It was another strange week in the NFL.

The biggest shift came at the top of the NFC where New Orleans and Minnesota were humbled, the Saints by the Cowboys and the Vikings by a less-than-stellar Carolina bunch that isn’t in playoff contention.

The games prompted Cris Collinsworth on NBC last night to speculate that Dallas and Philadelphia have perhaps overtaken the Vikings and Saints as the teams to beat in the NFC.

I think that might be jumping the gun a bit. The Saints have only lost one game and that offense isn’t going to be held to 17 points very often. It’s hard to win in the NFL, as shown by the fact that only one team in the Super Bowl era has ever finished a season completely unbeaten. And it took Dallas a nearly perfect game to knock New Orleans from the ranks of the unbeaten.

It was the perfect storm Saturday night. Other teams have gotten leads on the Saints. But none of those teams have the combination of running (Marion Barber, Felix Jones, Tashard Choice) and passing (Tony Romo to Miles Austin, Jason Witten, Roy Williams, et al) that the Cowboys were able to successfully throw at the Saints. Dallas got up two scores and successfully mixed up the offense to frustrate the Saints, gaining a 9 minute time of possession edge heading into the fourth quarter.

That is definitely the recipe for beating New Orleans – Get a lead and then keep that offense off the field. And there’s no question Dallas has the talent to be as good as anyone on both sides of the ball. But there are still several questions with that team. They still haven’t played well in December this season – the Saturday win snapped a two game losing streak.

And there’s little question that Wade Phillips will be gone if Dallas doesn’t go far in the playoffs. He’s never had a great deal of postseason success and he’s underachieved in his previous seasons in the Big D. So, while the New Orleans game was a big win I want to see more than one in a row from them before I shift them to the top of the heap.

The Vikings, on the other hand, I’m starting to worry about. Adrian Peterson has had just three 100-plus yard rushing games all season and he hasn’t eclipsed the century mark in the last five. Those five include games where he received 13 carries for 19 yards and 12 carries for 35 yards in losses to Arizona and Carolina (and while the Arizona game was a blowout the Vikings led the Carolina game 7-6 heading into the fourth quarter – there is no excuse for a two-to-one pass-to-run ratio in a close game on a team with Adrian Peterson at running back).

Furthermore, Peterson has averaged fewer than four yards per carry in eight of 14 games, including seven of the last eight. Is there a lingering injury affecting Peterson? Or is the Minnesota offensive line overrated and underperforming? Remember, there is a rookie starting at right tackle and a second year guy starting at center along with an inconsistent Bryant McKinnie protecting the blind side.

While Brett Favre has had a solid season – and make no mistake, he was absolutely not the reason the Vikings lost to Carolina – this offense still needs to be built around running the ball. They’ve taken serious beat downs in two of the last three games. I still think they beat Chicago and ultimately end up the second seed in the NFC playoffs.

But if they can’t solve the running game woes and start mixing up the offense like they were early in the season, Collinsworth will be right on half of his statement toward the end of last night’s broadcast. The Eagles are playing Red Hot football right now and they’ll overtake the Vikings and face the Saints in the NFC Championship game next month.