VITO'S VIEWS

The Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills bounced back from surprising losses a week ago and now   are just two weeks away from their long-awaited regular season matchup.

The Chiefs routed the Bucs, 41-31, while the Bills overcame a 20-3 deficit to beat the Ravens, 23-20, as both teams boosted their records to 3-1.

The two teams meet in two weeks on Oct. 16 in Kansas City after the Chiefs host the Raiders this Monday night and Buffalo hosts Pittsburgh this Sunday.

The Kansas City-Buffalo game may be a preview of the AFC title game and the winner of the Oct. 16 game may have the leg up in the battle for the top seed, a bye in the first round and home field in the AFC title game.

Only one other AFC team, Miami, is 3-1 and the Dolphins don’t know when they will get Tua Tagovailoa back after he suffered two concussions last week. He has already been ruled out of Sunday’s game at the New York Jets. Teddy Bridgewater will replace him. 

There are eight 2-2 teams in the AFC and it remains to be seen if either Cincinnati or the Chargers will emerge after they both won last week.. Both have good young quarterbacks in Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert although the Bengals have to overcome the fact that only one Super Bowl loser has won the following year since 1972 when the perfect Dolphins did it.

Baltimore has Lamar Jackson and he has twice built up 17-point leads only to have the defense fail to hold them. Coach John Harbaugh has so little confidence in his defense that he passed up a field goal to go for it on fourth down against Buffalo.

Harbaugh obviously was worried his defense couldn’t hold a three-point lead. But Jackson didn’t make it when Jackson failed to spot an open receiver in the back of the end zone and threw a pick. The Ravens used to be noted for their defense but those days are long gone and they now have to rely on Jackson outscoring teams.

The surprising 2-2 Jaguars lost in the rain in Philaelphia last week when Trevor Lawrence turned it over five times, including four lost fumbles. But if they beat the Texans and Colts the next two weeks, they have only the Titans as an obstacle to them winning the division title. Wins in the next two weeks would give them a 3-0 division record.

Three AFC teams — New England, Pittsburgh and the Raiders — are 1-3 and aren’t likely to be factors this year along with the only winless team — 0-3-1 Houston.

But the Steelers appear to have found their quarterback of the future in rookie Kenny Pickett and figure to be a contender next year. In 1984, they bypassed a Pitt quarterback named Dan Marino on the first round. This time, they grabbed a Pitt quarterback on the first round and it appears to be a good choice. 

The NFC has the only unbeaten team in Philadelphia at 4-0 and four 3-1 teams in Dallas, the Giants, Vikings and Packers. But none of the four 3-1 teams are looking particularly impressive.

The Packers, for example, had to go to overtime last week to beat a New England teams playing its third string quarterback. And the Bucs and Tom Brady fell to 2-2 with the loss to the Chiefs in a Super Bowl rematch from a year ago

The defending champion Rams fell to San Francisco and also are 2-2. The NFC champion figures to be the underdog in the Super Bowl. No team has repeated since the 2003-04 Patriots, and the Rams don’t look like they will be the next team to do it.

Hey, NFL: Your concussion protocol has a problem.

After what happened to Tua Tagovailoa in the past few days, it is obvious the protocol is flawed or broken and needs to be fixed. Immediately.

The program works when a player suffers a serious concussion the way Tua did Thursday night against the Bengals when he was on the field for 10 minutes, taken off the field on a stretcher and immediately taken to the hospital, although they probably should have been allowed to fly back on the team plane.

The major problem is what happens in a situation like the one Tua faced against the Bills on Sunday when his head hit the turf and he shook his head when he got up and then stumbled to the ground,. but was able to get back up and walk off the field. 

He was taken to the locker room and cleared to return to the game by the team doctor and an independent neurologist. He finished the game and even did his post-game interview.

They followed the current protocol. A player who stumbles to the ground is allowed to return if he is cleared. 

That needs to change. The protocol should be changed to make it mandatory to sideline a player for the rest of the game if he stumbles to the ground. And he should not be allowed to play the following week and maybe multiple weeks so he has more time to heal. .

The league needs to set set mandatory rules because the team and the doctors can’t be trusted to follow common sense. The Dolphins said after the Bills game that he suffered a back injury and not a head injury. Even after the Bengals game, coach Mike McDaniel was still insisting he didn’t suffer a head injury against the Bills.

