VITO'S VIEWS

In his first five starts, Gardner Minshew proved he can play in the NFL even though he wasn’t picked until the sixth round.

He proved he has a lot of charisma and has made Minshew Mania a thing, but the question is what kind of career will he have?

Is he destined to be a long term starter or is he another Ryan Fitzpatrick without the Harvard degree, a smart guy who can read defenses and lead the team, but lacks the physical tools to be an elite quarterback?

And can he keep Nick Foles on the bench when Foles is ready to play, presumably after the bye?

In the wake of the way he was handcuffed by the Saints defense Sunday, we will start getting those answers in the next three games before the bye.

They figure to beat winless Cincinnati Sunday, but facing the defenses of Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and Texans defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel will be a challenge.

Both are veteran coaches who will take notice of what the Saints did Sunday.

What we don’t know is whether the Saints stopped him because they are so good on defense or whether they cracked the code with the right scheme to handcuff Minshew.

They double teamed DJ Chark and played two deep safeties to take away the outside and kept him bottled up in the pocket so he couldn’t escape and make plays on the run and took away his quick throws up the middle.

Sean Payton congratulated his troops by saying the Jaguars wouldn’t have scored a touchdown if they had played eight quarters, although it came across as gloating.

Coach Doug Marrone noted the Jaguars have to expect teams to do what the Saints did.

“When someone does have success against you, playing a coverage, you have to make sure you do a good job (of getting ready for it) because this is a league where is they see something successful against you, they’ll do it again.”

Can the Jaguars make the right adjustments to beat that coverage and can other teams do it without the Saints players?

Can Minshew adjust to his first bump in the road when he looked like a rookie quarterback?

A win over winless Cincinnati would boost their record to 3-4 then they host the Jets go to London to play Houston, which held Minshew to one touchdown in their first meeting. m

It was Minshew’s first start and the Texans didn’t have much tape on him to look at.

If Jaguars beat both the Jets and Texans to go to 5-4, the odds are that Minshew will keep the job after the bye. If they split them to go 4-5, they have a decision to make. If they lose both to fall to 3-6, there is no decision. It will be Foles time.

The next three games – especially the two against the Jets and Texans – will tell us a lot about Minshew and the Jaguars.

It wasn’t so long ago that Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota and Cam Newton were supposed to be the future of the NFL.

Winston and Mariota were the first two picks in the 2015 draft and Newton was the first pick in the 2011 draft.

It now looks as if they will never be the quarterbacks they were expected to be, although Newton may be the victim of the injuries he suffered from running too much.

Mariota was yanked in a shutout loss to Denver in the third quarter after throwing for just 63 yards with two picks and a 9.5 quarterback rating. Ryan Tannehill replaced him and will keep the job.

Winston threw five picks and lost a fumble in a loss to Carolina but finished the game and seems to be intent on ruining Bruce Arians’ reputation as a quarterback whisperer. He will keep his job but his long-term future remains in limbo.

Newton is sidelined with injuries and Kyle Allen is 4-0 as his replacement. Newton was 0-8 in his last eight starts. Does he get the job back even if he is healthy at some point? There’s no guarantee he will be healthy this year or that he will get the job back if he is healthy and Allen keeps playing well.

Like Mariota, he could be looking for a new home next year.

Positives

—San Francisco’s defense is for real. The 49ers remained the only unbeaten NFC team as their defense didn’t allow the Rams to convert a third or fourth down. The last time they did that was in 1988 in Bill Walsh’s last year.–Sam Darnold showed what he means to the Jets when he came back from mono to lead the Jets to the victory over Dallas. The Browns passed up Darnold for Baker Mayfield. They may regret that decision.

—The Denver defense is back. After not getting a turnover in their first four games, they have seven sacks, five picks and a fumble recovery in their last two. That included the win over the Titans when Mariota was benched.

—Lamar Jackson of the Ravens had 388 yards from scrimmage in the victory over hapless Cincinnati, including 152 yards rushing. But is it hazardous to his health to keep running that much? See Newton, Cam.

—Much-maligned Kurt Cousins has finally found his touch. Things were so bad that former teammate Zach Brown, now with the Eagles, said he was the weakest part of the Vikings offense. Sunday after Cousins torched the Eagles for his second big game in a row, Brown said he wasn’t talking about Cousins, who has completed 44 of 56 for 639 yards, six touchdowns and one pick while beating the Giants and Eagles. At 4-2, the Vikings are back in the playoff hunt. The Eagles cut Brown Monday after Cousins passed for 333 yards against them.

