NFL's Week 12 Recaps: A Titan-Ic Fall!

By Wayne Lin.

New York Jets 34 – Tennessee 13: 

The mighty have fallen. Fell hard, too. Brett Favre and the Jets ran the ball and ran the ball some more doing something to the Titans that they hasn’t been done this season: run for over 150 yards. 

The Jets (8-3) did that and more, burning the ground for 192 yards. Leon Washington continues to prove he’s not just a return man.  He scored two touchdowns and ran for 82 yards on eight carries. Favre had 224 yards passing and two touchdowns, one to Laveranues Coles and one to Thomas Jones. 

The Jets dominated on Time of Possession, keeping the ball for...

Forty minutes. 

They were also 56 percent on third down conversions. The Jets defense stepped up this week limiting Kerry Collins 246 yards passing.

The Jets also gobbled up the Titans running game figuring out Chris Johnson who only rushed for 46 yards. The Titans (10-1) only had the ball for 20 minutes in the game and converted on 30 percent of third downs.  Not a good recipe for winning games. 

Something also uncharacteristic of the Titans is them giving up penalty yardage. They had eight penalties for 60 yards.  A lack of a receiving game caught up to the Titans.  Justin McCareins lead the receivers with only 43 yards.

Houston 16 – Cleveland 6

This game wasn’t much in the way of offense, but with two struggling teams, that’s to be expected.  The Texans (4-7) did have opportunities for more points, but the their wide receivers dropped six passes on the day.  Not to worry. In comes Kevin Walter, who didn’t drop a pass, but had 93 yards receiving and a touchdown. 

Andre Johnson had more yards, but he dropped two passes.  The Texans defense didn’t have a sack, the third game this season they didn’t have one, but did have three interceptions.  Rosenfels had 275 yards passing.  

The Browns were done in by bad defense as they let the Texans convert on four fourth down conversions.  That won’t win you many games.  Browns quarterbacks struggled, and neither Brady Quinn nor Derek Anderson could find a rhythm.  They passed for 145 yards combined and rushing attack was non-existent. 

The Browns (4-7) had 95 yards lead by Jamal Lewis who had 58.  It appears as though the Browns are now in more disarray now that Quinn has an injured finger and Derek Anderson hasn’t regained his 2007 form.  Braylon Edwards had 85 yards receiving, over half of the passing yards.   

Philadelphia 7 – Baltimore 36

This game did not end in a tie, nor did it come close.  Donovan McNabb was benched at half time and Kevin Kolb didn’t do much better. In fact, he did a whole lot worse.  Both quarterbacks threw two interceptions and combined for 120 yards passing. 

The game was close, however, until the fourth quarter when the Ravens unleashed a fury of points.  The Eagles offense totaled 106 yards. Brian Westbrook continues to struggle, running for only 39 yards on the day.  The Eagles are now 5-5-1. The one is for the tie.

LeRon McClain had another good game running for 88 yards and a touchdown.  Despite the lopsided score, the Flacco had 183 yards passing.   It wasn’t until former first round pick, Mark Clayton scored on a 53-yard bomb that lifted Flacco over the 100-yard mark; that happened in the fourth quarter. 

Ed Reed had a 108 yard touchdown off an interception.  In fact, he had two interceptions.  Both teams didn’t do well on third down conversions, averaging 35 percent, but the Ravens found a way to win identifying the weaknesses in the defense late in the game. 

The Ravens find themselves in the thick of the playoff hunt with this pivotal win, while the Eagles probably played themselves out of one.

Minnesota 30 – Jacksonville 12

The Minnesota Vikings took care of the Jacksonville Jaguars on the field and their playoff wishes.  The Vikings didn’t do much passing or running, gaining 226 total yards on the day.  However, they did enough to win convincingly.  Adrian Peterson had 80 yards on the day, but had a late touchdown to seal the game.

David Garrard continues to struggle, but he managed to throw 317 yards and a touchdown. But he had two interceptions.  The running game had the hardest time getting things going and the boo birds were out in force today.  The Jags ran for 35 total yards on the day.  MJD had 113 yards receiving and was the brightest spot for the Jags.  They lost three fumbles, had two interceptions, and let David Garrard get sacked four times.  Del Rio will have a number of things to fix in the draft.  

New England 48 – Miami 28

Not this time. The New England Patriots found an answer for the Miami Dolphins and the Wildcat formation was out of sync as the Patriots drubbed the Dolphins.  Even though Pennington had 341 yards passing and three touchdowns, Matt Cassel had 415 yards passing and three touchdowns.  The difference in the game was the Patriots getting three touchdowns rushing too.  Kevin Faulk, Matt Cassel, and BenJarvis Green-Ellis had a touchdowns on the ground.  I forgot to mention, Randy Moss had all three touchdowns from Cassel.  Tom Who?

There was a bright spot in this game for the Dolphins, however.  Ted Ginn, Jr. has officially taken of his “bust” status.  He caught five passes for 88 yards, all of which were hard-earned.  Greg Camarillo and Ricky Williams had touchdowns on the day, but the running game was shut down.  The Dolphins only managed 62 yards with Ronnie Brown rushing for 37 of those. The Patriots gain a little more ground in the wildcard race. Because of the Jets win earlier in the day, they stay stagnant in the AFC East.

Chicago 27 – St. Louis 3

The Bears came into this game looking for redemption after being embarrassed by Green Bay the week before.  St. Louis was also embarrassed...

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