Well it’s Thursday so I might get this out before Week 2 is completely irrelevant. Here’s what I saw in the NFL this past week.
Look, it’s just one week and it’s Aaron Rodgers, but Jeff Okudah did not look ready for the complexity of the routes in the NFL game. I know he came from a real defensively minded program, not the PAC-12 (other than USC) but I can’t shake the thought that he could be the newest addition to the Lions defensive player island of misfit toys. Okudah dealt with a hamstring injury even missing the first week of the season, so we can totally give him that, but given the Lions history of wasting defensive talent and under developing players, I’m worried about him going down that road. Hell, Darius Slay managed to get out, but not before an ill-fated extension that kept him there until he signed with Philly this year at age 29. Ndamukong Suh might be a borderline hall of famer, but his Lions career never set him up to have real success anywhere else. The rest of this past decade is littered with defensive talent that flashed brightly, but never properly prospered into anything. DeAndre Levy, Louis Delmas, Ziggy Ansah, Nick Fairley, all names that at one point seemed poised to breakout, but sadly their careers largely fizzled out. Kyle Van Noy and Cliff Avril managed to escape early enough and earned three Super Bowl wins between them, wow. This team with bumbling weirdo Matt Patricia seems headed for the same path and I’m already bummed out for Okudah. According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), he graded out at a 28.6, worst of any defensive player on the team and the tape really showed it. Chock it up to his first NFL game and maybe Aaron Rodgers, but I just hope this guy gets a chance to wade through the graveyard of defensive careers.
Somehow that really annoying Raiders team beat one of my crushes the Saints on Monday night. I came away from my first long term viewing of Josh Jacobs seeing a running game that held up rather middling quarterback play. I know this has been said before, but Derek Carr’s career is just bell curving, summiting itself in 2016 when he was an MVP candidate before getting injured. That same year, Jack Del Rio made absolutely no effort to tailor a game plan around Connor Cook in a playoff game and ensured he’d never be a head coach again. Before that, Carr faced criticism for his dink and dunk approach and those questions haven’t exactly dissipated with hardass Jon Gruden at the helm. On Monday night, Derek Carr needed Josh Jacobs to literally breathe on offense. Darren Waller helped too taking the pirate share of the targets and putting on a masterful performance, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of how John Skelton or Max Hall looked with Larry Fitzgerald making them semi-competent and giving Ken Whisenhunt like 3 extra years in Arizona. Derek Carr looked like one of those QBs that makes a wide receiver’s hall of fame case, not because they share in that success, but because they’re so shitty, it’s a miracle that the receiver put up the numbers he did. See Andre Johnson. With Ruggs and Waller, Derek Carr is out of excuses to excel and while I know they’re 2-0, that Carolina team isn’t lighting anyone up with anything, Drew Brees looked old and Michael Thomas wasn’t playing. You know how everyone shits on Jimmy Garapolo for similar attributes? Jimmy still took a game by its balls and won an incredible shootout with an aging, but still all time great QB in Drew Brees last year. Maybe Jimmy can’t do that often enough, but dammit he put on a show that day and almost won the Super Bowl. Does Derek Carr look like he’ll ever be capable of anything close to that? That’s got to be the line, Jimmy Garapolo and I’m just not sure he’s even there. Seriously not sure how Jalen Richard doesn’t have a million fantasy points because Carr should be hitting him on 3 yard crossing routes every play. I wanted so much for Derek given his brother’s shake in the league, but at this point I think he’s a worse version of Chad Pennington.
I watched a lot of Buffalo games last year, living in the New England area (seriously that’s the division I have to watch every week) and I have to say, I can absolutely believe that Josh Allen was capable of what he’s doing right now. The Bills are 2-0 and frankly killed the two teams they played, which keep in mind were the Jets and the Dolphins, both teams that compare favorably to second tier English soccer teams, but it’s not so much the competition as the differences in the way the offense looks as compared to last year. Allen tried to throw long balls last year, but between a white rapper and John Brown, his receiving corps lacked a certain zest for catching the ball in long yardage situations. Seriously he was supposed to be hitting Andre Roberts on deep routes last year in his second year with a moribund franchise and he played Stephon Gilmore twice. This year, Allen is leading the NFL in looking fucking scary. Despite minimal rushing attempts in college, middling combine stats in the running department, Josh Allen turned his inner Cam on in the NFL and seems to have married his once glaring problem area of deep passing to his already honed skill of running people over. Those fumbles in the Jets game weren’t great, but he’s also yet to throw an interception and no fumble will ever be as embarrassing as the one experienced by former Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, still the most memorable play I’ve ever watched live. Other live football moments I’ve seen like the Music City Miracle (as a Titans fan), the crushing last play of the Super Bowl the same year, the Odell Catch, Tracy Porter’s interception, the Minnesota Miracle, nothing will compare to the joy of the Butt Fumble. All that aside, the Bills did their offseason work, got Stefon Diggs and Josh Allen unleashed his insane arm with downfield accuracy. Through the first two weeks, Josh Allen is third in average depth of target, second in completed air yards and fourth in completed air yards per completion. He also leads the NFL in yards and ranks among the leaders in yards per attempt and other basic passing stats. Not saying he’s Cam Newton 2.0, but then again maybe I am; it’s only two weeks, and I’ll really believe what we’re seeing after November 1 when Billy B. and Stephon come to town.
Let’s talk about something scintillating…that Panthers offense. I’m kidding, I think they’re dreadful and even more so now with all-world Christan McCaffrey out 4-6 weeks after an injury he sustained in the game against the Bucs. A deceiving thirty points in week 1 gave the impression that CMac could carry this team to respectability, but against a Raiders front that leaves much to be desired, he only averaged 4.2 yards per carry on TWENTY THREE carries, a load not often seen these days in the NFL. His two touchdowns along with TTG (Teddy Two Gloves) throwing one and like 8 field goals (it was actually 3), the Panthers fooled those of us who didn’t watch them closely enough in week 1. Week 2 brought the truth and I couldn’t help but picture late stage Delhomme watching this Panthers team barely complete a play more than 6 yards. In this game, CMac played a fair bit before leaving injured and still only averaged 3.3 against that increasing dominant rush defense of the Bucs, but Teddy just never got anything going downfield despite having two relatively talented, fast downfield threats in DJ Moore and Robby Anderson. As the Panthers faced increasingly longer yards to go on third downs to get the first, each play seemed to just be “throw it to McCaffrey and see what he does,” also known as the Barry Sanders method. Teddy couldn’t hit intermediate throws and other than some garbage time yards, could only hit deeper routes when the coverage had completely broken down and the receiver was standing still waiting for the ball. The first note I had on this game was how Ruhl would hide Teddy’s limitations on offense and the rest of the game bore that out completely. It might be a bad sign if on the first few possessions indicate exactly how the game is going to go on offense. Despite a somewhat middling offensive game from the Bucs, the Panthers just looked neutered on offense. I had flashbacks to that Broncos offense with Joe Flacco last year except that Carolina actually has offensive talent in Moore, Curtis Samuel, Robby Anderson and CMac of course, but I’m not entirely sure Matt Ruhl fully grasped the concept of designing an offense around your weapons. At this point, it’s commonplace to fit one’s offense to the skill set of those offensive players, but I saw such a lack of creativity from the Panthers in that area that I’m feeling like 3-13 or 3-14 (I don’t know how many fucking games there are this year) is really in the cards. The betting win total was 5.5, I’d pound the under after watching whatever that was last Sunday.
Bo's Gamut 