Favre had his best game of the year back in Week 4 against the Cardinals. Naturally, that great performance came against one of the league's worst pass defenses.

 

On that sunny September day, Old Yeller completed 24 of 34 passes (70.6%) for 289 yards and a career-high 6 TDs, with just 1 INT, and a passer rating of 123.7.

 

It looked like nothing but blue skies, lollipops and popsicles for the rest of the year in New York.

 

Remove that one game against Arizona from his slate this year, and Favre has been pretty bad.

 

In his other 14 games this season, he's completed 299 of 448 (66.7%) for 2,950 yards, 15 TDs, 18 INTs and a 79.6 passer rating.

 

It's pretty much the worse season of his career by every statistical measure (except for completion percentage) and makes you wonder what's become of all those Jets No. 4 jerseys that were such a hot commodity back in August.

 

We're guessing they're a pretty popular item on the New York re-gifting circuit this Christmas.

 

Two weeks after Carolina running backs Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams combined for 301 yards on the ground in a definitive 38-23 win over Tampa, the Giants turned the tables on the Panthers.

 

In fact, Derrick Ward and Brandon Jacobs did Stewart and Williams one better, combining for 302 yards in a statement victory over Carolina that secured the NFC's No. 1 seed for the Giants.

 

Ward led the way with a stunning 215 yards on 15 carries – an awesome 14.3 YPA – while Jacobs scored three times, including a pounding 2-yard plunge for the game-winning score in OT.

 

The Giants, Panthers and Falcons have all clinched playoff spots and all are among the best running teams in football this year.

 

Since we started looking at Passing Yards Per Attempt as a Quality Stat, it has been the single most reliable indicator of success – even more reliable than wins and losses themselves.

 

This year, it's not been so hot: the Saints have led the league in Passing Yards Per Attempt wire to wire, but were already eliminated from the playoffs entering Week 16 and, despite the 8-7 record, have been one of the most disappointing teams in football this year. The Chargers and Texans have also been among the best passing YPA teams in football throughout the season, yet neither will finish better than 8-8.

 

Bills back-up RB Fred Jackson, a second-year player out of mighty Coe College and an indoor football alum, replaced the injured Marshawn Lynch, and had a career performance in Buffalo's 30-23 win over the Broncos.

 

He provided the game-winning points with a 8-yard TD run, while his career-high 65-yard reception set up another Buffalo score.

 

The last we heard from Freddie Jackson before Sunday, he had the big slow-dance hit at the Chief Troll's sophomore homecoming back in 1985 – the first and last time he enjoyed the touch of a woman. The song is stuck in his head today like a rusty old piece of shrapnel from the war. And now you must all pay by clicking play.

 

 

 

Matt Cassel and Seneca Wallace combined for four starts in eight NFL seasons entering the 2008 campaign.

 

This week, they overcame the elements to lead the Patriots and Seahawks, respectively, to snowy victories.

 

Cassel played as if it were a sunny day back in Southern California instead of frigid snowbound day in New England, producing another big-money-earning-in-the-off-season performance as the Patriots laid waste to the Cardinals, 47-7.

 

Cassel completed 20 of 36 passes (55.6%) for 345 yards, 9.6 YPA, 3 TD, 0 INT and a 116.1 passer rating – his second highest rating of the season. The Patriots scored on nine of their first 10 possessions and held a 44-0 lead through three quarters before calling off the dogs in the fourth.

 

Cassel has now topped 100 in the passer rating department in four of his last six games and has thrown 14 TDs to just 4 INTS in those six contests.

 

Wallace, meanwhile, had started just four games in his previous five NFL seasons before this year. But in a very, very rare snowy day in Seattle, he was workmanlike in his efficiency, completing 18 of 25 passes for 175 yards, 1 TD and a 104.6 passer rating as the Seahawks surprised the Jets, 13-3.

 

Along the way, Wallace improved his league-leading TD-INT ratio to 9 to 1, and has now gone more than six games – a streak of more than 170 attempts – without throwing a single INT.

