VITO'S VIEWS

The unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles enjoyed their bye week as they continue to look like the team to beat in the NFC.

Two teams that were expected to challenge them, Green Bay and Tampa Bay, both lost to fall to 3-4. Neither Aaron Rodgers nor Tom Brady are playing well as the Packers lost to Washington and the Bucs lost to the Panthers. The loss to the Panthers was embarrassing as backup quarterback P.J Walker threw two touchdown passes while Brady was held to three points. 

The Giants beat the Jaguars to go 6-1 while the Vikings had a bye to remain 5-1. They are the only one loss teams in the NFC but look to be more pretenders than contenders.

The Cowboys got Dak Prescott back and rolled to to a 24-6 win over the Lions. The Cowboys are 5-2 but trail the Eagles by two games in the loss column

Meanwhile the AFC remains a two team race between the 5-1 Bills, who had a bye and the 5-2 Chiefs, who rolled to a 44-23 win over the 49ers.

The 5-2 Jets and 4-2 Titans both won and are the only other two teams in the AFC to have two losses but neither appears likely to challenge the Bills and Chiefs in battle for top seed.

All you need to know about Week 7 of the NFL season is that the Sunday night prime time game features 2-4 Pittsburgh at 3-3 Miami.

And the NFL decided not to flex the game because it doesn’t have a great matchup this week to flex.

The best matchup is 4-2 Kansas City at 3-3 San Francisco, but that is the Fox late game so they aren’t going to move that into prime time.

The only game in which both teams have winning records features 3-2-1 Indianapolis at 3-2 Tennessee in a battle for the AFC South lead, but that is not exactly a marquee matchup worth flexing.

Dallas at 4-2 hosts 1-4 Detroit while the 4-2 Chargers host 3-3 Seahawks.

It doesn’t help that 6-0 Philadelphia and 5-1 Buffalo and Minnesota and 3-3 Rams all have byes.

The Giants keep pulling out close games and are 5-1, but the odds makers aren’t convinced they are for real and they are underdogs at 2-4 Jacksonville

The Thursday night game is another dud with two teams with losing records – 2-4 Arizona hosting 2-4 New Orleans.

The Monday night game has 2-4 Chicago at 3-3 New England.

The NFL owners met this week in New York, but no signs they are concerned about the poor play and lack of quality matchups. But they did decide to give Prime a black Friday matchup next year. 

Meanwhile, the money keeps rolling in so they have no incentive to be concerned about the quality of play.

The Philadelphia Eagles and the Buffalo Bills have never met in a Super Bowl.

Don’t be surprised if it happens this year.

The teams took a big step in that direction Sunday when the Bills beat the Chiefs 24-20 as Josh Allen outdueled Patrick Mahomes and the Eagles beat the Cowboys 26-17 as backup quarterback Cooper Rush threw three picks for the Cowboys.

The Bills are now the only 5-1 team in the AFC and have a game lead on the Chiefs, Chargers and Jets in the battle for the top seed.

Granted, the Chiefs lost to the Bills in the regular season last year and then beat them in the 13 second game in the playoffs but the Bills are likely to host the playoff game if the two teams meet again. Since the Bills have the head to head tie-breaker, the Chiefs would have to finish a game ahead of them to get home field advantage. 

Last year, the Bills had to play the playoff game in Kansas City because they went 11-6 in the regular season. It’s difficult to imagine this Bills team losing six games this year.

The Eagles are in an even better position than the Bills. They have a two game lead over the 4-2 Cowboys although they will play again Christmas Eve in Dallas. The Cowboys should have Dak Prescott for their Christmas Eve game but the Eagles look like the team to beat.

There are two 5-1 teams in the conference – Minnesota and the Giants – but neither team looks like they can overtake the Eagles, who have already beaten the Vikings. And the Giants are underdogs Sunday against the 2-4 Jaguars and have to play the Eagles twice.

And two teams who figured to be contenders, Tom Brady and the Bucs and Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, are both 3-3 after both teams lost Sunday. The Packers lost to the Jets and the Bucs to the Steelers.

In the AFC, San Diego was expected to be a contender and is 4-2, but had to go to overtime to beat Denver. Quarterback Justin Herbert hasn’t been the same since suffering a cartilage injury.

And both Super Bowls teams from year ago, the Rams and Bengals are 3-3. So is San Francisco. So are Baltimore and the Dolphins. And while the Jets are 4-2, they don’t look like a contender and play the Bills twice.

Unless a team gets on a roll in the second half of the season, it looks like the Bills and Chiefs and Eagles and Cowboys will battle for the Super Bowl slots this year,

The NFL will have its best TV doubleheader of the season Sunday.

The Bills-Chiefs game at Kansas City will be televised nationally by CBS as the second game starting at 4:25 p.m. The network has no other late game and Fox only has two late games –Carolina at the Rams and Arizona at Seattle. The Carolina-Rams game will be shown on Fox in Jacksonville because the Jaguars play at 1 p.m. on CBS.

Then the Sunday night game on NBC will feature the Cowboys at the Eagles.

Both figure to be ratings blockbusters. The Chiefs-Bills game is a rematch of the 13 second playoff game last January when the Bills took the lead with 13 seconds remaining, but the Chiefs came back to tie it and win in overtime.

And the Cowboys continue to be a ratings draw. Their game with the Rams last Sunday was viewed by 24.5 million fans and was the fourth largest draw of the season. 

The Bills are favored by 2.5 and the Eagles are favored by six. 

