Carl Weathers, master thespian and former Oakland Raider, watches every NFL game from his man cave to compile his weekly Power Rankings exclusively for Heckler readers. Despite playing in only 8 NFL games, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980.
10 – Houston Texans Texans out-duel The Denver Manning Experiment as Matt Schaub needles 4 TD passes through punch-drunk Bronco secondary.
9 – Buffalo Bills Marv’s boys not just flying under the Radar, they are under the Sonar. Mountain Man Fitzpatrick circles the wagons with 3 TD passes. Did I just reference some Chris Berman stuff? Damn, need a beer!
8 – Phoenix/St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals The Cards whoop up Eagles in ornithological match-up in the dessert. Or desert? I can’t tell no more, but I do eat ice cream in the sand a lot and appreciate the spry play of Larry Fitzgerald (114 yards and a TD).
7 – Atlanta Falcons I watched this out of market game on the NFL Sunday Ticket. I might have drank too much cough syrup, as I saw the little Deion Sanders fairy sleeping in my nachos. Falcons dominate SD behind 3 TD aerials by the artist currently known as Matt Ryan.
6 – New York Giants G-Men (for their work with the U.S. Department of Treasury, not a nickname for Giants) mess up Cam Newton & Co., force 5 turnovers and don’t even need to defend the kneel down play at the end of the game.
5 – Seattle Seahawks Pete Carroll continues to get it done (paying players at USC and I saw him give that replacement ref a burlap sack of money in the third quarter). This week’s Master of Disaster: Seattle “D” with 8 sacks of Aaron Cutler. Or Jay Rodgers, I can’t tell them apart anymore they’ve been on the ground in the dirt so much this season.
4 – Baltimore Ravens Is that thing at mid-field in Baltimore a Ravens logo or a Porsche logo? I can’t tell. Ravens nip New England behind “Elite” Joe Flacco and WR Torrey Smith (127 yards and 2 TDs playing with a heavy heart).
3 – D.C. RGIIIs One-man Robert the Third of Thrill totals 560 yards vs. Bengals (221 passing, 85 rushing, 189 return yards and 65 punting) but can’t overcome the ineptness of his teammates. Will play all games the rest of the year 1 vs. 11.
2 – San Francisco 49ers Second best team in the Bay Area gets humped 24-13 in the Hubert Dome by Vikings (Christian Ponder does his best RGIII imitation with 3 total TDs).
1 – Oakland Raiders Here we go! Raiders rip down Steel Curtain behind the two men most Committed to Excellence, Sebastian Janikowski and Darren McFadden. I wore one of Al Davis’ old jogging suits to bed last night for good luck, looks like I have a new Raider Ritual.
Program note – The September 31st edition of the untelevised NFL pregame show starring myself and Marv Levy will feature Marv dressed like Vince Lombardi sayin’ old coach stuff while I’ll break out the Apollo Creed trunks. We’ll discuss the worst calls in NFL history, the Debacle in Seattle Monday, the No-Megatron-TD catch that was not a catch vs. the Bears a couple years back and that one roughing the passer call against me on Dan Fouts back in the day. Sure, Dan’s head came off but we were able to glue it back on and he continued his Hall of Fame career. We laugh at that when we get together at the Hall every summer. I am the King of Sting!!!!
