With just four games on the 4 o'clock table, three turned out to be amazing, while the fourth turned out to be Denver-Oakland, which was still passable as a competitive event.
There's suddenly a three-way tie for the final playoff spot in the NFC: Minnesota, Arizona, and Detroit are all 6-6. Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, and Carolina all hang at 5-7. The rankings and computers will have a tough time picking one of those four teams to play in the ... wait, wrong league.
Let's get to the games, and if you want to, pretend I'm the online version of Terry Bradshaw, typing the recaps in one long run-on sentence:
• One of the sickest trick plays I've ever seen came in the Browns-Cardinals game on a 2-point conversion, where kick returner Josh Cribbs lined up at tailback, Derek Anderson faked the "walk over to the deaf-ass wideout to explain the play," and the snap went to Cribbs, who faked the draw and tapped into his Kent State quarterbacking skills, lobbing the ball to Kellen Winslow. There were about three spices of fake in there. Simply stunning, and it came off a questionable long touchdown by Braylon Edwards in which he appeared to have been down by contact.
Fat lot of good it did, though, because Arizona was able to stave off the equine nads of Derek Anderson's last-second, 4th-down heave into the end zone, which was caught by Kellen Winslow but was pushed out of bounds and ruled out. (I watched this game out of free will over the Bears-Giants, if you hadn't noticed.) Cardinals 27, Browns 21
• McCown Comma Josh added one more passing score for a total of three on the day, and Justin Fargas made Father Huggy Bear proud with 142 yards and a touchdown of his own. Raiders 34, Broncos 20
• The Luke variety of McCown was equally successful in the Big Easy, overcoming a safety sack and chucking a touchdown with 14 seconds left to wrap up the come-from-behind victory. There must be something in the McCown genes that must... wait, I've just been told that the Eagles have officially signed legal papers changing A.J. Feeley's name to A.J. McCown. Buccaneers 27, Saints 23
• And the Embattled Quarterback Who Somehow Found A Way To Win Award goes to ... [cuts envelope open, blows into it for added effect] Eli Manning!
P.A. Voiceover Lady: "This Is Eli Manning's 12th nomination and 8th win of the season." Giants 21, Bears 16
Okay, enough tomfoolery. Tonight you will get an AFC North showdown between the hottest 4-7 team, the Cincinnati Bengals, and the 8-3 Pittsburgh Steelers, whose stadium's turf finally got the last drops of water out of its ear. In short, it's a "Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" kinda night. See ya next time.