Sunday football

Odds and ends...

• When DeSean Jackson (finally) crossed the goal line in the Meadowlands, I turned to my son and said, "I really feel bad for all of those NY fans." But I didn't manage to keep a straight face all the way through it.
• Matt Dodge, Joe Pisarcik. Joe Pisarcik, Matt Dodge.
• Did Coughlin cut Dodge before he made it off the field?
• Of course, the Giants defense gave up three touchdown drives for over 200 yards on 15 plays in about four minutes of time in the fourth quarter.
• For those saying, "I've never seen that before," you're right. That's apparently the first game-ending punt return touchdown in NFL history. Because why would you kick it to a returner instead of out of bounds when a return would lose the game for you and there are under 15 seconds left?
• I don't know if Tim Tebow is going to succeed in the NFL or not. I think he probably will, and I'm rooting for him, but just a little of the Oakland-Denver game gave me some sympathy for the legion of detractors. The coverage is apparently going to be as sycophantic and unrelenting as the coverage which has made many of us so sick of Brett Favre over the years. He played OK, guys, but he made mistakes, his team lost, and it's one freakin' game!
• I'll admit it - I didn't think that there was any way that the Jets would go into Pittsburgh and win. But it doesn't really make me think that the Jets are better, just that the Patriots win in Pittsburgh is less impressive that I thought at the time.
• You can't successfully rush three and cover in the red zone against the Patriots. Someone will come free, and Brady won't miss him.
• That was actually a good outcome for the Patriots last night. They had a moment of clarity which should go a long way in curing any growing delusions of grandeur, and they got it without paying the price they paid in Cleveland for the last one.
• Tom Brady has his name in the record books again, as he's now passed Bernie Kosar for the longest single-season interception-less pass attempt streak. He's certainly thrown several over that stretch that could have been picked, but that's the way the game works - I'd bet that you went through Kosar's streak, the defenders had their hands on some of those, too. Joe Montana is praised for his Super Bowl performances, 4-0 with no picks, but on the comeback vs. the Bengals, he actually hit one of the Cincinnati linebackers in the hands and had it dropped. That's the way the ball bounces.
• Something else that no one had ever seen before yesterday was an offensive lineman return a kick-off for 71 yards. It's a shame that Dan Connolly didn't get those last four yards.
• The Patriots are probably the best team in football. But the kind of defensive performance that they put up last night is going to get them beaten, somewhere down the road.