With the first Sunday of the 2019 regular season in the books, here are 11 things that stood out — from New England’s predictable return to dominance, to two young quarterbacks who flirted with perfection, to a Browns team that ran into a brick wall called reality.
The Patriots are back … and about to get even better.
It just isn’t fair.
Well, it is fair for the most part, because the Patriots win with a peerless combination of coaching, roster management and schematic intelligence (not to mention the occasional rule-tweaking), but one has to wonder who the heck is going to take the defending champs down after the 33-3 whomping they put on the Steelers on Sunday night. Tom Brady decimated Pittsburgh’s defense no matter what coverage the Steelers tried, and New England’s defense clamped down on Ben Roethlisberger and his Antonio Brown-less offense, limiting Roethlisberger to 27 completions in 47 attempts for 276 empty yards, no touchdowns and one interception.
And even when the Pats get Antonio Brown to add to their receiver corps (here are tape pieces on both Brown and Josh Gordon, if you want to know how scary that’s going to be), it will still be true than on any given day, the receiver corps won’t be the team’s best position group. It’s just that New England’s secondary, which is that best position group, may be the only one in the NFL who can stop what this offense is about to become.
Good luck, everybody. You’re going to need it. They’re baaaaack …
The Chiefs offense is still illegal.
Although … if there’s one offense that could put New England’s secondary to the test, it’s an improved version of the offense that nearly moved past it in the AFC championship game last season.
In his 2018 MVP season, Patrick Mahomes threw 53 touchdown passes, including the postseason. The Jaguars were the only team the Chiefs faced that held Mahomes without a touchdown pass. They did so by mixing quarters coverage with disguised looks and smart blitzes to limit the wunderkind to 22 completions in 38 attempts for 313 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions in a 30-14 Week 5 win.
It didn’t take long for Mahomes to reverse that particular scenario in the Week 1 rematch. In a 40-26 win, Mahomes blew Jacksonville’s defense away, even without the efforts of receiver Tyreek Hill, who suffered a shoulder injury early on and was limited to two catches for 16 yards. Mahomes completed 25 of 33 passes for 378 yards, three touchdowns and no picks despite a ravenous Jacksonville front that had him hobbling around for a while.
Every Chiefs game in 2018 seemed to have a different offensive star, and it was receiver Sammy Watkins this time around. The veteran, who caught just three touchdown passes for the team in 2018, matched that total against the Jags, catching nine passes on 11 targets for 198 yards and three touchdowns.
They didn’t miss Kareem Hunt either, as recent pickup LeSean McCoy rushed for 81 yards and 10 carries, adding a 12-yard reception. Between McCoy and Damien Williams, Kansas City’s running game seems just fine. The Chiefs’ offensive line needs a few tweaks, but overall, this was more of the same for Mahomes, and a definitive answer to those who believe him to be an inevitable candidate for statistical regression.
It’s probably time to pump the brakes on the Browns hype.
The Browns came into the season as the NFL’s most hyped team, and for relatively good reason. First-year head coach Freddie Kitchens had proved to be something of an offensive mastermind as the team’s offensive coordinator for half a season. Baker Mayfield was coming off a record-breaking rookie campaign. The team added Odell Beckham Jr., Olivier Vernon and Sheldon Richardson via free agency, and it didn’t seem like the Browns let it go to their heads.
After their 43-13 loss to the Titans, Kitchens’ group will need to rethink a few things. They had 18 penalties, the most for the franchise since 1951. Mayfield threw three backbreaking interceptions in the fourth quarter alone. Left tackle Greg Robinson was ejected from the gave after kicking Titans defensive back Kenny Vaccaro in the face. And a defensive line that looked absolutely terrifying in the preseason did little to upset Tennessee quarterback Marcus Mariota, and even less to curtail the efforts of running back Derrick Henry.
The Browns have the talent to be a playoff contender this season. But their mindset isn’t of a postseason caliber at all right now.
Gardner Minshew might be the Jaguars’ short-term answer at quarterback.
The Jaguars thought they had their future franchise quarterback on board with the moves they made in the 2019 preseason — and they may be right, though not as expected. Jacksonville signed former Eagles Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles to a four-year, $88 million contract with a $25 million signing bonus and $50.125 million guaranteed. Foles looked to be a massive improvement over Blake Bortles, and when the team selected former Washington State star Gardner Minshew in the sixth round of the draft, nobody expected Minshew to be anything but a backup.
Underrated as a pro prospect due in part to the inherent biases against the Air Raid stuff he ran under Mike Leach (a silly construct these days when there are more Air Raid concepts in the NFL than ever before), Minshew was pressed into service when Foles broke his collarbone against the Chiefs. Though Jacksonville’s defense had few answers for Patrick Mahomes, and that was reflected in the 40-26 score on the Chiefs’ side, Minshew came out of nowhere to put up a more than credible performance in his first real NFL game.
