Unbelievably stupid. Had they run it into the line 3 times, they would have forced Houston to burn their timeouts. Then, when the Texans got the ball back, they would not have been able to use a timeout with two seconds left and kick the game-winning FG. Like the announcer said, the post-game press conference with the coach and quarterback should be interesting.
I also thought that the Bengals blew it with their play-calling in overtime. Baltimore got the ball first, but Lamar Jackson fumbled a snap and Cincy recovered it at the Ravens 38-yard line. Three running plays netted only 3 yards, then the kicker missed a 53-yard field goal attempt. Ravens got the ball and a Derrick Henry 51-yard run set them up for an easy game-winning field goal.
I have no idea why Cincy didn’t try a pass after the fumble recovery. I know you don’t want to give up a sack, or throw a pick, but for gosh sakes, Joe Burrow threw for 392 yards and five touchdowns. Ja’Marr Chase had 10 receptions and two touchdowns. Maybe you want to give him a chance in OT?
I kept telling my brother and coworkers not to sleep on Jacksonville this week. Yeah, they were winless going into today’s game, but Indianapolis hasn’t won in Jacksonville since 2014.
One of those two streaks was going to snap. I hate being right all the time.
Indy tends to play to the level of their competition. And I was a big believer in Anthony Richardson when they drafted him. He didn’t play today, and I’m starting to think he’s a little too injury prone and that this may have been a wasted draft pick. He’s played a total of eight games, and hasn’t finished half of them because he’s been hurt.
Why is it that all the NFL announcers say “red area” instead of “red zone” now? It sounds stupid and they all changed at the same time which means it must’ve been some directive from the league. Is it some sort of stupid trademark thing or something? But since NFL owns “redzone” I can’t imagine what the problem is.
Which announcers are doing that? I definitely heard “red zone” multiple times today.
I’m not sure who specifically. I was watching red zone and heard it a few times from what I think were different announcers but I’m not 100% sure who specifically. I guess it’s possible it’s just one guy who says it a lot. I’ll make a note when I hear it again. It really stands out to me because it sounds very awkward.
This is going to be a long season. If the Niners lovingly gift-wrap another win for the other team and deliver it on a silver platter again, I might stop watching.
I noticed Brady says “Red Area” sometimes. Maybe a holdover from his playing days.
Giants looked pretty good again this week. Dominated time of possession, got a ton of first downs and punched it in for touchdowns a couple times. And then just when it looked like Seattle was going to send it to overtime Giants block the kick and return it for a touchdown.
The main reason the Giants have been playing better, at least in my opinion, is that the offensive line is actually playing well. Jones gets some time to find the open man – often the checkdown but no shame in that – and the running backs are able to find holes between the tackles to gain four to six yards quite frequently. All the running backs.
Defense has been pretty stout as well. Both decent pressure on the quarterback and decent coverage behind it.
Not that the Giants are a great team or anything. 2-3 feels like a fair representation. But they are absolutely not terrible. They aren’t even bad. Massive improvement compared to last season.
EDIT: I forgot to mention Jones is running way too aggressively. He’s going to get broken if he keeps this up. They’ve got to stop running him between the tackles. That’s a running back’s job. And the running backs are doing it well.
Here’s my bold prediction from April 2023:
Obviously, Rodgers’ year last year was nonexistent, so not everything applies, but yeah, I never thought he would be the savior that Jets’ fans were craving (and that all the pundits were predicting). So far for everything they’ve invested in Rodgers, the Jets have netted 2 wins over 23 games.
I was at the game, and it’s been many, many years since I’ve heard that crowd sounding like that, maybe not since that overtime game against the Ravens in 2012. And pretty much the response as everyone left was “I don’t know how to react!”.
As for the Browns, oof. As others have said, they just gave up, in particular it felt like the o-line was missing simple pickups. A bad day for the Browns, and delightful to see Watson get his ass handed to him.
Frankie Luvu had a monster game. He literally picked up and threw a guard into Watson’s face.
It is, they have a fantastic O-line compared to many teams. People should not underestimate how critical that is. Games are won at the line of scrimmage.
Chiefs are 5-0!!! Yay!!!
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it fantastic but it’s been looking pretty solid the past few weeks. Keep in mind that the Giants have had atrocious offensive line play for the last dozen years, through several different regimes. It’s like they’ve been cursed.
I am cautiously optimistic that they finally found the right group with their offseason acquisitions.
Here’s a good article about that history of ineptitude and expectations for this year from August:
Watson’s latest lawsuit has been paid off settled. That was probably the Browns’ only way out of that fully guaranteed contract, some kind of conduct clause. Guess they’re really stuck with him now.
I won’t say Jimmy Haslam is the worst owner in the league (he’s not), but he’s certainly not the brightest.
Everybody this coming since he bought the team. He was always talking about his experience as a minority owner of the Steelers and wanting to be that kind of owner - patient, getting the right people, not going through a new HC/GM every other year. But then he turned around and became the poster child for impatient, trigger happy owners. At least until Tepper came in and decided his beer needed holding.
Shakiest 5-0 start I’ve seen in awhile by anyone. Point differential is just 118-85, Mahomes has as many INTs as TDs (6-6), and their rushing game looks pretty nondescript as well, with only their defense keeping them in the green there (3.9 per attempt vs. 3.7).
Few Chiefs fans would disagree with you. Until last night, all of their wins were by 7 points or less, and they probably should have lost two of them.
Still, 5-0 is 5-0, and last night Mahomes threw for 300+ yards and the Chiefs had a 100-yard rusher. Their defense continues to shine; if the offense limits turnovers and converts red-zone opportunities, they will be tough to beat.
(Big IFS, I know…)
Indeed, the Chiefs right now are so reminiscent of the Dynasty Patriots - even when they were not at their best or healthiest, they would somehow find a way to win more often than not. I hate to deal in intangibles like this, but the Chiefs and Mahomes just know how to step it up in key moments to win.