NFL Week 7 Recap: Lonely at the Top

The beautiful thing about the NFL being 18 weeks is that the season can be divided evenly into three sections. The first six weeks serve as a feeling out process, the period that tests out who the contenders are, who the pretenders are, and who will be playing draft picks. It's basically a six-week grace period.

And then, there's Week 7. Grace period's over.

Week 7 begins the heart of the season, where the teams who have proven themselves to be contenders need to keep doing so, while the teams in trouble need to act fast to get back on track. Usually, I start with a main game or two that I talk about before I get chronological, but since there really wasn't a big standout game in Week 7, I'll just go in order.

Thursday Night Football

Thursday Night Football was basically Grumpy Old Men: AFC North Edition, starring Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco. Two 40-somethings at QB going at it, and both of them were playing like it was 2011 and 2012. It was wild seeing these old guys go at it. The scoring was wild, too. What I didn't expect was the Bengals to win it. 33-31 was the final score and all of a sudden, the AFC North is suddenly open. Not wide open, but open. Cincy has some life, and the rematch will take place in Pittsburgh on November 16.

Sunday (Early)

We were treated to another extra early international game, which saw the Los Angeles Rams totally blast the Jacksonville Jaguars, 35-7. On the normal Sunday early window, the Chiefs blasted the Raiders, 31-0, and now everyone's saying "They're back!" Do that to a real team first, then we'll talk. The New England Patriots flexed all over the Titans to take sole possession of first place in the AFC East (the Bills were on bye), and the Dolphins and Jets continued to embarrass themselves with horrific losses. The Jets dropped to 0-7 with a home loss to the Panthers, while the Dolphins were flattened by the Cleveland Browns. Yikes. The Philadelphia Eagles bested the Minnesota Vikings in a game that saw Jalen Hurts dominate and AJ Brown get two touchdowns, so he'll be happy and won't complain (at least for this week).

Sunday (Late)

Four games took place during Sunday's late window, beginning with the Colts dismantling the Chargers in SoFi. Remember when the Chargers were 3-0, with all of their wins being divisional? Since then: lost three of four, and now they're out of first place, thanks to the New York Giants totally blowing it against the Denver Broncos. A 19-0 lead that saw the Giants dominate Denver for three quarters, only for the Broncos to put up 33 points in the fourth quarter, resulting in a 33-32 victory for Denver! Yikes! Elsewhere, the Packers were in Glendale against a sputtering Cardinals team who was somehow leading the whole way, until they weren't. Defense came through late, Josh Jacobs gave us the lead, Micah Parsons had his first three-sack game, and the Packers won, 27-23. As for Parsons' former team, the Cowboys blasted a Commanders team who had three receivers out, and lost Jayden Daniels for the rest of the game.

SNF and MNF

Sunday Night Football saw the battered San Francisco 49ers win over the Atlanta Falcons to improve to 5-2. Seriously, the Niners are the walking wounded (and have been for years) and the walking dead, yet they're still leading the NFC West. The Monday Night Football doubleheader ended Week 7, and it started with the Detroit Lions and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers facing off in a battle between NFC contenders. The Lions secondary was shorthanded, but they still managed to totally dominated the Bucs by a score of 24-9, while the Bucs would suffer yet another hit in the form of receiver Mike Evans (who just got back) getting injured again, and now he's out for most of the season. Oh man. The doubleheader ended with the Seattle Seahawks facing the Houston Texans in a stadium full of Seahawks fans who were also Mariners fans hoping for a win in Game Seven of the American League Championship Series. The game was messy and crazy, but the Seahawks did win it, 27-19, to keep in pace in the NFC West. Sadly, that win was a consolation, as the Mariners lost Game Seven to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Oh, and as Columbo says, "One more thing":

As a result of the Lions' win over the Bucs, guess who's #1 in the NFC? You read that right! The Green Bay Packers, at 4-1-1, stand as the top team in the entire National Football Conference, lording over five 5-2 teams (one of them being the defending champion Eagles). All I heard was maligning, maligning, maligning. "Jordan Love is inconsistent." "Packers haven't beaten anyone good." Never mind the fact that we beat the Lions in Week 1. "They tied the Cowboys and lost to the Browns." Eagles lost to the Giants and Broncos, but sure, let's pretend having 1.5 losses is actually worse than losing twice. And the Cowboys aren't pushovers; there's talk of Dak Prescott possibly being league MVP this year. Standings don't lie. Packers being #1 in the NFC is no accident. It's just the Packers being that good.

Week 8 will kick off with the Los Angeles Chargers hosting the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday Night Football. On Sunday Night Football, it's the Green Bay Packers facing the Pittsburgh Steelers; Aaron Rodgers facing his longtime former team for the first time. And finally, on Monday Night Football, the Kansas City Chiefs will host the Washington Commanders as part of the yearly Sports Equinox--the one night where all four leagues will play relevant games at the same time.

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