Here are some thoughts, about yesterday's game, and the season at the 5 game mark.

1.  For as much as Broncos free agent signings have been criticized over the years, two great bargain-priced acquisitions showed up huge yesterday.  Michael Pittman and Brandon Stokley were the stars of this game on offense.  Both have delivered beyond what was expected of them when they were signed.  What a couple of great team guys to have.

2.  That said, the calls for Pittman to start at RB are misplaced.  One of the more intelligent trends of the past 5 years or so is the move toward defined RB tandems.  The modern movement really started with Priest Holmes ceding some carries due to the emergence of Larry Johnson, and it was clear that both players were better for it.  The Broncos started doing it too, after the trade of Clinton Portis, and it has worked well.  Even teams like San Diego, Minnesota, Dallas, and Miami, with legit #1 workhorse backs are splitting carries now, so it is a trend which is here to stay.  I have consistently been a Selvin Young fan, and maybe the only one on this site, but I think he is an outstanding tandem back.  He has rare acceleration, and the last few games, has been running with much improved balance and vision.  A cogent argument can be made for Pittman taking some of Andre Hall's workload, but I like Pittman in exactly the role he is in.  He adds more value in specialty situations than he would as a lead back. 

3.  You could see that Jay Cutler was frustrated by having to be so patient yesterday, but it was impressive that he was able to.  It highlighted an ever-improving football maturity in him.

4.  I really liked how Marcus Thomas looked as a 5-technique DE yesterday in the 30 fronts.  It's harder to double him outside, and he got some push.  I also think using him in drops on zone-blitzes takes good advantage of his outstanding athleticism.  He just needs to hold on to the ball when he picks one off.

5.  We got the second horse-excrement chop-block penalty called on us this season.  Yesterday, Andre Hall went low on a rusher as Daniel Graham breathed on him up high.  In the other one, against San Diego, Clady went low after Hamilton had disengaged up high.  I'd really like to see the officials do better calling this, because teams which use zone protection schemes are always going to teeter on the edge of this penalty.  Neither penalty was well-earned.

6.  Speaking of protection, I don't think I have ever seen another team go from being completely awful in pass protection in one season to being the best in the NFL the next.  In 192 pass attempts over 5 games, Jay Cutler has been physically sacked only once.  That is an amazing accomplishment for this line, and for Jay.  Messrs. Clady, Hamilton, Wiegmann, Kuper, and Harris should take a bow.  Mr. Clady should start making plans to be in Hawaii in February, if there is any fairness in the voting, because he has been easily the best LT I've seen this season.

7.  It is kind of tacky to pat yourself on the back for having prescient thoughts, so I won't exactly do that.  I'll just say that field position management has, on the whole, been much improved this season.  Matt Prater and Brett Kern are huge field position weapons, and punt coverage has been good all season.  As with our defense, our kickoff coverage is kind of feast or famine sometimes, but I like touchbacks, and Prater leads the league in them.

8.  Our defense is improving organically, and will be fully league-average by the time the playoffs roll around.  Dumervil dominated Jeremy Trueblood on Sunday.

9.  We're going to have a rooting interest in January this season.  My dad called to give me a hard time a few days ago, crowing about how the Broncos were going to finish 6-10 this season.  He doesn't really know anything substantial about football beyond the Madden-type cliches, and probably couldn't distinguish between a Tackle and a Guard on offense, so I just kind of chuckle at him.  Still, it will be fun to serve him a nice, warm glass of Shut The Hell Up.  The hardest part, for me, will be to remember that this is a young team, in the 3rd year of a 5 year plan, but this team will be in the playoffs this season.

I thought the use of the 30 front last week was garbage, and the Broncos got away from it quickly.  Today, however, it worked very well, and they used it a lot.  On the one hand the Broncos have the wrong kind of personnel for a 3-4 look.  The linebackers and Elvis Dumervil are smaller than you'd like for it, and Dewayne Robertson is not really a NT, which is why we got him for a bag of footballs from the Jets.  On the other hand, it's undoubtedly easier to find 4 good LBs on the Broncos than it is to find 4 good D-Linemen.

For one thing, Dumervil seems to be back.  He dominated Jeremy Trueblood today.  The LBs and Safeties also tackled much better today.  The soundness of the defense and the patience of the offense combined to win today.  I'm very pleased with what I saw. 

