Teams show offenses don't have to air it out to win

DENVER --- Musings, observations and the occasional insight in a somewhat lackluster Week 8 in the NFL:

* Quick, what did Steve McNair, Eli Manning, Brett Favre, Vince Young, Andrew Walter and David Garrard all have in common on Sunday?

Each of those quarterbacks threw for a paltry 180 yards or less --- and won. Surprising, but maybe it shouldn't be in this season of defense, when gaudy passing statistics are far from an automatic component of any victory.

Walter, Young and Garrard all won despite not cracking 100 yards passing (Walter threw for 57 yards in Oakland's seven-point upset of Pittsburgh. Young and Garrard each had 87 yards, with Tennessee winning by six points against Houston and Jacksonville earning a seven-point win at Philadelphia). McNair had 159 yards passing in the Ravens' 13-point upset at New Orleans, Manning a modest 154 in the Giants' 14-point defeat of Tampa Bay, and Favre threw for a whopping 180 in the Packers' 17-point romp over the Cardinals at Lambeau.

Those were six winning quarterbacks on Sunday. And one of them wasn't even named Michael Vick, who the past two weeks has morphed into a passing machine. Makes you wonder whatever happened to all that offense in the NFL? This year, defense and the running game are where it's at, and throwing the ball is sometimes just a passing thought.

The Titans, in their 28-22 win over the Texans, were a good example of life in the NFL in 2006. They ran for 111 yards on 27 rushes, completed just seven of 15 passes for 87 yards, but won thanks to one touchdown each in the running game (a 20-yard Young scamper), passing game (20-yard pass from Young to receiver Bobby Wade), on defense (40 yard fumble return by defensive tackle Tony Brown) and on special teams (53-yard punt return by Pacman Jones).

Don't know if you can count on such balance every week, but more teams are finding more ways to win this season than just filling the skies with footballs and hoping to out-pass their opponent.

• Wow. The Ravens score 28 points in the first half at New Orleans --- 21 of which the offense was responsible for --- and I'm thinking maybe the problem in Baltimore was Jim Fassel after all. Not a bad debut for Brian Billick's re-introduction to play-calling.

• Don't look now, but the Ravens have themselves another play-making diamond-in-the-rough defensive talent in rookie cornerback Ronnie Prude, who went undrafted out of LSU. Prude scored his first NFL touchdown Sunday in New Orleans, intercepting Drew Brees and returning the ball 12 yards for the score to put the Ravens up 21-0 in the second quarter.

Does anyone do a better job than Baltimore's personnel department of consistently finding players both in the draft and afterward?

• That Plaxico Burress. He'll wow you with one-handed touchdown grabs one week, and make you slap your forehead in frustration the next. Immensely talented, and immensely inconsistent, all at once.

• I love that the Bears wore the pumpkin-colored jerseys at home on the Sunday before Halloween. But the scariest sight at new Soldier Field must have been that 49ers defense, which was dented for 41 points by Chicago in the first half.

The 49ers three times already this season have given up more than 40 points, losing 41-0 at Kansas City and 48-19 to San Diego at home in Week 6, San Francisco's previous game before Sunday. That's a truly horrible 49ers defense being coordinated by Billy Davis these days. In the 23 games of the Mike Nolan coaching era in San Francisco, the 49ers have never held an opponent to less than double digits in points.