Regardless of whether you thought Colts owner Jim Irsay meant well or not with his comments before Peyton Manning’s return to Indianapolis you have to admit that he and the Colts organization did a great job welcoming him back.  Manning is a class act and he isn’t going to get dragged into commenting on Jim Irsay and what he did or didn’t say.  They both handled that Sunday night game with class as far as I’m concerned.  When Brett Favre returned to Green Bay as a Minnesota Viking, he didn’t handle it with class and to an extent neither did the Packers organization.  Nonetheless Favre held a tremendous grudge against them and you could tell the way he handled himself leading up to and after that game. Favre won in his return where Manning lost.  It was rather one-sided in favor of the Colts, but there were moments in the second half where the Broncos could have easily tied if not taken the lead. If it hadn’t been for RB Ronnie Hillman’s fumble near the goal line the Broncos potentially could have been down by only one score. Alas the Colts won and the Broncos lost.  It was one of the few bright spots in a week where there were many bad games.  Be thankful that this was a watchable game and not the Vikings vs. Giants on Monday night.

All eyes were waiting for the Sunday night game, but most didn’t see the 4-2 Cincinnati Bengals and the 4-2 Detroit Lions as a game worth watching and I don’t blame them.  They are the Bengals and the Lions after all.  However, this was a great matchup between two of the games best wide receivers in the Bengals A.J. Green and the Lions Calvin Johnson.  First of all, no one should be able to do what Calvin Johnson did in this game (see above).  Catching a touchdown pass with three defenders around in the end zone.  That does not make sense.  Seeing A.J. Green catch and breakaway for an 82 yard opening drive touchdown shouldn’t happen either. Calvin Johnson would add another touchdown to finish with 9 catches for 155 yards.  A.J. Green finished with 6 catches for 155 yards and the win.  Both teams didn’t turn the ball over and both quarterbacks had great games.  Bengals QB Andy Dalton and Lions QB Matthew Stafford threw for over 350 yards with 3 touchdowns.  This game showed that both teams are capable of making the playoffs and even making some noise.  This also could be a sign of things to come as the Bengals won a big road game while the Lions lost on a late field goal attempt.  Either way this was the game of the week had it not been for the Broncos vs. Colts.

No one except for Jets head coach Rex Ryan thought the Jets would be this close to first place near the half way point of the season.  To the New England Patriots credit they didn’t over estimate the Jets this time around.  They nearly beat the Patriots in Foxboro during the second week of the season.  This was a relatively close game that ended up going to overtime where there were grumblings about a rule that nobody had heard of before. Clearly the Patriots were in violation when one of their players was pushing another player into the line.  The NFL clearly states that you can’t do that.  Of course Patriots head coach Bill Belichick becomes the most vocal person in the room when it happens against him, but the rule is there.  Yes, it’s a new rule, but every team should know about it.  It wasn’t like the Jets marched down and scored a touchdown in overtime, but the penalty gave them an extra 10-15 yards of wiggle room to make the game winning field goal.  Everyone knows about the rule now, but that’s not to say that other teams were doing it before and getting away with it.  We’ll probably never hear about this rule again, but it’s always funny to see these kinds of rules crop up in a game when the New England Patriots are playing.  Most of the time it’s been in their favor.