I hate when the Broncos play in the early game, because it prevents me from channel-flipping like I like to during the busy part of the day.  I watched our game on Sunday intently, and only had 3 games to flip through late.

Today, I cut out of work early, and came home to watch a bunch of football.  Observations and thoughts follow.  As always, I only comment on football I personally watched.

Continue reading this post »

As always, this is based 100% on games I watched....

1. Javon Walker looks finished.  He got no separation all game long.  Another former Bronco, Ashley Lelie, appears to be Oakland's best WR on a play-to-play basis.

2.  JaMarcus Russell has serious accuracy issues at this point.  I didn't see anything in his mechanics which led me to believe that there was a problem, but he's missing his targets a lot.  Interestingly, the training wheels are being taken off a little bit for him lately, and it remains to be seen how he handles that going forward.

3.  Jason Peters is supposed to be a big star at LT for Buffalo, but I don't see it this season.  He's been getting beat by pass rushers, and he had a particularly long day matched up against Derrick Burgess.

Continue reading this post »

OK, I watched the rest of the games.  I decided that I am going to watch every game, because I complain that national NFL writers could, and don't.  I have a full-time job to attend to, and I can do it by Tuesday night.  Why can't they?  More observations....

23.  LaRon Landry showed why he was such a high draft pick on Sunday.  Dude was just everywhere, all day long.  I'd hate to think how they'd look on the back line if Sean Taylor hadn't been killed.

24.  Chris Horton looked like a ballhawk for the Redskins at the other Safety position.  He got 2 interceptions and recovered a fumble.  I'd never even heard of him, so I looked him up in the Pro Football Weekly draft guide... only he didn't make their list of the top 25 safeties.  It was an impressive performance, and I'll be interested to see if he has long-term success.

25.  The Saints offense looks like it did last season, as opposed to its breakout year in 2006.  I generally mentioned last week that they struggled to run between the tackles.  Their problems are deeper than that, though.  They really miss Marques Colston, and they don't seem to know where to go to get a first down.  They tried Shockey a couple times, and he struggled to beat CB coverage from a split end position.  I think they are undertalented on offense right now, with the exception of Bush.  Shockey was a great player as a rookie, who has become a completely average one as his career has worn on.  Their only hope is Robert Meachem emerging, which could happen.  Everybody else they have is medium-to-lousy.

26.  Their pass defense is still abysmal too, by the way.  Our guys have to be getting excited.

27.  The Titans looked better with Kerry Collins than they did the week before with Vince Young.  I think you'd have to call Vince's future career questionable at this point.  This is America, and we love redemption stories, but I think he just doesn't understand or have what it takes to be an NFL starting QB.  Read this Jason Whitlock column for more insight on it.  His 2006 ESPN.com pre-draft column was right on the money too.

28.  The Detroit Lions just make me scratch my head.  They have good enough players to be dangerous, as we saw last season.  They just make the kind of mistakes that lose games for you.  Ill-timed penalties, dropped passes, missed tackles.  They cover every base, like they want to lose the game or something.  It made me wonder how many guys on their team was ever a key player on a winning team.  The best answer I could come up with was 1, that being Brian Kelly, who was a good corner in Tampa, but is now pretty much washed-up.  He made one of the game-costing mistakes, failing to even try to get a bump on Jordy Nelson on Green Bay's 3rd Touchdown.  Loseritis Footballus must be contagious in Hockeytown USA.

29.  It's shocking how good Aaron Rodgers looks, even if he has done his thing against two terrible pass defenses.  If you watch Mr. Rodgers play, he's doing exactly what Brett Favre did for all of those years, except he's more accurate and more mobile.  The inference which I draw from this is that he was likely very actively coached over the past 3 seasons.  The rumor is that Favre mostly ignores position coaches, and deals straight with the Head Coach.  I wonder if that didn't leave their QB coach a lot of time to develop Rodgers, more than a backup usually gets.  You have to take a look at this guy, it's amazing how good he has been,

30.  Chicago has very self-destructive tendencies on Offense. I think Ron Turner is not a very good coach.  The Bears would do well to realize that there is no rule that says that they are required to have unimaginative offensive schemes and subpar QBs.  It seems to me that they've been trying to win with both since the days of Sid Luckman.

31.  Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams make a really nice combination for Carolina.  That's quantity of quality.