Negatives

—The Rams were 24-8 in the regular season their first two years under Sean McVay andh went to the Super Bowl last year. They then started out 3-0 before losing three in a row, including a 20-7 loss to the 49ers. Jared Goff seems lost and McVay has to figure out how to get the team back on track.

—Dallas also lost its third in a row after starting out 3-0 when they were beaten by the Jets. But the Cowboys are playing in the NFC East and tied for first with the Eagles, who also are 3-3. A .500 record could win this division.

—Kansas City started out 4-0 and has now lost two consecutive home games in the wake of the loss to the Texans. It is the first time Andy Reid has lost two straight home games since Reid’s first year with the Chiefs. The problem is that the Kansas City defense can’t keep opposing teams off the field. The teams that play the Chiefs that the best way to stop Patrick Mahomes is to keep him off the field.

—The Chargers were supposed to be a contender but fell to 2-4 with a 24-17 loss to the Steelers, who started third string quarterback Devlin Hodges. The Steelers took a 24-0 lead and held on to the win. The Chargers again showed they aren’t winning the hearts and minds of Los Angeles fans as their small stadium was filled with Steeler fans.

—The NFL has apparently decided the new pass interference rule was a mistake, which is was, so they have stopped overturning pass interference calls and non-calls on replay. Only one of 25 challenges have been won. The one-year rule will likely be thrown out at the end of the season, but it is a bad look for the rule to be ignored. Coaches should learn not to challenge pass interference calls because they won’t be overturned.

Another problem is that the number of penalties being called is up this year and there are too manycalls like the ones in the Monday night Green Bay-Detroit game. It is difficult to officiate today’s fast-paced game but the league needs to put more emphasis on improving officiating.

After five weeks, it looks as if there are 24 teams fighting for 12 playoff spots. The four winless teams and the four one-win teams have only a remote shot. But the seven two wins teams can’t be ruled out. Last year, five of the 12 playoff teams had losing records after five games.Game of the Week: San Francisco at the Los Angeles Rams.The Rams seem to be suffering a typical Super Bowl loss hangover with a 3-2 record after five games and they can’t afford to lose to the surprising unbeaten 49ers. If they fall to 3-3, they would have to climb out of a big hole to win the division because San Francisco would be 5-0 and 4-1 Seattle is likely to go to 5-1 at Cleveland. The problem for the Rams is that the line can’t protect Jared Goff after losing two starters in free agency. And a new problem is that Todd Gurley is suffering from a quad injury. A loss in this game and the Rams have to start thinking about getting a wild card spot.Game of the weak: Washington at Miami. Both teams are winless and the loser has the inside track on the first pick in the draft. Washington is favored as the Redskins have a new interim coach while Miami is rebuilding and/or tanking. Josh Rosen, who has been named the Dolphins starting quarterback, will be trying to convince the Dolphins he can be the team’s quarterback of the future but he doesn’t much of a supporting cast around him so he will have to carry the team.What to watch for:–Matthew Stafford tends to be underrated because he has mostly played for losing teams in Detroit. But he’s put up impressive numbers in his career. If he passes for 352 yards against the Packers Monday night, he will become the first player in history to pass for 40,000 yards in fewer than 150 games. He has 39,648 in 145 games. Matt Ryan did it in 151 and is the current leader. So if Stafford doesn’t become the fastest this week, he will do it next week.–Jimmy Garoppolo struggled in the preseason, proving once again you can’t put too much stock in the preseason. He has led the 49ers to a 4-0 record and is 12-2 as a starter going into Sunday’s game against the Rams. He has seven touchdowns and a 99.4 passer rating. A victory will enable him to become the eighth quarterback in the Super Bowl era to win at least 13 games in his first 15 starts.–Only two players in NFL history have had at least a thousand scrimmage yards in the first six games of the season – Jim Brown and Marshall Faulk. Christian McCaffery can become third Sunday in London for the Panthers against the Bucs. He has 866 in five games.–Russell Wilson leads the NFL with a 126.3 passer rating and has had a passer rating of more than 100 in the first five games of the season. Against Cleveland, he can become just the fourth player to do it for the first six games. The other three are Aaron Rodgers (12), Tom Brady (8) and Carson Palmer (6).–Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson, the 10th and 12th picks in the 2017 draft, will meet for the first time Sunday in Kansas City. It won’t be the last time. Every time they both win their divisions in future years, they will meet the following year and it will be no surprising if there are playoff meetings in their futures. It will be no surprise if Watson gets the nod in this one. Kansas City doesn’t have the defense to stop him while Mahomes suffered an ankle injury in his first loss last week.