Do players stumble and fall from a back injury?

Of course, we will never know if the injury he suffered Sunday contributed to the concussion he suffered Thursday night. After all, brain injuries are difficult to diagnose. But it is well known that if a player suffers a concussion, he is more liable to suffer another one, especially if he returns to action too soon. Better to err on the side of caution. 

The NFL mindset on concussions definitely needs to be changed. After the Bengals game, McDaniel even said Tua had nothing more serious than a concussion.

He seems oblivious to the fact the concussions are the most serious injury a player can suffer. They can cause CTE and dementia or worse. Look at what happened to Muhammad Ali, who took too many blows to the head. You can replace hips and knees. You can’t replace brains. 

The NFL and NFLPA have to sit down and rewrite the concussion protocols. The NFLPA announced it was going to investigate Tua’s injury against Bills with interviews starting the day after the Bengals game. Obviously, that was too late.

It is time for the NFL and the NFLPA to act. They not only have to change the protocol, but the mindset. 

Buffalo and Kansas City will be in the spotlight Sunday when they both attempt to bounce back from losses last week.

Buffalo will play at Baltimore in the 1 p.m. game that will be shown in much of the country as the CBS early game. It will feature a duel between Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, who bet on himself as his own agent when he rejected the Ravens’ offer. It is now paying off because he is off to a fast start. An upset victory over the Bills would help his case.

In the Sunday night game, the Chiefs will go against a Tampa Bay team that is trying to rebound from the 14-12 loss to the Packers when Tom Brady didn’t get a two-point conversion off in time.

It is uncertain where the game will be played because of Hurricane Ian ravaging Florida. The NFL will move it to Minneapolis if it can’t be played in Tampa. The Vikings are in London for a game that starts at 930 a.m. East Coast time. But look for a lot of Packer fans to attend if it is played in Minneapolis. Green Bay is a 278-mile drive to Minneapolis and a lot of Packer fans usually make the trip when the Packers play at the Vikings. Washington might have between a better neutral site with the Commanders at Dallas.

Miami plays Thursday night at Cincinnati and Jacksonville plays at Philadelphia Sunday so the hurricane won’t affect the other two Florida teams.

The loser of the Chiefs-Bucs game will fall to 2-2.

The NFL, though, doesn’t have a good doubleheader game with New England-Green Bay and Denver-Las Vegas the two options. Each will be shown in about half the country.

The Monday night game also isn’t much of an attraction with the Rams going to San Francisco, which is struggling with Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback.

One of the most interesting attractions will be Doug Pederson’s return to Philadelphia as coach of the Jaguars, who are off to a surprising 2-1 start after winning just four games the past two years. But the game will be shown mostly in the two markets involved because the Bills-Ravens game is the feature attraction.

The Thursday night game features the 3-0 Dolphins at the 1-2 Bengals, who posted their first victory last week over the Jets. With the Browns figuring to beat the Falcons to stay on top of the AFC North, the Bengals probably need a win to avoid falling two games behind the Browns.

Is this the season of parity or mediocrity?

Nobody knows for sure, but it is obvious there currently isn’t a dominant team in the NFL.

After just three weeks, there are only two 3-0 teams —Miami and Philadelphia. And one 0-3 team – Las Vegas.

Except for the 1-1-1 Colts and the 0-2-1 Texans, all the rest of the teams are 2-1 or 1-2.

And some of the games have been disappointing to say the least. Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady figured to have a memorable duel, but the final score was 14-12 in favor of the Packers when Brady failed to get a two point version attempt off in time, a rare mistake for a future Hall of Famer.

The 49ers-Broncos prime time game was even worse with the Broncos winning 11-10 on a safety caused by Jimmy Garoppolo stepping out of bounds in the back end of the end zone. That mistake saved the 49ers five points because he also threw a Pick Six on the play.

Jimmy G. obviously isn’t ready to play because the 49ers thought they were going to trade him in the offseason and didn’t include him in training camp practices. But there wasn’t a market for him because of his shoulder injury and he agreed to take a paycut to stay and become a free agent at the end of the year. And then he was thrust into the starting lineup when Trey Lance was lost for the season with a broken ankle.

