NFL 2023: WEEK THREE ring circus

The Game Room
1

Didn’t take long for injuries to become the biggest story in the NFL. Jets trade away a couple second round picks for Aaron Rodgers and he earns about over 9 Million dollars per snap that he actually played for them. Nick Chubb, by most accounts a good guy, a solid teammate, and one of the best running backs in the NFL is out for the year. And game changers like Aaron Jones, Saquon Barkley, and Austin Ekeler are missing time due to injuries also. Not to be outdone, a Patriots fan died after a fight at Gillette Stadium, so not even watching football is safe. Rough way to start the season. Rougher when you consider that Deshaun Watson remains healthy, and is inexplicably not suspended after grabbing facemasks and pulling and then pushing a ref.

In other NFL news, Chicago Bears defensive coordinator resigned to take care of his health and spend more time with his family, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the FBI raid of his house last week. One of my favorite players, Dr. Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff, announced his retirement. Dude won a Super Bowl, but, more importantly, decided it was better to be a doctor than a football player during the 2020 pandemic. And Kyle Granson, a TE for the Colts, celebrated his first NFL touchdown in an incredible way: by doing a tongue in cheek photo shoot with the football. Pics or it didn’t happen.

And now we’re onto Week 3. Where everything we learned in Weeks 1 and 2 are going to be turned upside down. Cause this is the NFL, and predicting what will happen is a fool’s errand. I will go out on a limb and guess that there will be another huge injury this week. That seems about the only sure thing.

Here’s your games:

Thursday Night Football

New York Giants (+10) at San Francisco 49ers (-10)

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Early

Indianapolis Colts (+8) at Baltimore Ravens (-8)
Tennessee Titans (+3) at Cleveland Browns (-3)
Atlanta Falcons (+3) at Detroit Lions (-3)
New Orleans Saints (+2) at Green Bay Packers (-2)
Houston Texans (+9.5) at Jacksonville Jaguars (-9.5)
Denver Broncos (+6.5) at Miami Dolphins (-6.5)
Los Angeles Chargers (-1) at Minnesota Vikings (+1)
New England Patriots (-3) at New York Jets (+3)
Buffalo Bills (-6.5) at Washington Commanders (+6.5)

Late

Carolina Panthers (+6) at Seattle Seahawks (-6)
Dallas Cowboys (-12.5) at Arizona Cardinals (+12.5)
Chicago Bears (+12.5) at Kansas City Chiefs (-12.5)

Night

Pittsburgh Steelers (+1.5) at Las Vegas Raiders (-1.5)

Monday Night Football

6:15

Philadelphia Eagles (-5.5) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+5.5)

7:15
Los Angeles Rams (+1.5) at Cincinnati Bengals (-1.5)

I’m not sure what side I’m on over these two MNF games at the same time. Part of me enjoys being able to switch back and forth between the two games at the same time because there is a fair amount of down time to football. But part of me is annoyed as hell because I miss a bunch from both games, and don’t actually enjoy not being focused on one game. To each their own, I guess, but I hope they do away with simultaneous MNF games.

Thursday’s game holds no interest for me. I’m not sure there is a world, short of catastrophic injuries, where the Giants can compete against the Niners. Sure it was fun making a comeback against the lowly Cardinals, and last year’s run was fun, but without Saquon, I can’t see this game being anything other than a slog.

Of the Early Sunday games, of course the Packers are it. I’m a bit surprised that the Pack are 2 point favorites. The Saints defense is for real, and I’m not sure that Jordan Love is. I’m a bit surprised at all the positive press he’s getting. He’s not a bust, that’s great. But his numbers, especially TDs, are inflated and he’s still way too inaccurate (56% completion percentage). Still, the game should be interesting. The Chargers/Vikings game should be worth a peek. If you don’t like watching defense that is.

The late games are atrocious. Maybe the Bears Chiefs game might be worth a peek just to see the Chiefs in a get right game and watching the Bears get trounced is always fun. But what the hell is up with Bryce Young? He looks nothing like the QB at Alabama.

