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-- Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is rolling like few rookie quarterbacks we've ever seen, but at least two of his teammates would like it if Newton made a slight attitude adjustment. Offensive linemen Ryan Kalil and Jordan Gross recently told Newton that his habit of putting a towel over his head after a bad series could be interpreted the wrong way.

"They always get on me — I have a bad tendency of showing my emotions on my face. I have to change it, and I'm trying to change it. But those guys constantly stay in my ear, saying, 'You've got to be that same leader from the first quarter to the last quarter.'" Newton told Joseph Person of the Chicago Observer. "It made me mindful it can be somewhat of a detrimental conduct to the team. If you're mad. If you're ticked off. Not saying that everybody else is not feeling the same way you (are). But at the quarterback position, you have to stay even-keeled." Just part of the growth process for a guy who looks more and more like a

The video above is from the Thursday night game between the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts. It has also been placed in our ever-expanding "What the [BLEEP] is roughing the passer anymore, anyway?" file. Explain yourself, Jerome Boger, for you are one of the worst officials in football and you have been for some time. Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt would like an answer as well. As would suddenly embattled head coach Gary Kubiak, who addressed the penalties against the Texans at his Friday press conference.

"I don't know where to start," the coach said. "Penalties and turnovers get you beat in this League and last night, we had a little bit of both. We still turned the ball over twice. We did get one back, but we have to address it from a two turnover standpoint because it's been a problem. Eleven penalties, obviously I don't agree with all of them, but that's neither here nor there. Our job's to keep playing and play through mistakes and play through issues. We had

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-- Weird (but somewhat logical) stat of the year: Per Albert Breer of the NFL Network, the New England Patriots are 6-0 since they waived Albert Haynesworth. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 0-6 since they picked him up. Now, there are some serious correlation and causation issues here, and the Bucs have many other issues that have taken them down. However, given Haynesworth's poisonous past, we're not going to dismiss the numbers out of hand. [NFL.com]

-- Breer, who's a great guy and an outstanding reporter when he's not obsessing over his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes, also writes that with Matt Barkley heading back to USC, the focus turns to Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. Some of the same complaints about spread offense quarterbacks in previous years appear to be coming up with Griffin's name in some circles, which makes sense if you haven't seen … well, ANY football games in 2011. The same things were said of Cam Newton before the 2011 NFL Draft. [NFL.com]

-- The San Diego

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It's been a very good week for Seattle Seahawks defensive end Red Bryant. Last Sunday, he had a pick-six against the Chicago Bears in his team's Soldier Field demolition of Caleb Hanie. And on Wednesday evening, Bryant (all 6-foot-4 and at least 323 pounds of him) and wife Janelle welcomed their first child into the world. Joseph Brooks Bryant was happy and healthy, but Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll took the opportunity to spread erroneous medical information via his Twitter account.

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Understandable — that weight above is how Big Red is listed, but we think the NFL is counting him a few buffets short. This report caused the Twitterverse to explode with speculated Festivus-style Feats of Strength for Red's progeny that made the combined efforts of Chuck Norris, Mr. T and Vin Diesel seem rather wimpy in comparison.

A century from now, the birth of Red Bryant's son will be noted as the day the superhuman race started.

He's already blocked 2 field goals.

Red Bryant's baby tackled the

yahoo_gunther1It's a little late in the season, but we've been noticing more and more that Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham is an absolute wealth of insight and really strange humor in his Thursday press conferences. And with the Lions in the hunt for their first playoff berth in goodness knows how long, we thought it would be a good time to start documenting these fine Gunther pressers, so that our readership would also be aware of the man's genius on (at least) a weekly basis.

In all seriousness, we love the guy. Gunther's not just a brilliant defensive mind; he's also a guy with absolutely no B.S. about him, and that makes for some very interesting quotage. Here are this week's best examples:

With the Lions facing the San Diego Chargers and their cadre of huge receivers, "Gun" was asked if going up against Calvin "Megatron" Johnson in practice helped get Detroit's secondary used to dealing with big bodies. "We go against Calvin in preseason and mostly scout team players go

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Several different factors made the 2012 NFL draft a great deal more interesting on Thursday. Start with USC quarterback Matt Barkley's decision to stay in school, and add in what that does to the rest of the quarterback picture. Multiply that by the number of teams looking to trade up with teams like the Minnesota Vikings and St. Louis Rams for the quarterback picks those teams wouldn't likely make, and things were goofy enough before the Indianapolis Colts threw the whole thing into a tizzy by banishing the "Suck For Luck" mantra once and for all and beating the Houston Texans, 19-16 for their second straight victory of the season.

The once-winless Colts are now 2-13, and in "danger" of losing the first overall pick. Should they do so, they might still be in line for Stanford superstar quarterback Andrew Luck, but that's a story for later. Asked about the Colts' overall quarterback situation before the game started, team owner Jim Irsay had Peyton Manning on his mind. The future Hall

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We're back with another weekly podcast featuring our favorite X's-and-O's analyst — Greg Cosell, the longtime NFL Films maven, who's also the executive producer of ESPN's "NFL Matchup." As always, we go through this week's upcoming games with a scout's eye and Greg in control of the All-22 tape.

Here are the matchups we're discussing in order this week:

Houston Texans at Indianapolis Colts
Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs
Jacksonville Jaguars at Tennessee Titans
Miami Dolphins at New England Patriots
Arizona Cardinals at Cincinnati Bengals
Denver Broncos at Buffalo Bills
St. Louis Rams at Pittsburgh Steelers
New York Giants at New York Jets
Minnesota Vikings at Washington Redskins
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Carolina Panthers
Cleveland Browns at Baltimore Ravens
San Diego Chargers at Detroit Lions
Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys
San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks
Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers
Atlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints

Note that through the rest of the

yahoo_polian_irsay-- Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star contends that when the Colts' miserable season ends, team owner Jim Irsay needs to do more than assemble the money needed to sign Andrew Luck … it might also be time to clean house in the coaching department and the front office. Head coach Jim Caldwell is almost certainly a goner, but there's more and more heat on Vice Chairman Bill Polian and son Chris as Peyton Manning's absence has revealed many "interesting" draft decisions made by the braintrust over the last few years. I could do without Kravitz's constant reminders that he doesn't get along with Polian the Elder — most journos don't and it's not really relevant — but it has been argued that Bill Polian has lost his fastball, and that Chris may not have had one in the first place. [Indystar.com]

-- Another Colts story: Former tight Ben Utecht is the latest one-time NFL player to come forward with the frightening story of what in-game concussions have done to his ability to remember things.