The After Sunday Spaz-out (Week One)
The After Sunday
Spaz-out
(Week One)
 |
| The first Monday of the NFL Season, time to freak the Hell out! |
Most of week 1 is in the books and like every week one
Monday Morning, fans, media and talking heads alike will be freaking-out across
airwaves and social media platforms. Hot
takes will pollute the air worse than the West Coast forest fires and fans of
1-0 teams will be talking nonsense about their imminent dynasty. That’s just the ridiculous world we live
in. So, we’re here to pump the breaks
and restore a little rationality to the football world by looking at some of
week 1’s top takeaways and determining if they are legit mountains or mere
molehills.
Bill & Cam’s Excellent Adventure
Bill Belichick began his football life after Tom Brady with
a win against the Miami Dolphins and the Cam Newton era was brought to
Foxborough via ground delivery. Cam ran
for 2 TDs and contributed a team high 75 yards to the Patriots overall 217
rushing yards. He added 155 passing
yards on an efficient 15/19 pass completions.
The win was nice and Cam Newton looked like his old self a lot of the
time which has to give the Patriot faithful some confidence, but a 10-point week
one win against Miami is hardly enough to warrant a half smile from the
Hoody. On the bright side, Cam proved he
can still play and Josh McDaniels has a potentially dominating rushing attack
to build a play-action and passing attack off of and the defense even looked
great despite losing a number of starters from a year ago. On the cautious side, Miami clawed their way
back in to this game late in the second half, if it wasn’t for Fitzpatrick’s 3
interceptions this game could have very easily went south on New England. Over the next 3 weeks they have to play
against Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes, those matchups will be a better
barometer on whether or not the Pats are true contenders this year.
Tom Brady’s Bogus Journey
Tom Brady lost his Buccaneers debut to the New Orleans
Saints on Sunday 34-23. But don’t expect
Brady to show up on Belichick’s front lawn tomorrow with a boombox
asking him to take him back. The Saints
were always going to be Tampa Bay’s hardest test and losing a week one game to
the reigning division champ isn’t going to ruin their season. The Bucs actually had some positives come out
of this loss. Their defense held Drew
Brees to just 160 passing yards and they were stout against the run holding
Alvin Kamara to just 16 yards on 12 attempts.
What sunk Tampa’s ship on Sunday was self-inflicted wounds like a
blocked field goal, a fumbled kickoff return, 9 penalties and two interceptions
including a pick-six. Those are mistakes
that can be corrected and should be over the next four weeks with upcoming
games against the Panthers, Broncos, Chargers and Bears. If the Bucs are still searching for their
first win after that stretch then you can go ahead and pull the plug on their
season but for now Bucs fans can come out of the stormcellar because the sky
hasn’t fallen.
Hot Seat Coaches Face the Music
Week one is WAY too early for any fan base to be calling for
their head coaches jobs, but let’s face it, this is the NFL and like Jerry
Glanville famously said “NFL stands for Not For Long” and almost every single
year there are coaches that don’t make it through the season and this year
probably won’t be any different.
Sunday’s week one games turned the heat up on a couple of skipper’s
seats, not the least of which is Matt Patricia whose Lions blew a commanding
lead against the Bears and made Mitch Trubisky look like John Elway in the 4th
quarter. This 4th quarter collapse has become the calling card of
the Lions under Patricia and bring his overall record as a head coach to a
putrid 9-23-1. If he can’t turn things
around and I mean quick, fast and in a hurry, then look for the Ford’s to
discontinue Patricia like he was a Taurus sedan model. 
Adam Gase is another coach who needs to watch his six this
year if the losses keep mounting up. The
Jets lost to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday 27-17 in a game that wasn’t even as
close as the score indicates. It’s only
Gase’s 2nd year in New York but he already seems to have lost his
locker-room, evident by his best player, Jamal Adams forcing a trade to Seattle
this offseason. Combine that with the
slow development of QB Sam Darnold and flat out lack of offence and a lot of
fans are wondering why the Jets front office ever even hired this guy in the
first place. Another strike against him
is the new GM in NY this year didn’t in fact hire Gase so he’s not affixed to
him. If Gase can’t start stacking the
Jets’ win column look for his new boss to jettison Gase and use all those draft
picks they got from Seattle for Jamal Adams to construct a rebuild with a new
head coach of his own choosing.
Jags Say 'No Tanks'
Everyone outside of Duval County assumes the Jacksonville
Jaguars are going to be hot garbage this season and finish last place in the
NFL, AKA first place in the Trevor Lawrence sweepstakes. That was what management seemed to be
indicating this offseason when they traded away A.J. Bouye, Nick Foles, Calais
Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue and cut Leonard Fournette. But it looks like Gardner Minshew and the boys
never got that memo. On Sunday the Jaguars
beat the heavily favored Colts 27-20.
Minshew was efficiency personified completing 19 of 20 passes for 3
touchdowns and no interceptions. The
Jags plucky defense bent like crazy, allowing the Colts to rack up 445 total
yards but didn’t break and came up big when they needed to, picking off
Philip Rivers two times. Truly this was
probably a bigger reflection on Indianapolis’ deficiencies than it was a
showcase of Jacksonville’s talents but if the Jags can pull off a similar upset next week against Tennessee then they’ll be the sole undefeated team in the AFC
South. Then maybe the Jaguars’ front
office will get onboard with Minshew Mania and start building around what they
already have.
Written by Evan Slade AKA Hacksaw Jim Duggan's Snot