He completed 22 of 25 passes for 275 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. And contrary to the narratives about him around draft time, he wasn’t just dinking and dunking.
The Jags will no doubt look for a veteran quarterback to reinforce the position group while Foles is out, but Minshew earned a chance to compete as a short-term starter.
Dalvin Cook is the Vikings’ offensive epicenter.
In the Vikings’ 28-12 win over the Falcons, Kirk Cousins attempted just 10 passes, completing eight, for 98 yards and a touchdown pass to Adam Thielen. As Cousins was Minnesota’s only passer, the Vikings became one of just 11 teams in the new millennium to attempt 10 or fewer passes in a game. Per Pro Football Reference, teams passing 10 or fewer times in a game since 2000 are 10-1. Not that all teams should follow this strategy in hopes of increasing their win total — there are correlation and causation issues to consider — but for a team with a great defense, an outstanding running game and a shaky quarterback, it’s a pretty good idea.
One primary reason the Vikings were able to pull this one out was the efforts of the team’s running backs, who combined for 168 yards on 32 carries. And no back looked better than Dalvin Cook, who put up 111 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries.
“His feet are amazing,” head coach Mike Zimmer said of Cook after the game. “A couple of those plays were designed to go inside, and he just outran the perimeter. So he’s a terrific weapon for us, and obviously we’ll have to continue to use him to the best of our ability. I know Cousins threw the ball 10 times today, but … he was 8 out of 10. He completed 80 percent of his balls, and he was 140 quarterback rating or something. He didn’t turn the ball over. We didn’t turn the ball over all day. They did, and usually that’s what happens.”
Jared Goff is still under development.
When the Rams signed Jared Goff to a four-year, $134 million contract that includes an NFL record $110 million in guarantees and ties the 2016 first-round pick to his team through the 2024 season, I was not impressed. Based on his performance through three NFL seasons, I thought Goff to be an entirely replaceable, though effective, quarterback as long as he stuck to the script under head coach Sean McVay. There’s a ton of tape indicating that Goff is league-average, and relatively little to project anything better.
In his first chance to prove the doubters wrong since his faceplant in Super Bowl LIII, Goff was what he usually is — average. Though the Rams beat the Panthers, 30-27, Goff completed 23 of 39 passes for 186 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Goff’s stats would have been more impressive if he hadn’t kept overthrowing his receivers on deep passes, but they also could have been worse if Panthers defenders had taken advantage of at least one errant throw with interceptions that weren’t dropped.
And more than once, Goff revisited one of his more glaring issues — an inability to find open receivers on the run.
There’s nothing to be done about the magnitude of the Rams’ financial commitment to Goff at this point beyond hoping McVay can continue to max his skill set out to the highest level.
For a running back, Lamar Jackson isn’t a bad quarterback.
You may remember that when Jackson came out of Louisville to make himself available for the 2018 draft, there were a lot of people who insisted that he could not play quarterback at the NFL level. He was too slight. His feet were too close together when he threw the ball. He was a run-first guy who couldn’t read the field. Despite the crushing amount of evidence to the contrary, Jackson lasted until the 32nd pick in the draft, where the Ravens picked him up to eventually become Joe Flacco’s replacement — a process that took half a season.
And boy, did Jackson shut the naysayers up to start his second NFL season. He absolutely rolled the Dolphins in a 59-10 rout, completing 17 of 20 passes for 324 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions. Jackson became the seventh quarterback in NFL history with at least 300 passing yards, five touchdowns and a 158.3 passer rating, the highest attainable mark, in a single game in NFL history. The last to do it was Ben Roethlisberger in November 2018.
And as Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic pointed out, the stats just kept rolling along.
Jackson was helped immeasurably by the efforts of rookie wide receiver Marquise Brown, who torched Miami’s secondary (perhaps the only credible position group left on a roster that’s been stripped to tank the season) for 147 yards and two touchdowns on just four catches. Brown, a cousin of Antonio Brown’s, became the first player in NFL history with two touchdowns of 40 yards or more in his first regular-season game.
The best part was how Jackson barked back in a friendly way against those who thought he was more athlete than quarterback.
The Dolphins’ #Fishtank promotion is going swimmingly so far.
Sorry for the bad pun, but yeesh. This could be worse than we thought. There was little doubt that the Dolphins were tanking the season in order to put themselves in a better position down the road, as ill-fitting as that plan may be in the near term. The trade of left tackle Laremy Tunsil and wide receiver Kenny Stills to the Texans for a bunch of high draft picks really pointed it out, and after losing to the Ravens the way they did, the results are plain for all to see: This is the worst team in football, and it’s going to be that way all season.