 

Cardinals QB Kurt Warner and Jets QB Brett Favre are two of the oldest players in the league and have appeared in four Super Bowls and won five league MVP awards between the two of them.

 

But in snowy conditions Sunday, they ranged from bad (Favre) to pathetic (Warner).

 

In what was all but a must-win game against a lousy Seattle team, Favre's Jets mustered just three points. Favre threw two more INTs to boost his (again) league-leading total to 19 picks for the season.

 

He's been awful over the last four weeks, as the Jets have sputtered over the finish line with a 1-3 record, letting opportunity to run away with the AFC East slip through their fingers. He's thrown more INTs than TDs in all four of those games, and on his best day produced a 61.4 passer rating.

 

Warner, meanwhile, proved completely incapable of handling the elements, completing just 6 of 18 passes for 30 yards, despite facing one of the worst pass defenses in football.

 

The division went 3-1 this week, with only the Jets loss to the Seahawks spoiling a perfect week, while a three-way race for the division title will go right down to the Week 17 wire.

 

The Patriots laid waste to the playoff-bound Cardinals, the Bills shocked a Denver team that could have wrapped up a playoff spot, but must now play for all the marbles in Week 17, while the Dolphins outlasted the Chiefs to take one step closer to completing perhaps the greatest single-season turnaround in NFL history.

 

The Black & Blow Division will continue to live down to its nickname this year. 

 

The Lions remain the league's biggest laughingstock – the first team in history to go 0-15 after a 42-7 thrashing at home to a mediocre New Orleans club.

 

Minnesota had a chance to wrap up the division Sunday but lost at home to Atlanta, 24-17. The Vikings can back into the playoffs, though, with a victory Monday night by the disappointing Packers over the middling Bears.

 

In terms of competition vs. Quality Teams, the NFC North is nearly as bad as  the NFC West: the Black & Blow Division is a brutal 11-28 against teams with winning records, and no member of the group is above .500.

 

The Titans and Giants had easily been the league's best teams before falling upon hard times – relatively speaking – in recent weeks.

But when each needed to make a statement against red-hot teams that could have wrested away the No. 1 seed in their respective conferences, each came through in a big way.

 

The Titans pasted the Steelers, 31-14, to secure home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs, while the Giants pulled out a dramatic 34-28 overtime victory against the Panthers to grab home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs.

 

Call it the curse of the Cold, Hard Football Facts, which seems to have been in rare form this season: every streak or potential record we write about this year turns to dust.

 

Last week we reported that the Steelers defense was so good that it matched up favorably against the best of the Steel Curtain. The Steelers defense responded with its worst performance of the year, surrendering a season-high 31 points to the Titans, while losing for the first time since November 9.

 

Also last week, we placed Carolina atop our Power Rankings for the first time, thanks in large part to its dominant ground game. The Panthers responded by getting dominated on the ground in their loss to the Giants (301 rushing yards).

 

Lewis has been widely criticized by the Cold, Hard Football Facts. Once hailed by many as the savior off the Bengals franchise, he's proven no better than the rest of the pack who have led the franchise (rather poorly) since Paul Brown last roamed the sidelines. 

 

But give him credit for this: his team hasn't quit on him.

 

At one point, the Bengals were 0-8 and poised to become the worst team in franchise history. But they're a respectable 3-3-1 over their last seven, and have won two straight. The losses, meanwhile, came against three of the best teams in the AFC: Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Indy.

 

It's not enough to save Lewis's job: Cincy is still 3-11-1 and the coach deserves to go after a failed head coaching stint that produced just one winning season and zero playoff victories in six years.

 

But there's something to be said for a guy who can keep his team together after such an awful start, and it might earn Lewis some looks elsewhere around the league – maybe not as head coach, but probably as a defensive coordinator, the position at which he excelled in Baltimore.

 

The Cleveland defense has been respectable this year. But the Browns have now gone a shocking five straight games without scoring a touchdown, all losses, and have put a total of just 31 points on the board in those five games (6.2 PPG).

 

That spells bye-bye for any coach. And that spells bye-bye for this week's NFL winners and losers.

 

But hey, we'll always have the memories of Freddie Jackson dancing in our minds.