NFL Season #106, Week 1

GO BIRDS!!! (Snooooooooooozzzzz) Hmm? Huh? What?! (Snooooooooozzzzzz…)

I know the game is scheduled to resume in a few minutes, but just hypothetically, what would the NFL do if a game had to be suspended past, say, 1 AM or so and fans had to leave the stadium and go home to sleep? Do they resume play another day?

Not sure. Since both teams are present, they might play next day and then have start times for next game to be later: 4:00 instead of 1:00.

I don’t like this idea but i cannot for the life of me articulate why. Something about it feels unnatural.

This is a crazy game close in the last few minutes.

And Eagles win, due in large part to CeeDee Lamb’s inability to catch a pass.

The Cowboys have a long history of being presented a gift, in terms of the vulnerability of their opponent, and refusing to take advantage of it.

Jalen Carter gets ejected at the beginning of the game - the Cowboys’ offense plays as if he’s right there on the field. Same in other games, too - an opposing team could be missing their star cornerback or All-Pro safety, but the Cowboys refuse to light them up with the passing game.

George Pickens finishes with 3 catches for 30 yards and a key personal foul penalty when his team was in the red zone. Sounds about right for the “star” receiver i came to know in Pittsburgh.

Sounds about right for any free agent that leaves Pittsburgh.

49ers injuries were hampering players throughout training camp, but most were relatively minor. Lots of them returned to full participation this week, so things were looking brighter.

But guess-who popped up on the “limited” list with yet another calf issue.

Having CMC is like playing a game of chess where your queen can also move like a knight, but it’s a roll of the dice whether you start with that piece or a blank square.

Saw on PMT today what may be a new contender for craziest stat of all time.

Derrick Henry has been in the NFL for 9 years. He’s had a couple 2000 yard seasons and is already a lock for the HoF. He’s been wildly successful. But he’s still 700 yards shy of his own High School career rushing numbers.

Statistic High School (Career) NFL (Career)
Games Played 48 136
Rushing Yards 12,124 11,423
Rushing Touchdowns 153 106

You might almost get the impression that the average high school football defensive player was ill-equipped to handle a future NFL Hall of Fame running back.

I’m not at all shocked. You see the same thing in a lesser degree in college, particularly with running backs. You get a guy with that talent and they can effectively run at will and just can’t be stopped. That stops once you hit the NFL level, and you’re playing against the best defensive players in the entire world.

For example, Emmitt Smith rushed for 8,804 yards and 106 touchdowns in high school over 49 games. Over his 226 NFL games, he rushed for 18,355 yards and 164 TDs.

While he wasn’t quite as good in high school as Henry was, you can still see that he was disproportionately much better than he was in the NFL. That’s averaging about 180 yards rushing and over two touchdowns per game. In the NFL, he averaged 81 yards rushing and 0.72 touchdowns per game.

Henry, by comparison, averaged 253 yards per game rushing and over 3 touchdowns per game (again, better than Smith) but 84 yards rushing and 0.78 touchdowns per game in the NFL. A bigger drop off, but both players have pretty dramatic differences.

I think you’ll find crazy-looking stat comparisons for many pro athletes when you look at what they did in high school versus the pros. Stats will naturally drop off as competition gets stronger.

Derrick Henry looked like a man among children in high school. Better muted

CMC is starting to look fragile. His being undersized in this game of battered bodies seems to be catching up to him.

And to change subjects, around these parts (the SFBA CA USA) sports talk radio keeps mentioning the name Kyle Shanahan in the same sentence with the phrase offensive genius. But… I mean, Kyle Shanahan is no slouch but when I think of offensive genius I think of Bill Walsh. I don’t think of someone who choked away 3 Super Bowls snatching defeat from the clutches of victory. Yes those were failures on defense but if you’re the offense and you have possession and you have the lead, you keep getting first downs and you run out the clock. You don’t choke.

Am I bitter? For two of those chokes yes I am. For the Falcons I’m just disappointed they didn’t get their first Super Bowl Championship.

I don’t know if it was Shanahan’s decision, but taking the ball first in overtime in the Super Bowl against the Chiefs was one of the worst calls in recent memory.

Now here’s a guy who sounds just like his dad.

So, what is the story behind the spitting incident?

Prescott was talking trash (maybe, didn’t see that on camera) and spit on the ground. Jalen Carter took it personally, walked up, talked trash, and spit on Prescott. That’s a big no-no. Carter isn’t exactly known for his calm and rational behavior.

That explains it. Thanks.

I’m not sure, either, but unless the teams themselves were forced to leave the stadium due to a local curfew, or it was simply not possible to resume play that day/evening due to conditions, I think that they’d likely resume play that same evening, even if it meant finishing the game in front of empty stands.