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Houston Texans

Wade Smith thinks the Texans will be able to pick up where they left off even with two new starters on the right side of the Texans offensive line, says Robert Neely of National Football Authority.

Indianapolis Colts

Andrew Luck already ranks as the second-best quarterback in the AFC South, says Nate Dunlevy of Bleacher Report.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Defensive end Aaron Kampman continues to rehab and is approaching his cruising altitude, he told John Oehser of the team’s web site.

Tennessee Titans

“The Titans aren’t on the verge of trading for Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel, and any interest in the four-time Pro Bowler is lukewarm at best,” says Jim Wyatt of The Tennessean.

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All four teams would probably be pleased if the draft went like this mock from Nolan Nawrocki.

Houston Texans

Arian Foster pulled off a stunner in the "Madden" cover contest, beating Tim Tebow, says Nick Mathews of the Houston Chronicle.

Baylor receiver Kendall Wright is the pick for the Texans in the newest mock from Lance Zierlein of the Houston Chronicle.

Eric Winston won’t be buying a suite at Reliant Stadium.

Indianapolis Colts

Year 1 went completely different than left tackle Anthony Castonzo expected, says Phil Richards of the Indianapolis Star.

There are Colts Andrew Luck jerseys out there, but they aren’t legal, says Richards.

Two have been arrested for allegedly swindling Dwight Freeney out of more than $2 million, says Greg Risling of AP.

Jacksonville Jaguars

It doesn’t sound like there is a chance for end Matt Roth to return and Mike Mularkey talked optimistically about Eben Britton’s rehab, says Tania Ganguli of the Florida Times-Union.

Rashean Mathis and Aaron Ross will be competing for a starting spot opposite Derek Cox, says Ganguli.

Tennessee Titans

“A league source tells CSN's Derrick Gunn that Asante Samuel could be traded to the Tennessee Titans for a conditional third-round pick some time in the next few days.” I’m skeptical, but we’ll have to wait and see.

ESPN.com’s NFL writers rank the top 10 cornerbacks in the league today. Next week: Top 10 quarterbacks.

Positional Power Rankings have produced some wild variations in voting. But none has had so many players mentioned as cornerbacks.

Previously, multiple votes had yielded 17 names. Our polling for the top 10 cornerbacks in the NFL touched on 23, a record that might be hard to break.

In another close finish, the Jets' Darrelle Revis edged the Raiders' Nnamdi Asomugha. The two collected all the first- and second-place votes, but Revis outscored Asomugha 77-75 thanks to five first-place votes.

Overall, veterans ruled the day, with the top five outpointing the rest of the field by a good deal. Revis and Asomugha were followed by three players with a collective 33 seasons of NFL cornerbacking experience: Green Bay’s Charles Woodson, Philadelphia’s Asante Samuel and Denver’s Champ Bailey.

Woodson finished with 58 points, Samuel with 54 and Bailey with 53.

Of the votes for that trio, only two fell outside of the top five. NFC North maestro Kevin Seifert had Woodson sixth, just behind his teammate Tramon Williams. And AFC East maven Tim Graham placed Bailey seventh, with New England’s Devin McCourty (fifth) and Minnesota’s Antoine Winfield above him.

I had presumed Bailey started to slip in his 12th season in 2010. Then he shut down a red-hot Dwayne Bowe and got my attention in a way I remembered when I put him third on my ballot.

Graham’s thinking was quite different.

“We're in the offseason, so I've taken into account not only last season's performances, but also how the player projects into 2011 when compiling my positional Power Rankings ballots,” he said. “Bailey is going to be 33 years old before the start of next season and is on the downside. He's still great, but for how long?

“Power Rankings shouldn't be career-achievement awards. Devin McCourty was second-team Associated Press All-Pro, a first-team Sporting News All-Pro, voted a Pro Bowl starter by the fans, coaches and players and tied for second in interceptions. He deserved to be ranked ahead of Bailey, who wasn't mentioned for All-Pro and made the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement.”

