The Steelers, did, in fact, beat the previously undefeated Eagles on Sunday. It wasn't even much of a game. The Eagles were outplayed, outcoached, and probably even out-tailgated. All of the sudden, and as if out of nowhere, it appears that the Steelers are the best team in the NFL. With upcoming games against the Browns, Bengals, and Redskins, it doesn't look like they'll have too much trouble hanging onto that label through November.

Standings-wise, The Steelers, Patriots, and Eagles are all 7-1. These three are still the teams to beat. The Patriots beat St. Louis this sunday, which was fairly predictible, as was the sigh of relief that came from Seahawk fans.

The Jets need a do-over for this week. How the Buffalo Bills managed to keep them off of the 7-1 list will forever be a mystery. But the Jets are still the #1 wild-card contender in the AFC.

and the AFC South became the most interesting division in the NFL. Bear with me for a minute here...

The AFC playoffs are seeded by the top-ranked team in each of four divisions, plus the two top-ranked among all of the remaining teams (the wild cards).

The AFC North will probably be won by Pittsburgh. The AFC East is close, between New England and the NY Jets. The AFC West is close, between Denver and San Diego.

Unless there's a disaster (big injury, coaching change, Yeti attack, etc.), all five of those teams will get in (the #2 teams in East and West, are likely to get the wild card spots). That leaves one remaining AFC spot.

And it comes from the AFC South.

In the AFC South, three teams are in the running. 5-3 Jacksonville is currently in in first place, but they've got some injury problems, and show all sorts of other signs of self-destructing.

Hot on their heels are the Indianapolis Colts, currently 4-3, but playing tonight. More on that later.

And still very much in the running, despite this week's loss to the Broncos, are the 4-4 Houston Texans. The Texans must win their next two games to stay alive... but that's not out of the question for these scrappy little underdogs. They're not SuperBowl caliber... but they'll make sure that the last couple of weeks of the season are still interesting.

Over in the NFC, once you get past the Eagles and Falcons, things are a lot more up in the air.

The NFC East will be won by the Eagles. The NFC South belongs to the Falcons. The NFC North is currently led by the Vikings (playing tonight), but the Lions and Packers aren't that far behind, especially if the Vikings lose. The NFC West is currently led by the Seahawks, but they're always capable of self-destructing, and the Rams are knocking on the door. And the Giants are the team to beat for the wild-card, for the moment.

That's eight teams, for six slots. The lowest-ranked of those wild-card contenders is the 4-4 Packers and the highest is the 5-3 Giants. If you expand the "possible" range to include the 3-5 teams (with 8 games to go, anything is "possible"), you'd have to add SEVEN additional NFC teams.

In the next two to three weeks, the NFC will either stabilize, or it will suddenly become a chaos of 9-7 and 10-6 teams. Anything is possible.

Which brings us to tonight's game.

The Game:

Finally, we've got an exciting one.

Tonight, the 5-2 Minnesota Vikings go to Indianapolis to take on the 4-3 Colts, in a game that's almost critical to both team's playoffs aspirations. I mentioned the AFC south earlier. With a win tonight, the Colts will share first place in the AFC south. With a loss, they're just another 4-4 team. And for the Vikings, a win tonight puts them commandingly in the lead of the NFC North. A loss tonight leaves the division up for grabs. The Packers and Lions are cheering for the Colts tonight.

To further add to the excitement... neither of these teams has much of a defense. Expect to see some pretty bored punting units, and a lot of points on the scoreboard.

Minnesota Vikings Indianapolis Colts On the Astroturf surface of the RCA Dome.

Trivia: The RCA Dome (formerly the Hoosier Dome) was not made for football, but for conventions, trade shows, and basketball. It seats 60,272.

The Astroturf is "Astroturf-12", which is held together with Velcro, and was last replaced in 1997. It is no longer manufactured, and is widely considered to be one of the worst surfaces in the NFL (an honor that used to belong to the Astroturf-8 that was in Minnesota until this season).

The Line:

The Colts are favored by 7. The over/under is 58. (!!)

The Smart Money won last week, it's now 4-5. This week the Smert Money likes the under and the Colts, but doesn't like the under that much, because of the Monday night factor.

So the smart money is taking the Colts -7.

The Bar:

(I thought that we were going to the Riptide out on Taraval street, but it seems that they have live music on Monday nights. As nice as a pine-logged fireplace lodge perched in the middle of the fog sounds, Mondays are for pigskins... the local bands can play tomorrow.)

Tonight: Industrial Chic? You're soaking in it.

Gordon Biersch 2 Harrison Street (@Embarcadero) Steps from the 12 bus and N Train (first stop aboveground) A brief walk from the Transbay terminal and the 1 California.

Concrete columns and exposed pipes mingle with pleather seats, dark wood tables and a granite bar, and there's not a longneck bottle in sight. Warning: garlic fries and pickup lines are a bad combination.

If for some reason they're not playing the sound (or someone in our party gets 86'ed from this place again), we'll migrate after the first quarter or so. If you're going to arrive after 7:00, you might want to call to make sure you know where we are.

Kickoff is at 6:00. See you there?

-Jeff

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