The Awards Section

Offensive Players of the Week

Vikings rookie Adrian Peterson ran for 224 yards and three touchdowns in a 34-31 win over the Bears on Sunday. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

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New England QB Tom Brady. The reason Brady is one of the best quarterbacks of all time? Days like Sunday. A career-high five touchdown passes, the second-highest passing yardage total (388 yards), all against the backdrop of a showdown of the unbeatens. Now with 21 touchdowns and two interceptions, Brady's on-pace for a 56-touchdown year. Sick. Just sick.

Minnesota RB Adrian Peterson. The Next Great Back burst on the scene with a tour de force game at Soldier Field. He ran for 224 yards, breaking the Vikings' all-time single-game record, and had 361 all-purpose yards, an NFL rookie record. Prior to Sunday, the Bears had not allowed a run of more than 55 yards since the start of the 2006 season. Peterson had two on Sunday, in the hallowed house where Payton ran wild. "That means so much to me,'' he said over the phone Sunday night, "to do it where Walter Payton played. It's an honor.''

San Diego RB LaDainian Tomlinson. Now this was an MVP performance. Tomlinson accounted for all the Chargers' touchdowns in a 28-14 win over Oakland, scoring on runs of three, 27, 13 and 41 yards. For the day, he ran 24 times for 198 yards, looking very much like the MVP he was in 2006.

Defensive Players of the Week

San Diego LB Shawne Merriman, a forgotten man for much of this season, had 2.5 sacks, six tackles and four quarterback hits in San Diego's win. The Chargers will need more dominant days like this, if they want to join the AFCs elite.

Green Bay DE Aaron Kampman. If you saw this game, you saw Kampman disrupting the pocket like some lighter version of Reggie White -- eight tackles, two sacks, five or six times chasing Jason Campbell for his life. His best game of the year.

Special Teams Player of the Week

Chicago WR/PR Devin Hester. Hester returned a first-quarter punt 90 yards against Minnesota for a touchdown, dodging and weaving through traffic and breaking two tackles ... which has become absolutely par for the course in the life of Devin Hester. It's almost a no-duh statement now to suggest Hester's on his way to becoming the greatest return man in NFL history -- if, of course, he stays healthy. In 22 career regular-season games, he has nine special-teams returns for touchdown. The record for special-teams returns for touchdowns: 13, by Brian Mitchell -- in 223 career games. Hester is on pace to break Mitchell's record in one-eighth the number of games Mitchell played. Absurd.

Coach of the Week

New England assistant head coach/offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia, who is doing one of the best jobs of his underrated coaching career. For parts of the first month of the season, he had to make do without starting center Dan Koppen and right guard Steve Neal (both of whom returned Sunday in Dallas), and he's built a tremendously consistent front line. The Pats have allowed six sacks and are on pace to be the highest-scoring team in history.

Goats of the Week

Referee Terry McAulay's crew at Green Bay-Washington, for an overall poor job and costing the Packers two legitimate touchdowns. First, there was a pathetic holding call on right tackle Mark Tauscher, negating one Favre touchdown pass; there was nothing close to a hold on the play. Last year, the officials were told not to call offensive holding unless it was something an official actually saw. Well, there's no way an official saw holding on Tauscher. Never happened. Then, a second Packers TD throw was negated when Bubba Franks cleanly caught a pass in the corner of the end zone with one foot down before getting driven out of the end zone by Washington cornerback Fred Smoot. Incomplete. Insane.

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