Though Graham had him fifth, McCourty got bottom-of-the-list votes from most of us, who seemed to respect his inaugural campaign but did not want to overscore a player who has been through the league only once. NFC South cruise director Pat Yasinskas left McCourty off his ballot entirely.

“One great season does not make a great career,” Yasinskas said. “Let's see him do it again. I'm not saying he's got to do it for 10 or 15 years. I've got a guy in my own back yard, Ronde Barber, and a lot of people say he's already put up Hall of Fame numbers. I didn't even put him on the list because I think he's not much more than a very nice player in the system. But you have to be consistently at the top for at least a few years before you get on a top 10 list.”

Winfield finished sixth (29 points), Williams seventh (18), McCourty eighth (17), Washington’s DeAngelo Hall ninth (10) and Tennessee’s Cortland Finnegan 10th (eight).

Williams was the lone player to make the top 10 while not being looked at as his team’s No. 1 guy. As much as I liked him, that prevented him from getting one of my votes. Same for Oakland’s Stanford Routt.

Although Williams and Routt played very well in 2010, their jobs can be made a lot easier by playing with Woodson and Asomugha rather than being asked to be their team’s version of those players. The toughest receiver on the opposition isn’t usually a factor for Williams or Routt.

John Clayton had Routt sixth and NFC West chart-master Mike Sando had him 10th, which left Routt in 11th place. Clayton set me straight on why Routt was, in fact, deserving.

“Nnamdi has years of not being thrown on,” Clayton said. “He’s had years in which only 14 or 15 passes were caught against him in a season.

“Routt had a phenomenal year in 2010, which led to his big contract,” Clayton said. “The percentage of passes against him that were completed was among the lowest in the league. His job is tougher because he has more passes thrown on him because of Nnamdi.”

The Houston Texans had given up at least 24 points in each of their first 10 games. Now they are coming off a shutout of the Titans.

As we prepare for Houston’s game in Philadelphia tonight, here are five things to consider.

Can the defense contain Michael Vick? Titans rookie quarterback Rusty Smith was no scrambling threat. Against Smith, Texans defensive tackle Amobi Okoye had one of his best games. But the defensive line might be coached not to be overly aggressive in this game. Get too far upfield and you risk taking yourself out of the play -- leaving Vick with one fewer guy to get past when he decides to run.

The Giants and Bears had success against Vick pushing the left-hander from left to his right. If the Texans can guide him that way, he’s clearly less comfortable and less dangerous when he’s moving against his throwing arm. But whichever way he’s moving, he tends to keep plays alive for a long time, and the Texans do not have defensive backs who can cover quality, speedy receivers downfield for extended periods of time.

“The guy can throw ball for miles,” safety Bernard Pollard said. “He can run like a running back. Then you have a two-headed monster in the backfield along with some dynamic receivers. We know and understand that and we are ready to go.”

Will they punch it in from the red zone? Houston’s really worked on improving its red-zone offense and has had pretty good results once it gets inside the 20-yard line. The Texans are ninth in the league with a touchdown percentage of 59.5.

That lines up nicely with a Philadelphia weakness. The Eagles have the league’s worst red-zone defense, by a mile. They allow touchdowns 76.7 percent of the time an opponent crosses the 20, and that’s a substantial lead on the second worst team (Kansas City, 67.9 percent.)

If we see much of Neil Rackers on field-goal attempts of 37 yards or under, that will be a bad sign.

Can they stand toe-to-toe? The Texans get sick of hearing themselves branded a finesse team, and the tough, physical Arian Foster has helped them fight the label this season.

Philly isn’t super physical, but the Texans haven’t been great in their three games against NFC East opponents so far. They mounted a great comeback to win in Washington, but got pasted by Dallas and the Giants. Houston’s AFC South competition is 1-2 against the Eagles, who beat Jacksonville and Indianapolis but lost to the Titans.

“Coming off a short week, it’s about getting fresh and being mentally ready to go with your game plan,” Matt Schaub said. “It will be a physical battle up there, always is. We’ve played a few physical games this year, none more physical than the one we played on Sunday. We just have to bounce back and be ready to step to the plate.”

Will they be able to protect the ball? The Eagles lead the league in turnover differential at plus-14, and no one has more than their 26 takeaways. The Texans are at plus-1.

