Quick Hits - Week Two

Brief observations about every NFL game except for the Thursday Night game and the Seahawks game.

Atlanta 31 – St. Louis 24

The Falcons deserve a lot of credit for overcoming some significant adversity and earning this gritty victory.  Atlanta lost five key contributors by halftime, including their starting running back, their best linebacker, their best corner, and their best pass rusher.  Nevertheless, Matt Ryan showed why he is considered one of the best quarterbacks in the business despite getting banged around like a bumper car (two sacks, eight QB hits).  Ryan threw at least two TD passes for the 41^st time in his career and stood tall against added pressure with 209 passing yards and only four incompletions when St. Louis sent at least five pass rushers.  With the victory, the Falcons have now won 13 straight games following a loss.

Buffalo 24 – Carolina 23

Congratulations to Coach Ron Rivera on officially having the hottest seat in the NFL coaching ranks.  Despite slow starts in 2011 and 2012, Rivera was able to save his job by going 9-7 down the stretch, including an impressive four consecutive victories to end last season.  Although no one in the Carolina organization has commented on Rivera’s job security, there was an implicit understanding among NFL observers that he would be unable to survive another slow start.  Unfortunately, the Panthers have started 0-2 in 2013 even though they led both games in the fourth quarter.  The inability to close out teams in the fourth quarter and win close games has been the hallmark of Rivera’s tenure in Charlotte.  The team has lost 10 games when they were leading or tied in the fourth quarter and Rivera’s record in close games (decided by eight points or less) is a frighteningly bad 6-15.  If he cannot get the ship turned around in the next couple of weeks, you can expect the calls for his head to intensify to unheard of levels.

Chicago 31 – Minnesota 30

The Bears are the cardiac kids of the NFC.  They followed up their come from behind victory over Cincinnati in week one with another comeback win over the Vikings.  Jay Cutler has been far from perfect, but he has saved his best moments for the fourth quarter.  He has completed 76% of his attempts for 160 yards and two touchdowns in the final period.  Although he continues to rely heavily on Brandon Marshall, it is clear that Cutler has developed a nice rapport with Martellus Bennett especially in the red zone.  If this relationship continues to blossom, then the Bears will be a very tough offense to stop because there will finally be another threat in the passing game.

Green Bay 38 – Washington 20

The Redskins are in serious trouble.  They have been outscored 50-7 in the first half of their two games and they have a starting quarterback that is clearly a shell of his former self.  As pointed out by many, RGIII looks like a player that lacks the confidence in his right knee that he needs to drive the football downfield.  In addition, the Redskins coaching staff is trying to protect the knee by keeping him in the pocket, which is exactly the place on the football field that he lacks the most confidence.  The courageous decision would be to bench RGIII until he demonstrates that his knee is healthy enough for him to do all of the things he was doing in 2012.  Unfortunately, the Skins have put themselves between a rock and a hard place by starting him from week one, so they almost have to ride out the rough patch with him as their starting QB.

Miami 24 – Indianapolis 20

The small group of Miami fans that actually cares more about X’s and O’s than finding the best nightlife in South Beach must be giddy about the team’s 2-0 start.  With the Patriots looking very vulnerable at the top of the AFC East, the Dolphins are poised to mount a serious challenge to throne.  One week after a dominating defensive performance against Cleveland, the Dolphins completely stymied the Colts in the second half holding them to a mere three points.  As a result, Miami has won their initial two games for the first time since 2010.  Better yet, the Dolphins already are done with two of their road games, which already have the 100 hardcore Miami fans lathered up for an October 27^th visit to Foxboro.  Then again, the Arizona Cardinals started 2-0 last year.

Kansas City 17 – Dallas 16

The Chiefs have already matched their win total from 2012.  Two big reasons for the great start have been the team’s ability to take care of the football and an extremely efficient red zone approach.  The Chiefs have yet to the turn the ball over and they have scored on all five opportunities inside the 20-yard line, including the two chances that they had against Dallas.  Conversely, the Chiefs scored a touchdown on a league-worst 27% of their red zone drives a year ago.  There might be some that say the Chiefs got outplayed by Dallas on Sunday, but the name of the game in the NFL is to win games, which Kansas City has done flawlessly over the first eighth of the season.

San Diego 33 – Philadelphia 30

After week one, the Eagles were the talk of the NFL due to the Speedy Gonzalez offense that Chip Kelly brought with him from Oregon.  The national punditry fawned over the Eagles “revolutionary” offense, especially the number of plays they ran in the first half against Washington.  Unfortunately, not many experts pointed out how the inept Redskins offense was the biggest reason that Philly ran 53 plays in the opening half.  Fast forward to this past Sunday and it was the Chargers that turned the tables on the Eagles with their own brand of high octane football.  San Diego ran 21 more plays than University of Oregon East and generally dominated a Philly defense that most people thought would be one of the worst units in the NFL.  The only thing that slowed the Chargers down was two fumbles inside the Eagles’ 10-yard line.  This game is another reason to temper the sky high expectations for the Eagles.

