Top 5 NFL Observations from Week 11

I may or may not have been in my own little piece of heaven for just a moment on Sunday.

Lets get started.

1. Raise your hand if, before the NFL season began, you had the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals with the same record after 10 games.  My goodness.  And who does this say more about?  Yes, Colin Kaepernick hasn’t been the same quarterback as he was last year (that’s a whole other conversation).  But, Bruce Arians brought with him a serviceable quarterback and, all of the sudden, the Cardinals are in the playoff mix.  Is that all it took?  A new coach and a new, aging quarterback?

2. I will forever wonder how coaches that are so smart at the game of football and have forgotten more football than I’ll ever know are so amazingly bad at clock management.  Another example: the Bears, up by a field goal against the Ravens, allow the Ravens to get inside the Chicago 20-yard line.  That’s not good, obviously.  The Ravens have a chance to take the lead with a touchdown or tie with a field goal.  The one finite thing that the Ravens have remaining at that point is plays.  So, at that point, if I’m Bears coach Marc Trestman, I’m going to start using my timeouts (the Bears had three remaining).  I’m going to assume the Ravens score.  I want more time to try to win the game in regulation.  Instead, he lets the clock run all the way down.  The Ravens kick their field goal, and we’re headed to overtime instead of the Bears getting a real chance to win the game in regulation first.  Fortunately, the Bears won in overtime, so the point is moot.  But, we see examples of this all of the time in football, where coaches have no real idea of what they’re doing regarding the expenditure of their timeouts in a close game.

3. One cheek = two feet.  Thanks Anthony Fasano.

Think that's a touchdown. Fasano's butt fell in-bounds, but who knows the NFL's "touchdown catch" rules anymore?

— MileHighReport (@MileHighReport) November 18, 2013

4. If it were me at that Bears-Ravens game, I would absolutely be the last guy to adhere to instructions to head to the concourse because of sever weather conditions.

Why?  This.

5. I know most of you want to point at the four-game winning streak of the now-four-and-six New York Giants and proclaim “here they come.”  Let’s tap the brakes for just a second.  Here is the only reason you need… these are the four quarterbacks they’ve beaten along the way:
– Josh Freeman (MIN)
– Matt Barkley & Michael Vick (PHI)
– Terrelle Pryor (OAK)
– The almighty Scott Tolzien (GB) making his first NFL start

Don’t you wish your team received that kind of fortune?

[Photo credit: Getty]