NFL Week 13

-The last year of this decade is turning out to be a bad one for the two teams that dominated football in the 2000s. Both the Patriots and the Steelers, who have won the Superbowl five times between since 2000, lost on Sunday. New England slipped to 7-5, while the Steelers fell to 6-6.

Things have just been tough for the two titans of the game this season. New England hasn't won a game on the road all season, and Pittsburgh has lost four in a row now, including games to the Chiefs and Raiders.

Injuries have played a part in their slides, (I'm thinking particularly of Troy Polamalu here, who makes the Steelers defense an entirely different unit) but neither team has really wowed anyone all year. Whereas you watch the Saints, the Vikings and the Colts, and they just look so explosive on both sides of the ball.

The season is not over yet, and both the Patriots and Steelers still have a decent shot at the playoffs, but the more I watch them this year, the more it seems to me that they aren't in the top tier of NFL teams anymore.

-Trust the NFC East to keep the waters muddy till the very end. Dallas had won 6 of its last 7, New York had lost 5 of its last 6 and sat two games behind the Cowboys in the divisional race. So of course the Giants go and beat Dallas, thanks to some big plays from Brandon Jacobs (who, of course, has had a horrible year up to this point) and a fantastic punt return touchdown from Domenik Hixon.

Add the Eagles (8-4), who've won three in a row, to the mix, and you've got a very messy division on your hands. The Eagles play the Giants next week, the Giants play the resurgent Redskins the week after that, while the Cowboys will play against Washington and Philadelphia in its final two games.

I'm not sure any of these teams is particularly special this year, but that's irrelevant really, this one is going to go down to the wire, and hopefully give us some entertaining football.

-Has there been a worse field goal miss this season than Sean Suisham sliced chip-shot against the Saints? Sure, the series of misses that cost Steve Hauschka his job in Baltimore were bad, but Suisham missed a kick from only 23 yards out that would have given the Redskins a ten point lead over the Saints with less than two minutes left.

The Redskins had produced a valiant defensive display up to that point, and QB Jason Campbell had played out of his skin all afternoon to put Washington in a winning position. But with the kick that would iced it missed, the Saints drove down the field before Drew Brees found Robert Meachem over the middle for a 53 TD pass.

You can't place all the blame on Suisham (who has been one of the more reliable place kickers in the NFL this year) because he wasn't responsible for the interception Campbell threw right at the end of the fourth quarter, or the Mike Sellers' fumble in OT (still not sure about that one). But still. 23-yards at this level for an improbable win against arguably the best team in the NFL. You gotta hit those.

-It was fun while it lasted, but the Titans run came to an end Sunday. After winning five games in row (after a six game losing streak of course), Tennessee came up against a team that had a little too much for them in Indianapolis, who look entirely incapable of having an off day.

The Colts bottled up Chris Johnson who, even though he picked up over 100 yards on the ground, couldn't break any big plays (his largest run was 11 yards). Vince Young threw for 241, but didn't get it done in the redzone, turning it over twice on downs inside the Colts 15 in the second half.

So is the fairytale season comeback over for the Titans? Well, at 5-7, mathematically it's not. But they'll need to win out to have any chance at the playoffs, and that includes games against the red hot Chargers and the solid Dolphins.

-Michael Vick produces his first big plays of the year in his return to Atlanta. It had to be that way, didn't it? He hadn't been involved in a touchdown since he went to jail. He hadn't thrown a pass of more than 5 yards all season. But Vick changed all that in the Georgia Dome to chants of “We want Vick” from the crowd.

He ran for one touchdown, passed for another, and completed a 43 yard pass to Reggie Brown: everything Vick could have wanted (and that we might have expected) from his return.

-Expect a lot of teams to study the gameplan the Cardinals used in their upset of the Vikings. The Vikings had looked phenomenal the last few games, but Arizona completely shut them down. In fact, they took away all the things that Minnesota has excelled at during their winning stretch.

a) The deep ball. Clips of Brett Favre slinging it deep to open receivers have been all over highlight reels all season long. But the Cardinals didn't let that happen. Favre's longest completion until fourth quarter garbage time was 21 yards pass in the 2nd quarter. They made him throw short stuff, and picked off two of those throws.

b) Running the ball. Adrian Peterson: 19 yards on 13 carries (I assure you, there are no typos there.) Not much more to be said really.

c) The pass rush. Jared Allen and the ability of the lime to pressure the passer is what makes the Vikings defense special. They didn't get a single sack of Kurt Warner, who coolly completed 68% of his passes.

Suddenly the Vikings don't look so invulnerable...and everyone in the NFC knows it.