After 9 weeks of football, we know who the best team in the NFL is and we know the worst.  Everything else is anyone's guess.  If you ask 5 different people who the second best team in football is, you will probably get 5 different answers.  While the Packers have found a way to win every week and the Colts have found away to lose, every other team in the league has put together Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-like performances that make it hard to know which teams are for real and which ones are impostors.  As we continue to sort out what appears to be a sea of mediocrity, here is your week 9 recap:

After playing out-of-this-world football since the first two weeks of the season, Buffalo's Ryan Fitzpatrick has quickly returned to Earth.  In the Bills first two week's Fitzpatrick threw 7 touchdowns to only one 1 interception.  In the 6 games since then, he has thrown 8 touchdowns to 8 picks as the Bills offense has slowed down drastically.  Luckily for Fitzpatrick, his play earlier in the season was good enough to earn him the much sought after long term deal that should keep him in Buffalo.

In the latest "There is no reason to pay a superstar runningback big money news," Demarco Murray had yet another big day for the Cowboys.  Murray, who was drafted in the third round of this years draft and started the season as a backup, has already surpassed many of the games highest paid backs.  Despite only starting in three games this season, Murray already has more rushing yards then Ray Rice and Rashard Mendell (and needless to say, more than both Chris Johnson and Deangelo Williams the latest winners in the "who wants to overpay for a runningback" game).  For those fans out there who are wondering what are the Bears thinking in not giving Forte the big day he has already earned, I give you Murray and Johnson: they are thinking we can find someone else for cheaper.

Now to get to one of my reader's questions from last week: Are the 49ers for real?  My answer is yes, because their schedule says so.  The Niners have the luxury of playing in the worst division in football, a division that most expected the them to run away with.  After Mike Singeltary's rah rah approach wore off, the team just nailed it in until he was fired and the season was lost.  This year, the Niners are back with a new coach, a little more talented/rejuvenated Alex Smith, and the same terrible division.  When you take that and throw in 4 games against a very overrated NFC east, getting the Bucs to fly across the country after playing on Monday night, and a road game in Cleveland and there is no reason the Niner's can't win 11 or 12 games. I always thought the only difference between Mark Sanchez and Alex Smith was the level of talent around them, and this year I think we are seeing it.

In New England, the Patriots offense didn't look like itself for the third week in a row.  You know you must have had a hell of a run when you score 20 points people start talking about your offense like it got shutout. The truth is the Pats offense has looked like a well oiled machine for the better part of a decade and for the last month or so it looks like its time for a tune up.  On Sundays when you sit back and watch the Pats offense struggle, you can't help but wonder, can't Chad Ochiocinco help somehow?  While no one is going to argue Chad is the elite wideout he was a few years ago, it's also hard to believe he can't contribute more to the team then one target a game.  It only took half a season for the Albert Hayneworth experiment to cancel, which proved everything Billicheck touches doesn't turn into gold and once again Daniel Synder's money has ruined another player.

I ran into a Giants fan this weekend who tried to tell me by beating the Patriots, Eli Manning has now proven he is as good as Tom Brady.  One sports battle that has never made sense to me is the quarterback head to head.  It's probably the only match up in sports were the two contestants aren't even on the field at the same.  It's two different quarterbacks going against two different defenses, throwing to two different set of receivers and handing off to two different runningbacks.  About the only thing the two quarterbacks share on game day is the weather.  So what do I make of Maninning's duel with Brady this past weekend?  Manning made the plays needed to beat the 31st ranked defense in the league - period.  If you listen to the hype meter across the NFL, you will hear that Eli is having his best season ever, the season that is showing his greatness and will take him out of his brothers shadow.  On the other side of the hype meter there is Brady having a terrible season, showing his age, and maybe his best days are behind him.  The truth is, Brady, despite having an "off" year is the third rated passer in the NFL and Eli is the 5th.  In my book, if your best isn't as good as someone elses worst, then the two aren't in the same category.

By destroying the Chiefs in Kansas City, the Dolphins all but guarenteed that they will not be getting Andrew Luck next year.  I had the pleasure of being in Miami for the weekend and let me tell you, many Dolphins fans were not happy about the win.  While the Dolphins players showed they aren't about to just lay down and lose games just for sake of it, the Colts stayed true to the cause and went out put together another performance that wouldn't even have won them a division two college game.  Over the last couple of weeks, the Colts had really taken command for the race for the first pick in the draft, with the Dolphins finally picking up a win on the field, the Colts might have just won off the field.

In Pittsburgh, the Ravens and Steelers met in prime time and played the typical Ravens/Steelers game.  There was a lot of hitting, bad offense and of course fines followed.  The hit that Steelers safety Ryan Clark put on Ed Dickerson is the prime example of why a Ravens/Steelers game is on prime time - for the commissioner to fine him for it.  Just doesn't seem fair.  The only person Dickerson should have a problem with is his quarterback for throwing that pass.

After playing a game of role reversal in week 8, both the Saints and the Rams returned to their normal selves in week 9.  The Rams went back to losing to a bad team that didn't even have its starting quarterback and the Saints went back to winning at home.  The Bengals won yet another game and have put together a 6-2 season that no one is talking about.  Even though he missed almost the entire first half of the season, I'm putting my money on Carson Palmer cracking the top 5 in interceptions thrown before the season is over.  The only person who I think Palmer will have trouble catching this year in the INT department is Philip Rivers who added three to his league leading total in week 9.