Unlike the NHL and NBA, the NFL season is relatively short and sharp.  There are just 17 rounds of the regular season before playoffs.

Unlike their basketball and ice hockey counterparts, the heat is well and truly on American footballers to be up for every week.  Take New England for example, this time last week they were amongst the favourites for the competition but after a loss to lowly Cleveland, their spot in the business end of the season is far from secure with tough matches against Pittsburgh and Indianapolis to come.

At the moment Baltimore and the New York Giants are favourites from the American Conference, with Green Bay and the New York Jets setting the pace in the National Conference (similar to the NBA, the NFL is split into two conferences with a contender from each progressing to the Superbowl match).

Key results from Sunday’s matches were the Giants making a mockery of Seattle 41-7 for the Seahawks first defeat at home.  Atlanta seeing off Tampa Bay 27-21, Green Bay smashing Dallas 45-7 as the Packers continue to get their season back on track after a rocky start and the potentially season changing New England defeat at Cleveland 14-34.  Most games went as predicted with only Cleveland’s victory a genuine surprise.

The standout individual performance of the weekend went to 41 year old Brett Favre who threw an amazing 446 yards and single handedly dragged Minnesota over the line against Arizona.  The veteran left Ashton Kutcher more than a little red faced after he offered this commentary mid game only for Favre to turn on a career best effort.

Sadly though the official team (starting from right now) of this blog the Buffalo Bills succumbed to another narrow defeat to remain the only winless American team across the major leagues. But they did push the fancied Chicago Bears all the way and I reckon they are more than a reasonable chance to break their duck next Sunday against Detroit.  Go Bills!

****Please note this was written before the Monday night Pittsburgh Cincinnati match.****

Next week I’ll bring you up to speed on the current season of NHL.  But until then I encourage you to check out the NBL and ABL websites as both basketball and baseball try to force their way back into the Australian summer sports market.

For now though, check out the response of Cleveland Cavalier fans to their former favourite son LeBron James’ recent Nike commercial.  It’s a ripper.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89MtAUkSVLs[/youtube]