NFL recap, September 24

Yeah, I'm falling behind on these. Maybe it's because the Lions suck. Yeah, the Football Outsiders don't quite agree, saying they're the best 0-3 team in the NFL, but I remain unconvinced.

Random thoughts about commercials before we get to the games:

• The Diet Pepsi commericals weren't funny last season either.
• I don't think most people take "24-7" to mean "on the NFL network," but hey, good luck with that campaign.
• If you still eat at Taco Bell, and you're not a) strapped for cash or b) really drunk, I feel sorry for you.
• Message to Citibank: charging something to someone else's credit card is fraud, which is covered by pretty much every credit card company. Identity theft is opening a new account in someone else's name using information you stole from them. Not that it matters: your card is as bad as your commercials.

Green Bay 31 at Detroit 24: One of the reasons FO likes the Lions is that interception returns are basically random, so the TD hurt the Lions much more on the scoreboard than in DVOA. If you could take that mistake away, the Lions would have had a shot to win this game. However, you can't do that. It seems as though the Lions are going to have another one of those years where people say "They could have been 8-8 if such-and-such."

On a side note, I think we're all aware that this could be Brett Favre's last year, and with that in mind, can we maybe not go to a shot of him after every single play? I know he's still on the field. In fact, when the other team has the ball, I suspect he hasn't moved much from where he was in the last shot.

Or maybe that's it. Dish Network is rolling out the Favre Channel, which will be on 24-7. They'll simply run Packers games.

To be fair, sometimes it's not just Favre. Producers have this fascination with a quarterback's eyes - there are way too many shots of a QB looking left and right that suddenly cut to the middle of a play. Yes, we know the QB looks at the defense prior to the snap.

Other games:
— Was that a J.P. Losman sighting? Does this mean Lee Evans will finally post the type of numbers that people predicting for him when he came out of Wisconsin?
— Maybe the Colts still can't stop the run, but it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually become the oddity, the team that wins a Super Bowl despite having weak rushing defense. Of course, they'll have to be able to throw the ball in the playoffs ...
— I told you so. Any team with Daunte Culpepper and Joey Harrington as QBs is not going to have to work about January flight plans.
— Things are starting to clear up for the Bears: Grossman might be the QB they've needed, Jones is probably the guy they want at RB, and if Berrian can be the complement to Muhammad at WR, Chicago might have an offense to help out their defense for the first time in a while.
— I wonder what Joey Porter had to say about Sunday's game?
— Tim Keown, a Page 2 columnist whom I enjoy reading, had something to say about coaches who keep long hours. Not what I was hoping to read – I've never considered long hours to equal better work, and if a certain jut-jawed coach isn't a good enough example of balancing home life and coaching, I don't know what else you need – but close enough. Hey, Chucky, the other way to raise the results-to-hours ratio is to get better results. Maybe you should work on that. Or maybe this is the Gruden that Raiders fans were hoping to lose ...
— No, the Texans wouldn't be much better with Reggie Bush. They'd be better if they'd been able to trade for multiple picks, but there weren't any takers. Houston needs help at a lot of positions, not just RB (and you can't count Davis; at the time, no one knew he'd be out for the year). Keep the Texans in mind when you listen to people talk about expanding further.
— Steve McNair isn't playing badly enough to cost the Ravens any games ... yet.
— Kurt Warner is playing badly enough to cost the Cardinals games. However, I doubt Leinart is going to make a difference at this point in the season, especially with the way that Dennis Green (mis)handles QBs. I don't see why he doesn't just swap QBs after each play.
— This just in: San Francisco doesn't suck (note to Texans: copy the 49ers' rebuilding plan) and Philadelphia might be really good. Maybe that McNabb guy is all right after all.
— Note to Mike Holmgren: NFL games are still 60 minutes.
— If you think Jake Plummer is the right guy to lead the Broncos, well, I'm not saying there's a better QB available right now, but I'll check back with you in January to see how you feel about him.
— The irony is that the last time the NFL saw offenses that were geared for Michael Vick's talents, not only would they not have let him play QB, they probably wouldn't have let him play, period.

Oh yeah, one more thing. When did ESPN start listing elapsed time of a score, rather than time remaining? How stupid is that? Do they realize the official time is the time remaining?