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This is a big football weekend, with two important games. Every year when the schedule comes out, everyone goes down the list and starts to pick out which games are going to be the "big games" and the hype machine starts. Even before the rosters are fully set, we start hearing about how it's time for certain players to step up in this game and in some cases that it could be a turning point for the season. It makes for a great read in newspapers and on Web sites and sounds great to hear from TV analysts, but all too often those games don't pan out for one reason or another. Sometimes it's because one of the teams, for whatever reason, just doesn't pan out or because the conference or division shakes out differently from the way people expected before the season started.

This weekend, we have two rare occasions when the preseason hype is well warranted. The first is a game I'm lucky enough to be broadcasting on our "Sunday Night Football" telecast. That game, of course, is the Philadelphia Eagles at the Washington Redskins. The second game is the "Monday Night Football" matchup featuring the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots.

Both games have survived the hype for several different reasons. Let's start with the Colts-Pats game. First, the Patriots have persevered despite a series of potentially devastating injuries. They already have lost RB Kevin Faulk, OT Matt Light, S Rodney Harrison, and CBs Tyrone Poole and Chad Scott either for the entire season or for a few weeks. In addition to those injuries, RBs Corey Dillon and Patrick Pass, DTs Ty Warren and Richard Seymour, CB Randall Gay, TE Ben Watson, and WRs Troy Brown, David Givens and Tim Dwight all have nagging injuries.

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