What's it like watching Football from Japan and Impressions from Week 4

Well well folks,
I am truly back online. We finally got our Internet service up and running from Japan's NTT. The process of getting online service here in Japan was not that complicated, but it took a lot of patience. We had all of our equipment on Friday, but I had to wait until this morning to actually try and hook it up. I don't know why, the Japanese simply weren't going to flip the switch until sometime between 9-12 today (that's during Sunday Night football for you all back in the States). Yeah, so I missed out on the 610WIP suicide pool pick...dang

So what is it like watching football from Japan?
Well for starters I had to get up at 0130 (that's in the AM for all you non-military time readers) just so I could take a few groggy moment before the kickoffs (at 0200). Here is the one cool thing: I get 3 choices for the early game time-slot game, and 3 choices for the late game time-slot. Our satellite only gets a few channels, but Armed Forces Network gives service-member the hook up. AFN Sports showed ESPN pre-game, AFN Atlantic showed FOX pre-game, and AFN Korea showed CBS pre-game (Man there is something not right about JB being on that show)....Early game choices were: Chargers at Ravens, Saints at Panthers and Colts at Jets...
Late games were Pats at Bengals, Lions at Rams and Jaguars at Redskins. Not too shabby. Factor in that the Eagles-Cowgurls game next week is the only one on Fox's late slate and I should get to see that one no problem.

Right now I am just psyched that I get to sleep in a little bit and then hopefully watch my Iggles kick the crap out of the Packers on Tuesday morning football.

Ok so here some impressions from Week 4:

- I just watched the Bears annihilate the Seahawks...can Shaun Alexander really mean that much to the 'Hawks? I guess so, cause they looked totally impotent on offense coming off a week in which they absolutely torched the Giants...What does this say about the Bears...well, I think my prediction that they will take the NFC North is secure...as for the rest of the NFC, well we better figure out how to score on Chicago cause it looks like they found a little bit of offense to go with that D
- I am not a Carolina fan, but that roughing the passer penalty against Julius Peppers was bogus. I mean if a defender pulls up when the QB gets rid of the ball, like Peppers did, then how in good conscience can the refs call a "roughing" penalty for bumping into the guy. For cripes sake, one second these guys are going full bore, and a split second later its hands off? Lets have a little common sense please. Panthers got the last laugh though...evening their record at the expense of the Saints 21-18.
- The Mangini Conundrum: 4th and goal tied 14-14 in the 3rd quarter against the Colts...what do you do? Personally, I think Mangini screwed up but not taking the points...It almost any scenario I can contemplate "leaving points on the field" is a bad, bad idea; and that is exactly what the rookie head coach did. I don't want to get to into this...hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but I think there are times to show your team that you are being aggressive (onside kicks, going to for two points, etc) and times when its a plain old mistake...
- The Pats made a statement game, thats for sure...they sure found a keeper at RB too, with ELMO (Mauroney)...jeez they kicked the crap out of the Ben-gals and looked real good doing it. Methinks this was just the type of game they needed to get Deion Branch out of Brady's system.
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