Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend. We had a relatively quiet weekend in sports but there is still a good amount to talk about today. I’ll be talking about Army-Navy, Lamar Jackson’s Heisman victory, a pair of surprises in the NFC and previewing tonight’s game between Baltimore and New England.

We’ll start with the annual rivalry game between Army and Navy. As you may have heard Army defeated Navy for the first time since 2001 on Saturday. It was interesting to see Army flip the script on Navy to break one of the longest losing streaks in this rivalry’s history. Color analyst Gary Danielson noted during the game that Navy typically acts like a boa constrictor, slowly squeezing its opponent. Army took the role of the defensive aggressor and even fended off a comeback attempt from its longtime rival.

Before I move onto the Heisman trophy presentation, I do want to send my thanks and congratulations to Verne Lundquist. He completed his final season in the booth for CBS and now moves into semi-retirement. His heartfelt sign-off after the Army-Navy game was one of the highlights of the day. Saturdays won’t be the same without Lundquist in the booth calling the action in the SEC. Luckily we will still get to hear him during March Madness and on the 16^th hole of the Masters.

Now let’s get to the Heisman trophy presentation where Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson took home the most coveted award in collegiate sports. Jackson took the country by storm this season, racking up 51 touchdowns on the year along with 3,300+ passing yards and 1,500+ rushing yards. He is the first Heisman winner in the history of the Louisville program.

It turns out it was really a two-horse race for the trophy this season, despite five finalists being invited to the ceremony. Jackson won by a wide margin over Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson, who finished as the runner-up this season. The margin between Watson and third-place finisher Baker Mayfield was actually one of the largest in the history of the award.

I am very excited to see how Jackson will follow up this incredible season, as he will have the rare opportunity to attempt to defend his Heisman trophy next year. There will be a ton of competition and heightened expectations for the sophomore quarterback in 2017. Jackson chasing Archie Griffin will already be one of the top storylines of the 2017 seasons.

Keeping with the theme of upsets on the field, the NFL had two big ones in store for us yesterday. Green Bay throttled Seattle yesterday 38-10, making a huge statement to the rest of the NFC. The Packers look far from dead in the NFC North and the wild card race. If you are into pointing fingers, this game largely falls on the five interceptions thrown by Russell Wilson. Granted some of them were crazy tipped ball picks, but any time you have five interceptions against Aaron Rodgers, its just not going to be your day.

Speaking of Rodgers, he was magnificent against a short-handed Legion of Boom. He picked apart the Seahawks from the get-go, and the extra possessions were really just icing on the cake. Now the only negative that you could put on the Packers right now is that Rodgers was rested in the fourth quarter and was limping for much of the game. His health is the key for the late season surge Green Bay will need to finish in order to get into the playoffs. This is two weeks in a row where Rodgers has looked gimpy during the game, so we’ll have to keep a keen eye on the star quarterback’s injury status going forward.

Sunday night football gave us a defensive showdown in the NFC East between the Giants and Cowboys. New York completed the season-sweep of Dallas, winning 10-7 in primetime. It wasn’t pretty but the Giants got the job done when they had to against the top team in the NFL.

Dak Prescott played the worst game of his rookie season, going 17-37 passing (45.5%) for 165 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions. The Giants sold out to stop the run, but the secondary stepped up in man-to-man coverage all night long. Janoris Jenkins had the performance of the night for the G-men, shutting down Dez Bryant, nabbing an interception, and forcing a fumble on Bryant to win the game.

Dallas certainly has a few issues to iron out, but they are still the class of the NFC right now. Any talk of Tony Romo coming in at quarterback is ridiculous. The Cowboys would be doing a disservice to Prescott by pulling the plug on him now. The Cowboys are still in the driver’s seat for the top seed in the NFC and with a rookie quarterback you have to expect a couple bumps in the road. 11-2 is still a great place to be in mid-December.

New York and this defense are looking like one of the more dangerous team’s in the NFC and come playoff time I would not want to see them on the schedule. They are shutting down the opposing offenses, and even though New York’s offense isn’t very consistent, all it takes is one slant route by Odell Beckham Jr. to make the difference. At 9-4, the Giants need some help to take the NFC East, but are in a great spot holding down the fifth seed in the conference. This is a team that could easily win in the wild card round and make a strong run in the playoffs.

It’s time to turn our attention to tonight’s game between the Ravens and Patriots. Hopefully we’ll get a much better game than last week and if recent history tells us anything, we should be in for a great one. This is a potential playoff preview between the leaders in the AFC East and AFC North.

For New England, this is a huge game for them as they will be able to take control of the AFC’s top seed with a win. Baltimore needs a win to keep a slim lead over the Steelers in the AFC North. A loss would drop Baltimore out of the playoffs for now.

Baltimore sports the top-rushing defense in the NFL, and this front-seven will be called upon to cause havoc against Tom Brady. They will have their hands full trying to stop the assortment of weapons that New England has even without Rob Gronkowski. The Ravens are a hard-nosed football team and are one of the few teams that can cause fits for the Patriots in Foxborough. Two of the last five games between these teams in New England have been playoff wins for Baltimore. There has been a lot of talk of a lack of fear from the Ravens going up against the best team in the AFC and that playoff success has a lot to do with the confidence of Baltimore coming into this game.

There is a “heavyweight fight” feel to this game, and rightfully so with the marquee matchup of the Ravens defense and Patriots offense. I do think that the key to this game is Joe Flacco against the New England defense. Flacco will need to be able to attack downfield and put up points against New England. This isn’t one of the better defenses that Bill Belichick has put together in recent years (mostly due to trading away Jamie Collins midseason), so Flacco will have to take advantage.

A name to watch for the Ravens is rookie running back Kenneth Dixon. He returned from an MCL sprain a few weeks ago and has been carving out a nice role for himself as the receiving back in this offense. Dixon is a nice complement to Terrance West in the backfield, and has been productive in recent weeks.

As far as tonight’s game goes, I think that the Patriots at home are a pretty safe bet to win this game at home. However, I’m picking against the spread, which doesn’t make New England the surefire pick here. Of the last five games in Foxborough, three games have been decided by three points (all won by New England) and the other two were outright wins by Baltimore by double digits. I’m going with Baltimore (+6.5) to finish another big week for the Shooting the Moon picks (currently 10-5 this week).

That’s it for me today. I’ll be back tomorrow with “No Huddle” to recap the rest Week 14 and reveal the latest power rankings. Follow me on Twitter @thereal_jmooney and go like the Shooting the Moon page on Facebook.