Steelers/Raiders is worth a peek. Seeing if Kenny Pickett will ever shine could be interesting, and I do love me some TJ Watt. I’ll definitely check it out. As I will Monday night games. I’m surprised how good Baker Mayfield has looked through 2 games, but I want to see if he can do it against a very good defense. I’m guessing he can’t. And I’m thinking of adopting Puca Nakua, so it will be fun to see him live in prime time.

So how’s your team doing so far? Which rookie are you thinking of adopting? How much do you think a middling QB is worth? Let’s here from you!

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Nice! I’ve been loving him on my dynasty team but haven’t had a chance to actually see him play. That will be fun.

Speaking of dynasty, this week my choices at quarterback are Daniel Jones against the 49ers, Baker Mayfield against the Eagles, or Zach Wilson against anybody; this week happens to be the Patriots. I have three options of suck.

3

Does anyone really expect this week’s Thursday game to be worth watching at all?

4

Well, over the years I’ve grown to enjoy the comedy value of the ineptitude of both New York football teams, to the point that I find myself laughing out loud during games. Other than that, not really?

I mean, any given Sunday, and any good team can have a bad day in any bad team can have a good day. But realistically, I give the Giants maybe a 3% chance tonight, tops.

5

Does it matter if no one can see it (excepting Primes of course)

6

I’m looking forward to watching every minute.

7

I mean, sure, if you’re a Niners fan expecting the blowout. I expect this to be a game with a lot of points (the o/u is 44 and I’d probably take the over) that’s somehow also incredibly boring.

8

Maybe, but it was still a better week than the previous week, which was our yearly opening day shellacking by the Packers. :frowning:

9

If it is an upset … YES!

10

So…things have been interesting for the Bears. Some quick takes from a guy who’s paid too much attention to this terrible team for 2 weeks.

Drama 1
Justin Fields’ comments this week about coaching are a giant nothing burger. If you didn’t see the clips (not sure how you could miss it), Fields was asked what was going wrong so far, why the regression? His answer was, to paraphrase, I’m not playing free out there, I’m all up in my head, I’m indecisive and I’m playing too robotic. When asked why, he basically said I’m busy thinking about all the coaching.

The media and socials have decided that he’s throwing the coaches under the bus. That they are coaching him poorly and that it’s all their fault. That the play calls and scheme doesn’t allow him to be himself out there.

So, Fields then decides to have an impromptu presser in the locker room after practice to shut that narrative down. Basically, saying he’s accountable to everything…which for all his faults has been consistent his entire time here. Never once has he been anything but professional and constructive.

The reality is that Fields never criticized anyone. The meaning of what he said was that he’s being given a lot of coaching (which he badly needs) and it’s caused him to be out there thinking instead of reacting. He needs to internalize that coaching and then on gameday it needs to be second nature. He’s not there right now. This shouldn’t be surprising, coaching takes time to soak in, changes to mechanics take repetition. We’ll see if his approach changes in the coming weeks.

Drama 2
Bears DC Alan Williams was unexpectedly away from the team for the week 2 game in Tampa. On Wednesday he officially resigned for “personal reasons” and to “focus on his health and family”. The Bears, as per usual, provided zero information on any of this. Naturally, the internet and various no names on social media have filled in the gaps which lots of salacious rumors.

What we know:

  1. Alan Williams was a bad DC before he joined the Bears, but Eberflus was a good one so people didn’t pay it much attention.
  2. Alan Williams stepping away and then resigning happened quickly and unexpectedly. There had been no health or other issues reported. There were no conflicts between he and staff or players that we know of.
  3. Alan Williams has been communicating publicly through an attorney.
  4. The Bears have provided no additional detail on his departure. They’ve expeditiously scrubbed him from all their press materials and website.
  5. The Bears statement on his resignation was hilariously terse. No thank you, no well wishes.

That’s all. Now for the rumors and nasty speculation.

