By: Taren Vaughan
With several close calls and a handful of notable blowouts, this past weekend’s preseason games kept fans across the nation glued to the TV for hours on end. Let’s rewind back to some of the highlights from the sideline:
With a lot of high hopes for “T-Ocho” and crew, the Cincinnati Bengals were indeed able to pull a win in Friday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Despite the fact that he is up in age now, Terrell Owens managed to put a spark back into the Bengals’ offense. And he remained unstoppable as the Eagles’ defense tried to successfully shut him down. During the first half alone, Owens had three catches for 67 yards. It’s safe to say that when it comes to players like T.O. and Brett Favre, age ain’t nothing but a number.
The Baltimore Ravens were also able to capture a victory by a large margin, defeating the Washington Redskins 23-3. Was this the same Redskins team that blew out the Buffalo Bills just a week ago? Be that as it may, they were up against a totally different group of guys this go around. And the Ravens’ defense knew exactly what to do to limit the Skins to a single field goal. It also didn’t hurt that the Redskins offense was not up to par, with quarterback Donovan McNabb overthrowing the ball several times in attempts to connect with receivers. Injury factors worked against Washington as two starters left the game with knee injuries.
As far as the nail bitters were concerned, there were 4 games that could have gone either way at any given moment. One flip of the channel and you may have missed a game changing play. With only a field goal separating the two, Green Bay won their game against the Seattle Seahawks. The Dallas Cowboys and the St. Louis Rams both took down their opponents by a pair while the Miami Dolphins squeezed past the Jacksonville Jaguars by a point. The Detroit Lions and the Denver Broncos had a close one as well with a final score of 25-20, favoring the Lions. After a string of losing seasons, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers captured a preseason win against the Kansas City Chiefs. However, their win did come with a potential season changing loss as quarterback Josh Freeman now has an unhealthy thumb, which will keep him on the sidelines permanently for the remainder of the Bucs’ preseason games.
Both the Houston Texans and the Chicago Bears have yet to find their spark, with the Texans losing to the New Orleans Saints 38-20 and the Bears falling to the Oakland Raiders 32-17. Although it was a relatively low scoring game, that didn’t mean much to the New York Jets as they beat the Carolina Panthers 9-3. After all, a win is a win right? The Pittsburgh Steelers took advantage of an absent Eli Manning, not to mention the depth when it comes to the team’s quarterback options, defeating the New York Giants 24-17. And to end the weekend of preseason battles, the Minnesota Vikings and the San Francisco 49ers ended it with a bang. Throughout the whole game, the Vikings seemed to be stuck at 3 points. And right at the 2 minute warning in the 4th quarter, Minnesota made the game interesting, scoring a touchdown and an extra point. But there just wasn’t enough time left on the clock for them to make a full comeback, as the 49ers went on to win 15-10.
So many games with so many possible outcomes; this is the beauty of NFL football.
