NFL Week 9 - What We Learned

Written by John Edward Betancourt

As it turns out, Week 9 in the NFL absolutely delivered. We had an undefeated prove their worth to all the league, we saw another undefeated fall in the "classiest" of fashion and we saw a young quarterback become a hero and give his fans hope for the future. There were truly some amazing games on display Sunday, and while there are so many amazing stories to discuss from the field this week, we can only go over a fraction of them and here is what we learned from this weekend.

1. The Carolina Panthers are for real. I talked a lot of smack about these guys earlier in the season and the time has come for me to eat crow. This team has completely earned its 7-0 status after going up against a quality opponent in the Green Bay Packers and pulling out one incredible win. The Packers hung with the Panthers late in the game, but great teams find a way to win and the Panthers did just that. They stopped Rodgers when it mattered and put up all the points they needed on offense. Right now they really are looking like the team to beat in the NFC and I tip my hat off to them and I'm sorry that I doubted them. 

2. One surprising story from this weekend, is how amazingly resilient the Pittsburgh Steelers are with the injury laden carousel they are riding at Quarterback. Third stringer Landry Jones pulled off an impressive win over a strong Raiders team with that last minute touchdown but while there's cause for celebration to be at 5-3 for the year, Pittsburgh needs to do something to address their greatest weakness, the offensive line. They did a poor job protecting Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday and it shows since their star QB is out with another rough injury and if Pittsburgh wants to make it deep into the playoffs, or into the playoffs for that matter, they have to make some kind of adjustment to keep their signal callers safe.

3. Mike Mularkey made one smart move on Sunday, he took the training wheels off of Marcus Mariota and look what happened, the Titans won a game. Although, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried watching this game in the fourth quarter when Coach Mularkey turned to the run game late when Mariota was clearly hitting his stride, putting the ball on the money to receiver after receiver. I'm not sure what changed the Coach's mind exactly, but all that matters is that they turned the kid loose and it was impressive to see him lead his team down the field to a win. Hopefully now is the time when the coaching staff let's Mariota do more of his thing just to see exactly what the kid can do and if he starts putting together some amazing drives and wins while Tampa Bay continues to lose...we'll finally have an idea exactly who got the better QB in the draft this year. 

4. There's a lot of things that concern me about the Miami Dolphins, for one they are regressing quickly under Interim Head Coach Dan Campbell, and believe me, we could spend an entire blog on that alone, but something caught my eye Sunday while I was watching snippets of the Miami game, specifically the poor performance from Ndamukong Suh. Sure, he got a sack, but that increases his season total to three. Yes, you read that right ladies and gentlemen, three. Not to mention for most of the game he was getting worked over by the Buffalo offensive line and quite frankly, the Dolphins executive brass need to be extremely concerned about this. They guaranteed the man $60 million to play in Miami, and this is their return on their investment, an awful season for a "top tier" player. I hate to say it, but he may go down as one of the biggest free agent busts in history and Miami is going to have to figure something out to either get this guy to play better, or how they renegotiate that contract in light of his performance and with their season slipping away, now is the time to do it.

5. As a Denver Broncos fan, I'm upset about Sunday's loss. I'm not upset because it happened, the Broncos didn't bring their A game, they earned the loss and hey, they are still 7-1, but what I am upset about is the classless play the defense put forth. They were undisciplined and arrogant on Sunday and it showed because they underestimated their opponent and well, they made themselves look like fools on television by earning one silly penalty after another and well...let's not get started on the whole eye poke thing. But there is a silver lining in all of this. This kind of a loss can humble a team, and right now the Broncos need it. It's clear they let the wins get to their head and their arrogance was their downfall. Here's to hoping they don't take anything for granted on the field again this season and play the game with a little more class in the weeks to come.

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