  1. The FBI raided Halas Hall. The team has denied this saying it’s “completely false”. Reddit thinks the Bears are playing a semantic game here and that the FBI or other LEO performed a search, but it wasn’t a “raid” since it was consensual.
  2. The FBI raided Williams’ home. Williams’ attorney has denied this. No reputable news source has reported anything on this. Plenty of shitty no-name sites are claiming it’s true. Today Pat McAfee claims he has sources claiming it’s true, but still unverified. If false, ESPN could be in trouble.
  3. The reason Williams is communicating through an attorney is because he’s preparing a criminal defense.
  4. Poles and Eberflus mentioned that they discussed the situation with Warren and McCaskey to make sure it was “handled” properly. Reddit thinks this is fishy, that a simple health/personal departure wouldn’t require handling or discussion with ownership.
  5. Williams is involved with drugs, kiddie porn, sexual harassment, or gambling. Of course the second one is getting all the juice online.

My take:
Something bad is probably coming down the pipe. The resignation’s timing is abrupt and unless he just got diagnosed with a terminal illness, I can’t think of another explanation.

Williams working with an attorney is probably not evidence of anything, I would expect this for anyone leaving a $1M+/year job under difficult circumstances. The Bears being tight lipped doesn’t mean anything. That’s standard operating procedure. Poles/Flus coordinating with Warren/McCaskey also probably doesn’t mean anything, I’d expect this for the departure of any high-ranking staff member.

Halas Hall probably wasn’t searched. It would be really stupid to lie about a “raid” and then later claim you were playing semantics. But, this organization is no stranger to stupid…so you can’t totally rule it out.

Williams’ home getting raided is a big unknown. The fact that no real journalist has reported anything seems suggestive, but all the big local outlets may have relationships with the team they want to protect. This is probably the only fact that really matters at this point unless Willaims chooses to share some info about the supposed “personal issues”.

If it were gambling, the NFL would be stepping in. If it were sexual harassment, Poles/Flus wouldn’t be acting like they are ignorant of the situation. So that probably leaves a crime, a serious illness, or Williams’ marriage being on the rocks as the likely candidates. The latter probably wouldn’t lead to him sabotaging his entire career. So yeah, stay tuned.

Drama 3
In actual football news, the Bears are 0-2 and looked terrible for 2 weeks. Fields particularly has played badly. There’s a new cottage industry built around people breaking down the All-22 films and the story is bad. Fields is regularly missing WIDE FUCKING OPEN receivers and taking pointless sacks. This is really troubling. I’ve watched a bunch of these tapes and there’s no exaggeration. Fields’ mechanics suck and he’s not pulling the trigger, presumably he’s not trusting what he’s seeing.

Chase Claypool has been awful. The guy we traded the 32nd overall pick for, has sucked balls. His effort was dogshit in week 1, bad enough that he needed closed door meetings with coaches to address his effort. In week 1…against the Packers…following an off season where he was central to the discussion. In week 2 his effort was better, but it seems like he was lining up wrong and possible running wrong routes. He caught a nice TD and actually make a few nice blocks, but it’s definitely a WIP.

Everyone HATES Luke Getsy all of a sudden. He called the same screen pass 3 times in a row in the shadow of the goal post on the critical 4th quarter drive last week. The last was the pick 6 that effectively ended the game. In general, his overuse of the screen play has been the thing that has infuriated casual fans most. Fields stans are jumping all over Getsy and blaming him for Fields regression. I would point out that, as noted above, we’re regularly scheming WRs open and we’re missing them. Getsy’s is doing that.

Both our lines are complete dogshit We’ve got the worst pass rush in the league for the second year in a row and Poles did basically nothing in the off season to fix it. The DL draft picks this year so far look like potential busts, neither managed to win a starting job and DL isn’t one of those positions where you expect a slow progression. The OL is equally bad and have blown protections regularly. This seems more systemic than just talent which is a big concern. To make things worse our starting LT just landed on IR joining OG Teven Jenkins.

Poles’ free agent additions look bad and with a few key exceptions his draft picks look bad. Still a small sample size, but safe to say people are starting to panic.