Kansas City and Buffalo were expected to go into their Oct. 16 matchup undefeated, but they both lost. Buffalo had problems dealing with the heat and injuries in Miami while the Chiefs were the victims of their own mistakes in a loss to the 0-2 Colts, who had been blanked by the Jaguars the previous week.

A muffed punt let to a Colts touchdown and their fill-in kicker Matt Ammendola missed an extra point and a 34-yard field goal attempt and the Chiefs couldn’t execute a fake field goal attempt.

Besides the 3-0 Eagles and Dolphins, the most surprising team may be the 2-1 Jaguars, who routed the injury-depleted Chargers. The Jaguars have a good shot at winning their division and getting their second home playoff game since 1999.

Las Vegas may be the most disappointing team at 0-3 under new coach Josh McDaniels after making the playoffs last year. They now face long odds in getting back to the playoffs.

Not a good weekend for watching NFL games.

The primetime games are Steelers-Browns on Prime on Thursday night, 49ers-Broncos on Sunday night and Cowboys-Giants on Monday night. Of those six teams, only the Giants are 2-0.

The most interesting game may be the Bills at Miami. Both are 2-0 in a division game. The Bills won their firsts two games in blowouts and we will see if they can do it again. Miami is coming off its comeback win over the Ravens.

CBS has decide to give more exposure to the Chiefs-Colts game than the Bills-Dolphins game  at 1 pm even though the Chiefs are a popular choice in the survivor pools over the 0-1-1 Colts.

Either way, the Bills and Chiefs, likely the two best teams in the AFC, figure to go to 3-0. If they both win, they will be the only 3-0 teams in the conference.

The Bengals are likely to be another popular survivor pool choice when they go to the Jets, who pulled off a comeback win over the Browns after being down by 13 with two minutes left. Bengals are a 4.5 choice.

The Chargers would normally be a good survivor pool choice over the Jaguars and still are favored by a touchdown but Justin Herbert’s rib injury has caused some oddsmakers to be cautious about the game. The Jaguars are also noted for struggling on the West Coast They are 1-9 in their last 10 games against the Chargers on the road.  

The Jaguars are getting more exposure than they usually do as the lone CBS second game. Fox has the doubleheader game and will feature the 1-1 Packers and Aaron Rodgers at Tampa Bay against the 2-0 Bucs and Tom Brady. The Bucs are a 2.5 point choice.

The Patriots are a home underdog against the Ravens. In the previous 19 games when they were a home underdog with Bill Belichick as the coach, the Patriots were 15-4 against the spread.

Of the five 0-2 teams, two play each other with the Raiders at the Titans with the Raiders a 2.5 point choice on the road. Cincinnati figures to beat the Jets to avoid an 0-3 start while the Falcons are a 1.5 underdog at Seattle and Carolina is a three point underdog at home against the Saints.

The first two weeks of the season have been unpredictable.

The favorites went 16-16 and 19 of the 32 teams started off 1-1. And no lead appeared safe.

But one team was very predictable—the Buffalo Bills.

Picked by many oddsmakers to win the Super Bowl, they look like the frontrunner after two weeks. After beating the Rams 31-10 in the opener, they crushed the Titans, a team they lose to last year, by a 41-7 margin as Josh Allen threw four touchdown passes, three two Stefon Diggs.

They are one of six 2-0 teams and now the team to beat.

By contrast, five teams – Cincinnati, Tennessee, Atlanta Las Vegas and Carolina – are 0-2. They now have an uphill climb to get into the playoff race. Of the 18 teams that started off 0-2 the last two years, none of them made it. Two teams are at 0-1-1 so 21 of 32 two have a los and five have two losses.

Besides the Bills, the Chiefs and Dolphins are 2-0 in the AFC and the Giants, Eagles and Tampa Bay 2-0 are in the NFC.

The Giants are the most surprising team to 2-0 and they have to show they are for real.

Except for the dominance of the Bills and the five teams at 0-2, there aren’t many trends in the first two weeks.

It is surprising the feature game this week is on Thursday night when the Chiefs host the Chargers as Patrick Mahomes duels Justin Herbert.

The NFL doesn’t usually put feature games like this on Thursday nights, but they are doing because it will be the first regular-season game on the new Amazon Prime Video contract.

