NFL Week 15: My Three Wishes—Browns, Eagles, and Vikings

1. I Wish the Browns Played Like That More Often

I know this is going to sound strange, especially after some of the things I have said about them this year, but after seeing Cleveland grind out a victory over Pittsburgh, you have to wonder why none of that steel and determination has been around for the rest of the season.

Beating the defending champions is never a feat that should go unremarked upon, but when you do so despite your quarterback only completing one-third of his throws, it shows that perhaps your gameplan has been wrong for almost the entire season.

Throw in the continued development of Josh Cribbs as an open-play threat as well as on special teams (an average of over 10 yards per carry on the day) and a defense that sacked Big Ben no fewer than eight times, and suddenly things don’t look so bad in the state of Ohio.

This isn’t a volte-face, before anyone accuses me of that. The NFL is undoubtedly a better league when there is some degree of parity between the sides.

This year has seen too big a disparity between the top and bottom sides for my liking—witness yesterday’s beating up of the Rams by the Titans—and anything that shows one of the weaker sides is becoming more competitive can only be a good thing, no matter how late it is in the season.

2. I Wish I Knew Where Those Eagles Had Come from

Seriously, how can a team be 9-4 without anyone really noticing? Is it because we all got distracted by the "Is Donovan McNabb past it/What will they do with Michael Vick/Why is Kevin Kolb still there?" circus?

After all, this is a side which has twice put 40 points on the Giants this season and whose only real blemish is that they somehow managed to lose to Oakland.

It seems to me that Andy Reid and his team have spent much of the season trying to work out how to utilize all of the shiny new weapons at their disposal.

Having a player such as Vick, with that level of talent but just grateful to be getting any game time at all, has turned out to be a bigger bonus than anyone ever expected.

With only an averagely tough schedule ahead of them for the next three weeks, the team no one was expecting much of could go into the playoffs as the third seed in the NFC.

3. I Wish the Vikings Hadn’t Been So Successful

Because I can’t face another offseason of Brett Favre. I really can’t.