So much for the NFC East asserting its dominance over the rest of the league. In a weekend of firsts, the Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants all fell victim in abysmal games to even worse teams, as two 4-1 squads and one perfect 5-0 team made a mockery of their own supposedly superior division.
Now, after failing to show up in "gimme" games and with their weaknesses exposed, the predicted power shift to the NFC has squeaked to a halt after Week 6, allowing lesser teams to emerge in the cracks of the garbage heap dumped by the NFC East.
Two weeks after throttling the Cowboys in their most impressive win in years, the Redskins were embarrassed by the previously winless St. Louis Rams, 19-17, on a last-second 49-yard field goal by Josh Brown.
In the first five weeks of the season, the Washington offense, led by quarterback Jason Campbell and his coming-of-age story, had committed zero turnovers. But Sunday was a different story: The Redskins coughed the ball up three times, a fact that lead to their demise.
In coach Jim Haslett's first game at the helm, the Rams converted only one of the fumbles into a score, but one particular play gave them the momentum they needed to seal the game in the waning seconds.
With the Redskins in St. Louis' red zone at the end of the first half, a batted Campbell pass dropped into the hands of offensive lineman Pete Kendall, who scurried two yards before having the ball deftly poked out and scooped up by name-of-the-year candidate Oshiomogho Atogwe, who rumbled 75 yards for the score, giving his squad a 10-7 lead heading into the break.
Despite Clinton Portis' third straight 100-yard game and two touchdowns, the offensive line that was so impenetrable against Dallas was helpless against a delayed blitz, which knocked Campbell on his back four times.
With the loss, Washington falls to 4-2, and even though the Redskins have piled up impressive wins over division rivals, the weak Rams have dealt them a severe dose of humility.
Meanwhile, across the division on Sunday, the Cowboys were knocked off their horses, falling to the Arizona Cardinals 30-24 in overtime, the first game in NFL history that ended in a blocked punt returned for a touchdown.
Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald hauled in three ridiculous catches on deftly placed passes from Kurt Warner, leaping over the helpless Cowboy secondary for 79 yards and a score.
The tone for the game was set at the opening kickoff when running back J.J. Arrington, fresh off a four-game stint on the disabled list, busted 93 yards up the left sideline for an Arizona score. It was an uppercut the Cowboys would never recover from.
Like Portis, Dallas running back Marion Barber provided the sole offensive spark for his team, hauling in 11 catches for 128 yards, including a 70-yard scoring jaunt with two minutes left in the fourth quarter. From there, it all went downhill, as quarterback Tony Romo — after 321 yards passing and three touchdowns — broke his pinky, which will postpone his return to the gridiron for at least a month.
After starting the season 3-0, the Cowboys have lost two of their last three games, and with a loaded schedule featuring the upset-minded Rams and the Giants in the next three weeks and no Romo under center, Dallas could soon be deposited to the cellar of the NFC East.
With their division rivals falling on Sunday, the Giants had the opportunity under the national spotlight on Monday night to remain undefeated and move to two games ahead in first place in the NFC East. Instead, New York suffered from its own issues in its first loss of the season, 35-14, in what was a coming-out party for the Cleveland Browns' offense.
Giants quarterback Eli Manning was picked off three times, a complete 180-degree turn from his stellar first four games of the season in which he was intercepted just once. The lone bright spot for the Super Bowl MVP was an 80-yard drive to pull his team within 17-14, capped off by a three-yard scoring pass to Plaxico Burress, fresh off a one-game suspension for a violation of team policy.
Across the sideline, Browns quarterback Derek Anderson, who was in jeopardy of losing his starting position heading into the week, had his most productive game of the year to date, racking up 310 yards through the air and two touchdowns. Receiver Braylon Edwards, one of the biggest busts thus far this season, fed off Anderson's success, hauling in five passes for 154 yards and one score.
The key to this game was simple: Anderson was the better quarterback on the field Monday night, while Manning was marred by mistakes, capped off by an awful throw off his back foot which was intercepted and returned 94 yards for a Cleveland score.
With the NFC East's best crumbling under the pressure of sitting atop the NFL, preseason favorites such as the Indianapolis Colts decided to show up for the first time all year. The Peyton Manning-led squad blasted the league's best defense, blowing out the Baltimore Ravens 31-3.
With the Colts of old back on the scene and winning at home for the first time this season, and the Redskins, Cowboys and Giants all losing to mediocre teams, the curtain was pulled back on the NFC wizards, allowing familiar AFC faces to emerge in the sixth week of the NFL.
