Week 4 Observations

Jayden Daniels is HIM. 

Anthony Richardson is GLASS.

Derek Carr is who we thought he was. The Saints have come back to earth and now get a MNF game in Kansas City as their reward.

The Chargers played Herbert two weeks in a row with a high-ankle sprain, and came away with 0 wins to show for it. This is the flip side of Harbaugh. Instead of protecting your franchise quarterback for the long-term, you go all rah-rah we live for this moment and look where it gets you. In a couple years if he destroys Herbert, he can just bail on the Chargers. (Meanwhile, Andy Reid still won't let Mahomes take a sneak.)

One of these will be true:

• The Ravens and Bengals will both be 2-3 after 5 weeks. 
• The Bengals will be 1-4 and essentially eliminated from playoff contention. 

I'm good with either!

So Jayden Daniels. Great, exciting stuff. They've basically scored on every possession, three games in a row. But I'm not ready to buy the Manders as a playoff team yet. Their defense is trash and it's almost guaranteed that Daniels is going to miss a few games to injury at some point.

Meanwhile Anthony Richardson. He has played in 8 of a possible 21 games so far. In those 8 games, 4 of them he did not finish due to injury. But he was also pretty bad this year. The 2024 Colts are better off with Flacco. 

The Jags are 0-4. But at least they play in TrEver Bank Stadium.

After Week 5, every NFC North team will have a winning record.

- - -

Let's take a look at the playoff picture. 

AFC

In: Chiefs, Bills, Texans

Likely In: Ravens

Up In The Air: 5 teams

Likely Out: Broncos, Bengals, Dolphins

Crossed Off: Titans, Jaguars, Patriots, Browns

NFC

In: Vikings, Bucs

Likely In: Lions, Seahawks

Up In The Air: 8 teams

Likely Out: Cardinals

Crossed Off: Giants, Panthers, Rams

- - -

Chiefs WR is back down to quality of last year. 

Moving forward they've got:

Worthy

Juju

Hardman

Justin Watson

Skyy Moore

Plus: Kelce, Noah Gray, Kareem Hunt, Samaje Perine 

It's concerning to have Brown Rice (WR1 and WR2) go down for the season. We'll see if Veach brings in another WR this week.

Week 3 Frauds

I guess he meant "team to beat" literally.

This was the best Super Bowl window year for the Bengals before their cap situation gets tight and they start 0-3. 

Bengals fans have shown up for two home games. To watch the Patriots come in and get their only win and the Commanders led by a rookie QB torch the hell out of them. Maybe instead of trying to rename other team's stadiums, they should just focus on their own. 

Bengals can go 8-6 rest of the way and would still miss the playoffs. 

- - -

It only took 3 weeks before people starting asking if the Bears should have kept Justin Fields. 

A month ago after seeing Caleb in the preseason, people were saying can you believe anybody thought the Bears should keep Justin Fields. 

Here's the thing: QBs and Coaches both matter a lot. 

When you have the best combos like Brady/Belichick or Mahomes/Reid it can be tough to isolate who's more deserving of the credit, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. You just want to keep them both together for as long as possible. 

When you have bad/struggling/mid combos it is also tough to isolate the problem. When Andy Dalton comes in and outperforms Bryce Young by a country mile, it makes it easier to label Young as a bust. When Kevin O'Connell can get huge wins out of Sam Darnold (previously famous for seeing ghosts) it's pretty easy to see that KOC should get his flowers. 

When you had three years of Justin Fields on the Bears and he produced highlight reel plays but not enough consistency or winning to lock him up long term...who do you blame? The Bears blamed Fields and traded him for not much in return. They replaced him with Caleb who hasn't impressed so far. Meanwhile, Fields is 3-0 on the Steelers. 

Here's the reality as I see it. If Caleb Williams had gone to the Chiefs or 49ers or Packers or Vikings or Texans or Dolphins (or probably another 6-10 good/decent teams with good coaches) he'd be lighting it up already. LaFleur schemed up two nice wins with Malik Willis. 

We already know what Justin Fields on the Bears looks like. Back in January, I had him in the same tier as Jordan Love and here's what I wrote about him in the preseason:

Does it feel good to be right? Yes, of course, 100%. 

But the point is that the question of should the Bears have stuck with Fields or gone with Caleb, overlooks the elephant in the room. The Bears are bad because they're the Bears. It starts with the coaching staff. Drafting Caleb Williams and pairing him with Matt Eberflus is like buying a Ferrari F1 car and hiring Matt Eberflus to be your driver.

- - - 

Let's end with the Chiefs. KC is on a 9 game winning streak and has done everything they need to do to position themselves for a potential bye or at least wining the division. 

It hasn't looked pretty.

If you flip a couple plays they could be 0-3. (Guess who else that applies to? Basically every team in the league.) 

I do recognize the point that the Saints and Vikings have had some big wins, and every Chiefs win is a squeaker, but to quote Malik Willis: "All wins count the same."

