Well I’ll be damned, another 3-1 week for the AFC East. Not such a shitty division after all, eh? Well maybe, I’ll reserve judgement because all three winners sure did look kind of shitty…So let’s get to it.
In last place we find the only loser of the week, the Buffalo Bills. The 2017 Bills aren’t used to my weekly scorn like their predecessors, but that’s about to change. A loss to the hapless Bengals will bring that about. The Bills achilles heel this year has been their offense and that continued on Sunday. Tyrod Taylor (who I seriously considered adding to my fantasy team at about noon) was pretty terrible, completing just over 50% of his passes for a paltry 166 yds. Then there was the running game…Is Shady hurt again? He sure sucked like he’s hurt. Now to the defense, was considered the strength of the team before they were sent through the Ginger Shredder that is Andy Dalton. Dalton lit up the “vaunted” Bills defense to the tune of 328 yards, 189 of them to AJ Green. The Bills stood a chance in this game, but in the end they remembered their long heritage of blowing games and did just that.
Now to the winners.
It’s a tough call for third place this week, but I’m going to go with the Jets. They did just barely beat the Browns after all. I didn’t get a chance to see any of this game live, so when I went looking for a recap, the first one I read stole one of my favorite lines: “This game may have set the sport back 20 years.” At one point in the afternoon, I checked my phone for an update and it was the second quarter and the combined yardage by both offenses was under 50. I’m glad that I wasn’t forced to subject my eyes to that garbage. But, we’re here to talk about the Jets so here it is. Josh McCown managed the crap out of that game, he completed 23 passes for less than 200 yards; that’s a feat that’ll be hard to match. And the “running game”, 34 yards. Yep that’s it. Now, I know the Browns’ defense is elite and all, but 34 yards is embarrassing. I guess this puts an end to the whole “McGuire is really starting to look good” conversation…The defense lacked suckiness just enough to scrape a victory, although that Duke Johnson highlight I saw shows me that it wasn’t without a lot of effort. If only Kizer Roll didn’t suck worse than Geno Smith, the Jets could have found a way to scrape a loss.
Second place (awarded only because there has to be a second place team) goes to the Miami Dolphins. I think I was the first to predict that the Fins would only get points from their defense and for a while I had a real chance to be right . This was the Fins’ home opener, if that is what they plan on treating their “fans” to all year, then there may be more orange seat costumes than ever this season. (but hey, at least they sell out London every year) Remember when I wrote that McCown turned a difficult trick? Well Jay one upped him, completing just 12 passes for 92 yards. At least he already knew the offensive guru’s system, just imagine if he had to learn a new one? And this was the week all of the fantasy experts were telling me that Jay Ajayi was to “break out”, his sweet 3.1 yds per carry number makes our old friend Lamar “River Jump” Miller look like Emmitt Smith. All I’ll say about the defense is that they took advantage of Matt Cassell playing QB and won the game and that Kiko Alonso fella is pretty good. I’d take a shot at the DL coach getting caught on camera rocking lines before practice, but come on that’s so Miami it’s too easy.
And in “first place” we have the New England Patriots (for the first time all year I believe). Much like the Dolphins being in second, the Pats come in first because we have to have a first place team, but boy was that a horrible game to watch…From Brady’s beautiful overthrow on the first drive, to BB electing to punt form the Bucs’ 34, this game was just a disaster and without Nick Folk’s complete suckitude, this should easily have been a loss…According to the players, the Pats’ defense is fixed. I would like to disagree, the 200+ yards they gave up in the 4th quarter would be my evidence. Gillmore was not bad this week, but Butler was spared giving up a 70+ yd TD to D Jax only due to a terrible throw by Jameis and McCourty was his usual two steps late on every play. The real bright spot on the evening was Pat Chung though. Who knew he could cover a TE like that? Now, let’s focus on the bad. Has this team been secretly coached by Marvin Lewis? Back to back roughing the passer penalties to end the first half? Or how about jumping the snap on a punt, giving the Bucs a free 1st down? (remember, this team also had back to back roughing the punter penalties earlier this year) This team kind of sucks and is hard to root for, I hope they don’t turn into an NFL version of the 2017 Red Sox…
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