Things I noticed: Week 5

Week 5 introduces bye weeks for the first time this season.  That's good news for Miami, because it means the Dolphins won't lose another game this week.  Cleveland, Dallas, St. Louis, Washington and Baltimore are also off this week.

As for the teams that do play, here are some things I noticed this week:

• The Eagles had already proclaimed before the week started that the "Dream Team" label was dead. Now their playoff chances may be as well.  They fell apart again in the 4th quarter when Vick's 4th interception of the game ended their comeback attempt.
• It was another sloppy afternoon for Vick, but on the bright side, his 90 rushing yards helped him set the all time record for career rushing yards by a QB.  
• Philadelphia's high priced defense had no answers this week for Fred Jackson, who's 196 total yards helped pace the Bills to victory.
• Kansas City scored 21 unanswered points in the second half to comeback to defeat the Colts.  Matt Cassel had his best game of the season, tossing 4 TD passes.  If he continues to connect with Dwayne Bowe they way he did this week, bringing back memories of last season, the Chiefs could become dangerous again.
• Curtis Painter came out firing, looking like vintage Peyton Manning in the first half while hooking up for 2 TDs with Pierre Garcon.  Then in the second half he essentially disappeared, as the Colts were shut out in the second half.
• In case anyone needed a reminder that Adrian Peterson is the league's best RB, he came through with 122 yards and 3 TDs to lead the Vikings to their first win of the season. Almost all of the damage was done in the first quarter, but the Vikings still managed to hang on to their second half lead this time.
• The Seahawks went on the road to stun the Giants thanks to three New York turnovers in the 4th quarter, one of which was returned for a TD.  Eli Manning had one last chance to make a desperation comeback, until his last INT ended the game.
• After leading the league in INT's last season, Manning came into this game on a league high streak of pass attempts without a pick.  His three picks this week more than doubled his season total and set the Giants back in their quest to take over the NFC East.
• Victor Cruz had another big game (161 yards) and may get credit for the best TD catch of the season thus far.  Manning launched the ball into double coverage, resulting in a tipped ball that Cruz somehow managed to juggle into his arms before taking it the rest of the way to pay dirt for a 68 yard TD catch.
• Tavaris Jackson exited the game with an injury and was replaced by Charlie Whitehurst.  The Jesus look-alike showed a lot more in limited playing time than Jackson has all season, throwing the TD pass that put Seattle ahead for good in the 4th quarter.
• The struggling Steelers put a charge back into their season with a convincing victory over the Titans.  Ben Rothlisberger led the way with 5 TD passes.
• Rashard Mendanhall missed the game with an injury, but the running game didn't miss a beat thanks to a strong performance by Jonathan Dwyer.  One uneventful game last season was the only other appearance of the second year back's career, but he came out of nowhere when needed with a 107 yard performance.
• A week after his first 100+ yard game of the season, Chris Johnson followed it up with another sub par performance.  He at least did score his first TD of the season.
• Speaking of RBs that signed expensive new contracts this off season, DeAngelo Williams had his first 100+ yard rushing game.  Most of his yardage came on a 69 yard TD run where there wasn't a defender that came close to bringing him down.
• The Saints won a thriller in Carolina after Drew Brees threw the game winning TD pass with under a minute remaining. 
• As great a rookie season as Cam Newton is having, putting up impressive passing numbers in the box score isn't what makes an elite QB.  The veteran Brees showed the rookie that the elite QBs put together game winning drives with clutch plays.
• Two rookie QB's squared off against each other, but it was Andy Dalton getting the better of Blaine Gabbert this time.  Dalton is doing his best to make people forget about Carson Palmer, who continues to sit at home rather than come play for a team... that is actually winning.
• Needing a score as time was running out, Jacksonville attempted to move the ball on their final play by lateraling the ball as defenders swarmed the ball carrier.  A total of 3 different Jaguar players fumbled the ball on the play before a Bengals defender was finally able to recover the ball, returning it for the game clinching TD with no time remaining.
• A sad weekend for the Raiders following the death of Al Davis ended with a silver lining, as the team rallied in the 4th quarter to do exactly as their long time owner had always demanded that they do - just win, baby!
• The NFL will miss having an interesting character like Davis around.  I'll miss getting to use Crypt Keeper and Weekend at Bernie's references.  They don't seem quite as funny now that he's really gone.  RIP Al Davis.
• Houston could really have used Andre Johnson at the end of this one.  Needing a TD to reclaim the lead, the Texans marched the ball all the way down to the Oakland 5 yard line after Matt Schuab connected with Joel Dreessen for 34 yards to set up 1st and goal in the final seconds of the game.  Just when it looked like they would pull off a miracle comeback, Schaub's next pass resulted in an INT in the endzone that ended the game.
