List of 5

Here's my list of 5 things I'm watching for in Week 3 of this young NFL season. The one thing it won't include is my Redskins offense. I don't think we'll ever find that, but here's the rest...

1. Shady Watch Begins - Here we go again as Brian Westbrook is a question mark going into this game. It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when McCoy gets his chance to show what he can do. But I think this week would be the best to get McCoy in as the primary back to give Westbrook a rest. Seeing as how they play the Chiefs porous defense at home, Shady should have a productive day if he is the No. 1.

2. How will the Champs rebound? - The Steelers lost a heart breaker against the Bears last week, and look to rebound this week. Even though Steelers fans will look at the schedule and say "Ha, the Bengals," this is a potential trap game in Cincinnati. The Bengals looked good against the Packers last week with the Palmer to Johnson (I refuse to call him Ochocinco) and even Cedric Benson looked like a good back. It's a potential dangerous game for the Steelers.

3. Can the 0-2's rebound? - Three teams from last year's playoffs have started off 0-2, Tennessee, Carolina, and Miami. The Titans will have their hands full with the Jets and their Rex Ryan defense. Carolina has a Monday night date with the Cowboys, who are looking to get their 1st win in their new stadium. Miami heads out west to take on San Diego. None of these teams have favorable matchups, and all are in danger of going 0-3.

4. Ribs anyone? - So far, two weeks in the season, two quarterbacks fractured their ribs. Donovan McNabb did it the first week, and still isn't looking good for this week. In Week 2, Matt Hasselbeck fell victim to the injury bug, forcing Seneca Wallace to step in. This isn't good for both teams. Kevin Kolb needs to take care of the football, and Seneca Wallace needs to get the ball to his wideouts. But the big question, who's the next quarterback to go down?

5. Are the 49ers legit? - San Francisco has started the season 2-0, looking like the team to beat in the NFC West (I know it's not saying much, but the division still gets a playoff spot). This is the first test for Mike Singletary's team, and it's a huge challenge. Minnesota has looked solid. They haven't blown anyone completely out of the water, but have been a solid team that just looks very good. The offense behind Adrian Peterson and Brett Farve is getting the job done, while the defense has looked great. It's actually a test for both teams because Minnesota's only played Detroit and Cleveland, but San Fran has more to prove.

Game of the Week - Atlanta at New England
This is a matchup of teams seemingly going in opposite directions. Atlanta is a hot rising team, beginning last year with a playoff birth, great offseason moves, and at 2-0 have basically made the NFC South a two team race (New Orleans). On the other hand, New England, who's had a stranglehold on the AFC East up until last year - which they might have won if Tom Brady doesn't go down. However, with the loss to the New York Jets, they seem to be the team with the target on their back in the AFC East, while New England is slipping down toward mediocrity. More is on the line for New England because no team wants to slip to 1-2. But Atlanta looks at this game as a way to make a statement. However, I don't think New England is done yet, and Brady will bounce back. New England 24-20

Football Recap Week 3

Another week, another win. Since i'm busy as hell now, i'll keep this short and sweet. Stull actually looked like a quarterback, Dion Lewis look great and Baldwin looked like the stud he is supposed to be. Navy's triple option offense was ineffective, partially because Dobbs looked lost most of the game. Between him dropping back towards his left (although he's right handed), and constantly turning the wrong way, he had little time to brace himself before getting hammered by the Pitt defense. This was also nowhere near the Navy team of 2007 that ran all over the Pitt defense. It's beyond strange why we're still not ranked. Penn State has played even worse competition that Pitt has, yet they are ranked in the top 5. If there was an RPI for college football, Penn State's would be in the triple digits where as Pitt would be much higher. I've given Penn State way too much attention for being a mediocre team in a shitty conference, so that's all. Next up, NC State.

Bill Stull has answered his critics

We're all familiar with Bill Stull. We've grown so accustomed to his mediocrity that we, as Panther fans, have grown used to subpar quarterback play.

Apparently Bill Stull disagrees with us.

Don't look now, but through three games he's completed nearly 70% of his passes for five TDs to one INT. Those are nice looking stats, and with Dion "Shady Who?" Lewis in the mix, the Panther offense is looking pretty balanced. With a tough defense on the field, Panther fans have a lot to look forward to every Saturday.

