Preseason Week 2 Wrap-Up

There were no big surprises in the second week of pre-season, though certainly some players that wished they didn’t play. A number of injuries to key players and the rest of the wrap-up below.

– Roethlisberger was pretty good, going 9/11, with 142 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT. Trent Edwards was better, going 9/11, 104 yards and 2 TDs. If Buffalo wasn’t in the AFC East, they might have the right combination for a post-season appearance. Defenses, special teams were unremarkable… BUFFALO 24, PITTSBURGH 21…

– It is just the pre-season but McNabb was positively awful in Thursday’s game, going 11/24 for 98 yards. Just how bad was it? Matt Moore outperformed him. The good news is that Philadelphia’s second team isn’t bad, so if they got on the field with Carolina’s first team all season, they’ll go undefeated. I’d watch for Lito Sheppard to play himself into a trade… PHILADELPHIA 24, CAROLINA 13…

– I thought the Oakland-Tennessee game would be rather interesting to watch. I was modestly impressed with JaMarcus Russell, but otherwise Oakland has some big holes to fill. Their defense isn’t quite good enough to bail them out. Aaron Elling is creeping up the list of sleepers for best NFL kickers… TENNESSEE 17, OAKLAND 16…

– The football punditrysphere was simply aglow with Brett Favre’s performance against Washington, but I don’t get it. He threw six passes, five of which he completed and only one or two that required any effort. The big story is Jason Campbell, who does not look sharp at all for Washington. A pretty unremarkable game overall, though… WASHINGTON 13, NEW YORK 10…

– Minnesota should be a good team this year. Thankfully for them, they don’t play the Giants until the last game of the season. Tavaris Jackson got nicked up, a “sprained knee”, which means he’ll be shut down for pre-season. I’d be worried they’re headed for an 0-2 start… MINNESOTA 23, BALTIMORE 15…

– Ricky Williams showed some flare, some speed, maybe the Dolphins running game won’t be dead this year. If Chad Henne can play in the regular season as he did on Saturday (17/26, 133 yards), Pennington might have come to Miami to sit on the bench. Jacksonville took their first team out two minutes into the second quarter… MIAMI 19, JACKSONVILLE 14…

– Manning didn’t play, neither did most of the top-flight receivers. Atlanta needed to use this game to solve their quarterback puzzle, and did nothing but confuse it — all of the four that went in, with the exception of Harrington, threw INTs. I don’t see how they get out of the basement this season… INDIANAPOLIS 16, ATLANTA 9…

– Here’s the question for New Orleans: Can their defense keep them in ballgames? If you go by Saturday’s game, probably not. They have the tools they need, but they definitely need to execute better. Brees was sterling and Schaub is fighting hard for Houston’s QB job. And, who in the hell is Kevin Walter?… HOUSTON 31, NEW ORLEANS 27…

– Admittely, I did not see any of this game, but who cares. Neither Arizona nor Kansas City are going anywhere, they will be fodder for playoff teams looking to bolster their post-season chances… ARIZONA 27, KANSAS CITY 17…

– If all of San Diego’s starters get hurt, they won’t make the playoffs. That is the only thing we can discern from Saturday’s game. Oh, and St. Louis is going to suck this year also… ST. LOUIS 7, SAN DIEGO 6…

– Kyle Orton is Chicago’s starting quarterback, because that plan has never failed before. Ever. I can’t think of a franchise that is being anymore poorly managed.. OK, I can, but this one is pretty poorly managed. Keep in mind, Bears fans, Chicago had 14th pick in the draft and did not select a QB. The only other news is for Seattle: Brandon Coutu, 7th round draft pick, knows how to kick a ball… SEATTLE 29, CHICAGO 26…

– It certainly wasn’t pretty in Green Bay, but I expect the Packers to be better than this. It’s a new system with a new quarterback, it is gonna take a couple of pre-season games to get used to it… SAN FRANCISCO 24, GREEN BAY 6…

– This game wasn’t even worth watching. Dallas’s first team came out in the first quarter… DENVER 23, DALLAS 13…

– Kitna took a lot of flak during the season and immediately afterward for being a little too cocky about his team’s playoff chances. He said they’d go 10-6. They went 6-10. Well, he was almost right. The first teams came out, played about 10 snaps, they went to go watch re-runs of Home Improvement. On the plus side, for Cincinnati, ESPN reports that they are close to signing Chris Henry… DETROIT 27, CINCINNATI 10…

– No point in recapping this game, other than to say that the Patriots probably won’t make the post-season if anything happens to Brady. By the way, he has a new ankle injury… That will keep him out for the rest of the pre-season… It’s on the same ankle as the one he hurt before the Super Bowl loss. As long as nothing happens to Brady… TAMPA BAY 27, NEW ENGLAND 10..

– The final statistics hide some bad things for both the Giants and the Browns. For the Browns, they looked absolutely horrible. Horrible. To give you some perspective, the Browns, at the end of the first quarter, took a kickoff 90 yards. Next play, boom, 7 yard gain. Looks like they are going in. Next play, something happens on the hand-off between Anderson and Lewis, the ball drops to the ground and bounces right into the hands of James Butler. The Giants definitely have some issues on defense, more specifically the depth. You noticed the difference even when they took out just one or two starters, the whole shebang fell apart… NEW YORK 37, CLEVELAND 34…

STAT OF THE WEEK: There were 41 fumbles in 16 games over the weekend, a record for NFL pre-season play; only Denver and Dallas held onto the ball…

Scott Harris is also the Managing Editor of AllFourQuarters.com, a NFL statistics and analysis blog.