“They do a lot of different things, a lot of different complex looks and you just got to be aware of what coverages they’re playing behind and they’ve got some veteran guys that know what you’re trying to do, as far as routes,” Schaub said. “They jump things. They’re opportunistic. You got to be right with your protections and where you’re going with the football. You can’t guess, because you’ll be wrong more often than not.”

Texans wide receivers Kevin Walter and David Anderson are both dinged up. They are both more dependable than Jacoby Jones, who will be featured more if one or both of them are missing or limited.

Can Brian Cushing build off last week? Insert your PED joke here. But since returning from his four-game suspension to start the season, Cushing’s hardly been the impact guy he was as defensive rookie of the year. Last week against the Titans, he played like the 2009 version.

If he can fly around and handle LeSean McCoy the way he helped stop Chris Johnson, the Texans' chances will improve greatly.

“If I’m going good or if someone else is going good and the defense is playing well, it’s just one of those spark kind of things,” Cushing said. “It’s momentum. It’s a snowball effect that just keeps it going.”

Philadelphia cornerback Asante Samuel leads the league with seven interceptions, but is questionable with a knee injury.

Will they get it to Foster? He’s showing himself to be not just a great running back but also a great pass catcher. In half of the Texans’ six losses, he’s had fewer than 20 touches. Last week he had 39 touches in the shutout of Tennessee.

Houston can still fall into the idea that it’s a passing team, because in 2009 it was unable to run the ball. But now, Foster’s the second-best player on the team next to Andre Johnson. Coach Gary Kubiak needs to remember it and be sure to get Foster the ball no matter how the game unfolds. The Texans have also had too many games with too few offensive snaps.

“I hope we run 76 plays again,” Kubiak said. “That’s the first time in a while we were able to hold the football that long. There were plenty of snaps to go around. We ran a football game that demanded that we hang on to the football and run the ball well. When he’s able to touch it that many times, usually good things happen.”

PHILADELPHIA -- It’s not the Indianapolis Colts' way to say it, but it’s true.

Thin them out to where they are missing 10 of their top 26 players, send them on the road against a quality team, put them on a short week with that opponent coming off a bye and even for a Peyton Manning-led team there comes a breaking point.

Sunday it arrived at Lincoln Financial Field, a 26-24 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles halting a three-game Indianapolis winning streak and leaving the Colts deadlocked with Tennessee at 5-3 atop the AFC South.

For as poorly as the Colts played, that they even had a chance to try to get Adam Vinatieri in position for a field goal to win it was kind of ridiculous.

“We had the wind with us and you’ve got to love Vinatieri in those chances, so I am disappointed we didn’t give him a shot,” Manning said. “But execution, Philly did a better job than us all night.”

The wind, some drops, steady pressure that produced three sacks and a largely punchless running game didn’t help his cause. But Manning was off too, throwing interceptions early and late to Asante Samuel and hitting on only 31 of 52 passes for 294 yards, a touchdown and a 65.7 passer rating.

“I need to play better,” he said.

Of particular concern to Indianapolis were the first four of six second-half possessions, on which the Colts earned three first downs and Manning connected on just three of 11 passes for 31 yards.

“Right there in the third quarter, we were backed up, we were kind of working against the wind,” Jim Caldwell said. “So we were punting into the wind and just could not punt ourselves out of it with a great flip of the field in terms of special teams, nor could we move ourselves out of that situation. ... That period of time where we just couldn’t get the field flipped was tough.”

The Colts pieced together a nice 16-play, 85 yard drive to get to Javarris James’ second touchdown and narrow the gap to 2-points with 1:50 left.

But extract it from the second half and they moved just 49 yards.

“The second half it sure was tough to get anything going,” Manning said. “There were a couple three-and-outs and not many first downs. We got something going late, but it just wasn’t consistent enough I didn’t think.”

Even on the touchdown drive, it was a Philadelphia penalty that extended things, converting a fourth-and-18 for the Colts. Disagree with the rule as most of the 69,144 in attendance did, but the enforcement on Trent Cole’s hand to Manning’s helmet and the unnecessary roughness attached to it was correct.

