Post by spiderfan on Sept 12, 2022 20:45:15 GMT -8
Howdy everybody of Sports Coast to Coast! Being that I am the official NFL analyst of this forum, it is time for me to give my thoughts on Week 1 of the NFL season. New season, new name (although long time users of this forum will remember the name), same column. So without further ado, let us begin!
And the Champs go down!
Thursday's game between the reigning Super Bowl champion Los Angles Rams and Buffalo Bills was an odd watch. I say that because both teams are (at least in theory) supposed to be the class of their respective conferences. In the first half especially, it felt like I was watching one of those late season laugh fests between two bad teams. Turnovers, dropped passes, bad offensive line play, and odd play calling were plentiful. Ultimately, the Bills finally managed to play a good team and blew out the Rams 31-10.
Outside of Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald, the Rams looked like a team experiencing a Super Bowl slump, which is surprising when you consider the fact that nearly everyone except Von Miller came back. And despite Von Miller's efforts for his new team the Bills, Josh Allen was determined to keep the Rams in the game with INTs. While the Bills did turn things around, the second half felt more a like one of those college games where the the high ranked team plays bad for a large chunk of the game and the lower ranked team isn't good enough to capitalize on the high ranked teams failures. What this means long term is that when Bills play a team like the Chiefs or the Bengals or the Ravens, they are (at least potentially) going to have serious problems and for a team with Super Bowl aspirations that isn't good news.
The Tinys didn't shrink?
As long time readers are aware since the very first year of this column the NFC team from New York has gotten a lot of flack from me due to the fact that they have been anything but Giant. They have been Tiny, hence the New York Football Tinys nickname that I bequeathed onto them in 2017. Usually a segment about them would feature me mocking them and posting a clip of Reducto from Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law to go with said mocking segment. However, that is not the case this week. This week the Tinys grew at least this week into Giants.
Coming back from a 13-0 halftime deficit against a good Titans team on the road would be an impressive feat in and of itself. It was the way they did that impressed me. After tying the game at 13 in the second half, the Titans scored to make it a 20-13 game. The Giants drove down the field, scored a TD, and went for the win. Reducto had the shrink gun ready and... the Giants made it. They took a 21-20 lead. The game wasn't over though, the Titans drove right down the field got into FG range, Randy Bullock lined up for a 47 yard kick, and at moment I thought about this very column and about the aforementioned appearance of Reducto. The ball was kicked, and it was no good! Of all the games this week, this was the most shocking outcome to me. Kudos to Brian Daboll for getting his guys ready to play and ready to win. We shall see if this is a sign of things to come, and if the Giants continue to be Giant.
Starting good is important
There's the old saying "It's not always about how you start, it's how you finish." And while that is true to some extent, starting good is important. That might seem like an incredibly obvious statement to make, but when you look at some of Week 1's outcomes it is hard to not point that out.
In the Browns-Panthers game for instance, right up until it was nearly halftime, the Panthers offense was putrid. Even with the Panthers scoring a TD right before half, the Browns were able to take a 10 point lead at halftime, and even though the Panthers would take the lead with less than 2 minutes to go, because the Browns had a cushion for most of the second half, they were the ones who won the game on a FG. Baker Mayfield did not get his revenge.
In the Steelers-Bengals game Joe Burreuax had his worst performance as a NFL quarterback throwing 3 INTs (one of them being a pick six) in the first half, helping give the Steelers a 17-6 lead at half. Even though the Bengals managed to tighten the gap and set themselves up to win if not for Zac Taylor's decision to not throw a challenge flag on what would have been the go ahead TD or at the very end of the game if the game winning extra point hadn't been blocked, because of their poor start the Steelers, similar to the division rival Browns had cushion, a cushion that helped them survive to win the game in OT.
Last but not least you had the Texans hop out to a surprising 20-3 lead against the Colts. Davis Mills and OJ Howard both looked like star players and the Colts looked to be an overhyped (at least by me) club. Then the Colts came back and the game would end in a 20-20 tie. Which leads us to...
Abolish all ties! (still!)
Last year in Week 10 the Detroit Lions tied the Pittsburgh Steelers, and back then I wrote a segment discussing that tie. Almost every word of that segment is still relevant today. So here it is again:
The ROAD TO 0-17 is now over because the Detroit Lions tied the Pittsburgh Steelers. Here is a totally related (and also unrelated) fact. Did you know of the 4 major North American professional sports leagues the NFL is the only to have ties? Because it is. It should not be. Ties are something that is reserved for little league sports because the parents want to go home, not for the very highest levels of professional athletics. I propose that the NFL officially adopt college football OT rules.
Both teams get the ball at the 25 yard line and depending on what happens, the game ends or continues into a 2 OT where if a team scores a TD, they must go for 2 points. If the game is still going after 2 OTs, then the game goes into a 2 point conversion shootout, where whoever makes a 2 point conversion and keeps the other team from making one wins. If college football can do it, why not the NFL? The NFL should be embarrassed that college football has a better OT system than they do. The game should ALWAYS continue until someone wins.
