NFL 2020: Week 3

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Some half-ass crap I think this week:

1. Best 2-0 teams: Ravens (Lamar!), Seahawks (Russell!). The Chiefs are probably my No. 3 here, but they came a little too close to losing to the Chargers and Blaine Gabbert 2.0 (hair resemblance only; Justin Herbert didn't suck!).

1a. The Ringer's top 6: Ravens, Chiefs, Seahawks, Packers, Steelers, Bills.

2. Worst 0-2 teams (aka your leaders in the Tanking for Trevor/Losers for Lawrence sweepstakes): Giants (w/o Saquan), Jets (oh god they're bad), Panthers (no CMC for a month or so), Lions (because Lions).

3. Best 0-2 team: Probably the Texans because Watson is so good and they've lost to two pretty good teams. The Falcons are next because they can score a ton of points. Maybe the Vikings if Kirk Cousins stops counting his money and throwing completions?

4. Worst 2-0 team: OMG the Bears are undefeated? Seriously?!

5. Is it the FAILcons or the FaLOLcons?

6. Sunday night's game was awesome. More like this please!

7. Speaking of: Cam looks great — like 2015 Super Bowl Cam, but with a better O-line and marginally better receivers. It's clear that someone in New England got Cam to work on his mechanics a bit. He's still throwing lasers off his back foot, but he looks steadier, and he doesn't spend the first quarter throwing the ball into the stands until he can correct his aim. He keeps this up, and he's league MVP again.

7a. Russell Wilson is the current MVP until Lamar Jackson's turn on MNF.

8. Monday night's game was meh. But damned if Derek Carr wasn't the best QB on the field by a good margin. (And did you notice the seats in the Raiders' new Vegas stadium? Black! Every single one of them.)

9. RIP, Niners. I don't know how you recover from so many serious injuries in a division that right now is the best in football even with a wounded SF team.

10. Sean Payton and the Saints are $100K and $250K poorer, respectively, because their head coaches can't follow the simplest directions. So are Jon Gruden, Kyle Shanahan, Peter Carroll, Vic Fangio and their teams. C'mon, people, wear your damn masks.

11. Who do you have in the Thursday night game: Team Beard (Fins) or Team Hair (Jax)? That might actually be an entertaining game.

12. Podcast recommendation: A year ago, Robert Mays and Kevin Clark tag-teamed on what I thought was the best NFL podcast out there. They split up about halfway through the season (Clark is kind of a bully, and Mays has since left for The Athletic). But Mays has a new pod now, too. I recommend both of them.

13. Another podcast rec: Bomani Jones on his Tuesday show went off (humorously) on the Falcons, Giants, Jets, Fireman Ed, Matt Patricia and the Lions and Drew Brees and the Saints. I am there for that kind of quality content, especially because he went easy on my beleaguered Panthers.

Your coverage maps for the week: Click here. It's the usual 1 p.m. in-market garbage followed by (for most of us) Dallas-Seattle.

We all get Green Bay-Nawlins on Sunday night (should be fun) and ***CHIEFS-RAVENS*** ON MONDAY NIGHT. That's a pretty fine weekend of football!

I feel real bad for Tyrod Taylor. He's kind of gotten screwed over a lot. For a guy that's pretty marginal he needs things to go right for him and not get stabbed in the f*cking lung by his team's doctor.

I commend the NFL for finding new and exciting ways to make massive injections of painkillers unhealthy. Applaud their creativity and sense of innovation.

Robert May's left for The Athletic? Good, his writing can be respected again. #RIPGrantland #stillhurts

Kevin Clark is more made for TV and internet shows.

Enix wrote:

9. RIP, Niners. I don't know how you recover from so many serious injuries in a division that right now is the best in football even with a wounded SF team.

Well the saving grace (potentially) is that they're not playing divisional games right now. They don't have another divisional game until week 6. Most of the injured players are expected to be returning by then. Of course, Bosa isn't coming back at all this year, so they have to figure out how to survive that.

Also, they need to survive their non-divisional schedule well enough for it to still matter. They've got three straight games against teams that are currently 0-2, so if ever there was a "get healthy" stretch in their schedule, it's right here. If they can limp their way to 4-1 and start getting bodies back, they're still in the NFC West ballgame.

God help them if anyone ELSE gets hurt though. If there's another MetLife bloodbath, they're gonna be a practice squad roster.

QB update: Nick Mullins (SF) and Justin Hairbert (SD) are both expected to start this week.

I wonder how Tyrod will be listed on the injury report his week: lungs, upper body injury or OOPS. All are accurate, I suppose.

Lucky for Herbert the Panthers don't really like rushing the passer, much less sacking him.

I'm one of about 5 people nationally who will get to watch that game. I'll let you know how it goes.

PS: My favorite Chargers-Panthers game ever: the 2008 season opener when Jake Delhomme, fresh off of Tommy John surgery, beat SD in SD with a walk-off TD pass. That was the first win in a 12-4 season that started with Steve Smith breaking Ken Lucas' nose in training camp and ended with Jake throwing 42 interceptions against the Cardinals in the divisional round. Sigh.

Here are the highlights, with Rich Eisen and the new Jackson State FB coach in studio:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ILx2mUH.jpg)

Damn. The 49ers play the Eagles in two weeks, so if Wentz can wait a few before he stops stinking, I'd appreciate it.