It looks like the 1972 Dolphins can put the champagne on ice now that the Kansas City Chiefs have suffered their first loss and there are only two unbeaten teams left – New England and San Francisco.

Both have benefited from easy schedules so far so we don’t know how good they are. The odds, though, are that the 1972 Dolphins will continue to be the NFL’s only perfect team. Not the best team, but the perfect team.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the league, there are four winless teams and four one-win teams. So much for parity. And two winless teams, Miami and Washington, which just fired its coach, will meet in Miami on Sunday with the winner having the inside track on the first pick in the draft.

Washington is trying to win but doesn’t know how. Miami is rebuilding or tanking depending on what phrase you like. Miami still has two games left against the winless Jets and one against winless Cincinnati.

Positives

–The Indianapolis Colts exposed the fact that the Chiefs don’t have a good run defense. Firing Bob Sutton didn’t solve that problem. The Colts ran 45 times for 180 yards against the Chiefs just as the Patriots ran 48 times for 176 yards in beating them in the playoffs last year, although the Chiefs would have won if Dee Ford hadn’t jumped offsides to negate a Tom Brady interception. Most teams can’t run that much against the Chiefs because they score so easily and teams have to pass to catch up, but the Colts defense also grounded the the Chiefs’ high-flying offense. The Colts snapped their string of 25 games scoring 25 or more points. The Colts are 3-2 and a contender despite losing Andrew Luck.

–Quarterbacks have won 11 of the last 12 MVP awards, but Carolina running back Christian McCaffrey belongs in the conversation after he shredded the Jaguars defense. He has 866 yards from scrimmage in his first five games, second only to Jim Brown’s 988 in his first five games. Always a good thing to be in the conversation with Jim Brown.

–The Denver Broncos were winless in their first four games with no turnovers. They got three against the Chargers in posting their first victory. Turnovers matter.

–Deshaun Watson showed what he can do when the Texans protect him. He had 426 passing yards, five touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 quarterback rating. Only the third quarterback to have a perfect rating and pass for more than 400 yards and five touchdowns in Super Bowl era.  And the 53-32 score of their victory over Atlanta was the first game ever to end in that score.

–Packers running back Aaron Jones became the fourth player since 1950 to post 100 rushing yards, 75 passing yards and four touchdowns in a game in the win over Dallas. The first three were Gale Sayers, Dub Jones of the Paul Brown Cleveland Browns and Shaun Alexander.

Negatives

–It looks like Falcon coach Dan Quinn won’t get back to a Super Bowl to get a chance to win one after 28-3. With the team falling to 1-4 after the Texans loss, he probably won’t be back next year, much less get to a Super Bowl.

–Dallas started out 3-0 against teams with a 2-12 record but have now lost to the Saints and Packers to fall to 3-2. This puts more pressure on coach Jason Garrett because his contract runs out at the end of the year although owner Jerry Jones isn’t likely to make a change during the season. He has done that only once in 2010 when he fired Wade Phillips and promoted Garrett to the head job.

–Cleveland may turn out to be the most overhyped team of the year as they fell to 2-3 when they were routed by the 49ers in prime time. They got more prime time exposure than they deserved. Baker Mayfield said they aren’t pushing the panic button. With Seattle, a bye and New England coming up maybe they should.

–Cairo Santos was fired by the Titans after failing to make four field goal attempts in a seven-point loss to Buffalo. He missed from 50 and 36 yards in the second quarter and had a 33-yard attempt blocked in the fourth and missed from 53. Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein missed a 44-yard yard attempt at the end that cost the Rams a loss to Seattle but kept his job since he won the NFC title game last January with a 57-yard kick.

Dan Snyder is back shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

He fired his coach Monday morning after calling him into a 5 a.m. meeting. Nothing new about that. Jay Gruden was his eighth coach in his 20-year reign of error, he has fired seven of them.

Gruden was the longest tenured coach in the Snyder era, entering his sixth season after getting a two-year extension, so he will walk out the door with a lot of money.

But his reputation is in tatters after he was a highly touted offensive mind during his three-year tenure as the Bengals offensive coordinator. It is never good for a coach’s reputation to work for Snyder.

Bill Callahan was named interim coach but Snyder will look for a new coach in the offseason. But what difference does it make? Snyder will still own the team and Bruce Allen will continue to be his right-hand man.

