He was eating a turducken after beating the Pittsburgh Steelers at home Thanksgiving and gave a shout out to fantasy football players who had him on their roster after kicking a game winning 61 yard field goal against the Detroit Lions.  That’s how you win the hearts and minds of America.  This guy is pretty damn good.  He was 30-33 last season, his rookie year and is 35-37 so far this season with two games to go.  Baltimore as of right now control their own destiny.  They win their final two games against the New England Patriots and the Cincinnati Bengals they win the AFC North.  Pretty amazing considering how up and down their season has been.  You have to know that if the game is close against any opponent they won’t be afraid to let Justin Tucker kick a big field goal.  The only question for Baltimore is why their offense has become so stagnant this year?  Scoring all of your points by way of your kicker is rare. Your next two opponents aren’t the Detroit Lions.

Pick your poison.  Would you rather have Tony Romo or Matthew Stafford as your quarterback?  Most would probably choose neither. After this past weekend even more would rather take a pass, pardon the pun.  Romo and Stafford are capable and have put up incredible numbers in their careers.  They both have a lot of talent around them and yet their teams under perform.  There are many factors involved, but a big theme has been the decision making. They seem to make poor decisions at critical times in a game.  For example, Romo was throwing the football with a lead late in the game against the Green Bay Packers.  It was a short yardage situation and the Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray had well over 100 yards rushing at the time.  Stafford was under pressure with a lead against Baltimore and decided to throw a side arm pass over the middle where the ratio of Ravens to Lions players was in Baltimore’s advantage.  Result was an interception.  Going forward both of these teams are stuck with their $100 million dollar investments and their isn’t going to be an easy fix.  New head coaches might help, but those bad decisions are killing these teams.  Winning is everything and it isn’t happening on a consistent basis.

I figured that the Patriots would struggle in their first game after losing TE Rob Gronkowski to an ACL tear last week.  They sure didn’t look like they would with a halftime lead against the Miami Dolphins, but Patriots QB Tom Brady was actually outplayed by Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill who had a game winning drive with 1:21 left in the game.  Brady was still his usual self leading the Patriots inside the redzone needing a touchdown.  But it was then that I noticed where they would feel the loss of not having Gronkowski.  His height is hard for any defender to overcome and the Patriots didn’t have that advantage anymore.  Going forward there isn’t any danger of the Patriots missing the playoffs, but they could get knocked out of clinching the second seed and getting a first round bye.  They’ll need that bye and they have another tough task going to Baltimore and finishing the season at home against Buffalo.