32.   Speaking of RB committees, all I can say for the Giants' trio is Wow.  They have a hammer (Jacobs,) a slasher (Ward,) and a speedster (Bradshaw,) and they get contributions from all of them.  I know a lot of people don't like committees, but I would honestly think about taking that trio over any one back in the NFL (except Adrian Peterson.)

33.  Marc Bulger needs great talent around him, and doesn't have it.  He looks tentative and just really terrible.  They are obviously squarely in the Matthew Stafford sweepstakes, and ought to take him (or Tim Tebow) if they have a chance next spring.

34.  Who do you think the Rams would rather have right now?  Jay Cutler or the marginal Tye Hill, and the suspended (and underwhelming) Claude Wroten?  Just asking.

35.  Speaking of QBs, the Chiefs sure could use one.  Tyler Thigpen looked like an arenafootball2 caliber player.  They need to face the reality that they share a division with Jay Cutler and Phillip Rivers (who are franchise QBs) and JaMarcus Russell (who has the potential to be one.)  It's the Quarterback, stupid.

I'm still in the process of watching every game in its entirety (Directv's Short Cuts is well worth the 99 bucks.)  For now, some notes on things I already saw and thought.

1.  Brett Favre is worth 4 wins to the Jets.  It's just not the 4 wins people think, because he's the difference between 4-12 and 8-8.  Their Offensive Line is not good, and it's appropriate to start calling D'Brickashaw Ferguson a bust at this point.  The play-calling is unimaginative, which is shocking from a coordinator with the Schottenheimer name.

2.  The Patriots will be home underdogs against the Broncos.  They're suddenly a close-to-the-vest team, and their defense will have nothing for the Broncos' offense.  The game with the Jets was very short (23 minutes to show every play in the Short Cut,) and I am sure that was part of the Belichick strategy.  They'll be okay against teams that don't throw it well (Deltha O'Neal as a #1 CB?)  The Broncos, Chargers, and Colts will crush them, though.

3.  Speaking of the Patriots, why don't teams pay attention to Kevin Faulk when he lines up in the shotgun?  He's a killer, and he's been doing it for about 10 years now.

4.  I'm a lover of big plays that go unmentioned, and Tim Jennings (#23) of the Colts should take a bow.  He made a suberb play to get his hand up quickly and prevent a punt from going into the end zone, and then down it at the 1.  That play was enormous, because if Minnesota gets it at the 20, they are not nearly as conservative as they are from the 1.  The resulting field position gave Peyton Manning the chance he needed to make the play to Reggie Wayne.

5.  I told you last week that the Jaguars can't pass-protect.  It turns out that they can't run-block much either, missing all those guards to injury.  They're stout against the run on defense, but it is difficult to imagine them winning more than 6 games this season with that terrible offensive line.  David Garrard hasn't played well yet, either.

6.  Trent Edwards impressed me Sunday, and I am not naturally inclined to be a fan of a guy like him.  I like strong-armed/athletic guys like JP Losman.  He's an average-armed, average athlete, with above average poise and feel for the game.  The Bills are for real, and will win the AFC East this season.

7.  I'm happy for Domenik Hixon, who looks like a good football player in New York.  I don't think he'd play much in Denver, but I'm glad he's having success somewhere else.

8.  Miami's defense is terrible.

9.  That doesn't mean anybody should sleep on Arizona, who is going to get double-digit victories for the first time since 1975.  They'll win the NFC West, and not by default.  Ken Whisenhunt made a great call going with Kurt Warner, and it jumps off the screen how hard the team is playing for them.

10. Most of my local friends here are Cleveland Browns fans, and they wouldn't like this if they looked at MHR.  The Browns are not ready for prime time, which is problematic since they have an NFL-high 5 appearances on prime time TV this season.  It seems like Braylon Edwards is trying to assist Derek Anderson in his own admirable efforts to get the Brady Quinn era underway.  The right side of the Cleveland Offensive Line looked horrible last night, and they can't cover anybody in the secondary.  They look like a 6-10 team right now, considering the schedule they play.

11.  Pittsburgh is not as good as advertised either.  They're going to get Ben Roethlisberger killed one of these days.  It's no small accomplishment to have the worst pass-protection in the NFL, but I think Pittsburgh wins that award.  Of course, the MSM is not hip to this yet, but they'll catch up to me, eventually.  By then, I'll be on to something else, though.

