Week 8 of the NFL season begins Thursday night in Denver when Peyton Manning and the Broncos host Philip Rivers and the San Diego Chargers.
Manning broke Brett Favre’s record on Sunday night against the San Francisco 49ers with his 509th career touchdown pass, and he’ll be back in prime time on Thursday night.
Let’s look into our crystal ball and see what’s in store for Week 8.
Peyton Manning will throw four more touchdown passes on Thursday Night Football to start the week off…
This is really an apology disguised as a bold prediction. In our Week 7 bold predictions article, we predicated that Peyton Manning would throw just one touchdown pass against the San Francisco 49ers, and that he would have to wait until Thursday night to break Brett Favre’s record.
Well, Manning threw four touchdown passes in the Broncos’ 42-17 win and now stands alone with 510 career touchdown passes. We’re not going to doubt Manning again, at least not this week. He’s going to throw four touchdown passes for the third time this season when the Broncos host the Chargers on Thursday night.
The Chargers have allowed 209.6 passing yards per game this season, third-best in the NFL. However, they’ve given up 11 touchdown passes, which ranks in the middle of the pack. The Chargers go into the Mile High altitude on a short week after losing in the final minute at home to the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s a tough task for any team, and they’ll be vulnerable.
… But Andrew Luck will keep pace with four of his own
Peyton Manning might own the career record for touchdown passes, but the man who succeeded him as the franchise QB in Indianapolis is giving him a run for his money for the league lead this year. Manning’s four TD passes on Thursday would give him 23. But Andrew Luck will torch the Steelers with four touchdown passes Sunday at Heinz Field and tie Manning, although he has played in one more game.
The Steelers haven’t been awful against the pass this season on paper. They’re 13th in the league with 230.9 aerial yards allowed per game. But Cortez Allen, who was signed to a five-year, $26 million contract extension, has lost his starting job to Brice McCain.
The Steelers haven’t faced a quarterback better than Joe Flacco, and Flacco led the Ravens to a 26-6 win over the Steelers in Week 2. Pittsburgh let Mike Glennon look like Joe Montana two weeks later at Heinz Field. Glennon threw a game-winning touchdown pass with seconds left to give the Buccaneers their only win. Two weeks ago, Brian Hoyer burned the Steelers for completions of 51, 42, 31, 31 and 24 yards in a 31-10 rout at Cleveland.
Glennon and Hoyer have carried their share of clipboards during their NFL careers. Imagine what Luck can do to the Steelers defense.
Johnny Manziel will remain on the sidelines for another week
The Dawg Pound has been barking for Johnny Manziel.
Brian Hoyer completed just 16 of 41 passes Sunday in the Browns’ 24-6 loss at Jacksonville. If he has another similar performance, Cleveland fans probably will throw life-size cardboard cutouts of Hoyer in the trash just like they did with LeBron James when he left for Miami. But Hoyer won’t have another performance like that.
Yes, the (3-3) Browns experienced a letdown in Jacksonville after finally vanquishing their tormentors from Pittsburgh in Week 6. But they’ve come too far to lose to a winless team two weeks in a row. Hoyer has at least one more win in him, especially with the (0-6) Raiders visiting Cleveland on Sunday.
The Bengals will be back in first place in the AFC North
The Bengals’ freefall will end Sunday with a win over the Baltimore Ravens at home.
Cincinnati has gone 0-2-1 since its 3-0 start. The (4-2) Ravens have won four of their last five, but their last three wins have come against NFC South fodder. The Panthers lead that division with a .500 record, and they lost 38-10 at Baltimore in Week 4.
The Ravens’ schedule have softened them up. The Bengals will take advantage and regain the lead in the division. Their winning percentage would be .643, while Baltimore’s would be .625. They also beat the Ravens at Baltimore in the season opener and own the head-to-head tiebreaker if it came to that (even though it’s unlikely that they’ll tie a game this season).
Eric Decker will have a field day and will set a season high in receptions or yards
Percy Harvin has a lot of stickers on his suitcase, but he’s never been on an AFC team. The Buffalo Bills will worry about his speed when they visit the Jets, and that’s going to create opportunities for Eric Decker.
Decker’s season high for receptions this season is six. His season high for receiving yards is 74. He will surpass at least one of those numbers Sunday against the Bills as the Jets reap collateral dividends from the Percy Harvin trade. The trade will make the Eric Decker signing look like a smarter move, at least in Week 8.
The Seahawks’ losing streak will come to an end …
It’s easy to dump on the defending champions right now.
