Just like Week 8, we saw a winless team finally get a victory under their belt in Week 9. We also saw some extremely close games, including a few great division games with playoff implications. Every week in the NFL produces awesome talking points. Here are five of them:
Ravens-Steelers, Dolphins Get No. 1 And Five Things That Made NFL Week 9 Awesome
The Ravens sweeping the season series against Pittsburgh, Miami first win and the five things that made the NFL awesome in Week 9.
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| Julio Jones Breaks Out in Indy |
Julio Jones has been good so far this season, but he hasn't been great considering what the Falcons gave up to move up in the draft and grab Jones in the first round. He's had a couple 100-yard games but, heading into Week 9, he hadn't yet scored a touchdown.
Jones must have decided that it was time to see what it was like to score in the NFL. In the first quarter of Sunday’s Colts-Falcons game, Jones turned a catch into a 50-yard touchdown and in the second quarter he scored on an 80-yard touchdown pass. He finished with three catches for 181 yards and two touchdowns -- all career highs for the rookie.
| Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, Tim Tebow |
Tebow won his first start in a Week 8 overtime game after an amazing last-minute comeback. The next week he lost in an embarrassing thrashing at the hands of the Detroit Lions 45-10. Would he have what it takes to defeat the Oakland Raiders on the road?
Actually, yet.
Tebow was almost perfect on the day against Oakland throwing for 124 yards and two touchdowns and no interceptions, adding 118 yards on the ground. The AFC West is up for grabs and it's not out of the question that the Broncos, led by Tim Tebow, could make a run for the division championship in the second half of the season.
| The Northern Divisions |
Halfway through the season, the playoffs are dominated by the North divisions in each conference. The AFC North would send three teams to the playoffs if the season ended right now with the Bengals as your No. 1 seed and the Ravens and Steelers in both wildcard spots.
It will be interesting to see if these divisions can continue to dominate their conferences in the second half of the season.
| Baltimore Sweeps The Steelers |
The Baltimore Ravens have been a good team for a long time but it wasn't until they drafted Joe Flacco that they became legitimate again in the AFC North. They've gone to the playoffs six times since they won the Super Bowl in the 2000 season, and three of those six times, they were knocked out of the playoffs by their division rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers were just a hump that the Ravens didn't seem to be able to get over.
That was until they swept the Steelers this season, getting their second win over Pittsburgh in Week 9 on Sunday Night Football.
Joe Flacco hit Torrey Smith for a touchdown with only 14 seconds left in the game giving them a three-point lead over the Steelers. The Ravens are clearly the better team but they might see each other for a third time in January.
| The Dolphins Get Win No. 1 |
After the Chiefs won four straight games, they were scheduled to play the winless Dolphins at home and nobody gave Miami a snowball's chance in hell at winning this game.
The game, as many thought, wasn’t even close. But, as no one thought, it was the Dolphins who won in a blowout at Arrowhead.
Miami scored 31 points and held Matt Cassel and the Chiefs offense to only three points. Matt Moore looked great, Reggie Bush nearly had 100 yards rushing, Brandon Marshall added a hundred yards and a touchdown, and the whole team didn't look like a winless group. We can thank the Dolphins for clearing up the Suck for Luck picture because there's only one team left standing.
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