Tuesday Morning Clean Up

With Week One of the NFL season out of the way, it's time for me to uncluttered my little monkey brain with a few observations...

-Do the Panthers know that there aren't two bye weeks in the season? Once again the Panthers have a team that begins the season with a lot of talk about their potential, but fail to actually begin the season with a win. Last year it was a home loss to the New Orleans Saints, this season, the Panthers drop their home opener to the Atlanta Falcons. There are 15 more games on the season, but watching the Falcons(now with intestinal fortitude) whip the Panthers in the trenches was not the way that Carolina fans intended on spending their first Sunday of the season. Some fans might say that it was the loss of Steve Smith before the opener that led to the loss. What was it that WR Keyshawn Johnson said? "Steve Smith out; Panthers doomed"? Unless Steve Smith was going to block Falcons' new DE John Abraham, then I don't think that was the biggest factor in the loss. After Wharton left the game in his knee injury, the Panthers moved left guard Mike Whale to tackle to block for QB Jake Delhomme. Result? Abraham picked up a 12-yard sack. Next contestant...Jordan Gross. Survey says? Abraham with another sack. I don't think Steve Smith would have seen many passes unless Delhomme was going to chuck the ball through John Abraham's #55. And by the way, Smith wouldn't have helped the Panthers' run defense, which gave up 252 yards to the Falcons(Warrick Dunn registered 132 yards). Considering the Bucs were shut out by Baltimore and the way that Atlanta manhandled Carolina on both sides of the ball...are the Falcons the best team in the NFC South? It's early, but the Falcons looked like a completely different football team from last season.

-Speaking of an inability to block the pass rush, the Panthers lost left tackle Travelle Wharton for the season on Sunday with a torn ACL and MCL. Wharton isn't an incredible talent on the line, but he is a generally solid player and there isn't a lot of depth for the Panthers on their offensive line. Jordan Gross, who played the position in 2004, will move over from right tackle and the Panthers will have to find some help off the scrap heap to fill the roster spot.

-Next patient, please...Also getting hurt and missing most of the game on Sunday was the oft-injured LB Dan Morgan. Morgan suffered the fourth concussion of his career when he went out during the second quarter. He will be out of the Panthers line up until further notice. Morgan was also hit hard in the head against Jacksonville, during the Panthers second preseason game. He was held out of contract drills for the rest of the preseason practices, but that was never officially called a concussion. It's scary stuff and even if the Panthers defense isn't as good with Morgan on the sidelines, head trauma isn't something to be fooled around with.

-The Philip Rivers Era begins...thanks to a massive amount of coffee and some well placed toothpicks under the ole eyelids, I was able to stay up for the Chargers/Raiders game on Monday night to see former NC State QB Philip Rivers make his first NFL start. I was rewarded with some scintillating handoffs to RB LaDanian Tomlinson. I'm not saying that was a bad idea since Tomlinson did rack up 131 yards with one TD and he topped 100 yards in the second quarter. The Chargers ran the ball 48 of 59 plays, and Rivers finished 8-for-11 with 108 yards and a touchdown. Maybe next week the Rivers Era will be allowed to begin...

-At least I got to see one former ACC player display his football awesome-ness on Monday Night. Former Maryland DE Shawne Merriman wrecked Oakland's offensive line and sacked QB Aaron Brooks three times. There's no point in asking Brooks about the way Merriman played, it's tough to distinguish those three sacks when your offensive line allows you to be sacked a total of nine times. "Nine times? Niiiiine times." Ed Rooney might have actually been an upgrade over anyone the Raiders had out there against San Diego. Head Coach Art Shell confessed to pulling Brooks out with nine minutes to play for his own safety.

-It's official. I'm Manning-ed out after week one. The Manning Bowl was a fun start to the new Sunday Night Football schedule, but between the talk about Peyton vs Eli, the crowd shots of Mom, Dad and the non-pro football playing Manning brother, Cooper, and the run of the Manning Family in their own commercial....Manning Manning Manning Manning Manning. I'm sure they're nice people, but the NFL cannot schedule this game again for at least a couple of seasons.

-Remember the talk about how the NFC East was "back"? The Beast of the East went 1-3 in the opening week of the NFL season. Dallas gave up a 10-0 lead to lose in Jacksonville. New York lost at home to Indy. Washington dropped their home opener to Minnesota. The only winner in the division in Week One was Philadelphia at Houston. Donovan McNabb looked like, well...the real Donovan McNabb again. 24-for-35 on 314 yards passing and three touchdowns. I wonder if TO will send him a note of congratulations?

-Arizona beat San Francisco 34-27. It's nice to see that the sellout crowd at the brand new Cardinals Stadium got their monies worth.

-Denver QB Jake Plummer threw three interceptions in the Broncos loss at St Louis. Does anyone think that rookie QB Jay Cutler won't make his first career start this season?

-I'm not going to talk about the idea that someone in Green Bay should talk to Brett Farve and convince him to retire ASAP. Farve was pretty bad in the first shutout of his 233-game career, but it's one game into the season and the other option is Aaron Rodgers. Get serious. The Packers and Farve will likely be done after this season, but Green Bay already made it's decision when they waited all offseason to see if Farve would retire or play another season. They're going to finish the season with Farve, for better or for worse. Probably more of the latter than the former...

-We're going to close out the blog with what is going to be a recurring feature in The Huddle, the unwarranted, unrealistic and completely unbiased Top Five and Bottom Five of the NFL(patent pending)

Top Five
1-Pittsburgh
2-Cincinnati
3-Indy
4-Atlanta
5-Philly

Bottom Five
5-Buffalo
4-Tennessee
3-Cleveland
2-Green Bay
1-Oakland

Chris Clark