Around the NFC North: Week 6

Falcons - 22 :: Bears - 20

If you thought the Vikings-Saints game a week ago was crazy, then you haven't seen anything yet.  The Bears took a 20-19 lead over the Falcons with 11 seconds left when Kyle Orton completed a 17-yard TD pass to Rashied Davis.  With such little time left, you would have thought that Chicago had the game won, but Atlanta wasn't about to give up.

The Bears squibbed the kickoff, giving the Falcons the ball at their own 44-yard line with 6 seconds remaining.  Matt Ryan quickly found Michael Jenkins on the sideline for a gain of 26 yards.  Jenkins made the catch, got two feet inbounds, and quickly was pushed out of bounds with only 1 second left on the clock.  The completion put the Falcons in position to kick a field goal, and that is exactly what Jason Elam did.  Elam hit the game-winner from 48 yards away, capping off an amazing 11 seconds that resulted in a Falcons victory.

Windy City Gridiron's ChiFan13 had this to say after the heart-breaking loss:

Bottom line is that we shouldn’t have been in this game. We didn’t deserve to. Our defense played without emotion, there was absolutely no offensive creativity, and we constantly put ourselves in positions we shouldn’t have.

 

We can question whether or not we should have squib-kicked, why we played such a soft defense the last drive, etc. etc. We can blame the loss on Lovie, Bob, Ron, Ditka, Jesus, injuries, and whoever/whatever else we want to, but WE DID NOT DESERVE TO WIN. We played like crap today, and the score should have been a lot to a little in favor of the Falcons.

Packers - 27 :: Seahawks - 17

Even though Matt Hasselbeck sat out this game due to an injury, the Packers and Seahawks were actually tied at halftime.  It wasn't until the second half that the Packers pulled away and won by a comfortable margin.  Although the final score was only a 10-point difference, the Seahawks scored a touchdown with only a few minutes left to make things a little closer than they really were.

This was Acme Packing Company's reaction following the win:

Finally, QB Aaron Rodgers. His 4th game with a QB rating over 100, second straight game he's done that while struggling with his bad shoulder. The game against Dallas was an average 80 QB passer rating, and his only bad QB rating game was at Tampa when his stats were dragged down by 2 INTs that were completely not his fault. He had a costly fumble against Seattle, but that was his only major miscue. He's still the team MVP.

In Week 7, the Bears host the Vikings in a game where at least a tie for first-place is on the line.  The Packers host the Colts, and if they lose, the winner of the Bears-Vikings game will have sole possession of first-place in the NFC North.