Thoughts on NFL Thanksgiving Games

-The Broncos are back. Whatever Josh McDaniels did with his team this week (and we may have caught a glimpse of it in the game against the Giants, thanks to the NFL Network mistakenly broadcasting an expletive-filled sideline rant of his), should be captured in a bottle and shopped around the league to struggling teams. (Tom Coughlin could certainly use a few vials...)

Props go to the young head coach for breathing some fire back into his team that looked dead in the water against the Chargers last week. The offense still is a work in progress but McDaniels got both his most dangerous play makers, Brandon Marshall and Knowshon Moreno, plenty of the ball Thursday.

The defense was back to the level it was playing at the start of the season, stuffing the run, swarming the quarterback, and covering in the secondary. Brian Dawkins continues to prove to Philly that he had plenty left in the tank, and after only recording two sacks in the last four game, Elvis Dumervil got to Eli Manning twice and forced a fumble.

It'll be interesting to see which version of the Broncos turns up against the Chiefs and Colts in the next two weeks.

-Charles Woodson is one of the best defensive players in the NFL right now. Woodson is still the only defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy, and today at 33, he is quietly one of the best cornerbacks in the league. He had a huge day at Lambeau against the Cowboys a couple weeks ago, and was possibly even more impressive against Detroit, getting 2 interceptions, defending 4 passes, making 6 tackles, and recovering a fumble. In those games, he held two of game's brightest young receivers, Miles Austin and Calvin Johnson, to a total of 30 yards. Woodson is said to have quite an interest in wine ( I guess all those years in California with Oakland weren't a complete waste of time), and much like a fine wine, he seems to be getting better with age. (oh, what a horrible cliche!)

-Brandon Jacobs looks slow. I haven't wanted to jump on the anti-Jacobs bandwagon simply because I haven't seen him play live that much this year, but after watching him against the Broncos, the man looks awfully slow. Jacobs had 27 yards on 11 rushes (if anyone's keeping track at home, that's a portly 2.5 yards a carry). More worrying than that, he wasn't hitting the hole hard or breaking any tackles. A back of his size isn't going to burn many players with speed, so therefore needs to run hard and wear defenses down by plowing his 6'4, 264 pound frame into them 20 times a game. If anything, it looked like the Broncos defense was wearing him down with stuff after stuff on Sunday.

-Does anyone else see the Miles Austin/ A-Rod resemblance? Or is it just me? Especially when he has his helmet on. It might not be as a solid a look-alike as the classic Kyle Orton/ Dave Grohl one, but there's definitely something there. Might be part of the reason why Austin hasn't really endeared himself to me yet.

-I guess anointing Bruce Gradkowski as the solution to Oakland's woes, after he led them to victory over the Bengals, was a tad premature.