Post by spiderfan on Oct 4, 2021 20:39:20 GMT -8
Greetings SCtoC, it is I, Spiderfan the official NFL analyst of Sports Coast to Coast and today I welcome you to the Week 4 edition of my thoughts on the happenings in the National Football League, also known as Web of Football. Without further ado, let us begin!
Brady's Return
The whole week leading up to the game was basically the football equivalent of this:
and it ended up being more or less a bunch of
and the actual game was like this
See, for all the hooplah surrounding Tom Brady leading the Buccaneers against his former team, the New England Patriots, when you take the aforementioned hooplah out of the equation and look at Sunday's game as a game, it was a rain soaked, penalty riddled, sloppy, mostly boring, and anticlimactic affair.
Because of the rain (and the lack of Gronk) the Buccaneers usually dynamic passing game was not firing on all cylinders. Because of the Buccaneers excellent run defense, the Patriots were a one dimensional passing offense which while having some success as it not as dynamic of a passing game as compared to the Buccaneers, due to it's one dimensional nature the Patriots offense was not nearly as successful as the Buccaneers offense, which had the benefit of being more balanced as Bucs RB Leonard Fournette made some great plays on the ground. The penalties were numerous, which when you add on the numerous incomplete passes led to a slow mostly low scoring game which wasn't nearly as compelling as one would hope.
Now, it is worth mentioning that near the end of the 3rd quarter things started to pick up and it became a back and forth compelling contest, although that was semi-spoiled by a couple factors. The officiating late in the game was horrendous and anytime there is horrendous officiating late in a game, there ends up being a bad taste in the collective mouths of football fans everywhere. The other factor was the rain. As I just mentioned the rain took most of the teeth out of the Buccaneers passing offense which was most notably on display when late in the 4th quarter Bucs WR Antonio Brown dropped a slippery football in the end zone and forced the Buccaneers to kick a FG, instead of scoring a TD. The rain also officially put the mystique that surrounds both playing on the road in Foxborough and Bill Belichick to an end.
It is 4th and 3 with 59 seconds left and the Patriots on the Bucs 39 yard line down by 2 with one timeout remaining. The rain rain rain was coming down down down and there was 2 options. Either go for it and thus make a potential FG opportunity shorter or potentially get a TD with WAY less time remaining thus increasing the likelihood of victory, or kick a 56 yard FG in the rain rain rain that was coming down down down with a kicker who (as SNF color commentator Cris Collinsworth repeatedly pointed out) had an injured plant leg. Bill Belichick decided to take option B and it ended with a missed FG and a Bucs win. Even if the FG had been miraculously made, there still would have been almost a minute left on the clock with the Bucs having 2 timeouts and only needing a FG to win. Not going for it was a stupid decision and one that no doubt will result in dozens of angry calls on Boston sports talk radio.
It was arguable whether the mystique that hovered over Belichick was gone prior to this game, but afterwards? It went the way of the mystique that (I can't think of a good example, use your imagination and feel free to use your own example here) once had. The mystique around Tom Brady however? Elevated to a whole other level, not only because his Buccaneers defeated his former Patriots on the road, but because Tom Brady is now the all time NFL career passing yardage record holder. Add that with all of his championships and if there was any doubt (admittedly I've had some doubt over the years), there is no longer any doubt, at least in my mind that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time. He might not be the most physically gifted, but his accomplishments are unmatched and likely won't be matched.
Congratulations to Tom Brady and all of the New England Patriots and Tommy Bay Buccaneers players and fans who got to be apart of football history!
You Play To Win The Game (and if you don't karma has a way of getting back at ya)
The Tennessee Titans played against the New York Jets in an OT thriller on Sunday in what was a surprisingly good game considering that the Titans top 2 WRs were injured and the fact Jets rookie QB Zach Wilson had an up and down game. Despite Zach Wilson's up and down game, he ultimately led his team to a 3 point lead in OT with the Titans needing a TD to win the game. They drove down the field and on 4th and 10 with about a minute left instead of going for it, the Titans opted to kick a FG which best case scenario would have tied the game and likely would make the game end in a tie. The kick was no good and I couldn't have been more satisfied. Not because I particularly cared about the Titans winning or losing (although I do like Zach Wilson and wish him success) but because it was a total lame move. It made me think of something Arizona State Head Coach Herm Edwards famously said
When you play for a tie, in my opinion you are just playing a game to play it and not playing to win. If you are playing to just play, you don't deserve to win. The Titans did not and the Jets did. Congrats to Zach Wilson for first win as NFL QB and Robert Saleh for his first win as a NFL HC!