Baltimore 14 – Cleveland 6

The Ravens have serious offensive issues.  Even though the Cleveland defense was supposed to be improved under new defensive coordinator Ray Horton, there is no reason that it should take almost 40 minutes of game action to score your first points when you have an elite quarterback calling the shots.  Unfortunately, the Ravens don’t have an elite quarterback calling the shots.  The first two weeks of the season are further proof that Joe Flacco still hasn’t overcome the consistency issues that have plagued him his entire career.  His supporters (enablers) will talk about injuries and inexperienced wide receivers as the cause of his most recent struggles, but at some point the excuses have to stop and a Super Bowl MVP / $100 million man has to play good football for more than 50% of a season.

Houston 30 – Tennessee 24

The comeback kids of the AFC are not inspiring much confidence with their second consecutive Houdini escape of the 2012 season.  According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Houston is the first team since the merger to win each of its first two games of a season on the final play of the game.  It’s great to be the answer to an interesting trivia question, but the Texans have to play better earlier in games.  They ran the ball a lot better against the Titans, but they struggled on third down and they have a concerning situation in the kicking game.  Randy Bullock, in his second year out of Texas A&M, has missed four out of five field goal attempts, which sooner or later will cost the Texans a victory.  Coach Gary Kubiak is standing by his man for the time being but he can’t wait for Bullock to be the cause of a loss before rectifying the kicking situation.

Arizona 25 – Detroit 21

The combination of terrible special teams and the inability to convert third down opportunities were the biggest reasons that the Lions are not 2-0.  They left points on the field by not being able to keep drives alive and by not be able to cash in on field goal attempts when they did get close enough to score.  David Akers missed one field goal and had another one blocked, which must have had the Detroit faithful pining for the halcyon days of Jason Hanson.  It also didn’t help that they lost Reggie Bush fairly early on or that their running game was rendered useless by the Arizona defense.  The Lions certainly look improved over last season, but they are not good enough to overcome the plethora of mistakes they made in this game.

New Orleans 16 – Tampa Bay 14

Player-coach relationships in the NFL are sometimes pretty easy to define.  As long as a team is winning, it doesn't matter if the coach is trying to reenact scenes from the Junction Boys or allows players to bring strippers into the locker room because generally speaking players will be happy.  Once the losing starts, as it has in Tampa, sources begin to come out of the woodworks with reports about certain players being unhappy.  The Bucs are 1-7 over their last eight games, which ties them with Jacksonville as the worst team over that span.  Not surprisingly, reports surfaced that quarterback Josh Freeman is unhappy and plans on requesting a trade, while newly acquired Darrelle Revis suddenly doesn't like all of the zone coverage being played on defense.  The end game is pretty simple in these circumstances: either Greg Schiano starts winning or he will be the former coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Oakland 19 – Jacksonville 9

The Raiders are slightly better than expected, but somehow the Jaguars are significantly worse.  This game represented one of their best chances to win a football game and they were essentially non-competitive throughout.  They had only amassed 129 yards before rattling off two consecutive fourth quarter drives of 50-plus yards.  Chad Henne was sacked five times and their running game generated a mere 34 yards.  Making matters worse, they lost their best player, Maurice Jones-Drew, to a knee injury that has him questionable going forward.  Their next best chance at winning a football game won't come until week 13, on the road, in Cleveland.  Gus Bradley might be wishing that they can him before too long just so he can save himself from the aggravation.

Denver 41 – New York Giants 23

In the Tell Me Something I Don't Already Know department, the Denver Broncos are an offensive juggernaut.  One week after blistering the defending champs for 49 points, they hung 34 points on the New York Giants.  Peyton Manning was merely human this week, but the Broncos have to be encouraged by the effort they received from Knowshon Moreno.  You have to feel bad for the Oakland Raiders, who are going to get absolutely embarrassed on national television by the Broncos.

Cincinnati 20 – Pittsburgh 10

Along with the Redskins, the Steelers are the other NFL team in the most trouble after two weeks.  Frankly, Pittsburgh might be in more dire straits than the Skins because they don't have the hope that Washington does about getting better as RGIII gets better.  The Steelers have a nonexistent running game, playcalling issues, and their best offensive lineman won't be donning the black and gold until the 2014 season.  They have only scored 19 points in two games and their offense does not seem to have any explosive element.  They never will admit it, but they are missing Mike Wallace.  It's unfortunate that their offense is in such disarray because they still have a playoff caliber defense.  They gave up a lot of yards to the Bengals but they made them work for every inch (3.7 yards per carry and 20 incompletions by Andy Dalton).  If the offense had possessed the football a little more, the numbers would have looked very different for the defense.