Blanco bolts to top of progs race

As the cavalcade of competitors rumble toward the halfway point of the National Football League season, a few of the teams have begun to separate from the pack while others continue to drag their fellow footballers into the depths of pugilistic purgatory.

The 7-0 Indianapolis Colts remain the league’s only undefeated team as they stand high atop the AFC South as the second place Jacksonville Jaguars are three games off the pace at 4-3, while the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans languish with the league’s worst with a total of three wins between them.

Big time teams taking big time divisional leads used to be the norm for the NFL, but in the age of parity, others have managed to stay in the hunt despite sporting less than stellar records.

Take the defending champion New England Patriots. At 4-3, their record would only be good enough for second place in the AFC West, but it puts them in front of the 3-4 Miami Dolphins, 3-5 Buffalo Bills, and 2-5 New York Jets in the AFC East. The rocky road they faced in 2005 has been well documented, as has the rise of the perennial bunglers from Cincinnati.

Head coach Marvin Lewis has turned the miserable Bengals from consistent contender for the first overall draft pick to first overall in the AFC North. With quarterback Carson Palmer at the helm, the tiger-striped team has a solid 6-2 record halfway through the season, and leads divisional foes Pittsburgh (5-2), Baltimore (2-5), and Cleveland (2-5) in the race to represent in the playoffs.

The hometown supporters have even come back to the team, and on the second to the last play of Sunday’s home game against the Packers a fan ran onto the field and took the ball right out of Brett Favre’s hands. I don’t condone it, but it was freakin’ hilarious to see the beer-bloated hooligan raise his hands in victory as he ran away from the on field security en route to the end zone.

The rash of success has even turned the local prognosticators into instant bandwagon supporters, as they have gone with Cincy more often than not all season. To make it a little clearer, the local picksters have opted for the Bengals 35 out of 45 times including this weekend’s match up with the Ravens. That looks like a converted bunch of braggarts.

In the AFC West, the Denver Broncos are finally doing what just about everybody thought they were capable of doing as Jake Plummer has them sitting pretty at 6-2. For the first time since the John Elway days, the Broncos look to be taking the season seriously as Plummer has a respectable 12-to-3 touchdown to interception ratio, 1,644 yards passing, and a 91.3 quarterback rating. The “Snake” is putting together his best season to date, and he has to because the Kansas City Chiefs (4-3) and the San Diego “Super” Chargers (4-4) are hot on their tails.

While the Chiefs have gone from looking like champs to chumps from week to week, the Chargers are the best .500 team in the game. With Drew Brees, Antonio Gates, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Keenan McCardell lighting up the scoreboard for a league high 221 points, the most dangerous team is about to roll into New York (well, it’s really New Jersey) to down the Jets in the Meadowlands.

The funny thing about this one is that Tomlinson has three touchdowns on three pass attempts from the backfield while Jets quarterbacks Chad Pennington, Vinny Testaverde, Brooks Bollinger, and Jay Fiedler have failed to throw one in a combined 207 attempts. Granted the quartet of QBs has run three in, but the NFL’s ultimate weapon has them beat with 10 on the ground.

It’s still anybody’s game in the NFC, as just about all of the teams are a game or two out of first place in their respective divisions. The Giants (5-2) hold a slim advantage over the Cowboys (5-3), the Eagles (4-3) and the Redskins (4-3) in the East, while the Falcons, Panthers, and Buccaneers are all tied up at 5-2 atop the South. Only the battered and bruised New Orleans Saints are out of the lead at 2-6, but they have plenty of reasons aside from their play to be where they are.

The same does not apply for the Green Bay Packers. Though cheese heads may blame injuries for their league worst 1-6 record, Brett Favre hasn’t been able to put the same cheddar on the ball, and his decision making process at the end of last week’s game against the Bengals had as many holes in it as a piece of Swiss.

As sad as the situation is, they still have a chance to win the division—no really, they do—as the Chicago Bears are just three game ahead of them in first at 4-3. The Pack hosts the Steelers this weekend while the Bears will go to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to face the Saints, but fellow divisional sad sacks from Minnesota (2-5) will host Detroit (3-4) to make the race interesting of for just one day.

Anything goes in the West as well, but Seattle (5-2) is the only team putting “Ws” on the board consistently. Though they have looked plain bad at times this year, the Seahawks are head and shoulders above the St. Louis Rams and their over inflated 4-4 record, and are worlds ahead of the miserable 2-5 San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals (take that Lil’ Mahi).

John Blanco is looking a little Seahawk-ish himself these days as he pulled ahead of the local pack with an outstanding 11-3 record to take a five game advantage over teammate Will Hunter. At 82-34 overall, Blanco is now the guy to beat, while Hunter was so-so at 8-6 to improve to 77-39. Jon Cramer also hit the 8-6 mark to maintain his grip on third place at 73-43, while the Lil’ Mahi pumped out a 9-5 to stay in fourth at 61-55. It looks like all of the trash talking from Rich Brooks has had the opposite effect as the Psycho Gnome went 6-8 to sink to 57-59 on the season.