12.  My opinion of Carson Palmer was only strengthened by what I saw Sunday.  I think he's finished as a good quarterback, because he does not have adequate mobility for what he is asked to do.  Mike Lombardi agreed today on Nationalfootballpost.com.

13.  Sometimes, a Tampa-2 scheme is not just a Tampa-2 scheme.  The Bucs play it better than the Lions, and Matt Ryan had a really hard time.  TB dropped a safety into the box a lot, essentially showing a 46 presnap look with zone principles, which is a very smart thing to do against Atlanta.  Expect everybody to do that to Ryan, until he proves he can beat it.  As a side note, he has the arm of a 3rd round pick, and struggles to get it to the sideline with any velocity.

14.  Brian Griese has become a pretty good team guy over the years, and Jeff Garcia is totally a me-first guy.  I suspect that this is at the core of the change in Tampa, because Garcia is definitely more talented.

15.  It's kind of amazing how durable Warrick Dunn has been in his career.  As I watch Chris Johnson, I think he has a very bright future if he learns how to avoid big hits the way Dunn always has.  That's a skill set that can be learned, making yourself small at the opportune time.  He is one hell of a dynamic playmaker, in any case. 

16.  I am beginning to think Reggie Bush has some LDT in him, in a negative way.  Despite the best efforts of his marketing people, LDT has always shown signs of being kind of a boorish jerk, with both his comments and his body language.  Bush is even more heavily marketed, and maybe more of a jerk.  Brees missed him on a 3rd and short swing pass, and Bush threw a tantrum afterward.  Also, the waving on the touchdown is Bush league.  He needs to grow up.

17.  Could it be that the Redskins have figured out that Jason Campbell can only play in a vertical passing game?  He lacks rhythm and feel for the timing game.

18.  The play-by-play guy in the Bucs-Falcons game called a stiff-arm a "stiffie."  I hope nobody at the FCC gets too upset about it.

19.  Deion Sanders had it pegged last night on NFL Network, when he said playing Kansas CIty was like Homecoming.  They may be winless heading into Week 16, knowing they have Miami at home and Cincinnati on the road, to avoid being the first 0-16 team ever.  Those strike me as KC's only winnable games.

20.  Oakland was better, but they can't beat a good team if they can't throw the football.  They and Seattle have the worst receiving corps in the NFL right now.

21.  JT O'Sullivan can't play at the NFL level.  The best thing I can find to say about him is that he has average accuracy and mobility.  In terms of arm strength, touch, poise, and feel for the game, he looks way below average.

22.  It's going to get lost in the shuffle, because Seattle is suddenly a bad offensive football team, but John Carlson is a very impressive rookie tight end.  Matt Hasselbeck clearly doesn't trust the receivers he's throwing to, and his eye level is really low, like he's watching the pass rush.  He looks very Derek Anderson-like.

More to follow once I watch a few more games.....

OK, the Chargers got jobbed on the fumble call.  No argument there, but if they had won on that play, it would have been because of a fluky, untouched fumble.  In other words, it would not have indicated any semblance of Chargers superiority.  Instead of losing on a weird fluky play, they didn't lose on another weird fluky play.  By the way, the Champ Bailey play in the 1st quarter was not as clear to me as it was to Randy Cross.  I thought that was very close.

The sequence following the fumble was really compelling.  The key play-call to securing the win was the draw to Selvin Young on 3rd and Goal from the 10.  Watching it, I thought it was brilliant, because I'd rather have one shot to score on 4th down, and leave 24 seconds on the clock, than I would take 2 shots into the end zone from the 10, with a minute to go.  I think the probabilities are better, given the abysmal defense seen from both teams today.  The call on 4th down was very smart, but really, par for the course of the game. 

As for going for two, that was a function of job security and aggressiveness.  Mike Shanahan is not going to get fired if they miss on the conversion, and he knows it.  The only other coaches in the NFL who could make that call are Bill Belichick and Tony Dungy, and Belichick is the only one who would consider actually doing it.  These are decisions that win championships.  In all likelihood, the Broncos won the AFC West today.  At a minimum, they greatly enhanced their chances of doing so.

Some other assorted observations:

1. Our offensive line is outstanding in pass protection.  Clady is obvious, but I'm extremely impressed with Ryan Harris on the right side.  He is better than at least half the the LTs in the League, and he has the chance to be the best RT in the NFL in pass protection.