As well as the Eagles played in many areas, Andy Reid will have plenty to review with them as they dissect 14 penalties worth 125 yards and six first downs.

The Colts and Manning got their chance to set up Vinatieri with no timeouts left, 40 seconds on the clock and possession at their own 26-yard line.

Michael Vick was on the verge of a head-to-head win over Manning, but knew it was hardly a done deal at that point.

“Every time he’s out on the field, you think he’s going to score a touchdown,” Vick said. “And that’s just how precise he is, that’s how smart he is, that’s the type of player that he’s become and that’s how hard he’s worked throughout his career.

“So the only thing I could tell myself was, just try to match him, keep him off the field.”

The end result rendered another Manning milestone impossible to celebrate. It was his 200th consecutive start, which put him in the exclusive company of Brett Favre and made him the first quarterback in league history to start the first 200 games of his career.

No. 201 will hardly start a friendlier stretch of schedule, though the 2-5 Bengals at Lucas Oil Stadium rate as a bit of a reprieve before a trip to New England.

They had a bye on Oct. 24, but at the end of this one, the Colts seemed worn down. There wasn’t a healthy scratch among their eight inactive players Sunday and now Austin Collie is in question again, too. With reserves who were expected to play supplemental roles now carrying inflated workloads and coming off a bruiser of a game, the Colts have been stretched.

The league will expect them to bounce back. I will too.

But for a day, the Colts and their quarterback looked pretty human.

Thoughts on the Eagles’ 26-24 win against the Colts at Lincoln Financial Field.

What it means: The Colts had a chance to match the best record in the AFC at 6-2. But injuries and a tough opponent on the road prevented it and they fell to 5-3, even with idle Tennessee atop the AFC South.

What I didn’t like: The Colts still had a chance with 18 second left, and we’ve seen Peyton Manning position them for a game-winning field goal in such circumstances an awful lot. This time the possession ended in an interception by Asante Samuel, his second of Manning on the day. Manning picked himself up and brushed himself off more often than usual, and forced to throw quickly so often he found long plays of 33 and 22 yards on a day when one big one might have lined things up to go the other way. The defense, meanwhile, allowed Philadelphia runs of 62 and 32 yards and pass plays of 58 and 34.

What I liked: The find-a-way 14-play, 85-yard, 4:07 drive, where the Colts got a touchdown to close it to 26-24 with 1:50 remaining and the decision to kickoff after that rather than trying an onside kick. Also, Indianapolis’ defense deep in its own territory, which forced the Eagles to send David Akers on for field goals four times. The Eagles could have been up 21-0 in the first quarter, which would have effectively ended this game.

Injury concern: Austin Collie suffered a concussion that appeared to leave him motionless for a good while on a hit I’m not sure was sorted out correctly by the officiating crew, who called it an incomplete pass and saw unnecessary roughness on a defenseless receiver.

What’s next: The Colts host Cincinnati in a regional rivalry that looked a lot more appealing when the schedule came out than it looks now.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Titans have long searched for a dynamic downfield receiver. Sunday at LP Field, the Titans got the kind of game that says they finally have one.

Kenny Britt is big, physical and fast, but he’s also still growing up.

Early Friday morning, he was accused of throwing punches in a bar brawl at Karma Lounge on Broadway in downtown Nashville.

Late Sunday afternoon, his quarterback and coordinator were answering questions about how highly he ranks among the receivers they throw to and call plays for, respectively.

A seven-catch, 225-yard, three-touchdown game has a way of altering the focus of the conversation. Britt's performance keyed the Titans' 37-19 win over the Philadelphia Eagles.

“There is not much better that I’ve played with,” said Kerry Collins, the 16th year quarterback who played for the injured Vince Young. “…[Britt is] going to do everything he can to get the ball, he’s aggressive going after it. The guy loves to play, love to make big plays. As a quarterback, it’s nice to know a guy like that is on your team because like you saw today, there were some throws that weren’t exactly perfect, but the guy did whatever he had to do to get the ball.

