In the AFC West, we have seen some excitement this year, as three of the quarterbacks have great backstories, as they say. Matt Cassel, who was stellar last year with the Patriots has joined the Kansas City Chiefs in an effort to get the team back into contention. Without the kind of pass protection and star receivers that he had in New England, he has struggled mightily in getting himself up to the level they had hoped for. But at the same time, he’s young and he still has much development left. The big surprise amongst the quarterbacks has been Kyle Orton. He ended up in Denver during the Jay Cutler conflagration and it has turned out fantastically for Denver. Coach McDaniels and Orton seem to work very well together and they haven’t lost a game yet. These are only a couple of the big stories in the AFC West, but it will be an exciting year for everyone in that division.

When the Minnesota Vikings took the field yesterday, they knew that this would probably be the most difficult game for them so far. While the Packers and some of these other teams are very talented, the Steelers are one of the most difficult teams. In the last few weeks, the Steelers have looked more like an offensive powerhouse than usual. So this game was being put forward as a battle of the offenses, with Favre vs Roethlisberger. But instead, it became one a huge game with two tough defenses going at it. The Vikings aren’t really known for being a defensive team and they almost got the Steelers on their heels. But the Steeler defense came back into giving the kind of performance that people always expect from this team. They got several turnovers during the game and made Favre look somewhat more human than he has for the last few weeks. Keep in mind, the Vikings are still sitting well with just one loss on the season so far.

As we recently reported, Michael Crabtree has finally signed his contract with the San Francisco 49ers and it’s going to be a big deal if he’s as good as he used to be. Crabtree was one of the best receivers in college and thought that he should be paid as much as any other receiver in the league. There are rules about these things and they ended up just following the rules about the payment that were required. But in the meantime, apparently he’s been studying his playbook, so coach Singletary says that they will probably be able to start him on Sunday. This is a bit of a surprise, but in light of his comments that he’s doing things in the interests of the team and the team wants to win, it makes much more sense.

The Denver Broncos are still perfect. The San Diego Chargers were unable to do anything to stop them last night in Monday Night Football. Nor were the Patriots before that. Or anyone so far. It’s going to be a big year for Denver, it would seem and there are a lot of possibilities that will bring the team up to a level that they haven’t seen in Mile High in a long time. On the other hand, it might turn out that these guys are just unable to hold out through the entire NFL season. Orton has been a surprising player throughout his career so far, and shows relatively few signs of dropping out. McDaniels, the coach, knows how a season feels too. So don’t expect it to be about lack of experience if this team falters at some point.

The St. Louis Rams are for sale! Did you know that? This is a team that is having a lot of trouble getting wins right now, and we often see that with different teams that are going through ownership challenges; they don’t seem to know where they stand and aren’t able to pick players with much confidence or make trades. This week, the ownership issue of the Rams came to the forefront of NFL news, when it was reported that it was possible that one of the upcoming owners was going to be Rush Limbaugh. This unleashed a firestorm of criticism about the opinions of the controversial radio talk show host regarding race and football players. At the end of the week, the rumor appears that he will be pulling out of the bid, because the other NFL owners were planning to veto the possible sale if Limbaugh were in the list.

Last year, the Titans were on top of the world. It was the type of season that most teams can only dream of. The team won more than 10 games before they lost their first game and they blew straight into the playoffs. They also forced the Indianapolis Colts to get a Wild Card spot for their run at a Super Bowl. What a difference a year makes. After a huge loss to the Colts this weekend, the Titans are sitting at 0-5, in the cellar of the division, while Indy is at 5-0. It’s going to be the kind of year that Tennessee fans will look to forget. When the Titans get into the swing of the season, it’s probably going to be too late, it seems. But Peyton Manning was able to achieve a few records this weekend during the game. The team has won 14 straight regular season games. Manning had yet another top passer rating. Unless something really weird happens, Manning and Colts will take the division and the Titans will disappear again.

When NFL action begins again, we will be seeing a few new characters. The San Francisco 49ers are going to finally have their big wide receiver with his big contract. Michael Crabtree has deigned to sign a contract with the team that drafted him in the first round. Meanwhile, it’ll be a lot of fun to see him playing finally in the NFL. Hopefully he’s not too out of practice, having not really trained before the season. We will be watching him closely since we will probably be able to actually see the rust falling off of him. The other thing is that the Cleveland Browns traded their angry man, receiver Braylon Edwards, to the New York Jets. He has been described as high maintenance, and the latest incident in his life was that he punched a friend of LeBron James in the face outside a nightclub this week. Coach Mangini decided enough was enough. Edwards has been able to make good catches, but he’s also been known to miss good catches too. Thus, he will now be joining Mark Sanchez as they continue their great season.

The New York Jets started off the first three weeks without a single loss. Well, Mark Sanchez couldn’t be perfect forever. They lost yesterday to the New Orleans Saints 24-10. Drew Brees team is getting good this year. They used to just have one kind of attack, but now they have several and they are at 4-0 on the season. You’ll have to watch out for that team. But the Jets, despite having a rookie quarterback, are one of the best teams in the league right now. For whatever reason, New York has started off the season on a roll. Could it be that a year with Favre prepared the receivers and the rest to play with a quality quarterback? You mean last year wasn’t a total loss after all? No one would have thought this, but if you didn’t catch yesterday’s game, you missed a fun time!

Last weekend, Chad Pennington got injured and will miss the rest of the season with this injury. This is a tough blow for the Dolphins, who are the defending champions in the AFC East, although it would be a big surprise if they had been able to repeat. After the injury, the Dolphins went hunting for a new quarterback and pulled up Tyler Thigpen from Kansas City. With Matt Cassel on their team, the team didn’t need to have Thigpen on their squad as well. This will help the Dolphins keep their general level of play at the top and it will be very interesting to see how the end up doing in the next little while. If Cassel gets injured, then the Chiefs will be in trouble, but the Dolphins have a decent quarterback that knows how to play top NFL action.