NFL week 11: Five to watch - Redskins could leave the Panthers red-faced

That must have been met with much glee over in Minnesota because they now have the edge over the Pack in the NFC North, home advantage and the chance to put daylight between them and QB Aaron Rodgers’ team in the roll down to the play-offs. There’s the added worry for Green Bay with Rodgers nursing a shoulder injury, but he should be ok to start.

Green Bay set off this season and eased to 6-0, then lost two tough games which asked questions of them against strong teams, and then lost to a 1-7 team to really come off the rails. If that wasn’t motivation enough for the Vikes, when the players arrived at the training ground on Monday they found a T-shirt at every locker. The front of the shirt featured an NFL logo and the text ‘NFC North’. The back had a blunt message: ‘BEAT GREEN BAY’. The Packers have won the NFC North in each of the past four seasons.

When asked on Monday who was responsible for the shirts, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer responded: "Me."

"We're making way too big a deal out of it. It's just a T-shirt," Zimmer said: "You can go down to the store and print them up. It's not a big deal."

The message from Packers head coach Mike McCarthy was also clear: “We’re going to focus on getting better. We need to keep working and fight our way out of this. We’ll keep things in perspective.”

The Vikings have now won five in a row after last week’s 30-14 win at Oakland. Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson rushed for 203 yards, including an 80-yard touchdown run, and he now has six career 200-yard rushing games, tied with Pro Football Hall of Famer OJ Simpson for the most in NFL history. Peterson also passed 11,000 rushing yards in his career with 11,151.

“We’re just going to stay in our shell and hopefully continue to stay under the radar,” says Peterson about the Vikings’ run. “But inside this locker room, we’re a pretty confident group.”

VERDICT: PUT YOUR T-SHIRT ON THE VIKINGS TO WIN

CINCINNATI BENGALS (8-1) @ ARIZONA CARDINALS (7-2)

While we are on the subject of shock home defeats . . . the Bengals enter Week 11 having surrendered their perfect record in a 10-6 loss to the Houston Texans. They are still on top of the American Football Conference North Division but will want to quickly erase the memory of that Monday night stumble.

“We just have to put that one behind us,” said Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton. The passer, who ranks fourth in the NFL with a 104.6 passer rating, added: “We can’t let this turn into another one. We can’t let there be any carry over. We know what we’ve done to this point. One game doesn’t define our season. We’re still 8-1. We’re still leading the division. We know where we are, so we just need to get back to what we’ve been doing and we’ll be just fine.”

The Cardinals, like the Vikings, are beginning to sneak up on everyone else in the League, almost unnoticed as the focus has been on the batch of undefeated teams in recent weeks. They silenced the crowd and the Seahawks with last week’s 39-32 win in Seattle. The win gives them a three-game lead in the NFC West over St Louis and Seattle.

Arizona quarterback Carson Palmer leads the NFC with 23 touchdowns passes and a 108 passer rating and has won 20 of his last 24 starts. He was the No1 overall pick by the Bengals in the 2003 NFL Draft and currently leads the league’s top offense at 421.1 yards per game and the NFC’s highest-scoring team on 302 points.

“We’re a resilient group,” says Palmer. “It trickles down from the head coach. I think good teams take on their coach’s mentality. I think that’s what head coach Bruce Arians brings and we’ve figured out how to let that trickle down to our minds by the way we work, by the way we prepare and ultimately, by the way we play.”

VERDICT: ANOTHER SHOCK WIN ON THE CARDS FOR ARIZONA

BUFFALO BILLS (5-4) @t NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (9-0)

The Patriots clung to their unbeaten record when Stephen Gostkowski kicked a 54-yard field goal with one second remaining to give the them a 27-26 win over the New York Giants last week. That snapped a three-game losing streak to the Giants, two of which were Super Bowl defeats. The Bills will not get that close to the Pats in week 11.

“We’re 9-0 and now we’re going to move forward and look at beating the Bills,” says Gostkowski.

New England’s last gasp win helped the club reach 9-0 for the second time in franchise history (2007) and with those nine wins, the Patriots are guaranteed their 15th consecutive winning season, becoming the first team since the 1983-1998 San Francisco 49ers, on 16, to accomplish it. And New England takes a record into Monday having scored in 35 consecutive quarters, the longest streak in NFL history.

Just nine weeks ago, in week two of the NFL season, the Patriots humbled the Bills in Buffalo by scoring 40 points and totalling 507 yards, 466 of those through the air. Bills head coach Rex Ryan believes his Bills are a better team heading into Foxboro for Monday Night Football. The defense is, for starters.

“Our defense is much better than it was that week,” Ryan said this week. “It couldn’t be worse. From a communication standpoint, everything else - oh my gosh - were we bad. They’re really good, but we really helped them. Without question, we’ve improved defensively from that point.”

Monday marks the second time in history that the Bills have faced an opponent with a 9-0 record or better. Guess who the last team was? Yes, the Patriots, back in 2007. Buffalo lost to 9-0 New England 56-10 and the Patriots went on to finish 16-0 in the regular season before losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

VERDICT: PATS EMERGE AS THE SOLE UNBEATEN TEAM IN THE NFL

DENVER BRONCOS (7-2) @ CHICAGO BEARS (4-5)

Denver Broncos’ 39-year-old quarterback Peyton Manning has plantar fasciitis, a particularly painful foot injury, it was announced this week. He experienced discomfort in the 27-24 week nine defeat against the Colts, and had more on Sunday in the 29-13 loss to Kansas. There was some additional pain and inflammation, along with small tearing and is something he has suffered from previously.

Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak has said that Brock Osweiler will be the starting quarterback this weekend against the Chicago Bears.

It may explain a few things to Denver fans with regard Manning's performance last week when he posted a 0.0 quarterback rating and threw four interceptions, before being replaced by Osweiler.

Basketball centre for the Chicago Bulls Joakim Noah, who labored through a tear during the playoffs back in 2013, said: "It feels like you have needles underneath your feet while you're playing."

It’s not clear if and when Manning will return this season, so In the meantime, the focus shifts to Osweiler, who has the task of steadying a ship that raced to 7-0 and is now 7-2. He was 14 of 24 for 146 yards in relief on Sunday, with one touchdown and one interception.

After opening with three defeats, the Bears have now steadied their own ship by winning four of the last six.

Things are getting better for Bears quarterback Jay Cutler too since the hiring of offensive coordinator Adam Gase. Cutler has completed 64.2 per cent of his passes for 2,045 yards, 13 touchdowns and five interceptions, a 95.3 quarterback rating. Cutler and Gase work well together and have been friendly for years and Gase has researched what makes the passer tick. So, when Cutler is comfortable, he’s an effective quarterback.

VERDICT: CUTLER HAS THE CUTTING EDGE