The two winners are going to be the frontrunners to get the top seeds in the AFC and NFC although there is still a long way to go. The Bills-Chiefs winner will be the only 5-1 team in the AFC. If Eagles beat the Cowboys, they will remain the only unbeaten team at 6-0 while a Cowboy win would leave the two teams tied at 5-1.

Two other NFC teams – the Vikings and Giants  — are trying to get to 5-1. The Vikings are favored by 3.5 points over the Dolphins while the Giants are five point underdogs against the Ravens.

Meanwhile, the ratings for the doubleheader window have increased the last four weeks over last year and the Chiefs-Bills figure to make it five.

Last week’s Sunday night game between the Ravens and Bengals drew a season low of 15.88 million fans while the Raiders-Chiefs on Monday night was watched by 15.88 million fans on ESPN. It was the most watched Week 5 MNF game since 2011.

There will be eight 1 p.m. games on CBS and Fox, but only two will get much attention outside of the local markets. CBS will show the Ravens-Giants in most of the country and Fox will show the Jets-Packers in much of the country.

The other two prime time games this weekend are not feature attractions  – Washington at Chicago on Thursday night on prime and Denver at the Chargers Monday night. Neither figures to get good ratings.

Four teams – Titans, Lions, Raiders and Texans – will have byes this week.

In this season of parity or mediocrity – take your pick – there are four teams that appear to be the class of the field – unbeaten Philadelphia and Dallas, Buffalo and Kansas City.

All four won this weekend to set the table for the best Sunday of action so far this season.

The 4-1 Bills will play the 4-1 Chiefs in the CBS late game and the 4-1 Cowboys will play 5-0 Eagles on Sunday night.

The two winners will be the frontrunners to get the top seed in each conference.

The Chiefs had the biggest scare Monday night against a division rival, Las Vegas. The game should have gone into overtime, but Raiders coach Josh McDaniels went for two with about four minutes left. The Raiders didn’t make it and lost 30-29. 

In the other three games, the Cowboys beat the Rams, 22-10, the Eagles edged the Cardinals 20-17 and the Bills clobbered the Steelers, 38-3.

Besides the Chiefs, Bills and Cowboys, only two other teams have just one loss, the surprising Vikings and Giants who are both 4-1. The Vikings beat the bears 29-22 and the Giants upset the struggling Packers, 27-22. But the Vikings and Giants have to prove they are contenders, not pretenders.

There are six teams with one win – Raiders, Steelers, Commanders, Lions, Panthers and Texans. The Texans were the only one of the six to win Sunday as they beat the Jaguars for the ninth time in a row. They were the only winless team going into the weekend.

One of the one win teams, the Panthers, fired head coach Matt Rhule on Monday. The firing wasn’t a surprise, but the fact the Rhule was hired and given a seven year $62 million contract in the first place was the real surprise. It shows that billionaire owner David Pepper appears to have no idea how to run a franchise. . Rhule can now play golf and collect around $40 million for the next four years and 12 games. But he will likely return to the college ranks as the latest college coach to flop in the NFL. Assistant Steve Wilki, who was fired after going 3-13 in his one year as the Cardinals coach, will take over as the interim. He has joined the Brian Flores discrimination suit for his abrupt firing by the Cardinals.

While there are now six teams with one or fewer losses and six with one win, the other 20 teams are 3-2 or 2-3 except for 2-2-1 Indianapolis.

Two of the three 2-3 teams are last year’s two Super Bowl teams, the Rams and Bengals. But they came in with the odds against them. A team hasn’t repeated as Super Bowl champion since the 2003-04 Patriots and a Super Bowl loser has won it the following year only once since 1972 when the perfect Dolphins did it. Neither the Rams not the Bengals are looking super after five games.

The NFL has three prime time games that don’t appear ready for prime time this weekend.

The weekend opens Thursday night with a pair of 2-2 teams – Indianapolis at Denver – that don’t appear to be contenders although the game does feature two veteran quarterbacks – Denver’s Russell Wilson and Indianapolis’ Matt Ryan — in their first season with new teams.

The Sunday night game also features two 2-2 teams – Cincinnati at Baltimore. Cincinnati has overcome an 0-2 start while the Ravens are struggling on defense and gave up 17 point leads in their two losses. 

The Monday night game pits the 1-3 Raiders at 3-1 Kansas City. This should be an easy win for the Chiefs if they aren’t looking ahead to next week’s game with 3-1 Buffalo, which hosts Pittsburgh and rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett, who figures to make his first start Sunday.

The 9:30 am London game matches a pair of surprising 3-1 teams – Minnesota and the New York Giants – with new coaches – Kevin O’Connell of the Vikings and Brian Daboll of the Giants.

The best game this weekend is the Fox doubleheader game on Sunday with the 3-1 Cowboys going to the defending champion 2-2 Rams, who are off to a disappointing start. The Cowboys need a win to stay close to the 4-0 Eagles, who figure to beat 2-2 Arizona in the other late Fox Sunday game.

The defending champion Rams will be no worse than a game off the division lead even if they lose because all four NFC West teams are 2-2. The Rams and Cardinals are home while Seattle goes to New Orleans and San Francisco goes to Carolina. 

It will be interesting to see if the trend of close games continues this weekend. So far, 50 games have been within one score in the fourth period. Last week 15 of 16 games were within one score in fourth quarter and through four weeks, 23 games have been decided by three points or fewer and 31 have been decided by six points or fewer. All are records for the first four weeks of the season.

This is the parity the NFL likes, but the downside is that 14 teams are off to 2-2 starts and only one game this weekend pits two teams with winning records. The Giants and Packers, who play in London, are both 3-1. It is the first time two teams with winning records have played in London.

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.