There really isn’t any more to say about it than that. Oh, except that next week, this team has to deal with the Patriots — a team that can make Baltimore’s 59-10 whipping look like a church social.
The Cardinals might be on to something.
In his first NFL preseason, first overall pick Kyler Murray completed 23 of 36 passes for 193 yards. He didn’t throw a touchdown pass or an interception, and he took three sacks. Most of his plays came on quick throws with quick drops, in a very vanilla offense that wasn’t hard to crack.
And in the first three quarters of Arizona’s game — in which the Cardinals fell to a 24-6 deficit against the Lions — Murray and the offense fared even worse.
In that span, Murray looked a lot like he looked through most of the preseason — tentative and just off. He completed just six of 16 passes for 115 yards, no touchdowns and one interception in the first half.
The third quarter was not a lot better … and then the fourth quarter and overtime happened. In the fourth quarter alone, Murray was 14-of-17 for 154 yards and two touchdowns. Overall, in the second half and overtime, Murray completed 23 of 38 passes for 198 yards, looking like a completely different player.
Some of that had to do with the playcalling, as was the case on David Johnson’s 27-yard touchdown with 5:57 left in regulation.
As eagle-eye football genius Chris B. Brown pointed out, this play (91 F Go) has an interesting history behind it.
Murray also hit Larry Fitzgerald on this beautiful cross-body fade in overtime, and fade throws have been a bugaboo for Murray in his brief NFL tenure.
The Cardinals ended with a 27-27 tie, but 0-0-1 is an improvement for a franchise that lost its first four games and won just three all season in 2018. There are signs of life in an Arizona offense that was by far the NFL’s worst-coached last season.
Jacoby Brissett gives the Colts a chance in the post-Luck era.
After Andrew Luck’s bombshell retirement, it was up to Brissett to take the reins, for better or worse. Nobody was going to mistake Brissett for Luck, who was a generational quarterback prospect before injuries took him down. And behind a patchwork offensive line in 2017, Brissett struggled, as you might expect.
But with the improvements to the roster provided by general manager Chris Ballard, and a quarterback-friendly playbook authored by head coach Frank Reich, Brissett was set up to be in a better place this time around. And when I studied his tape from the 2017 regular season — when he filled in as Luck sat out the season — and the 2019 preseason, I saw a quarterback with good pocket movement, an excellent arm and a growing ability to read the field and connect with his receivers on rhythm and timing routes.
Brissett brought that potential to bear against the Chargers, though the Colts lost, 30-24, in Week 1. He completed 21 of 27 passes for 190 yards and two touchdowns against one of the more creative and variable defenses in the NFL. He didn’t create a ton of explosive plays, but those will come in time.
Kellen Moore might be Dallas’ most important coach.
In 2018, the Cowboys went 10-6 in the regular season and got to the divisional round of the NFC playoffs despite an offense that didn’t blow anybody away with its creativity. Stars like Ezekiel Elliott, Dak Prescott and Amari Cooper, as great as they were, were stilted in an offense led by Scott Linehan that was so predictable, Prescott and Cooper started to change the calls on the fly just to get traction beyond what Linehan called. It seemed that NFL defenses weren’t all that challenged by a bunch of stop routes over and over, which is perhaps why Dallas fired Linehan in January and replaced him with Moore, a former Cowboys backup quarterback who had risen in the ranks and was getting tagged as a rising star as a quarterback guru and play-caller.
So far, the change has done nothing but good. The Cowboys stomped the Giants 35-17, and Prescott completed 25 of 32 attempts for 405 yards with four touchdowns and zero interceptions. He became the fourth quarterback in NFL history, following Ken Anderson, Kurt Warner and Jared Goff, to end a game with a perfect 158.3 passer rating with at least 30 passing attempts.
Moore dialed up plays that featured everything from smart play-action to multiple vertical routes to Prescott’s obvious advantage.
“We’re getting our best athletes in open space and getting them in the areas they’re most comfortable in,” Moore said after the game, per USA TODAY’s Jori Epstein. “It’s fun to be a part of.”
Indeed. Owner Jerry Jones said that it reminded him of the Cowboys’ famed “Triplets” — Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin — who helped the franchise win three Super Bowls in the early- to mid-1990s.
“I know if they tried to put more up in the line to stop Emmitt back in those days, then Aikman would pick them apart going down the field,” Jones said. “One or the other. I don’t know if I have seen us since those days being able to take whatever the defense gives us and find an answer. I feel that. I saw us do that out there against the Giants today.”
It’s early yet to crown these Cowboys, but with Moore in charge of the offense, expect more expansive, explosive and varied concepts.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar has also covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018.