Other thoughts:
-It will be interesting to see if the Dolphins actually go through trading for Deshaun Watson.
-That Steelers win against the Bills is looking more and more flukey by the week
-That Texans win against the Jaguars is looking more and flukey by the week (Wait didn't I just say that?)
-You know you have a bad defense when giving up 30 points is viewed as a good thing (The Chiefs am I right?)
-Congrats to Justin Fields for his first win as a NFL QB!
-Ya know what cracks me up and ultimately inflates my ego? When FOX analyst and HoFer Terry Bradshaw has a piping hot take about how Sam Darnold is the best QB in the history of the Panthers and then Sam Darnold has a classic Darnold performance of 2 TDs and 2 INTs thus proving my longstanding opinion that he is a scrub correct.
-Ya know what makes me sad and ultimately deflates my ego? When Josh Allen completely balls out and due to my intellectual honesty and integrity (something which I will brag about considering most people in national sports media lack any semblance of that whatsoever) I have to admit that I thought that before the draft I thought Josh Allen was going to be the next Jamarcus Russell. Yikes.
-The Seahawks played a complete game and beat the 49ers? I'm pleasantly surprised.
ROAD TO 0-17
2 teams are currently 0-4. I will keep doing this segment until every team has a win or a tie. Teams currently without a win or tie are:
Jacksonville Jaguars
Detroit Lions
The Colts, Jets, and despite all odds the Tinys managing to win football games, there are to my thorough surprise only 2 teams left in this segment. What do both have in common that got them to this point? Not being able to play a full quality game. The Lions and Jaguars have showed flashes and have now both been close to victory but neither have been able to close the deal. With that said, I don't think either one of them is going winless and I don't think either of them are going to be the 1 and 2 pick in the draft next year. Dan Campbell and Urban Meyer are too good of coaches and Jared Goff and Trevor Lawrence are too good of QBs for that to happen. All though this is coming from the guy who insisted throughout 2016 that the Browns would not go winless. So what the heck do I know?
ROAD TO 17-0
1 team is currently 4-0. I will keep doing this segment until that team has a loss or a tie. The team that is currently without a loss or tie is:
Arizona Cardinals
With the Ravens tying the at least 100 yard rushing yard streak of the 1974-77 Steelers at 43 games much to the dismay of Vic Fangio (Denver Broncos coach Vic Fangio slams Baltimore Ravens' pursuit of rushing record in final seconds of game), Sam Darnold's aformentioned performance against the Cowboys, and the Raiders reinforcing the WAY ridicoulous hype around Chargers QB Justin Herbert (Seriously, he isn't a HoFer, calm down other national sports media talking heads), that meant that whoever came out of the Rams-Cardinals would be the only undefeated team left in the NFL to chase the 1972 Dolphins (Raiders-Chargers was on MNF, but my point still stands).
Well, the Cardinals absolutely throttled the Rams in part because of another excellent performance by the Cardinals offense and in part because the Cardinals DC Vance Joseph figured out how to stop the Sean McVay gameplan of "Let's have Stafford chuck it over every defenders head" offense, causing multiple interceptions and shutting down the Rams offense. The Cardinals have the roster and the coaching to have a fabulous season. So far they have had a mixture of being good and being lucky. Can the Cardinals be the first team to go perfect in nearly 50 years? At this point, the answer is one of, if not the biggest storyline in the NFL as right now.
That is it for this week's edition of Web of Football. As always I hope ya enjoyed and now that we are basically a quarter of the way through the season, I hope to share even more of it with ya. Until next week, this is spiderfan out.