It's still early and the biggest games are yet to come, but until they're here, let's kick back and enjoy watching Stull get the ball downfield to Baldwin and Dickerson. Maybe put away those #12 shirts for another few weeks.

Live Blog Pitt vs. Buffalo Post-game update

When Buffalo pulled to within 13 and had the ball, it got real dicey. Then one Dion Lewis touchdown run later, the stands were empty and Pitt captured a 54-27 win to improve to 2-0 (0-0). The bad news for Pitt was, defensive back Andrew Taglianetti tore his ACL and is lost for the season. Bill Stull seemed to have answered his critics with a four touchdown performance. Dion Lewis racked up another 262 total yards and 2 touchdowns. Pitt's defense got pressure on quarterback Zach Maynard and forced some turnovers, but did manage 422 yards and 4 touchdowns through the air. Buffalo's wide receivers also made Pitt's secondary look pretty bad on several plays, all slants through the middle.

Live Blog Update-Half-time

Pitt has scored on 5 out of 6 possessions and Bill Stull is looking great. Stull found Dorin Dickerson 3 times, and also took a bootleg to the house. Pitt picked up a 4th and 2, setting up one of Dickerson's TD's. Dion Lewis also added the 4th TD of his Freshman season. For supposedly the biggest game in the University of Buffalo's history, there are tons of empty bleachers in what looks like a large High School stadium. For Buffalo, star WR Naaman Roosevelt has two long TD scores to go along with his 161 receiving yards. Buffalo's Quarterback Zach Maynard gets in the most ridiculous crouch to take a snap that i've ever seen. Another update along the way after the game. At half-time, Pitt 34, Buffalo 20.

Pitt vs. Buffalo live blog

We're here in Buffalo, and the parking staff at UB took about 5 seconds to piss me off. What jackasses. We met the Buffalo play by play and color guys, they were pretty cool, we told them to look out for D-lew and then talked about some NFL comparisons, such as LSH, and Mojo. More to come, stay tuned.

What we learned from Week 1

We learned several things week one, first being that maybe now Lagarrette Blount should turn his focus toward Boxing or MMA, since his football career is looking more unlikely. Florida, USC and Texas went to town on their cupcake opponents, while Iowa, Penn State and Ohio State proved why the Big 11 is so over-rated when they each squeaked by in their openers. Oklahoma and their Heisman winner as well as a Darren Evans-less Virginia Tech team proved why they need to stick with opening up against Eastern Oklahoma Christian and James Madison respectively. A few Big East teams that were should be in the mix for the title struggled a bit. West Virginia got a surprisingly tough game from Liberty and Rutgers got pounded by Cincinnati. Notre Dame lived up to their #23 ranking and won easily. One thing that seems very clear this year, is that Syracuse may be the most talked about four win team in NCAA history. Greg Paulus reverted back to his glory days at Duke and threw the ball to the other team with the game on the line. 'Cuse fell to Big 11 middle of the pack team, Minnesota. Keep up the good work Greg, we'll see you in November, you field pounding, flopping bitch.

What did we learn about Pitt? Dion Lewis is for real and he's as good as advertised, if not better. Bill Stull is still a work in progress and stalls our offense at the most inopportune times. Although it was Youngstown St, our defensive line led by Gus Mustakas and Greg Romeus will be our strongest unit. One major problem we encounter was not being able to get the ball to our best weapon, Sophmore WR Johnathan Baldwin, especially with Stull at the helm. However, the first series Tino Sunseri came in, he hit Baldwin with a long, slightly underthrown ball. So can we possibly have Stull in there when we are going to run the ball and throw screen (our entire offense) and then insert Sunseri when were going deep? I guess this remains to be seen, but if this offense is going to be successful, we need to have some semblance of a passing game if Dion Lewis is going to be effective. No one is going to replace Shady, but Lewis had about as good a debut as possible. Next week on the road, against MAC champ Buffalo, a team that gave us a hard time last year, should be a great measuring stick as to where we're at. I think we did not see in week 1 from our Panthers; the wildcat. I was interested to see if we would use either Lewis or Baldwin in the wildcat as we've done the last two years to mask our quarterback problems. The opener may have been the best game to test it out considering it will probably be out easiest game. Hail to Pitt.