Looking Ahead: Week Eight

This never gets old, does it? Feels like we were just here, friends, watching Ken O.Brien valiantly sacrifice his mortal soul over to the football gods in Warren Moon and Al Del Greco. But like our earth mother, the football world just continues to move forward, not stopping even once for Gary Anderson to clean his cleats. Now we stare at Week 8 in the face, the de facto halfway point of our Tecmo season, with some spicy narratives to play out. Let's take a look, shall we?

May or may not be referring to the speed 'allegedly'
found in the soles of Beebe's Reeboks

The Sunday games won't start easy on us, with Cleveland looking to break out of .500-dom against the AFC West leading Billy Joe Tollivers. Two 5-win teams in the Dolphins and Oilers also lock up in a possible playoff preview of teams with mutant quarterbacks, while the Jets hope to soar to their first win since Week One when they welcome the equally free-falling Colts from Indianapolis. Can Minnesota keep up their winning streak against New England? Projections say "yeah"; Tecmo history says "yeah, right!" Perhaps the premiere match-up, however, will surprisingly involve Cincinnati as they welcome the Bills, now in power-up mode, in a battle that will show the kind of mettle the 4-2 Bengals are made out of. Will they survive and continue breathing down Houston's oily neck, or will Don Beebe turn Riverfront Stadium into his own 'House of Speed'?

Majik is 'over the Moon' with these stats

The late afternoon has the Raiders traveling down the Santa Ana Freeway to battle the Rams. Although the Raiders are 3-4 on the year, it would appear that the Rams need this game more with the beasts in San Francisco waking from an early season hibernation. They'll be cheering on the Lions as Rodney Peete takes on a 27th-ranked 49ers pass defense (although this may be about as threatening as a three-toed sloth crawling up a branch-less tree). The game of import, of course, will be Chicago versus Green Bay in a battle of NFC Central powerhouses. Only one will survive to five wins, and we're boldly predicting the Majik man to turn the Monsters of the Midway into garden gnomes with a wave of his magic Perry Kemp wand.

The Tecmo Monday Night tour makes a stop in the Big Easy when the Buccaneers come sailing into town to pirate another win against the Saints. Tampa Bay has been a surprise of late, reeling in two convincing wins in a row before their bye. The Saints have been surprising in that Hoby Brenner has a Wikipedia page. It's not a star-studded match-up the likes we've seen before (Detroit vs. Indianapolis, Week 4), but it should give both teams a chance to show they belong in the NFL and in one of their sponsored pre-Madden video games. After all, none of the featured games we've had so far have given us a chance to see a former Heisman Trophy winning-quarterback in action.

You can 'Qwiz' Walsh, but you can't 'Testaverde'

Then again, nobody said you had to be a Heisman Trophy winner to post standings...

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AFC

NFC

Byes: Washington Redskins, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys