Month: September 2021

A look at the first weekend of the NFL’s first 17-game season:

—This is the first test of the NFL’s new vax policy. It says 93 percent of the players are vaxxed. Will any key unvaxxed players – notably Kirk Cousins – test positive the day of game?

—The season opens Thursday night with the defending champion Bucs hosting the Cowboys. The fact the Cowboys got this marquee assignment shows the league still considers them ratings gold. But will they make a game of it with Dak Prescott seeing his first action in almost a year? It also pits Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn vs. Tom Brady. Quinn, of course, was the Atlanta coach in Falcons’ 28-3 meltdown vs. Brady and the Patriots. Bucs are 7.5 favorites.

—In the other two primetime games, the Rams are seven-point favorites over the Bears on Sunday night and the Ravens are four-point choices at the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night. None of the three primetime underdogs had a winning record last year, although Chicago made the playoffs at 8-8. You would have thought the league would have had better primetime matches for first weekend of the season.

—In the late games Sunday afternoon, CBS has Jim Nantz and Tony Romo doing the Browns at Kansas City and Fox has Joe Buck and Troy Aikman doing the Saints-Packers at Jacksonville. The game was moved because of damage done by Hurricane Ida in New Orleans.

—Three rookie quarterbacks drafted on the first round will make their first starts. Trevor Lawrence of the Jaguars is a three-point choice at Houston and Mac Jones of the Patriots is a 2.5-point pick at home against Miami. Zach Wilson of the Jets is a 5.5-point underdog at Carolina, where he will face former Jets quarterback Sam Darnold. The Jets traded Darnold after drafting Wilson.

—Jones will start against Miami’s Tuo Tagovailoa. They were teammates on the 2018 Alabama team along with Jalen Hurts, who will start for Philadelphia. Alabama lost the national title game that year to Clemson and Lawrence by a 44-16 margin. The Patriots-Dolphins matchup is critical because they are both likely to be chasing Buffalo in the AFC East.

—Kansas City will unveil its new offensive line when the Chiefs host Baker Mayfield and the Browns. The Chiefs’ inability to protect Patrick Mahomes was a major factor in their Super Bowl loss to the Bucs, and they have revamped it. Now they have to show if they can protect Mahomes.

—Besides the Rams-Bears, Chiefs-Browns and Saints-Packers games, the other game featuring two playoff teams from last year is the Seahawks-Colts matchup.

—Buffalo, touted as possibly to top AFC threat to foil Kansas City’s bid to make the Super Bowl three years in a row, opens against a Pittsburgh team that had a meltdown at the end of last year. Ben Roethlisberger will try to show he has something left in the tank.

—The Giants and Washington have a short week upcoming because they play the Thursday night game to start the second week. Both open at home, so the Giants will have a short road trip.

The NFL is a quarterback league and now that preseason is over, one of the major questions about the upcoming season is whether a fresh start can make a difference for six veteran quarterbacks.

Let’s look at six of them in new roles this year:

— Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff. They were virtually traded for each other. Stafford never won a playoff game in Detroit and had a 74-90-1 career mark while making one Pro Bowl. The Rams are hoping he will make them a Super Bowl contender. Goff played on a better team with the Rams and made the Super Bowl but seemed overmatched in loss to the Patriots. He did get a second contract, but after making only one playoff appearance the last two years and losing it, the Rams decided they needed to upgrade the position. Detroit hopes Goff he can make them a contender, but those hopes may be unrealistic.

—Jameis Winston flamed out two years ago in his fifth year in Tampa Bay with 30 picks to go with 30 touchdown passes. He moved on to New Orleans backing up Drew Brees last year and won the job this year after Brees retired. He has big shoes to fill and Saints face a lot of challenges since they won’t be back in New Orleans for a month while city recovers from Hurricane Ida.

—Teddy Bridgewater got off to a solid start in his first two years in Minnesota but then suffered a devastating ACL that limited him to one series in two years and he moved on after the team did not pick up his option. He went to the Jets but was traded to the Saints before he played for them. After two years with the Saints and one with Carolina, he moved on to Denver where he beat out Drew Lock for the starting job. He has to play well to keep Lock on the bench.

—Andy Dalton is one of five quarterbacks to lead his team to the playoffs in his first five seasons, but he failed to win a playoff game in the four games he played in for the Bengals. Then after going four years without a winning record, including an 0-8 start that led to his benching in 2019, he was released in 2020 after the Bengals drafted Joe Burrow. He signed last year with Dallas as Dak Prescott’s backup. He went 4-5 as a starter after Prescott was hurt and moved onto Chicago where he beat out rookie Justin Fields for the starting job. He will have to play well to keep Fields on the bench.

—Tyrod Taylor has bounced around and landed this year in Houston, his fifth team, where he got the starting job because Deshaun Watson’s career is in limbo. The problem is that he doesn’t have a good team around him. They went 4-12 last year even with Watson. Two of the wins were against 1-15 Jacksonville. Taylor faces a tough task as he tries to turn his career around.

It will be interesting to watch how these six veterans fare this year. Can any of them become a long-term answer? We will see.