The game won’t get the same ratings as it would on basic cable because many fans either don’t have Prime Video or don’t even know what it is. But the NFL decided to take the money and run and accept lower ratings. The question is how much lower. The rating will be watched closely.

The game figures to be must-watch TV for those who can watch it. Last year, Mahomes and Herbert split two high scoring games with the home team losing both games. The Chargers won at Kansas City 30-24 and the Chiefs won in Los Angeles 34-28 in overtime. The second game this year will be played on Nov. 20 in Los Angeles in a Sunday doubleheader game. The NFL couldn’t take both games away from CBS so this will not be in prime time.

Now some other observations on Week 2:

-This a big week for the 14 teams that lost their openers (Colts and Texans played to a tie) because an 0-2 start is difficult to overcome and puts a lot of pressure on the third game to avoid an 0-3 start. Only two games pit teams that lost their openers with Rams hosting Falcons in what should be an easy Rams victory and the Bengals going to Dallas as a seven-point favorite.

–The strangest spread of the week is New England a one-point pick at Pittsburgh. Granted, the Patriots have a history of playing well against the Steelers, who will be playing without T.J. Watt and have Mitch Trubisky at quarterback, but the Patriots dynasty appears to be over.

–The oddsmakers weren’t impressed that Chicago beat San Francisco in their opener and the Packers lost to Minnesota. The Packers are a 10-point favorite over the Bears in the Sundy night game. In other lopsided spreads for the survivor pool members to look at, the Bills are favored by 10 over the Titans, Denver is favored by 10 over the Texans, the 49ers are favored by 9.5 over the Seahawks and the Rams by 10.5 over the Falcons. The Rams and 49ers look like the best bets.

–There are two Monday night games and one  looks better than the Sunday night game with the Eagles a 1.5-point choice over the Vikings on ABC. In the other Monday night game on ESPN, Buffalo is favored by 10 over the Titans.

–Tom Brady figures to keep winning even though the Bucs are only favored by only 3 over the Saints.

–Cleveland is likely to get off to a 2-0 start even though Deshaun Watson is suspended. They are favored by six over the Jets.

–The Colts haven’t won in Jacksonville since 1994 and lost there in the season finale to cost them a playoff spot, but they are still a four-point choice over the Jaguars.

–The Commanders have a shot at a 2-0 start since they are a 2.5-point choice at Detroit. After going 3-13-1 last year, the Lions need a victory to avoid an 0-2 start.   

–Lamar Jackson, who is bet on himself this year when he turned down the Ravens’ long-term offer, is favored by 3.5 points over the Dolphins, who beat New England in their opener. 

The lesson of the first weekend of the NFL season is that parity can make for exciting finishes.

New Orleans beat Atlanta on Wil Lutz’s 51-yard field goal with 19 seconds left and Cleveland rookie Code York hit a 58-yarder with eight seconds left to beat Carolina. And the Titans lost to the Giants when Randy Bullock missed a 47-yarder as time expired. Rodrigo Blankenship missed a 42-yarder with two minutes left in overtime so the Colts had to settle for a tie with Houston.

On top of all that, Chris Boswell hit a 53-yard field goal with no time left in overtime to give the Steelers a 23-20 victory over the Bengals. The loss of long snapper Clark Harris proved to be critical for the Bengals as the Steelers blocked an extra point at the end of regulation and Evan McPherson missed a 29-yarder in overtime when backup snapper Mitchell Wilcox had a high snap. It didn’t help that the Bengals also had five turnovers, including a pick-six that was one of the four Joe Burrow passes the Steelers intercepted.

And Denver lost to Seattle when Brandon McManus missed a field goal in the final minute. But nobody blamed him because new coach Nathaniel Hackett had him try from 64 yards instead of letting Russell Wilson go for the first down on fourth-and-5. The Broncos have to wonder if Hackett is ready to be a head coach.

it is probably too early to jump to conclusions after the first weekend but let’s do it anyway. Here goes:

–Dak Prescott’s broken hand that will sideline him for six to eight weeks probably knocks the Cowboys out of the playoff race and opens the door for Philadelphia to win the NFC East.  And for another NFC team to get a playoff spot the Cowboys likely would have gotten with Prescott. The Eagles opened with a victory over the Lions.

