Pick Six: Brady, Palmer and Roethlisberger star and the Dolphins, Rams and Seahawks win

Neil Reynolds is part of the Sunday night NFL coverage and as always, looks back and offers his Pick Six, which means the good, the bad and... the rest!

We were witness to two mouth-watering games in NFL Week 9 on Sunday and I think what we saw from the warmth of the Sky Sports studios was a message being sent out by the Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots.

Arizona were 28-17 winners over the Tony Romo-less Dallas Cowboys, while New England won the big Tom Brady-Peyton Manning match-up by a score of 43-21 over the Denver Broncos. Those games made big headlines over the weekend and were among some of the major talking points that caught my eye...

Brady delivers again

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Five weeks ago, the world was falling in for the New England Patriots, Tom Brady was washed up and sports fans in Boston were wondering why they should bother with the remainder of the 2014 season.

It’s not often we get things right when predicting the NFL because the league has taught us time and again to expect the unexpected. But I did say back then – after New England suffered a heavy loss to Kansas City – that those who were blaming Brady were barking up the wrong tree.

He has simply been majestic since that point and has played with a very productive chip on his shoulder. Brady threw four touchdown strikes on Sunday night and had considerable help from New England’s defence and special teams. The Patriots – who were being written off at the end of September – suddenly look like the best team in the NFL.

Cardinals are for real

The Arizona Cardinals may beg to differ and contest that they are the best team in the NFL. It’s hard to argue with that point considering they are off to their best start since 1974 and improved to 7-1 with a comfortable 28-17 win over Dallas.

Now we should factor in that Dallas were without Tony Romo at quarterback, but this was still a very impressive team win for the Cardinals. The defence held DeMarco Murray under 100 yards rushing for the first time this season and Andre Ellington produced 134 total yards and a touchdown.

But the star of this particular show – for me – was veteran quarterback Carson Palmer. Time and again he delivered on-the-money strikes en route to 249 passing yards and three touchdowns. Perhaps more impressive than those numbers was the fact that Arizona went down 10-0 on the road and then rattled off 28 unanswered points to take control of the contest.

Wild race in the AFC

It is going to be quite the race for the AFC playoff positions in the second half of the season. The way the results unfolded on Sunday left the conference with one seven-win team (New England), two six-win clubs (Pittsburgh and Denver) and a whopping seven teams with five victories (Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Miami and San Diego).

One of the more impressive five-win teams on Sunday was the Miami Dolphins, who romped to a 37-0 thrashing of the San Diego Chargers. That was just a total beat-down and, for now, these teams are heading in opposite directions.

Miami have won three in a row and created three turnovers in a game for the third week in a row. Meanwhile, the Chargers have now lost three in succession and Philip Rivers no longer looks like the world-beater taking the NFL by storm in the season’s first six weeks.

Big Ben strikes again

I picked the Pittsburgh Steelers as my dark horse to watch this season and they are certainly very potent on the offensive side of the ball.

One week after thrashing the AFC South-leading Indianapolis Colts, the Steelers raced to a 43-23 victory over division rivals Baltimore on Sunday night. And in both contests, star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has thrown six touchdown passes.

Big Ben has now tied Tom Brady (in 2007) for the most touchdown passes in a two-game span and certainly appears to have the Steelers on course for a serious run at the playoffs. Which is, of course, where we are used to seeing the Steelers.

Rams pull off the upset

The San Francisco 49ers have to be disappointed with the way they let one slip away at home on Sunday, losing 13-10 to the St Louis Rams.

But rather than focus on the offensive short-comings of Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers, let’s give some real credit to the Rams, who are always tough and always ready for a gut-check fight under head coach Jeff Fisher.

The Rams sacked Kaepernick eight times in the contest and, fittingly, won with defence when Kaepernick fumbled into the end zone on the final play of the game and James Laurinaitis recovered for St. Louis. There is not enough on offense for the Rams to be considered a playoff contender, but they will be a potential banana skin for several other teams before this season is out.

Seahawks survive

The defending Super Bowl champions are 5-3 at the halfway mark of their title defence but let’s not kid ourselves here – this, for whatever reason, is not the same dominant team of a year ago.

Over the past two weeks, Seattle have won. That is the good news. But the reality is that they were given all they could handle by the Carolina Panthers and Oakland Raiders. And those are not NFL superpowers.

Seahawks fans would have been cheering on Sunday as Jermaine Kearse recovered an onside kick inside the two-minute warning. But they would also have been well aware that it should not take a late onside kick recovery to beat the Oakland Raiders.

The Seahawks are going to be very interesting to watch in the second half of the season as we look to see if they can re-discover their swagger of 2013.