Jets prove lucky and good in win over Patriots; more Week 7 Snaps

• Those Washington special teams are proving special in all the wrong ways. Chicago's Devin Hester went practically untouched up the right sideline for an NFL-record-tying 81-yard punt return against the Redskins, a week after Dallas burned Washington for two long returns last Sunday night.

I wouldn't want to be first-year Washington special teams coach Keith Burns about now. He got some support last week from Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan, but there is a limit to the reservoir of patience on that front. The win will help disguise the issue somewhat, but the coverage units are a full-blown problem in D.C.

It was Hester's first scoring return of any kind since November 2011 -- a 28-game drought -- and his 13th career punt return touchdown. It gives him 19 career return touchdowns, tying Hall of Famer Deion Sanders' league record. Can't help but think that might just represent Hall of Fame credentials for Hester, too, even though he's not accomplished at another position like Sanders was at cornerback.

• No Julio Jones. No Roddy White. No problem in Atlanta. Harry Douglas had himself a day in Atlanta's desperately needed 31-23 win over winless Tampa Bay. Douglas has always possessed intriguing talent, but he matched that with production against the Bucs, catching seven passes for 149 yards and a touchdown, with six of those catches and 140 of those yards coming in the first half. That yardage total in the opening two quarters beat his career-best game by seven yards.

With Jones out for the rest of the year with his foot injury, and White missing the first game of his career with a hamstring issue, Douglas needs to flash that kind of output plenty in the coming weeks if the Falcons (2-4) are going to dig out of their early season hole and make a late run at their fourth consecutive playoff trip.

FARRAR: Bucs D implodes after coach sarcastically asks for help

• There have been plenty of larger than life characters in the NFL's rich history, but I'm not sure any of them were as much fun as Bum Phillips, the former Oilers/Saints head coach who passed away Friday at 90. Phillips was an absolute original who looked and sounded like he was born to be a football coach in Texas.

He didn't have a pretentious bone in his body, and my all-time favorite Phillips quote was always his wonderfully distinctive and succinct description of why Miami's Don Shula was football's greatest coach: "He can take his'n and beat your'n, and take your'n and beat his'n.''

Exactly. You can't say it better than that. Rest in peace, Bum.

• Revenge is best served cold, but it works in the heat of South Florida quite nicely as well. Dan Carpenter, the onetime Dolphins kicker, got a little payback on Sunday, helping beat his old club on Buffalo's behalf. Carpenter nailed a 31-yard field goal with 33 seconds remaining to provide the final margin in the Bills' 23-21 road win. Miami released Carpenter in August and he got roundly booed by the Fish's crowd, which I'm sure made his game-winner all the sweeter.

It was a gritty win for Buffalo, which led 14-0 early but once again found a way to keep things tight down the stretch. The Bills (3-4) are still in last place in the AFC East, but they're not the soft team of years gone by. Denver and Buffalo are the only two teams to score at least 20 points in every game this season, and now the Bills finally have a road victory and a division win to show for their hard work.

• That's three losses in a row for Miami, whose 3-0 start looks mirage-like. Coming off their bye, the Dolphins were ragged and lost a home game to a Buffalo team whose starting quarterback (Thad Lewis) was making just his third career start. It's the kind of ugly loss that will serve as a strong buzz kill for whatever momentum and excitement Miami generated among its fan base early this year.

Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill regressed with Sunday's outcome. He threw a first-quarter pick-six to Bills defensive back Nickell Robey, and it was his late fourth-quarter fumble on a Mario Williams sack that set up Buffalo's game-winning 31-yard field goal. All told, Tannehill had three turnovers, which negated Miami's improved running attack and pass protection.

And don't look now, but in couple weeks, this loss to Buffalo might hurt even worse. Miami has a trip to New England next week, followed by a short week and a Thursday-night visit from Cincinnati in Week 9.

• Here's hoping the NFL gives Logan Ryan's crotch-grabbing, backward jump into the end zone all the attention it deserves this week in terms of a punitive response. The Patriots rookie cornerback picked off Jets quarterback Geno Smith and took the interception 81 yards for his first career touchdown.

But he felt the need to turn around and face the trailing Jets tacklers as he neared the goal line, and then leaped backward in the end zone, with one hand on the ball and the other on his crotch. Very classy, Logan.

So much for acting like you've been there before.

• The Eagles' showing in their 17-3 egg-laying loss to visiting Dallas ought to serve as the smelling salts under the nose of Philly fans. Chip Kelly's offense got nothing accomplished against a Cowboys defense that hadn't exactly been impenetrable of late.

I guess it's Michael Vick's job at starting quarterback once again. Nick Foles was mostly dreadful (80 yards passing) before leaving with concussion symptoms in the fourth quarter, and rookie Matt Barkley went 3-for-3, with interceptions tossed on each of his possessions.

BURKE: Younger Vick rips Foles on Twitter during Eagles-Cowboys

Philly's loss dropped it below .500 at 3-4 and snapped its hope-inspiring two-game winning streak. But the Eagles have only beaten bad teams (Washington, N.Y. Giants and Tampa Bay) and lost to every quality opponent they have faced (San Diego, Kansas City, Denver and Dallas). When Philly went scoreless in the first half, FOX was reporting that it was the first time in Kelly's entire head coaching history that one of his teams had been blanked in any half.

