Another great Monday Night Football game

Who would have thought that the New York Jets at the Miami Dolphins in week five of the season would present us with such a great game? This is the second Monday Night Football game in a row that I watched every second of, and was glad that I did (except for all the hype about Hispanic heritage, I mean really, speak English in television unless I'm watching the game on ESPN Deportes). But back to the game! Wow, was that a great back and forth battle or what?

After Mark Anthony took about 10 minutes to sing the National Anthem, the thing that immediately caught my attention was the Dolphins uniform. Man, were those things bright or what? And after this game, I was tempted to go and buy one of these bright orange Ronnie Brown jerseys. What a game he had! Dolphin, I mean, Landshark Stadium, as it is now called, was going bizerk the entire game. And you know why? The Wildcat! Need I say more?

Dan Henning, the Dolphins offensive coordinator, looked like a genius going up against Rex Ryan and his dominating defense. They mixed up their offense in a fashion that I have not seen before. Not only did Chad Henne and Ronnie Brown take direct snaps in this game, but so did Ricky Williams and even Pat White. The Jets defense looked all out of sorts, not knowing who to cover, who had the ball, or who was even on the field for that matter. On the first Wildcat play, only the third play of the game Ronnie Brown rolled out to his left to find Anthony Fasano wide open for a gain of 21 yards. This set the pace for the rest of the game as the Dolphins ran 16 Wildcat plays for a total of 110 yards, including the game winning touchdown with only six seconds left on the game clock. It made for a very exciting 31-27 victory for the Dolphins.

Not to go unnoticed is the play by the two quarterbacks, who combined now have a total of eight NFL starts. Chad Henne went 20-26 for 241 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions for a quarterback rating of 130.4. Not bad for his third start. And Mark Sanchez also somewhat impressive, going 12-24 for 172 yards and one touchdown, also with no interception. Obviously, Henne has a much better overall game, but one other thing that may have came out of this game for Sanchez was the emergence of Braylon Edwards as his number one receiver. I don't think I commented on this yet, but on Wednesday of last week, the Jets and the Cleveland Browns made a trade sending Edwards to the Jets in return for Chansi Stuckey, another player, and a couple of draft picks. Edwards stepped up as Sanchez's go to guy, hauling in five catches for 64 yards, including a very impressive touchdown catch as well as another deep ball where he came up just a half yard short of his second score of the night.

All in all, it was another pleasant Monday Night Football game from two unsuspecting teams. From the looks of it right now, the Denver Broncos traveling into Qualcomm Stadium to take on the San Diego Chargers could turn out to be yet another great match-up. I'll let you know what I think next week.

Ravens vs. Brown at M&T Bank this Sunday

After starting off the season 2-0, the Ravens are riding a high wave of emotion as they prepare for their week 3 match-up against the Cleveland Browns. The Browns are struggling this season going 0-2 so far by being defeated by the Minnesota Vikings and the Denver Broncos in two games that ended up being relative blowouts. The Ravens were able to hold off a last second come back at San Diego to secure their fourth regular season victory going back to last season.

The Ravens were able to sweep the season series in 2008 against the Browns, and look for their third straight win against the Ravens former city this upcoming Sunday. The Ravens have not lost to the Browns since November 18, 2007, when they had to go into overtime to decide the victor.

There are some intriguing match-ups to look for as these two teams take the field at 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. As many people have been discussing this week, if the Ravens have one weak spot in their defense, it may be in the secondary. With that being said, the Browns do have a talented receiving core with Braylon Edwards as their number one and Joshua Cribbs as their number two. Even though he is a little banged up with a hamstring injury, former Raven running back Jamal Lewis looks to have a break-out game against the NFL's number one rushing defense, giving up a staunch 41 yards per game.

Now it's time for some outside opinions on the status of our beloved Baltimore Ravens. Is the Ravens secondary as terrible as people are trying to convey? I mean, Dawan Landry had an interception last week, and already has 14 tackles in two games. Dominque Foxworth, while having some troubles defending receivers that had substantial height advantages, still had two passes defended against San Diego. Fabian Washington and Frank Walker did all that they could to contain the Chargers' receivers. Oh yea, and there is that other guy back there, what was his name again?? That's right, Ed Reed. He's not a bad ballplayer. So is it the secondary's fault? I mean, we could blame it on the pass rush, since Coach Harbaugh was hesitant to blitz so that the speedy Darren Sproles wouldn't have more room to work with. And Trevor Pryce seems to not have his motor running up to speed quite like he has in his past three seasons here in Baltimore. I guess we'll see the game plan this Sunday, and see if our secondary, and for that matter, our defense in general, can play well enough to reassure the rest of the NFL that Baltimore's defense is still a force to be reckoned with.