2. We have one of the elite offenses in the League.  Also, we have the best young offensive talent in the League (Cutler, Young, Hall, Hillis, Marshall, Royal, Scheffler, Clady, Harris, Lichtensteiger.)  That is an outstanding nucleus for the future.

3.  I love the use of the spread-out shotgun look that we saw so much of today.  It creates good matchups for our playmakers.

4.  Speaking of playmakers, Brandon Marshall abused the Chargers secondary today, with the somewhat overrated Antonio Cromartie (great ball skills, mediocre coverage skills) getting the worst of it.

5.  Further speaking of playmakers, I wonder if Jeremy Green would enjoy a nice cold glass of "Shut The *&^% Up."  He's the one who seemingly continues to believe that we don't have any playmakers, and voted us 23rd in the ESPN Power Rankings, even after the destruction of the Raiders.  I'm anxious to see where he has us this week.  Probably 22nd.

6.  I loved Selvin Young tonight.  I generally slightly prefer him to Andre Hall, but he was outstanding tonight.

7.  Michael Pittman has been a nice role player too.  He made a great contribution.

8.  Darren Sproles is a bad, bad man.  He made plays that LDT couldn't make.

9.  SD has an outstanding offense, but our defense obviously needs to be better.  We have a good opportunity to start this week.

10. A win is a win.  The end.

ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting that Lane Kiffin is expected to be fired as soon as Monday, regardless of the outcome of today's game in Kansas City.  This would be a really sad day to be a Raiders fan, as I believe Kiffin to be the best coach they've had since Jon Gruden.  They're still losing, but the direction of the team looked much better last season than it had since at least the Gruden days.

Kiffin became known for being extremely candid with the media, which I suspect did not make Al Davis especially happy.  He indicated this week that he had no say whatsoever what happened with the defense, and he believed that some more blitzing would have been in order last week, but it wasn't up to him.

Davis has a long history of hiring young, offensive-minded Head Coaches, and of controlling the defense himself, through a hand-picked Defensive Coordinator.  See here and here.  The Head Coach is not part of the process of defensive game planning.  The acrimony between Kiffin and Davis reportedly began in the offseason, when Kiffin wanted to fire Rob Ryan as Defensive Coordinator, and hire his father Monte to replace him.  (Ryan wanted to leave to go the Jets and work for his old buddy Eric Mangini, too, as a side note.)

Anybody who says that the Raiders are in a down cycle is delusional.  They will continue to be terrible until Al Davis dies, and the team is sold to somebody who will hire smart football people to run it.  No good coach will ever take the Head Coach's job there again, because this very public breakdown reinforces the reality, that it's impossible to be successful under the constraints of Big Al.  I feel for Raiders fans, who have to continue to tolerate it, and I empathize with the mean-looking guy who was practically in tears on Monday night.

MHR Regulars are familiar with my "respect" for the insight and analysis of SI's Peter King.  Today, in his weekly Monday Morning QB column, he took the cake, and we can at least be happy that he wasn't directly slighting any Broncos in doing so.

The premise of his stupid article (he's relentlesslt consistent!) was that the suits at the NFL learned a lesson yesterday with Tom Brady's injury, that they shouldn't ever consider lengthening the regular season, because players get hurt.  Where to begin with this bit of foolishness?

The most important point is that Brady's injury yesterday occurred on one freak play, so it's the opposite of germane to a conversation about the length of the season.  If there were a 1 quarter season, Brady would have still gone down yesterday.  It's completely irrelevant whether the season is 16, 17, or 18 games.  The outcome of injury occurring on a given play is a function of a probability of the occurrence of a random variable.  He took a hit on the knee, and got hurt.  These things happen, and there's nothing you can do about it.

The other point is, who in the hell really cares that Tom Brady got hurt?  He's a great player, and New England had the look of a great team with him, but these are the breaks.  Guys get hurt, and other guys have to step up.  Look no further than the postgame words of Bill Belichick himself for a reminder of that.

Sports reporters, by the nature of their jobs of creating compelling written narratives, often forget the hugely important concept that the game is bigger than any player, coach, owner, or team.  The personalities are meaningless in the final analysis.  Somebody will win, and somebody will lose, and it doesn't matter who those somebodies are. 

