Week 13's nine Sunday games started off a lot like Thanksgiving: With some lopsided scores. Houston, Minnesota, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and the New York Giants all jumped out to huge leads early.
Let's talk a look at what we've learned at halftime of this week's early games:
- Cordarrelle Patterson is no longer even a starter. The Minnesota Vikings started Charles Johnson over him. That's not a great sign.
- The Vikings are having a lot of fun on Sunday, though. They were the first team since 1990 to return two blocked punts for touchdowns in the same game. It's only the fourth time in NFL history it's happened. Carolina is still very much alive in the NFC South race, but they are one of the worst teams in the league.
- The bad Andy Dalton showed up Sunday. He had three interceptions in the first half in Tampa, all of them being wildly ugly.
- Philip Rivers has done a nice job keeping the Chargers competitive in Baltimore. The Ravens have totally dominated the first half at the line of scrimmage, but Rivers has thrown a number of nice passes under duress. Baltimore has stalled three times in the red zone, and lead by six points.
- The Rams are the best 4-7 team we've ever seen. They've beaten Seattle, Denver, and San Francisco. And they have the talent to build a 35-0 first half lead over Oakland. Tre Masonlooks like a future star at running back. Stedman Bailey is over 100 yards receiving.
- No matter the opponent or the location, the Jacksonville Jaguars look like a team headed in reverse. Coach Gus Bradley has to be worried that he can't show any progress on the field.
- We have a big 30 minutes coming up in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati's season. Both AFC North teams need to avoid ugly upset defeats, and trail at halftime.
- Maybe Robert Griffin III wasn't the only thing wrong with Washington's team. They had 19 yards midway through the second quarter in Indianapolis.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast previews the Week 13 games and reacts to the news of RGIII's benching in D.C. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.
