by John Juhasz

Updated: October 5, 2008, 10:32 PM EST 2 comments

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The Eagles, Chargers and Packers went down, the Colts came back from the brink of 1-3 with a comeback that would have been improbable in Madden and Kerry Collins led an important drive to paydirt.

Ho hum.

Late games, First half

• Carson Palmer is in today's lineup against the Cowboys, but I'm not sure how much that'll help. Ha. On the very first play of the game, he drops back and watches the ball crash off his tight end into the arms of a Dallas defender. That didn't take long. Cowboys settle for a field goal roughly 90 seconds into the game.

• Whoops. Trent Edwards has been knocked out of the game with a concussion, and J.P. Losman will take over under center. Remember how badly the Losman-is-the-starter era ended in Buffalo? Even he probably tried to forget about it.

• Hard to imagine Larry Fitzgerald will ever be more wide open than that. The Cards took advantage of a Buffalo fumble and Kurt Warner lobbed the ball to an open Fitz in the corner of the end zone.

• Frank Gore doesn't catch many touchdown passes, but he put San Francisco up early on New England with a 16-yarder as J.T. O'Sullivan was about to be leveled by a rusher.

• The Cowboys went for it on fourth and short from Cincinnati's 33-yard line, and as the Bengals crashed the line to stop the run, Felix Jones took a pitch to the right side and sped around the traffic en route to an easy touchdown. I never cease to marvel at how fast Jones runs.

• Matt Cassel looked a lot like another Patriots quarterback as he heaved a 66-yard scoring pass to a streaking Randy Moss.

• And the Cards move closer to a split-back system, at least stats-wise. Tim Hightower weaved his way through Buffalo's defense for a 17-yard score. Edgerrin James has five carries for 16 yards while Hightower has two for 20.

• O'Sullivan has thrown his second score of the game, this time to the ancient Isaac Bruce. Funny ... J.T. has three completions so far in this game, and two of them have gone for touchdowns.

• Check out the replay of Jason Witten's first-half touchdown catch if you can. What the hell was Cincinnati's defense doing? Witten was dancing up and down with his arms in the air, directing traffic kind of like one of those guys who lands planes on runways. Yeah, it's always a good idea to leave him open, Marvin. No threat there.

• Lee Evans just caught an 87-yard touchdown pass as Losman danced around to buy time before throwing the ball as hard (and high) as he could and finding Evans, who got past Buffalo's coverages. Plays don't get much longer than that ... that's a 14-point fantasy play in most leagues.

• Maybe Marvin Lewis has had it with Chris Perry's fumbling. Not that Perry has coughed up the rock in this game, but the newly acquired Cedric Benson is Cincy's featured back today. Benson has six carries for 25 yards halfway through the second quarter (Perry has three for five).

• Perry owners can feel robbed on that last sequence. First, he took a handoff from about 20 yards out and glided into the end zone, but it was negated by a ticky tack holding call on T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Then, Palmer had Perry wide open on a screen from inside the 10-yard line, but threw the ball way over his head when he had no one in front of him.

• Mike Shanahan has nothing on Bill Belichick! The Patriots are using four (count 'em ... four!) running backs in their backfield today; you'd think they were holding open tryouts for the position or something (actually, maybe they are). Some halftime numbers for New England rushers — Kevin Faulk: five carries, 28 yards, one touchdown. Sammy Morris: four carries, 26 yards. Laurence Maroney: six carries, 19 yards. LaMont Jordan: five carries, 16 yards. What in the world ... ?

Late games, Second half

• Jay Cutler leads the Broncos on a touchdown drive early in the second half. Seldom-used Brandon Stokley caught this one from 10 yards out. I forgot to mention that earlier in this game, Matt Prater nailed a 55-yard field goal.

• Palmer also leads the Bengals on an 11-play, 72-yard drive, hitting Housh for an 18-yard touchdown early in the third quarter. This game is a lot closer than a lot of people (including Dallas' players, apparently) would have imagined.

• The Cards were a perfect 9-for-9 on converting touchdowns when they had the ball inside an opponent's five-yard line, and you can make it 10-for-10. An offsides on a field goal attempt gave them new life, and Warner threw an off-balance touchdown to Fitzgerald, his second of the day.