Allen is another example of NFL nepotism at its worst. His only qualification is that he is glib and is the son of Hall of Fame coach George Allen.

His brother rode his name to the U.S. Senate in Virginia, but then the voters voted him out. The Redskins fans get no vote.

The solution for Snyder would be to fire Allen and hire a good personnel man and let him do his thing. Snyder’s not going to do that. He is a Jerry Jones wannabe who loves to meddle. Look up owner meddling in the dictionary and Snyder is the definition.

Snyder, though, didn’t attend the press conference Monday when the firing was officially announced. He sent out Allen to answer the awkward questions.

When asked about Snyder’s absence and when he will talk to the media, he said Snyder meets with the media from time to time but didn’t say when that next time will be.

He was also asked the obvious questions about his accountability and whether Gruden wanted rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins. He ducked the questions saying nobody is hiding from the record. And that Gruden was excited about the selection of Haskins.

Meanwhile, nobody knows whether Gruden would have been a successful coach working for a good organization. He made the playoffs once and had them in the running for a playoff spot last year at 6-3 when Alex Smith suffered a devastating injury. They are 1-11 since then.

They took Haskins on the first round to be their quarterback of the future but the word is Gruden didn’t want him. Haskins was probably a Snyder pick.

Doug Williams runs the personnel for the Redskins but nobody knows who makes the actual picks. It is obvious they don’t pick anyone Snyder doesn’t approve of.

Meanwhile, Snyder has turned off what was once one of the best fanbases in the NFL. There are either thousands of empty seats or they are filled by fans of the opposing team. The game against New England last Sunday seemed like a Patriots home game.

The unfortunate thing for the NFL is that a bad team in Washington is bad for the NFL. They are supposed to be one of the flagship franchises.

So they will hire a new coach next year and nothing will change. The first day he is on the job, he will be one day closer to getting fired.

Snyder’s timing was good in one respect. He did it the week before they play winless Miami, which seems to be tanking the season. The Redskins will likely get a win and Snyder will convince himself they aren’t as bad as they looked in the five losses under Gruden.

Snyder is just fooling himself. He is the problem but he is not going to fire himself, so the Redskins will continue to be a once great franchise that lost its way under Snyder.

Firing the coach is just more of the same.

Been there. Done that.

The NFL starts its second quarter this weekend with two of the league’s three unbeaten teams in prime time. The 4-0 Chiefs attempt to go to 5-0 against the Colts Sunday night while the 3-0 49ers are coming off a bye to face the Browns Monday night. The other unbeaten team, New England, is virtually guaranteed a 5-0 start when they go to Washington to meet the 0-4 Redskins.

Game of the Week

The Packers go to Dallas to meet the Cowboys in the latest game of a long-standing rivalry. The most famous game they played was the Ice Bowl. It’s also an important game since they are both 3-1 after both suffered their first losses last week.

Game of the Weak

The 0-4 Bengals face the 0-3-1 Cardinals in a game between two teams that aren’t going to the playoffs. Both have rookie coaches who have yet to post their first victory so barring a tie, one of them will get it.

Five Things to Watch

–Patrick Mahomes and Matt Ryan have passed for over 300 yards in their first four games this year. If they both do it Sunday, they will tie Peyton Manning for second place with five. Manning did it five times twice. He’s also tied for the record with Kurt Warner with six. The difference is that Mahomes has the Chiefs at 4-0 and Ryan’s Falcons are 1-3.

–Washington, going against New England, figures to fall to 0-5 and set up a battle next week with 0-4 Miami, which has a bye this week, with the loser figuring to have the inside track on the first pick in the draft. The difference is Washington is trying to win and doesn’t know how while Miami is content to get the first pick. Denver and Cincinnati also are 0-4 but seem to be playing better than the Redskins and Dolphins. The Jets are 0-3. Arizona is 0-3-1.

Continue reading “Previewing NFL Week 5”

At the quarter pole, there are only three unbeaten teams left – Chiefs, Patriots and the surprising 49ers. But the two conference have very different looks.

The AFC race still looks like a two-team battle featuring the Patriots and Chiefs. Both survived scares on the road Sunday, finding a way to win. Their game on Dec. 8 may be for homefield advantage in the AFC title game.

It is a different story in the NFC, which is a wide-open race with the 49ers at unbeaten at 3-0 and six teams – Rams, Seahawks, Cowboys, Saints, Bears and Packers — all at 5-1. No team has emerged as the team to beat.