–The Steelers got a costly victory over the Bengals when T.J. Watt was probably lost for at least five weeks with a pec injury. That means Cincinnati is still likely to win the division despite their opening game loss.

–Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are probably headed towards a collision course in probably the biggest game of the regular season when the Chiefs host Buffalo on Oct. 16The two teams also could be headed towards a duel in the AFC title game after the Chiefs routed the Cardinals and the Bills beat the Rams in the Thursday night opener. Mahomes didn’t miss Tyreek Hill as he threw five touchdown passes in the chiefs 44-21 win over the Cardinals.

–Kyler Murray got a big contract, but the one sided loss to the Chiefs raised more doubt whether he is ready to compete against the other young QBs in the league.

–Justin Herbert would like to crash the Mahomes-Allen AFC party and he showed he might do it by throwing three touchdown passes in the 24-19 victory over the Raiders, whose playoff hopes are probably a long shot because they are in a division with the Chiefs, Chargers and Broncos.

–Russell Wilson’s return to Seattle in his debut in Denver turned out not to be a good homecoming. The Broncos didn’t play well and lost 17-16 to journeyman Geno Smith, who threw two touchdown passes in the first half, but threw just 10 passes in the second half. Peyton Manning suggested it was unfair for the NFL to have Wilson go back to Seattle in his debut because of all the emotion involved although he threw for 340 yards. Still, the Broncos were not sharp and ran eight plays in the third period inside the Seattle 12 and got no points and had two fumbles. And they had three more plays inside the Seattle 10 in the fourth period and settled for a field goal. Hackett didn’t help with a curious decision not to go for it when Broncos had fourth and six t the Seattle 46 in the final minute. Instead, he let the clock run down to 20 seconds before having McManus try a 64-yard field goal attempt. According to Sportsradar, kickers are 2 of 35 from 64 yards or more since 1991.

 –Do the Vikings and Kirk Cousins have a chance to overtake the Packers and Aaron Rodgers in the NFC Central? It looks that way when the Vikings opened with a 23-7 win over the Vikings.

–The switch to Trey Lance by the 49ers got off to a slow start when they lost to the Bears in the opener.  But the game was played in a monsoon so it is too early to make judgments on Lance.

–Tom Brady still isn’t showing his age, but it was the defense that carried the way in the Bucs 19-3 victory over the Cowboys.

–First-year coach Brian Daboll went for two rather than play for overtime and got the Giants a 21-20 victory over the Titans when they made the two point conversion. The Titans could have pulled it out but Bullock missed that 47-yarder as time expired. But it wasn’t costly for the Titans because none of the AFC South teams won although the Colts and Texans tied.

–The Browns didn’t miss Deshaun Watson, who is suspended, as backup Jacoby Brissett led the Browns to a 26-24 win over the Panthers as York made the game winner from 58 yards. It was a frustrating loss for Baker Mayfield, who was dumped by the Browns to make room for Watson.

–Lamar Jackson, who is betting on himself by taking the fifth year option contract for $23 million because  he wants more guaranteed money than the Ravens are offering, got off to a good start by throwing three touchdown passes in a 24-9 victory over the Jets. The Ravens were a popular pick in the survivor pools.

–Time to rebuild in New England. The dynasty is over. The Patriots may be only the third best team in their division after losing their opener in Miami. The Patriots are now 6-8 in their last 14 AFC East And four of those six wins are over the Jets. The lesson of the first weekend of the season is that parity can make for exciting finishes.

For the New England Patriots, times are changing. For the Miami Dolphins, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

That is the backdrop for Sunday’s opener when Miami hosts New England.

Before they kickoff, they both know they are virtually out of the AFC East race and are fighting for second place and a possible wild card spot.

That is because the Buffalo Bills showed they are likely to dominate the division after they routed the Rams 31-10 in their opener Thursday night despite four turnovers.

Imagine the score if they hadn’t turned the ball over that many times.

This situation is not new for the Dolphins.

They are used to being in a division dominated by one of the best teams in the league. They haven’t won a division title since 2008 when Tom Brady was hurt.

The Dolphins were swept by the Bills last year and are likely to be swept again this year.

The Dolphins have made the playoffs only three times since Brady started playing in 2001 and have won just one playoff game.