And for people to be freaking out saying that KC doesn't look complete yet, relax. I think they've earned a bit of patience. First of all, they're 3-0 so what are we really talking about. And second, it's September. You don't want to peak too soon. I think it's juuuuuust fine to grind out some close games, live in those clutch moments, and ideally round into shape in December and January. 

Week 2 Thoughts

I told myself I wasn't going to do a weekly column this season because I didn't want to force it, but here we are, 2 weeks in, 2 posts. 

Let's start with the Chiefs. 

Starting the season with two wins over Ravens and Bengals. Now that we're in the single-bye era, it's so much easier to get to the Super Bowl if you're the #1 seed. Gotta love racking up wins against good teams, knowing there's teams like the Panthers and Broncos coming up on the schedule. 

For the last couple years, we've had to hear about how the Bengals are the team that beats the chiefs. Let's check in on that Bengals-Chiefs rivalry since Mahomes got here:

3 wins in a row for KC at Burrowhead.

Let's check-in on the Burrow vs Mahomes head to head comparison: 

It's true Burrow is 2-1 vs Mahomes in the regular season. But I think I'll take everything in the bottom section of that chart over a regular season win.

Real quick, remind me again what Likely on the Ravens said after the Chiefs beat them...

It's really kind of him for to wish good luck for his opponents,
but I think the Chiefs are lucky enough already. 

- - -

Let's take a look at the playoff picture. 

AFC

In: Chiefs, Bills, Texans

Likely In: Chargers

Up In The Air: 9 teams

Likely Out: Broncos, Titans, Patriots

Crossed Off: None

NFC

In: None

Likely In: Eagles, Lions

Up In The Air: 11 teams

Likely Out: Commanders

Crossed Off: Giants, Panthers

Saints and Bucs look real good through 2 weeks, good enough to say Likely In, but typically the NFC South should only send one team, so I'm not going to put them both Likely In yet. A lot of football yet to be played.

Week 1 Overreactions

Panthers and Giants will be the two worst teams in the league. Their game in Munich on November 10 will determine who gets the #1 pick. 

The cream of the AFC is the Chiefs and not the Bengals. Ravens, Bills, Texans all will be in play. Who will attend the Arrowhead Invitational this year? Let's say Bills. 

Cowboys will be win 11 games but none in the playoffs. 

49ers will be good. Eagles will be good. Lions will be good. Bucs will make the playoffs. 

49ers/Lions/Eagles will all have a shot at the NFC Championship. Let's say Lions hosting the Eagles. 

hot take

If you fumble at the goal line, you'll lose. 

Bengals and Jaguars both fumbled at the goal line and lost by 6 and 3 respectively.

In the AFC Championship, the Ravens fumbled at the goal line and and lost by 7. 

My advice: don't fumble at the goal line.

another year, another banner

So Many Thoughts on Chiefs-Ravens Opening Night 2024

It really shouldn't have been that close. Up 20-10, Mahomes misses Perine on a 3rd and 5 from the BAL 40 that would have been a huge play. Ended up punting instead of breaking the game open.

Chiefs have to put the game away with 3 minutes to go and only one timeout for the Ravens. Really inexcusable to risk letting the Ravens come down and get 8 points to win (That's how the Chargers beat Mahomes for the game they printed up t-shirts about, going for 2 instead of heading to overtime.)

Harbaugh was going to go for two. Smart guy. But he really has himself to blame, the Ravens could have really used those two timeouts. 

Rice was eating all day on slants over the middle. 

3 touches for Worthy. 2 touchdowns. Both touchdowns were 20+ yards. Chiefs only had 4 from that distance all of last year. 

If I was a Ravens fan, I would be SICK about Lamar missing a wide open Flowers in the end zone after missing an open Likely on the play before. 

If Likely gets his toe in and the Ravens make the 2-pt, it's a hell of a win for the Ravens and a crushing loss for the Chiefs. But that didn't happen. Instead here's our reality:

Chiefs are 1-0 and got there without Hollywood Brown, their new WR1. Now own the tiebreaker over Ravens for potential bye, home field. 

Chiefs schedule opens vs Ravens and Bengals but closes against Steelers and Broncos. Love getting wins in the tough part of the schedule. 

Ravens do not have an answer for KC. 

Last year, Chiefs lost on opening day without Chris Jones and had to settle for going 11-6 and getting the 3rd seed. Already feeling like 12 wins seems realistic. 

Hell of a game.

disc golf 9.2.24

I went disc golfing 6 times in August/September 2021. Since then I've gone twice with Niraj, once in KC, once in San Diego. I took the boys once in May 2023. And I went once with Mark in St. Louis. 

I took my oldest today and we played a great round at Blue Valley Disc Golf (aka Prairie Pass) at Pleasant Ridge Middle School. 

Didn't keep score but we both got several pars and had a bunch of nice shots. Great way to get 5000 steps in.