• Faulk takes a page out of Ronnie Brown's playbook and takes a direct snap in for a short touchdown run, his second of the day. He's having a pretty lousy day on the ground yards-wise though (30).

• Tony Romo has just thrown a pick. In what could be the biggest shock of the week (if not the season), he only has 90 passing yards against Cincy as we go into the fourth quarter. Romo has now thrown a pick in eight straight games, which is a stat quarterbacks definitely don't want. Romo owners have to keep that in mind when starting him.

• Losman lost a fumble which led to Hightower's second short touchdown run of the day. No one in the world started him, but J.P. hasn't played that badly, actually — five-for-six for 127 yards and a score (although admittedly, a good chunk of those yards came on the scoring bomb to Evans).

• Just as the Bengals had some momentum (cut the lead to one with Shayne Graham's third field goal of the day before recovering the ensuing onside kick), Perry fumbled the ball away and gave Romo the opportunity to hit Terrell Owens on a crossing route. T.O. outran the secondary and turned the play into a 57-yard score.

• And Housh catches his second short score of the day. Argh. I'm playing against him! My guys are done for the day (except Witten), and I have a razor-thin four-point margin. He's got Jeff Reed yet to go. Come on, Jacksonville defense!

• You know you're blessed sometimes, I guess. Romo was trying to hit Miles Austin on a touchdown pass near the goal-line, but it tipped off his hands into Patrick Crayton's breadbasket. That's a backbreaking score for the Bengals to give up, and for as horrendously as Romo has played, that was somehow his third touchdown pass of the day.

Sunday night — Pittsburgh at Jacksonville

• The Steelers start the game with the ball. I really don't know how the offense is going to move; the passing game is iffy at best while they're as banged up as possible at running back. Welcome back to the roster, Najeh Davenport.

• Hmm. Mewelde Moore ripped off an 18-yard run on the game's first play, but as soon as the Steelers got near scoring position, Ben Roethlisberger was sacked and then picked off, and Rashean Mathis (who has made a career out of stopping Pittsburgh's offensive production in its tracks) returned the interception all the way down the field (62 yards) for a pick-six. You know, in my big money league, I benched Roethlisberger and the injured Matt Schaub in favor of Jon Kitna, who produced a whopping minus-one point for me today. But after the way Ben looks like he's about to play tonight, I may have actually made the right move. Jacksonville up 7-0, and their offense has yet to touch the ball.

• Or not. Roethlisberger leads the Steelers right back down the field and hits Heath Miller on a one-yard touchdown pass to level the game. Damn. Maybe I should have started Ben. That would have all but wrapped up the win, but I'm only hanging on by one freaking point so far. By the way, the game is about 11 minutes old, and except for the two kickoffs, Jacksonville's defense has been on the field the entire time. They better run the ball and give this unit a rest.

• And they do just that. It took a few minutes off the clock, but Jacksonville used a few key third-down conversions (and one big pass interference penalty) to allow Maurice Jones-Drew to grind his way in from one yard out. Everyone who thought this would be a shootout, raise your hands? Yeah, thought so.

• And Big ben hits a wide open Nate Washington for his second touchdown pass of the first half. Something is clearly wrong with Jacksonville's secondary: they gave up three scoring passes to Schaub last week, and Roethlisberger hasn't really been on track all season until this game. Jay Cutler owners, you're up next. The Jags visit Denver in Week 6.

Second half

• The Jags will have the ball near scoring position to start the fourth quarter, but defenses have ruled the day since halftime started. Jacksonville has a handful of first downs while the Steelers offense has none. By the way, have I been missing this all these years, or does David Garrard hold on to the ball waaaay too long when he's in the pocket? It's like he thinks he'll have an infinite amount of time to throw.

• Almost forgot to mention: Jacksonville wideout Mike Walker is becoming a part of the offense. He had 46 receiving yards against Houston last week and 89 going into the fourth quarter.

• And finally we have points in the second half. Marcedes Lewis ran a neat route up the middle and jogged into the end zone from 24 yards out. It was Lewis' first catch of the night.

• Roethlisberger hits Hines Ward on a short go-ahead touchdown pass with just under two minutes remaining. Ben is 26-for-41 for 309 yards. That's his third touchdown pass of the night and by far his best outing of the season.