But this is new for the Patriots, who dominated the division for two decades when Brady was playing. 

Now Brady is gone and they are in the division with the Bills, who have one of the best teams in the league. The Patriots made the playoffs last year but the Bills routed them 47-17 in a first-round playoff game.

The Patriots did beat the Bills 14-10 in Buffalo in a wind game, but two weeks later in Foxborough, the Bills beat them 33-21.

Bill Belichick is a good enough coach to keep them competitive. They were 10-7 last year. But it is difficult to imagine them winning a road playoff game as a wild-card team. Unfortunately, competitive is no longer the standard in New England.

They’ve now gone three years in a row without winning a playoff game. Belichick has never gone four years in a row in his career without winning one.

On top of that, he’s 70 and his age is likely to be an issue. Ageism is a thing. He recently did an interview with the Boston Globe when he was reminded he said in 2009 he wouldn’t coach in his 70s the way Marv Levy did.

“I wish I hadn’t said that,’’ Belichick said.

Now he has to live with the perception that the game has passed him by. That’s not true. He is the same coach he always was. A solid coach, but not the best of all time as he is often called now. He is not the GOAT.

Remember he has a losing record without Brady and was 5-11 in his first year with the Patriots and started out 0-2 in 2001 when Drew Bledsoe got hurt and Brady took over and they won the Super Bowl.

That is the difference Brady makes. Same team that went 5-11 without Brady won the Super Bowl with him.

When he was injured in the opener in 2008, they went 10-5 rest of the way. but didn’t make the playoffs because they lost the big games they usually won with Brady.

Belichick probably should have retired when Brady left. Or even better, made sure the Pats made him a good enough offer to entice him to stay.

But Belichick likes coaching. It is his life. The irony is he is a good enough coach to keep the Patriots around .500 and maybe get a wild card spot.

But now he will find out what it is like to be in a division with one of the best teams in the league. Remember no AFC East team besides the Patriots won the Super Bowl after Brady arrived.

Now the division belongs to Josh Allen and the Bills. The Patriots, like the Dolphins, are on the outside looking in.

It is often a difficult transition when a team moves on from a veteran quarterback to a young one.

But it didn’t have to be as difficult as the 49ers made it when they decided to hand Trey Lance the starting job in his second season this year.

They decided they were going to trade Jimmy Garoppolo at the combine, but there was no market for him once he had to undergo surgery.

Instead of releasing him, the 49ers spent the offseason treating him like a pariah. They had him working out on a separate field while he rehabbed his shoulder and didn’t have him join in the quarterback meetings.

Richard Sherman endorsed the idea of going with Lance, but didn’t like the way they treated Jimmy G.

“It is the most awkward situation I’ve ever heard of,’’ Sherman said in the spring. “It is like the couple being divorced, and the divorced wife stays in the house while the husband gets re-married.”

The 49ers apparently thought there would be a market for Jimmy G. once his shoulder healed, but teams were leery of giving much for him at the start of the season when they weren’t sure whether he had recovered.

So instead of cutting him, the 49ers offered him a paycut to $6.5 million with incentives if he plays. Jimmy G. will be a free agent at the end of the season and they can’t franchise him. He also has a no-trade clause so they can only trade him to a team he likes. Jimmy G. took the cut because it was his best option instead of being a free agent when most teams were set at quarterback.

The 49er move also gave the impression that they might not be sold on Lance and wanted an insurance policy if he doesn’t live up to their expectations.

Coach Kyle Shanahan tried to put the best face on it, saying it is best for the 49ers to have both quarterbacks and that Lance had no problem with Jimmy G. being his backup.

“There aren’t 32 starting quarterbacks in the league, and we believe we have two of them,” he said.

Meanwhile as the 49ers open the season Sunday against the Bears, this awkward situation puts more pressure on Lance. If he struggles, there will be calls for Jimmy G. to get a shot.

There’s also the chance the 49ers will get something for him if a contender loses its starter because of injury. But it has to be a team Jimmy G. wants to go to because he has the no-trade clause.

One thing is certain. They have put a lot of pressure on Lance. If he lives up to expectations, he can be their quarterback for the next decade.

If he doesn’t, who knows what the 49ers will do next?

All we know now is Jimmy G. opens the season on the sidelines as the backup. At least he is now with the team.