The Cowboys were hardly sharp themselves on offense, but Dallas has its first two-game winning streak of the season and is in sole possession of first place of the NFC East at 4-3. Given the state of their competition in the division, there's absolutely no reason Dallas shouldn't run away with the East. To put it another way, I'd be shocked if the Eagles at the Cowboys in Week 17 was meaningful for both clubs.

• Chippy, feisty, or cheap, you pick the adjective. But Carolina's 30-15 beatdown of the visiting Rams did not put two disciplined football teams on display in Charlotte. There was way too much emotion flowing on both sides of the field at times, and you can't be shocked to learn that tightly wound Panthers receiver Steve Smith was in the middle of much of the jawing, pushing and skirmishing.

The Rams didn't just lose their cool and the game, they might have lost their quarterback, Sam Bradford, to a serious knee injury.He was hurt on the sideline with about five minutes to go, and it's hard to see St. Louis keeping up in the rugged NFC West if he's out for any significant amount of time.

Carolina has a defense that's really starting to exert its will, and the Panthers set the tone for the bruising, physical style of play that the game featured. And now the stakes get a little higher for Carolina, which is 3-3 with a chance to get above .500 for the first time in head coach Ron Rivera's three-year tenure on the road against Tampa Bay on Thursday night.

• A touchdown to a Lions tight end and it's not the dancing Joseph Fauria? Who knew Brandon Pettigrew was still eligible to catch scoring passes?

Speaking of tight ends in the Bengals-Lions game, I don't know what Jermaine Gresham really did during that brief time in the locker room in the first half to "clear his head,'' but something about his time in timeout worked. After being called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the second quarter for appearing to push away an official, Gresham was seen leaving the field. When he returned, though, he was an effective threat, making catches of 30 and 22 yards in the second half and finishing with four receptions for 64 yards.

• I'm not sure what convinced me to pick Jacksonville to upset the visiting Chargers in Week 7, but that's the last time this season I give the Jaguars the benefit of the doubt. Jacksonville lost 24-6 to San Diego and is now the first team since the 1983 Houston Oilers to get to 0-7, dropping each game by a double-digit margin.

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers picked Jacksonville apart, completing his first 14 passes of the game. On defense, San Diego held the punchless Jags to six points, sacking Chad Henne six times. The Chargers simply never let Jacksonville have any hope it was going to win the game, and the Jaguars went meekly once again. I thought I saw some improvement from Jacksonville in last week's closer-than-expected loss at Denver, but obviously I was mistaken.

• Gary Kubiak's team took another L Sunday in Kansas City, but the Texans head coach didn't lose out on his gamble that third-string quarterback Case Keenum was the guy to give his floundering team a spark. Keenum seemed more than ready for his close-up in Houston's 17-16 loss to the Chiefs, and that at least bodes well going forward. Because the Texans (2-5) haven't gotten much in the way of quality quarterbacking from either Matt Schaub or T.J. Yates of late.

Playing in his first NFL regular-season game, Keenum was a very respectable 15-of-25 for 271 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions. His only glaring mistake was a late-game fumble when hit from behind by K.C.'s Tamba Hali, but there are a lot of veteran NFL quarterbacks who would have coughed that ball up, too.

Kansas City's pass rush is currently the gold standard in the NFL, but Keenum played with a sense of poise and was under control for most of the game, keeping the Texans within striking distances of the Chiefs, who are now 7-0 and still waiting for the first failure of the Andy Reid era.

Keenum's ability to execute was the brightest development for Houston, but offsetting it was the loss of inside linebacker Brian Cushing, who suffered a serious knee injury when he was blocked low by Kansas City running back Jamaal Charles. It was the same knee in which Cushing tore his anterior cruciate ligament last year, and this injury certainly looked every bit as devastating as that one did. The Texans were not happy with Charles at all for going at Cushing's knees with his block, and I'd be surprised if that play didn't become a focal point for the renewal of the low-block debate.

According to FOX Sports' Jay Glazer, Cushing texted Glazer with the news that he both broke his left leg and suffered a torn lateral collateral ligament, which would end his season.

• It suddenly seems like that two-game 49ers losing streak was months ago. San Francisco might not have started the season as we expected in the opening three weeks, but the 49ers look like they've fairly well figured things out at this point. San Francisco dominated Tennessee 31-17 to run its winning streak to four games, and Jim Harbaugh's team now heads across the Atlantic to take on 0-7 Jacksonville in London next week.

Going the other direction, figuratively, not literally, are the Titans, who have dropped three in a row after their impressive 3-1 start. Tennessee got quarterback Jake Locker back in the lineup against the 49ers, but he looked rusty, still a bit gimpy, and only a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown passes made the score look respectable.

• Don't sleep on the Steelers, who have scratched their way back to 2-4 and now have reason to think they might have something to do with the AFC North race after all. Pittsburgh beat visiting Baltimore 19-16, in a game that looked pretty much like every other smashmouth Ravens-Steelers game we've ever seen.

The best news for Pittsburgh is that its running game is becoming a weapon, with rookie second-round pick Le'Veon Bell producing 93 of the Steelers' 141 rushing yards on Sunday.

As for the defending Super Bowl champion Ravens, their Week 8 bye looks like it will come when most needed. Baltimore has lost three of four after starting 2-1, and has yet to establish any sort of consistency on offense.