On the upside, the Bears have the Panthers’ 1st round pick and us getting 2 of the top 3 picks isn’'t far fecthed.

Lastly, we play the Chiefs in Arrowhead this week. Which should be fun. I’m making the road trip to KC myself, so I’ll get to see this bloodbath in person. Woo.

11

I’m actually kind of looking forward to Houston football again. Still have a terrible owner, but Jack Easterby is finally gone and there’s now a reasonable hope that 2-3 years down the road, this will be a respectable team.

Nobody can really say if Stroud will be the QB of the future, but at minimum he does not look like a bust so far and is saying/doing the right things so far, which is better than I can for the rotating cast we’ve had for a while. Ditto DeMeco Ryans who, despite starting 0-2, does appear to be doing the coaching part right and mostly needs the front office to improve that roster

Oh good. if you had paid too much attention to the Bears for the last 2 or even 10 years, it might have driven you to drink by now

Hope you like KC style BBQ, because that might be the only high point of the trip

12

The Washington Commanders are 2-0 after good games against mediocre teams (Cardinals and Broncos), but face their first real test this week against the Bills. A test they will likely fail. But any given Sunday…

I am also interested in the Chargers - Vikings game, because I have both QBs on my fantasy team (which is also 2-0 Yay!). Both are projected to earn 19 pts (ESPN rules). Which one would you choose?

13

Wow, 3 of the 4 dumpster fire teams all playing in the afternoon. Probably a decent week to do some family activities. Or nap.

I’m not at all sure how I missed that this was becoming a thing. I was caught off guard by it last week and I figured it was a one-time experiment. I didn’t really care last week since one of the games was a pig, but if both games turn out to be incredible and I have to bounce around I’ll probably be pissed. Then again, having 2 games to pick from will be nice when one ends up as a blowout. Probably going to be a thing that’s bad/good based on the situation each week.

14

I’m a BBQ junkie, so I expect to gain between 12 and 35 pounds this weekend. I’m also excited to get the Arrowhead experience, especially the tailgate. The upside to the Bears being an unmitigated disaster is that I won’t be troubled with any hopes or expectations.

15

For fantasy?Take Herbert over Cousins. But I’m not so familiar with ESPN rules. If they’re really that close, that’s not a great set of rules

Neither D inspires much confidence (quite the reverse, to be honest) so that shouldn’t be a huge factor, either. Though the Chargers’ pass D is kind of the worse of the two, so maybe that’s fair

16

ESPN’s scoring estimates are SO, SO bad. I completely ignore them. They still think Najee Harris will get 14 points this week.

Herbet has the higher variation for sure, of the two he’s more likley to both shit the bed and go off for 400 yards and 4 TDs. Cousins will probably get you between 18 and 22 points no matter what, so ultimately it depends on your matchups and what you need from the QB.

In my Money League I’ve got both Mahomes and Goff and I fully expect Goff to outscore Mahomes every 3 weeks or so, but the floor on Mahomes is really high so he gets the start every week.

17

Seattle is hosting Carolina this weekend. And it looks like the hot new QB, Bryce Young, #1 overall draft pick, will not be playing. They will be throwing in their backup QB instead.

ANDY %$^&ING DALTON

The Red Rocket himself.

You might ask, isn’t he a washed-up former starter who has bounced from team to team, struggling to keep a spot anywhere? All true. And yet, his career record against Seattle is 4-1. He even beat them last year.

The Ginger Ninja seems to know some secret to beating Seattle, and now I am extremely concerned.

18

Dalton (and Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, Daniel Jones, Ryan Tannehill, Carson Wentz, and on and on) are perfectly average NFL QBs that can run an NFL offense.

19

its becuase of the Hollywood strike Abc /Disney asked for more games to fill Mondays with
It is also why John Cena and the Rock are back in the WWE for the next couple of months (so far)

IF i was in KC unless they played the Raiders i wouldn’t care about the games…id be there for the 'cue

20

That makes some sense I guess, but I wouldn’t have thought that the TV contracts allowed that flexibility. That’s a game that CBS/Fox end up losing out on.