After one week of NFL action is in the books each year, we’re told not to PANIC or FREAK OUT about the results of single games. Fine. It’s an unnatural request of sports fans, as the entire act of rooting for a sports team is an irrational act, but whatever: fine.
But now that two weeks of football are complete, a full 12.5% of the season? Oh, there can be freaking out. We can panic about the teams off to bad starts and ponder the Super Bowl odds of the teams that have gotten off to surprisingly good starts.
First, the panicking. We’ll start with the winless Colts, who may be wondering if all of their opponents are now “cheating” against them.
Despite getting blown out, 45-7, by the Patriots in the AFC title game – the game that prompted The Offseason of DeflateGate (thanks, Colts!) – Indianapolis was a popular preseason Super Bowl pick this year by the famed football pundit class.
But two games into the season, the Colts have been outscored 47-21 with their two losses coming to the Bills and Jets, teams not exactly considered traditional football powers in recent seasons. Indy’s 21 points on the season is a smidge off their 28.6 points per game of 2014, whereas Andrew Luck is averaging 2.5 interceptions per game. Even Curtis Painter only chucked one per game in 2011 when the Colts were trying to lose (to get Andrew Luck!).
“It starts with my play,” Luck said in his postgame press conference Monday night. “Turning the ball over. Fumbles and interceptions. A pretty glaring issue.”
Indeed. Except even if the Colts get Luck back on track, they’re just back to being the team with a good QB, mediocre D and bad running game that lost by 38 points in the playoffs. Panic! Panic hard.
The Seattle Seahawks also sit at 0-2, which is not where their “dynasty” was supposed to be so early in its reign. Seattle opened with a loss to Nick Foles and the Rams. That looked bad at the time. A week later, it looks even worse after the Rams got handled easily in Week 2 by Dan Snyder’s band of dysfunction. The Seattle defense has given up 61 points through two games, meaning at this rate, Richard Sherman and friends are on pace to eclipse their 2013 points allowed total in just eight games.
A team’s defense can’t be historically great every year, but the hope was that Russell Wilson and the offense would be more prolific in his fourth season. Instead, Wilson is now 0-9 in his career when the Seahawks give up 28 points or more. Even worse, God is apparently no longer rooting for him. Or maybe God is: the Seahawks’ next two games are against the 0-2 Bears and 0-2 Lions, both at home. With a schedule like that, the Seahawks aren’t quite done yet. To quote Wilson’s Twitter: “#blessed.”
While none other than Donald Trump says Joe Flacco is “very elite”, Flacco’s Baltimore Ravens are very not. Just three years after winning the Super Bowl and only eight months after nearly knocking the Patriots out of the playoffs in Gillette Stadium, the Ravens look nothing like real contenders after ugly losses to the Broncos and Raiders. Baltimore already faces a legitimate must-win game in Week 3 against the Bengals. Lose and they’d be three games back in the division already. They’d be losers. They’d be the Scott Walker of football teams.
Speaking of people who were supposed to be real threats to win, but quickly flamed out: Chip Kelly and the Eagles. Where to even start? Sam Bradford is a disaster, Kiko Alonso – the injured linebacker acquired for LeSean McCoy – is reinjured, and DeMarco Murray has barely gained positive yardage on the season. Now the Eagles go on the road to play Darrelle Revis and the Jets, meaning Bradford’s turnovers may only get more up-tempo. Forget being a Super Bowl contender, the Eagles look to have a much better shot at securing the No1 overall pick. Maybe the genius Kelly can build a time machine to take that pick back in time to draft his beloved Marcus Mariota.
The Saints are 0-2, but were really only thought to be Super Bowl contenders by people with gumbo-based diets, and now that they’re quarterbacked by a cell phone pitchman, their season is done. So let’s move onto a team led by a quarterback from New Orleans: Eli Manning and the Giants.
As Tom Coughlin’s sideline grimacing suggested, the Giants are 0-2 ... but they have every reason to keep hope alive: their contenders in the division are Brandon Weeden and the Cowboys, Chip Kelly’s team and Dan Snyder’s team. If the Giants can figure out a way to only blow half of their remaining games instead of all their games as they have through two weeks, they can finish 7-9, which might be good enough to win their division. And then history shows anything can happen with Eli and a mediocre Giants team in the postseason. Oh, and if I may give a tip to the Giants, on short yardage situations, consider having Eli burrow for first downs using his conical helmet.
While the 0-2 Giants still have a lot of work to do to turn their season around, their stadium co-tenants are flying high at 2-0. The Jet defense has looked dominant against the Colts and Browns, and Ryan Fitzpatrick has been able to find enough plays in his beard to get wins. Looking ahead at the Jets schedule, it’s hard to see too many games they won’t be favored to win. The next three weeks feature the Eagles, Dolphins and Washington. After that they go to New England, but then get to play the Raiders, Jaguars, Bills, Texans, Dolphins, Giants and Titans. It’s hard to figure how the Jets don’t get to 8-5 with that schedule, if not much better, outside of the fact that they’re the Jets and something usually goes wrong.
Everyone! I think the Jets might be legitimate playoff contenders. Stay calm. There’s still a long way to go.
And whatever you do, don’t even think about the fact that Washington, Cleveland, Oakland, Buffalo, Tennessee and Jacksonville are all sitting at 1-1, well ahead of their usual paces – with the Titans and Jaguars tied for first. It’s too much for a football fan brain to process. Let’s just try to deal with the Jets being real contenders for now.
