reactionary tuesday
Some reactions to the weekend in football. A few thoughts about college first.
Arch Manning had a bounce back game on Saturday. Although, it was against San Jose State. I find it very interesting that a guy with Peyton and Eli as Uncles, has the mechanical issues that has been talked about by the experts. I know that most high school athletes make it on ability alone. But you would think that with his pedigree, mechanics would have been the first thing to be taught.
Is Billy Napier already on the hot seat? He probably should be. No disrespect to South Florida because they may be a legit threat this year. But a 13th ranked team playing the way the Gators did is terrible. And now they face a murder’s row on their schedule. The next four games are LSU, Miami, Texas, and Texas A&M. All of these teams are ranked and three of the four are top ten. Then Mississippi State, which won’t be easy and right to Georgia after that. That’s the potential for a 2-6 squad going into Kentucky in November.
Oklahoma beat Michigan 24-13 and it could have been much worse for Michigan. That score does not tell the story of how badly Michigan played.
On to the NFL.
The Chargers looked good on Friday night in beating the reigning AFC Champs. Justin Herbert looked like the player he was a few years ago and that is good news for Los Angeles.
Cincinnati beat Cleveland by one point. Wow. Cleveland had the time of possession advantage of almost 36 minutes to 24. Joe Burrow only threw the ball 23 times and the Bengals had 23 carries for 46 yards. That is terrible. If the Bengals can’t beat a Cleveland team that will be in contention for a top five draft pick in 2026 by more than one point; they are in for a long season. The Bengals play a some what improved Jacksonville team before playing a very good Minnesota defense in week three.
I thought that Miami would be a bad team this year but losing to the Daniel Jones led Colts 33-8? I was always a Jones truther. I liked when the Giants drafted him. I had a “told you so” attitude about Jones in ‘22 when he helped lead the Giants to the playoffs. He struggled the last couple years and the Giants went in a different direction. Jones goes to the Colts and beats out Anthony Richardson in the QB battle, which isn’t saying anything special because Richardson should have never been drafted that high to begin with. But who saw this performance out of Jones in week one? Miami is in trouble and they play the rest of the AFC East the next three weeks. Starting with an improved Patriots team. Then the defending AFC East Champion Bills and then the surprisingly good Jets team. Going to be a long season in Miami.
I thought that Jaxson Dart would see action around week nine or ten. Maybe the Giants would be hovering around .500 with the Eagles having a four game advantage in the division. Then they would go with Dart to finish the season. But with how Russell Wilson played on Sunday, I’m not sure he’s going to last too much longer. Especially when you have a front office and coach that are on the hottest of seats this season.
I called Aaron Rodgers a top ten QB this year and after week one I look like a genius. I also said that Justin Fields wouldn’t even be a top sixteen QB and I look like an idiot. Still only week one on both accounts. What a game that must have been to watch. The Steelers had to out score the Jets 17-6 in the fourth to come away with the victory. Funny enough, if this was last year and the Jets with Rodgers had to make that comeback against the Steelers with Fields, I don’t think they get it done. What a difference a year makes.
Speaking of what a difference a year makes…Detroit. I did not think there would be much drop off with Detroit after losing both of their coordinators. A strength of the Lions last year was the running game and it was non existent in this game. Give credit to the Packers defense and I don’t want to overreact to week one too much but man, the Lions looked horrible.
One of those cooridinators went to the Jets and they looked pretty good. The other went to the Bears and they looked pretty good…for about 38 minutes. When the Vikings made adjustments in the second half, the Bears didn’t adjust to those adjustments. Caleb Williams missed a lot of plays that could have resulted in points. The Bears could have put up 38 or more if he hit some of those errant throws. I don’t think Bears fans should be too worried. Me included. I consider this Caleb’s rookie season and he’s obviously got the talent.
Last, there’s the potential AFC Championship preview. Baltimore vs. Buffalo. I just got a chance to watch this game before I wrote this. If they do in fact face each other in the playoffs, I fully expect both defenses to play a bit better. For this game, man Buffalo came up clutch. The Derrick Henry fumble was bad and it lead to a Buffalo TD; but they were still up by two points. Even with not being able to ice the game with a first down and Buffalo not having any timeouts, they had Buffalo on their own 20 yard line with a little less than 1:30 left on the clock. They let Palmer break free on that corner route that got them into field goal position in the first place. And then the throw to Keon Coleman that got them an even better shot at the game winning field goal. The Baltimore defense failed them there.