“You can have all the physical tools in the world but if you don’t have that, it doesn’t make you a special player. And I think Kenny has the ability to be a special player.”

I asked Mike Heimerdinger, who’s overseen the Titans' offense for eight seasons in two separate stints, where Britt ranks among the guys he’s coached in Nashville.

“Ability wise, he has the most of anybody,” Heimerdinger said. “Derrick Mason did more with less ability than Kenny has. I wouldn’t put him ahead of Mase yet.”

Britt had the Titans biggest receiving day since Drew Bennett had 233 yards and three touchdowns against Kansas City on Dec. 13, 2004. The Eagles had never given up so many receiving yards to one player.

For the Titans, now 5-2, it should amount to more than a big day.

It should delineate two shifts: One where the teams that choose to stack things up to stop running back Chris Johnson pay the price in deep passing production; another in how the Titans deploy their receivers.

Britt was used primarily as the team’s third receiver through the team’s first four games this season. He started the two games before this one with Justin Gage out with a hamstring injury.

With Gage still out, Britt would have started against the Eagles, but coach Jeff Fisher disciplined him for the Karma Lounge incident. Britt sat until the middle of the second quarter; Fisher is relying on the crutch of "gathering facts.”

Britt has now caught a touchdown pass in five consecutive games.

So now, when Gage is ready, he should remain in the background.

Nothing personal against a nice guy who’s been productive in spurts and is signed through 2011. But it’s time to move on, and to do so the Titans need to play Britt and Nate Washington as the starters, with rookie Damian Williams as the No. 3.

Gage can dress, but he shouldn’t be on the field unless something is wrong with one of those three guys. He could be used as the fourth receiver rotating in once in a while to offer a breather.

A year ago, after four starts, the Titans scratched a healthy defensive end Jevon Kearse. He got hurt in practice after that, but clearly the team decided amid a poor start to move forward without the veteran. The Titans turned things over to guys with more upside like William Hayes, Jacob Ford and Dave Ball. Kearse appeared in only two more games before his contract ran out and he disappeared.

It’s time now for them to “Jevon Kearse” Gage in order to create sufficient room for Britt and Williams, who’s played well in increased chances the last few weeks.

I asked general manager Mike Reinfeldt about Britt earning a starting role.

“I think as you go along, people do things that demand more play time and I’m not sure what more you can do than he’s done,” Reinfeldt said. “That’s how it should work. You earn play time.”

Defensive coordinators are going to have to spent additional time formulating better plans against Britt. They have to be able to make better, quicker adjustments to him than Eagles defensive coordinator Sean McDermott did.

Britt worked mostly against cornerback Ellis Hobbs, though several of his big plays turned out to be against safety Nate Allen.

He got to the corner for his first touchdown. Britt circled a ball that was under thrown as Collins got his arm hit to take the second one 80 yards for a touchdown. Britt caught the third score among three defenders in the center of the end zone.

Did Collins expect the Eagles to make an adjustment away from that safety-centric coverage?

“I did,” he said. “And they didn’t.”

“A lot of that was just me,” Allen said.

Only near the very end was cornerback Asante Samuel on Britt’s side of the field.

“About six, seven minutes left I was going to go over and cover him,” Samuel said. “But we didn’t have enough time.”

Fullback Ahmard Hall said he still expects Britt to address the team this week, perhaps apologizing for causing a distraction. Many of the Titans won’t consider it necessary after he did so much to lift them in such a big win. Two of his touchdowns were part of the team’s 27-point fourth-quarter, the franchise's most productive final quarter ever.

I suspect Britt will be in before too late Sunday night. He said his fiancée gave him grief over being out late when trouble is more likely.

“Don’t go to places after 12,” he said when asked what he’d learned. “Stay in the house. My fiancée actually yelled at me and I was like, ‘OK, I’ll stay home for the rest of the season.’”

Britt’s friend Jason McCourty, a Titans cornerback who was part of the same draft class out of Rutgers, joked he might go the other way.

“I told Kenny now if he’s trying to back to Karma this Thursday night, I’m with him, if that’s the type of game you’re going to have,” McCourty said, laughing.