On the bottom in the race for the No. 1 pick, Miami remains a clear favorite as its tanking plan is working to perfection.

But Washington is so dysfunctional that it may challenge the Dolphins. They meet in two weeks with the loser in good position to get the top pick. The Dolphins also play the 0-4 Bengals on Dec. 22.

Continue reading “Looking back at NFL Week 4”

The list of unbeaten teams was cut by one Thursday night when the Packer lost to the Eagles.

That leaves three AFC teams and three NFC teams at 3-0 plus Detroit is unbeaten at 2-0-1.

Barring ties, the list of unbeatens will shrink Sunday with the 3-0 Bills and 3-0 Pats and Lions and 3-0 Chiefs playing each other. The 3-0 49ers have a bye and the Rams figured to beat Tampa Bay to go to 4-0.

That leaves Dallas going for 4-0 at New Orleans, a tough place to play even with Teddy Bridgewater at quarterback for the Saints.

Flve teams are 0-3 in the AFC and two of them, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, will meet. Miami figures to fall to 0-4 against the Chargers and the 0-3 Broncos are favored against the 1-2 Jaguars and the 0-3 Jets have a bye.

Continue reading “Previewing NFL Week 4”

With three games in the books, the NFL season already is starting to take shape.

In the AFC, it looks like a two-team race for the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs. Along with Buffalo, they’re the only 3-0 teams in the conference, and the Bills meet the Patriots on Sunday.

Considering the Bills’ history against the Patriots, they figure to be vying for a wild-card spot, not the AFC East title. The Baltimore Ravens also don’t appear ready to challenge the top two after losing to the Chiefs.

Five AFC teams — the Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Cincinnati Bengals, Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos — are 0-3.

In the NFC, it’s a more open race with four teams at 3-0 – the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers. And the Detroit Lions are unbeaten at 2-0-1, while the New Orleans Saints are 2-1 and showed they can win with Teddy Bridgewater at quarterback.

And while the Philadelphia Eagles may be the most disappointing team in the league at 1-2, you can’t rule them out. Washington is the only 0-3 team in the conference, while Arizona is 0-2-1.

Now a look at what happened last weekend:

Positives
–New York Giants GM David Gettleman got a lot of flak for making Daniel Jones the sixth pick in the draft when he may have been able to get him in the middle of the round, but Jones justified his faith in him in his first start. He led the team back from an 18-point deficit to beat the Tampa Bay Bucs 32-31. The Giants got a break when Matt Gay missed a 34-yard field goal attempt for the game-winner after coach Bruce Arians took a delay penalty to move the kick back five yards. That was a head-scratching move. But Arians said Gay was more effective five yards back. He also missed two extra points. Still, Jones passed for 336 yards, ran for two more and didn’t throw a pick. It’s too early to make snap judgments, but that’s what we do and the Giants may have found their QB of the future.

—Patrick Mahomes. What else is there to say about him? He threw for 374 yards and three touchdowns to beat the Ravens, 33-28. The Chiefs have now scored 26 or more points in a record 24 games in a row and done it every game Mahomes has started the last two years.

–Teddy Bridgewater wanted to stay with the Saints even though he knew he would be a backup. And the Saints were willing to pay him as an insurance policy in case Drew Brees got hurt. The Saints cashed in their policy when Brees was hurt a week ago. Bridgewater made his first start in Seattle and led the Saints to a 33-27 victory. He passed for 177 yards and two touchdowns without a pick. He can hold the fort until Brees gets back and shows once again how important a backup quarterback is.

–New England coach Bill Belichick, who likes to run up the score and often leaves Tom Brady in the game when the Pats are way ahead, actually did the prudent thing and pulled Brady with a 30-0 lead on the Jets so he didn’t risk Brady getting hurt. Rookie Jarrett Stidham came in and the Jets converted two takeaways, including a Stidham interception, into touchdowns. Better to lose the shutout than risk losing Brady.

—Kyle Allen got his second start of his career against the Cardinals and he threw for four touchdowns to lead Carolina to the victory in place of ailing Cam Newton. They don’t have to rush Newton back and already announced he is out for next week.

Negatives

–Rookie coaches aren’t making an impact. The seven of them are 4-16-1, and five of them – Vic Fangio, Adam Gase, Zac Taylor, Brian Flores and Kliff Kingsbury — don’t have a victory. Kingsbury is 0-2-1, and the other four are 0-3.