• The 49ers embarrassed the visiting Tampa Bay Bucs in a 48-3 beat down.  
• Tampa was so bad, they managed to make Alex Smith look good (3 TDs).
• Since being temporarily removed from his position as the starting RB last week, Frank Gore has looked like a different player as he has earned his way back into the role with a second straight strong performance (125 yards, 1 TD).  
• I had a feeling that a Broncos loss this week could result in a QB change in Denver, with Tim Tebow getting his long awaited chance to take over after the team's Week 6 bye week.  As it turns out, he didn't even have to wait that long.  A miserable first half that saw Denver fall behind by two scores was enough to get Kyle Orton benched at halftime.  Fan favorite Tebow came in and nearly led an improbable second half comeback, engineering two TD drives in the 4th quarter and putting the team in position to have a chance at a win with a last second hail mary.  They came up just short this week, but it was a promising audition for the young QB.  Tebow will reportedly take over as the starter following their bye week, and it makes little sense for them to keep flipping between the two.  At this point they might as well see what they've got with Tebow.
• The Chargers have been winning, which has masked the poor season Philip Rivers is quietly having. Through 5 games, he has more turnovers (8) than TDs (5).
• The Patriots helped avenge last year's playoff defeat at the hands of the Jets by taking Round 1 of the season match up between the division rivals.  Ben Jarvis Green-Ellis rushed for a career high 136 yards and scored twice to help lead the way.
• The Patriots are known as a dominant passing team, with Tom Brady on pace to break all kinds of records.  However, few realize that New England actually ranks 6th in the league in rushing yards per game and 10th in rushing attempts. They are also one of only two teams in the league that has a running attack that has yet to fumble the ball all season.
• As expected, Wes Welker saw plenty of attention from Revis this week, but the league's leading receiver hardly found himself trapped on an island.  While Revis did do a good job of taking Welker out of the play on several occasions, Welker also managed to find himself free a handful of times on his way to a 124 yard day.  His biggest catch of the day came when he burned Revis for a 73 yard catch to help set up another TD drive.  Welker would have scored himself on the play had the speedy Revis not recovered in time to chase him down and make a TD saving tackle.
• The much maligned Patriots defense, which came into the game giving up a league worst 477.5 yards per game, had their best game of the season, holding the Jets to only 255 total yards.
• That was nice of the Packers to spot the Falcons 14 points early in the first half.  Of course that led to the Packers finally turning it on by scoring 25 unanswered points the rest of the way to cruise to another victory.
• Aaron Rodgers completed passes to 12 different receivers.  A lot of teams don't have completions to that many receivers all season.
• Atlanta lost their first regular season home game since December 2009.  The only other home loss during that stretch came in last year's postseason - against these Green Bay Packers.
• The loss also snapped a streak of 23 wins in games they led at halftime.
• The Lions are 5-0 for the first time since 1956.  You would have to ask your grandparents if they remember a Lions team that started this well.
• Jhavid Best showed that the Lions offense has another dimension outside of the Stafford-Johnson connection.  He entered the game having never rushed for over 100 yards in a game, but broke free for an impressive 163 yards (with an outstanding 13.6 per carry average!) against the Bears. His biggest play of the night saw him cut behind his blockers and find a hole that led to an 88 yard TD run.
• Matt Forte was overshadowed by the huge performance by Best, but he once again contributed a solid game.  He's clearly Chicago's best weapon, both running the ball and as a receiver.  He's not happy about his contract situation, so the Bears better take care of that quickly.  Their offense would be going nowhere without him.
• Detroit now leads the league in point differential (+70), while Green Bay is 2nd (+62, tied with Baltimore).  What a division race the NFC North is turning out to be!
• The Rams have scored the fewest points in the league (46), but are coming off a bye week.  What's Jacksonville's excuse?  Their 59 points through 5 games trails every other team in the league, including the other teams that had their bye weeks.  Baltimore has more than twice as many points (119) in their 4 games.
• It seems that defenses are finally starting to catch up, as we're seeing less big passing performances around the league.  This week, only 6 QBs threw for over 300 yards and 2 of them had over 400 yards.  Ok, so that's still a lot, especially when you consider that 6 teams had the week off, but it's still a decrease from what we saw earlier in the season when it seemed that just about everyone was on pace to break Dan Marino's all-time passing record. 
• 10 QBs (11 if you count both Orton and Tebow for Denver) were held to under 200 yards passing this week, so while we may not be done seeing big passing performances, it appears it is starting to even out a bit more.