Both teams get the ball at the 25 yard line and depending on what happens, the game ends or continues into a 2 OT where if a team scores a TD, they must go for 2 points. If the game is still going after 2 OTs, then the game goes into a 2 point conversion shootout, where whoever makes a 2 point conversion and keeps the other team from making one wins. If college football can do it, why not the NFL? The NFL should be embarrassed that college football has a better OT system than they do. The game should ALWAYS continue until someone wins.
There is a lot of things to unpack about the Seahawks win over the Broncos on Monday night. You had Geno Smith having an excellent first half for the Seahawks, you had an excellent performance by the Seahawks defense in the second half, and you had the Broncos failing to capitalize on red zone possessions because of turnovers forced by the Seahawks defense as well as Russell Wilson not making the plays he needed to make in said red zone. While I summed my thoughts on those things in an incredibly long sentence, the thing that I want to focus on, and the thing that is the talk of the football world is the ending of the game. As I like to do I'm going to share a different perspective than you might see elsewhere.
This might be the slightly jaded Seahawks fan in me, but putting my NFL analyst hat on, my main perspective is the same: How ironic is it that after forcing his way out of the Seahawks in large part due to feeling that the ball was not in his hands enough, Russell Wilson was put on the sidelines down 17-16 on the road with a 4th and 5 with less than a minute to go in favor of an absurdly long FG try? Russell Wilson thought the grass was greener on the other side. As the Seahawks uniforms proved, there was plenty of green on the Seahawks side of the fence to begin with.
Other thoughts:
-I think the Eagles trading for AJ Brown was a good idea (The Eagles won and he had 155 receiving yards).
-I don't what it is about the Packers playing terrible in Week 1, but for the second year in a row they did. I won't overreact like I did last year. The Packers will end up being fine.
-The Patriots offense was really bad. It's like they have two former failed HCs who have never been offensive play callers call plays or something...
-Marcus Mariota won his first matchup against Jameis Winston all the way back in 2015. Jameis Winston won the rematch. Later this season we'll see the tiebraker.
-If Lamar Jackson stays healthy, he will make the Ravens regret that they didn't offer him the fully guaranteed contract he deserves.
-The last time there was a "generational QB" in Andrew Luck, he ultimately didn't live to the hype (I know there was mitigating circumstances, but even with those the expectations were too high). My biggest hot take after Week 1? Trevor Lawrence may not be all he was cracked up to be.
-I think the Chargers trading for Khalil Mack was a good idea (The Chargers won and he had 3 sacks).
-As of right now, it doesn't appear that the Chiefs are missing Tyreek Hill. It is one game though, so any bolder take is too much for me right now.
-What happens when you make the stupid managerial decision to get rid of a WR who helps other WR's get open in an offense mind you, that is based entirely on the pass attack because the OC doesn't believe in running the football, AND you have a QB who would be better served by being in an offense that was built to run not pass? You end up losing in humiliating fashion in front of the entire country! And with Dak suffering a thumb injury your players will quit on Cooper Rush just like they did on Andy Dalton, so the losses will add up even faster! Congrats Cowboys!
ROAD TO 0-17
15 teams are currently 0-1. I will keep doing this segment until every team has a win or a tie. Teams currently without a win or tie are:
New York Jets
New England Patriots
Denver Broncos
Las Vegas Raiders
Cincinnati Bengals
Tennessee Titans
Jacksonville Jaguars
Dallas Cowboys
Arizona Cardinals
Los Angeles Rams
San Francisco 49ers
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Carolina Panthers
Atlanta Falcons
Even though the Cardinals suffered the biggest loss of Week 1 margin wise, they are too talented to not bounce back quick. The teams that looked truly bad were the New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers, and Dallas Cowboys therefore they are the teams that are most likely to IMO to go 0-17.
ROAD TO 17-0
15 teams are currently 1-0. I will keep doing this segment until every team has a loss or a tie. Teams currently without a loss or tie are:
Miami Dolphins
Buffalo Bills
Los Angeles Chargers
Pittsburgh Steelers
Baltimore Ravens
Cleveland Browns
Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Commanders
New York Football Giants
Seattle Seahawks
Minnesota Vikings
Chicago Bears
New Orleans Saints
Tommy Bay Buccaneers
As long as Tom Brady is the quarterback of the Bucs and Patrick Mahomes is the quarterback of the Chiefs, those teams will have a chance to have to go undefeated. Therefore they are the teams that IMO are most likely to undefeated.
And with all of that said, the season has officially begun. As always I hope ya enjoyed and hope to see ya back next week. I will leave you with this awesome moment where Bears QB Justin Fields and his teammates slid on the field like kids on Slip N Slide in celebration of their epic win in the rain against the 49ers in a reminder that football is the truly is the greatest game in the world. This is spiderfan out.
Red Hot Gridiron is a weekly column written by the Spiderfan, Official National Football League Analyst of Sports Coast to Coast during the NFL regular season and playoffs.
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