I feel like we as a country needed this week to happen, you know?  To fall back into the comforting routine of Roger Goodell's catching heat for his complete, almost sociopathic lack of regard for the health or happiness of women.  I'm not saying he's secretly a sci-fi version of Donald Trump who's discovered a serum that will make him younger for about a day or so at a time, I'm just asking if we've ever seen them in the same room.  We needed a Sunday where we could watch as Cleveland trotted out another quarterback this week. (You know when you were a kid, and you ruined a toy so you begged for another one, promptly broke that one, and your parents were like "not happening?"  Has anyone considered doing that to Cleveland?)  And we could find comfort in the fact that at least one game was drowned in an ocean of penalty flags.

Having a nice, sane, routine week of NFL football is just what we needed as things outside football have ramped up their craziness.  It's nice to be able to count on something being the same when you get home. Let's get started.

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It's Monday Morning... What Just Happened

The Stars:

• The Giants' defense - At some point the NFL looked at the schedule and said "Hey, why don't we send Case Keenum on a plane flight that's so long and goes through so many time zones that he forgets what year it is, have him play football immediately after that, and air it at 6:30 am in the city he plays for?  What could possibly go wrong?"  The Giants' defense looked up and answered, "pretty much exactly this."
• Philip Rivers - Rivers deserves better than this.  All he's done is embrace the city of San Diego, single-handedly keep its preschools in business and throw touchdowns to dudes who were presumably just walking around Coronado when the scouting department was like "YOU LOOK FAST COME BE OUR WIDE RECEIVER."  It is mind-blowing what Philip Rivers has been able to do with the receivers he ends up with after all his presumed starters have their sternums shattered or their appendixes atomized or their duodenums dislocated or what the hell ever.  Seriously, he took Tyrell Williams and Dontrelle Inman and made 200 receiving yards out of that.  He should probably get a statue.  Surrounded by 25 small, child-sized statues, as he would no doubt want it to be.
• Matthew Stafford - In the fifteen games Stafford has played since Jim Bob Cooter has taken over as offensive coordinator, he has thrown for over 4000 passing yards, 34 touchdowns and only 8 interceptions, all the while gibbering incoherently about the glories of Cthulhu.  I could write that little lie about Stafford being a cultist of a Lovecraftian horror because nobody continues reading sentences after the name "Jim Bob Cooter" is dropped.  They either stop what they're doing and laugh, or stop what they're doing to devote all their energy to not laughing. Stafford is playing pretty well though.  Should pop up in the MVP conversation if the Lions contend for the playoffs.
• Jay Ajayi - Ajayi rushed for 200+ yards for the second week in a row as the Dolphins held on to beat the Bills at home.  Ajayi put up 214 yards on 28 carries and scored a touchdown as the Dolphins dispatched the Bills in a vital divisional conte- yeah I tried but no one cares who comes in second in the AFC East, right?
• Andrew Luck - Luck put up 353 passing yards and 3 touchdowns as the Colts beat the Titans to avoid being relegated to the bottom of the AFC South, a position which gets you a thousand "COULD ALABAMA BEAT ________" questions.  As it stands now, the Colts find themselves in second place in the woebegone division, which is still sad, just not Jaguars-level sad.  Sadly, the Colts have probably topped out at second place, since they have had to pay Luck like a franchise QB, and GM Ryan Grigson is now completely incapable of signing talent to upgrade the roster.  Colts fans have not noticed a difference.

The Duds:

• The Cleveland Browns' QB Position - Seven games into the season, the Cleveland Browns have now played six quarterbacks.  Six!  And while I know that Cleveland is where quarterbacks go to die, that's meant to be the metaphorical death of their careers, not their actual physical deaths. By Week 9, they'll end up on like their tenth quarterback, and Brett Favre will be like "I'll do it for you guys," and then he'll be decapitated against Dallas. If you live in the greater Cleveland area and you see a man in a brown and orange jacket come up to you and ask "how would you like to be the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns?" run away and never look back.
• The 49ers, and by virtue of Facebook posts during 49ers games, all of us - At least it wasn't quite as bad as drunk people screaming "TACKLE THE MUSLIM" at the effigy of a man who is not, in fact, a Muslim, and $10 Kaep-in-a-sniper's-scope shirts, but hoo boy.  Remember when ESPN was like "what if we made you link to your Facebook page because if people can't post anonymously, maybe they won't scream barely literate bile at one another?" and everyone looked at their newly linked Facebook page and proceeded to scream barely literate bile at one another?  Take a bunch of people who are extremely passionate about both sides of a hot-button issue, get them nice and NFL-drunk and the post-game summary page of any 49ers game this season ends up being the place where language goes to die.  Just avoid Niners games this season.  I mean, you should do that anyway since Niners games are the places where football goes to die, but still.
• Chandler Catanzaro and Steven Hauschka - Either kicker could have put us out of our misery by nailing a field goal shorter than 30 yards, but both kickers improbably missed "chip shot" kicks of 24 and 27 yards, respectively, and the nation was subjected to a four-hour-long football game which ended in a 6-6 tie.  Watching the Seahawks play the Cardinals last night was like watching Sting have sex - it took way too long, things were tied which shouldn't be and in the end absolutely nobody was satisfied.

And now that you all have the mental image of Sting in Dune wearing a metal man-thong, I'm out.  Enjoy that, I guess.