Since beating the Packers in the season opener, they’ve looked ordinary. They lost at San Diego. They needed overtime to beat the Broncos at home. They let the Redskins back into the game before putting them away, 27-17. They lost at home against Dallas and again at St. Louis. The Rams needed the trickery of Stedman Bailey with Tavon Austin as a decoy as well to execute a fake punt deep in their own territory in the fourth quarter to win, 28-26.
The Panthers (3-3-1) occupy first place in a division where no one has a winning record. They showed little intestinal fortitude in falling behind 21-0 in the first quarter at Green Bay on Sunday, eventually falling behind 38-3 and losing 38-17. Since starting 2-0, the Panthers have allowed at least 37 points in four of their past five games and rank 27th overall defensively. Jonathan Stewart, who has played in just four games this season, leads Carolina running backs with 138 rushing yards. The Seahawks face the Panthers at Carolina in Week 8, but they won’t need the 12th Man’s helping in beating a team on a downward spiral.
… And Ron Rivera’s press conference will be legendary when he finally loses his cool
Mike Singletary’s voice will forever live on sports talk radio. All a host has to do is press a button, and Singletary’s famous “Can’t do it” line resonates over the airwaves and generates a few chuckles.
Singletary said that during his first press conference after he became the San Francisco 49ers’ head coach in the middle of the 2008 season. He had banished tight end Vernon Davis to the locker room with 10 minutes left in the game, and talked about how a team can’t have selfish players.
On Sunday, another former member of the Monsters of the Midway will go off at the podium after the frustration of the Panthers’ third straight game without a win. Rivera, Singletary’s teammate on the Super Bowl-winning ’85 Chicago Bears, will either have a total meltdown or utter a line that rivals “Can’t do it”, “They are who we thought they were!” and “Playoffs?!” in the pantheon of unforgettable press conference lines from NFL coaches.
The doom and gloom surrounding the Seahawks suddenly will fade away after this road win, even if it proves very little.
The Patriots will beat the Bears, 46-10
While Ron Rivera displays some the temper and tenacity that made the Monsters of the Midway so scary three decades ago, a contrarian Super Bowl XX will take place about 800 miles north on I-95.
Winning three Super Bowls is all well and good, but to finally erase any vestiges of embarrassment from Super Bowl XX, the Patriots will beat the Bears Sunday by the same score the Bears beat them by in Super Bowl XX.
Bill Belichick’s dismal press conference after the Patriots’ 41-14, Monday-night defeat at Kansas City in Week 4 seems almost as long ago as Super Bowl XX. Since then, the Patriots have won three straight with Tom Brady throwing for nine touchdowns and no interceptions. The Bears, meanwhile, are a mess. If they couldn’t stop Ryan Tannehill at Soldier Field, how will they stop Brady at Gillette Stadium?
The (3-4) Bears are turning out to be almost as interesting as the ’85 Bears, but for the wrong reasons. There was shouting in the team’s locker room and players had to be restrained after their 27-14 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. The (5-2) Patriots will reap the benefits of 10 days of rest and score 46 or more points for the sixth time in the last three years.
At least two punts will be returned for touchdowns
Punt coverage units will be spooked by the trick play perfectly executed by the Rams on Sunday against the Seahawks.
The speedy Tavon Austin acted like he was fielding a punt on one side of field, when in fact Stedman Bailey caught it over his shoulder on the other side of the field. While many of the Seahawks pursued Austin, Bailey took off down the right sideline with only a couple of players to beat for a 90-yard touchdown.
The NFL is a copycat league, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see teams deploy two potential punt returners on each side of the field and force would-be tacklers to keep an eye on the ball as well as the returner. That’s going to force some players to get downfield a split-second later and will soften the coverage just enough for at least two punts returned for touchdowns in Week 8.
Robert Griffin III will start under center at AT&T Stadium on Monday Night Football
Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III could practice this week, and coach Jay Gruden won’t rule him out for Monday’s game at Dallas (via CBS.com). Griffin has been out since hurting his ankle in Week 2.
While it would be more prudent to ease him back into the lineup, the Redskins might not want to give up on their season just yet. They snapped a four-game losing streak and improved to 2-5 with Sunday’s 19-17 win at Tennessee. They have four of their six division games left to play, including two games against NFC East-leading (6-1) Dallas.
After visiting The House That Jerry Built, the Redskins are at (2-5) Minnesota, have their bye and then host (1-5) Tampa Bay. They still can make a move, but time is running out. They don’t have time to wait for RG3. If he’s ready to play, he’ll play.
Here’s a quick and easy solution to their problem. First, they need to answer the following question: What would Mike Shanahan do? Then, Jay Gruden and the rest of the coaching staff should just do the opposite of that.