—Case Keenum threw three picks and lost two fumbles for the Redskins in a 31-15 loss to the Chicago Bears. On one of the fumbles he jumped up over the pile, extended the ball and got it knocked out of his hands. That only works on the goal line when it is a score once it is extended over the goal line. A veteran like Keenum should know better. It won’t be long before rookie Dwayne Haskins gets the call even though coach Jay Gruden said he is sticking with Keenum because the season isn’t lost.

–In case you doubted that holding calls are subjective, note that the officials averaged 5.7 per game in the first 33 games. After all the complaints about too many calls, director of officials Al Riveron held a conference calls with referees. They dropped to 2.9 per game in Week 3.

–Baltimore coach John Harbaugh went for two after three of the Ravens’ four touchdowns and didn’t make any, costing his team three points in a five-point loss. He even went for two when a touchdown cut the deficit to 11 points in the fourth quarter when an extra point would have cut it to 10, so the Ravens would have needed a touchdown and field goal to tie.

–Cleveland coach Freddie Kitchens didn’t have a good game making decisions in the loss to the Rams. He called a draw play on fourth-and-nine and with the Browns having a first-and-goal with all three timeouts, he didn’t call a running play or target Odell Beckham. He needs an offensive coordinator to call plays. The Browns are losing while he is learning the play calling. Why he was hired as the head coach in the first place is puzzling.

It’s very interesting that nine teams started off 2-0 and nine teams started off 0-2 this year.

Last year, seven started off 2-0 but only two of them made the playoffs. Six started off 0-2, then two of them made the playoffs. So we’ll see what the early records wind up meaning.

It’s noteworthy that four teams that started off 2-0 and ended up with losing records – the Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos, Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins — started off 0-2 this year.  The Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs are only teams to start off 2-0 both years. Last year, both Buffalo Bills and Seattle Seahawks started off 0-2 and are 2-0 this year.

Game of the Week

Two young guns, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, will duel in Kansas City. Both have thrown seven touchdown passes and no picks in their first two games. The NFL apparently didn’t expect this to be a big early season game. It not only isn’t being played in primetime, but it isn’t even a late-afternoon game. It is being played at noon in Kansas City.

Game of the Weak

None of the 0-2 teams are playing this weekend, so Carolina’s trip to Arizona, which is 0-1-1, qualifies. Kyle Allen is expected to start for 0-2 Carolina because Cam Newton has a foot injury. It’s a chance for Kyler Murray to get his first NFL win for the Cardinals.

Five things to watch

–Can the NFL quarterbacks stay healthy this week? Five teams – the New Orleans Saints, Pittsburgh Steelers, Panthers, Jaguars and New York Jets – have their starters on the shelf because of injuries or illness. A sixth, Indianapolis, lost its starter when Andrew Luck retired and a seventh, the New York Giants, benched their starter, Eli Manning. Ben Roethlisberger is out for year with an elbow injury, Drew Brees is out for several weeks with a thumb injury and Nick Foles is out until November with a broken clavicle. Despite all the backups playing, Colin Kaepernick, remains unsigned.

—Luke Falk gets the start for the Jets because Sam Darnold has mono and Trevor Siemian was sidelined for the year by a Myles Garrett hit that got a roughing-the-passer penalty. The Jets go to New England and are underdogs by slightly more than 20 points.  Miami is also an underdog by more than 20 in Dallas. It is the first time since 1993 that two teams have been underdogs by more than 17 in the same week and the first time since the 1987 strike season that two have been underdogs by more than 20.

—Mason Rudolph steps into the starting lineup for Pittsburgh at San Francisco. The Steelers must believe in him because they traded their 2020 first round to Miami for cornerback Minkah Fitzpatrick. It is the first time they traded a first-round pick since 1967, two years before Chuck Noll was hired and turned the team into a dynasty. If Rudolph flops, the Steelers won’t have a first-round pick to try to get a young quarterback.

—Teddy Bridgewater decided to stay in New Orleans rather than sign with another team and battle for a starting job. He wasn’t going to play in New Orleans as long as Brees was healthy. Well, now that Brees is out indefinitely with his thumb injury, Bridgewater gets to start at Seattle. This is his chance to show he can be an NFL starter. His future will be determined the next few weeks.

–The Patriots have outscored their foes by 73 points in their first two wins. With the next game up against the Jets, they should become the first modern team to outscore their foes by more than 99 points in the first three since the 1968 Dallas Cowboys outscored their foes 132-33. Kind of fitting in the NFL’s 100 season that the all-time record was set in the league’s first year, when the Rock Island Independents outscored their foes 119-0.