The Eagles truly look awful.

Yeah, that's surprising. What is it about Philly this year? Is it just that Certis is bad? Or does the rot go deeper?

Injured OL is where you can start, but I'm not sure other than that. Bad draft picks catching up?

He was booed off the field by MP3 files.

Rat Boy wrote:

NFLPA investigating the puncturing of Tyrod Taylor's lung by the TEAM PHYSICIAN.

!!!!!

So, when Lynn said on Sunday that there had been 'complications' with Taylor's injury, he was lying. This was an entirely new injury... inflicted by a team doctor.

Now I understand why Lynn felt compelled to confirm that Taylor remains the Team's number 1 QB; the Team was responsible for injuring him!

I think the reporting around this has been poor, as well. On the two podcasts I listen to, they kept talking about Taylor suffering an injury during warm ups. This might technically be true - he may injured during the conventional warm-up period. But he didn't tear a pectoral muscle trying to force a deep throw (as I kind of imagined); he was stabbed in the lung by a team doctor.

Bury the lede much?

Edit: This Tyrod Taylor story is a tooth I just can't stop wobbling with my finger. According to an article posted on Sunday night on Chargers.com

Prior to kickoff, Tyrod Taylor experienced difficulty breathing and was taken to the locker room for evaluation. He was transported to the hospital shortly thereafter to undergo further evaluation.

Mmm. "... experience difficulty briefing..."

Team beard.

Enix wrote:

Yeah, that's surprising. What is it about Philly this year? Is it just that Certis is bad? Or does the rot go deeper?

Wentz jinxed himself for life when he told Foles that he would "get the next one".

Enix wrote:

RIP, Drew Brees' arm

People (correctly) made this observation about his arm last year. Not sure why folks suddenly think it is some great revelation now.

Paleocon wrote:
Enix wrote:

RIP, Drew Brees' arm

People (correctly) made this observation about his arm last year. Not sure why folks suddenly think it is some great revelation now.

Didn't read the article, eh?

JT talkin bout Certis. Part of it appears to be decision making, but a large part seems to be some weird foot stuff going on. Missing easy stuff, making hard stuff. Very odd.

Paleocon wrote:
Enix wrote:

RIP, Drew Brees' arm

People (correctly) made this observation about his arm last year. Not sure why folks suddenly think it is some great revelation now.

It's no great revelation. It's just a helluva lot more amusing now because it's only (checks calendar) week 3 of the season. At this rate, he'll barely be able to throw a screen pass by Halloween. By the playoffs ...

... ha ha who am I kidding the Saints aren't making the playoffs.

Enix wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Enix wrote:

RIP, Drew Brees' arm

People (correctly) made this observation about his arm last year. Not sure why folks suddenly think it is some great revelation now.

It's no great revelation. It's just a helluva lot more amusing now because it's only (checks calendar) week 3 of the season. At this rate, he'll barely be able to throw a screen pass by Halloween. By the playoffs ...

... ha ha who am I kidding the Saints aren't making the playoffs.

I don't know. They still might, but it will be despite him rather than because of him. Keep in mind that Payton Manning's second ring was basically a lifetime achievement award because he SUCKED that year.

Enix wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Enix wrote:

RIP, Drew Brees' arm

People (correctly) made this observation about his arm last year. Not sure why folks suddenly think it is some great revelation now.

It's no great revelation. It's just a helluva lot more amusing now because it's only (checks calendar) week 3 of the season. At this rate, he'll barely be able to throw a screen pass by Halloween. By the playoffs ...

... ha ha who am I kidding the Saints aren't making the playoffs.

Well, the Panthers are aggressively not good, and the Falcons have given up 78 points and almost 1,000 yards on defense, and, well, are looking not good. Saints and Bucs certainly appear to be in the lead for that division title, but the Bucs still have such a ridiculous number of question marks with all the stuff thrown onto that team that you just don't know. So, the Saints could definitely win that division, kind of by default. I mean, it's starting to feel like the Packers are the only legitimate team in the North and . . . I guess Dallas in the East, but the West is really looking like three good teams and then whatever set of laid-off concession workers can fill a 49ers jersey these days.

Three wild card playoff teams starting this year; doing the early season jump to conclusions thing, two of those are from the NFC West, with the Bucs/Saints leftover as a reasonable third option.

Come on!

All this talk about Brees being toast and no mention of his heir... When does Jameis get on the field? Week + starter or when does he take the field?

I'm going with week 7 after the Saints bye vs the Panthers in the 3rd quarter. Saints are trailing in the game and they just realize Brees is too shot to get the ball down field for a comeback.

Winston is 3rd string though. There's another Hall of Famer ready in waiting ahead of him.

Jags playing TNF against someone other than the Titans isn't right.

*Legion* wrote:

Jags playing TNF against someone other than the Titans isn't right.

Not a lot of defense happening in that game from the looks of it.

Wait, Tyler Eifert is a Jag now? I thought the Bengals had him put down.

He escaped. Clearly can change his (stripes to) spots.

Just saw that Ryan Fitzpatrick has now beaten the Jaguars as the QB for six different teams.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Just saw that Ryan Fitzpatrick has now beaten the Jaguars as the QB for six different teams.

How do you delete someone else's comment?

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