Nobody would cry for us if we lost anybody from Jay Cutler down to Josh Shaw.  I'm not crying for New England today, and despite comments by opposing players and coaches to the contrary, I guarantee you nobody is, except writers like Petey King and Don Banks.  Some team will win the Super Bowl this year, and some player will win the MVP award.  Neither of these things were promised to Tom Brady and the Patriots.  The games will be played on the field, and the Game will go on.

Side Note:

Here's a PK gem:

6. I think I'm starting to think Carson Palmer belongs in Jay Cutlerville. He hasn't been a commanding presence on the field for some time, I'd say going back to mid-2006, and I'm hard-pressed to think of him in the same league with the top five or six quarterbacks. I did put him there in my top 50 in the SI NFL Preview issue, but after watching him Sunday, I almost wish I could have that one back.

He continually underestimates Cutler in an annoying way, but maybe he was reading my post from yesterday.  He's with me on the Atlanta O-Line and the Rams' general terribleness too.  Next week, he'll probably have an article about the problems Tom Brady may face coming back with less mobility, a la Palmer (and to an even more pronounced degree, Daunte Culpepper, who I didn't mention yesterday.)  Hopefully, he at least has the decency to credit MHR if he borrows that thinking.

As a subscriber to Directv's Sunday Ticket package, I've had the chance to watch a lot of games today.  The only ones I didn't watch any of were Buffalo-Seattle and San Francisco-Arizona.  Observations on the other games follow.

1.  Jacksonville can't pass protect, and that's going to be a huge problem if they think they're going to the Super Bowl.

2.  Vince Young looked the same as last season, and that's a bad sign for Tenneseee, despite their win today.

3.  I'm very impressed with little things I see from Matt Ryan.  With the lead, and about 11 minutes to go in the game and the clock running, he was confused on a play call.  He calmly waited until the play clock went all the way down to 1 before calling timeout.  Just a heads-up, veteran thing to do from a guy making his first start.

4.  The Michael Turner-Jerious Norwood combination is formidable, but the real story was the domination of the Atlanta O-line, against a pathetic looking Lions front seven.

5.  St. Louis is pitiful, and their players and coaches looked like they fully knew it.

6.  Jeff Garcia is fool's gold, a la Jake Plummer.  There are a lot of good things about him, but the flaws are pronounced enough that you're probably kidding yourself if you think you can win a championship with him.

7.  New Orleans needs to run the ball better between the tackles if they want to have a real chance of winning a championship.

8.  Carson Palmer's knee injury from the 2005 playoffs has rendered him a shell of his former self, and nobody really talks about that.  He is completely unable to move to even avoid trouble, and he's noticeably slow in his dropbacks, which may be worse.

9.  Another guy who could have similar problems is Tom Brady, if his injury is serious.  He lasted until the 6th round in 1999 for a good reason.  Scouts thought he was one of the slowest-footed QBs they'd ever seen.  He worked hard to develop superior technique, to make up for his limited natural mobility.  Any decrease in his mobility could be catastrophic to him though.  The situation bears watching.

10.  The Alex Gibbs era in Houston is off to a really rough start.  The O-Linemen looked like they didn't know what they were doing, and I think they need to bring in 2-3 more good players to play it.  Houston doesn't look ready for prime-time.

11.  Brett Favre looked pretty good for the Jets, but the team as a whole underachieved, as the Dolphins simultaneously overachieved.  It's a small sample size, but they both looked like .500 teams to me.  Don't be surprised if both end up in the 7-9 to 9-7 range.

12.  Larry Johnson still looks used-up, and the Chiefs look like they'll be lucky to win 4 games this year.

13.  Cleveland is not very good.  Their secondary is particularly weak, as expected, but I think that the "punditry" (and I mean that in a derogatory way, as usual) underestimates what a challenge the Browns will have to even finish .500 against that schedule, and with such a pronounced inability to defend the pass.

14.  Carolina is a good football team, which has returned to its run/stop the run program.  I am very impressed with what I saw from them today, win or lose.  What a great victory.

15.  San Diego underachieved its talent, particularly in terms of run defense.  The bright spot for them was Phyllis, who looked better than i have maybe ever seen him at the NFL level. 

16.   Shawne Merriman looked better than might have been expected, but was still not himself.

17.  On Jake Delhomme, his velocity looked same-as-it-ever-was coming off of Tommy John surgery.  They have to be very pleased with that.