VITO'S VIEWS

For years, the regular season has simply been a tuneup for the New England Patriots.

Since 2002, there was little question they were going to make the playoffs if Tom Brady was healthy, which they have done every year except 2008 when Brady was lost for the season in the opener.

The Patriots have dominated the AFC East, mainly because the other three teams haven’t had a franchise quarterback since Jim Kelly and Dan Marino retired after the 1996 and 1999 seasons. The New York Jets haven’t had one since Joe Namath departed for the Los Angeles Rams in 1977.

In the last 15 years, the Patriots have made the playoffs 14 times and gone to the Super Bowl seven times, winning four and losing three.

But suddenly, the Patriots are poised to play their biggest regular-season game in years when they host Miami on Sunday.

Continue reading “Surprisingly early pivotal game for Patriots on Sunday”

Five quick takes on Week 3 in the NFL:

1. Time for the NFL to polish off its “Any Given Sunday“ line. The NFL loves to sell the idea that any team can win on any given Sunday, even though it tends to be divided into the haves and have-nots. But eight underdogs had their day last weekend. The Buffalo Bills, supposed the worst team in the league, stunned the Minnesota Vikings, 27-6, in the largest point-spread upset in 23 years. And the Jacksonville Jaguars defense allowed only three field goals but still lost to a Tennessee team that had Blaine Gabbert and an injured Marcus Mariota playing quarterback. And the New England Patriots lost by 10 points or more in successive weeks for only the third time in the Bill Belichick regime and the first time since 2002. And the Cleveland Browns won a game for the first time in 635 days, although it wasn’t an upset. Overall, six underdogs won and two others covered. It is the kind of week the NFL loves.

Continue reading “Looking back at NFL Week 3”

Houston Texans coach Bill O’Brien got a pass last year when they lost their last six games of the year to finish 4-12 because the team was ravaged by injuries.

But with quarterback Deshaun Watson and defensive standouts J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus back, the Texans were expected to do big things this year.

Instead, they’re 0-2 after a 20-17 loss to the Tennessee Titans that veteran Houston football writer John McClain called one of the most embarrassing losses in Texans history. Their eight-game losing streak is the longest current one in the NFL.

That prompted speculation that O’Brien is on the hot seat and viewers peppered McClain with questions on his video stream if O’Brien was in danger of being fired.

He said there was zero chance of that happening and said if they beat the New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts in their next two games to get to 2-2, the firing chatter will stop.

Continue reading “Underachieving Texans’ myriad problems start with O’Brien”

The Washington Redskins had a clever season-ticket selling scheme in recent years.

They would sell premium — or “Tailgate Club’’ — seats at premium prices, telling fans that those tickets enabled them to jump the team’s long season-ticket waiting list.

They conveniently ignored the fact there was no waiting list. It had evaporated.

As Deadspin pointed out last June, there hasn’t been a waiting list for years, much less the 200,000 names the Redskins claimed were on it.

The Redskins finally fessed up this year, admitting there is no longer a waiting list.

Continue reading “Fake waiting list just the latest Redskins debacle under the hapless Snyder”

Players to Watch in Week 3 of the NFL season:

Patrick Mahomes and Ryan Fitzpatrick

They  attempt to continue their blazing starts against the San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers. Mahomes has 10 touchdown passes in the first two games and is the youngest quarterback at age 22 to have six in a game. If he gets three more against the 49ers, he’ll be the first quarterback to have 13 in the first three games. Peyton Manning had 12 in the first three in 2013 in Denver. Fitzpatrick can become the first quarterback to throw for at least four touchdowns and 400 yards in a three-game span. If Fitzpatrick does it against the Steelers on Monday night, he’ll certainly start next Sunday against Chicago, although Jameis Winston returns from his suspension next Tuesday.

Drew Brees

Brees has 6,287 career completions and needs 14 more against Atlanta to surpass Brett Favre for most completions in a career. Favre retired with 6,300. He also can become the only quarterback with at least 30 attempts to have a completion percentage of 80 % or higher in three consecutive games. Peyton Manning did it in two consecutive games in 2013.

Andrew Luck

The Indianapolis quarterback needs 424 passing yards to join Dan Marino (74) and Matthew Stafford (71) as the only quarterbacks to throw for 20,000 yards in 75 games or fewer. Luck, who was injured all last season, has a tough task in Philadelphia.

Carson Wentz

Wentz has been cleared to play after suffering a torn ACL last year, and the Eagles are wasting no time in putting him back in the lineup against Indianapolis. But he may be rusty after missing the entire preseason. They might have been better off giving Nick Foles a third start and going with Wentz at halftime if Foles struggled. They obviously want to get Wentz back in the flow even if he’s not 100 percent, which he probably isn’t.

Jared Golf vs. Philip Rivers

In the first game since these two teams moved to Los Angeles last year, Goff, who has a 102.5 quarterback rating, duels Rivers, who has a 119.6 rating, at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The two teams last met in 2014, when the Rams were in St. Louis and the Chargers in San Diego, and the Rams won, 20-17. The Rams are 2-0 and the Chargers are 1-1. It’s not much of a rivalry, though, because the Chargers haven’t been embraced by Los Angeles fans, and even the Rams, despite their history in Los Angeles, haven’t won over the fans in a big way.

The late Bum Phillips once said, “There’s two kind of coaches — them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired.’’

Phillips was right. He was fired after the 1980 season by the late Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams after losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion in the playoffs three years in a row.

The Oilers went 1-8, 2-14, 3-13 and 5-11 from 1982 to 1985, and went through five head coaches before Jeff Fisher was hired in1990.

That shows the danger of firing a winning coach even if he doesn’t win the Super Bowl. The next guy may not be better and could very well be worse.

Philadelphia is another good example. Andy Reid was fired after going 130-93-1 in 14 years with the Eagles while making one Super Bowl. He went 4-12 in his final year with the Eagles in 2012.

Continue reading “Bengals’ decision to stick with Lewis paying early dividends”

Five quick takes on Week 2 of the NFL season:

1. Patrick Mahomes is just starting his career in his second season and Ryan Fitzpatrick is nearing the end of his career as a journeyman quarterback. But they have one thing in common: They are the stars of the first two weeks of the season. Mahomes has 10 touchdown passes and no picks in the first games, something that’s never been done before. Fitzpatrick has eight touchdown passes in the first two games, a feat only Mahomes and Drew Bledsoe, who did it in 1997, have matched. Jameis Winston returns from his suspension after the third game, but don’t look for Fitzpatrick to be benched if he keeps up this pace. And he gets a chance to strafe a porous Pittsburgh Steelers defense next Monday night. That is followed by a game against Chicago and a bye, so Fitzpatrick figures to start the first four games. If he’s 4-0, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be benched in Week 6 vs. Atlanta.

Continue reading “A quick look back at the NFL’s Week 2”

Building a championship football team starts with getting the right coach and right quarterback.

And if you get a Hall of Fame coach and quarterback, it usually translates into multiple championships – like Paul Brown–Otto Graham, Vince Lombardi–Bart Starr, Chuck Noll–Terry Bradshaw, Bill Walsh–Joe Montana and Bill Belichick–Tom Brady.

If you want to check out the difference the right coach and quarterback can make, just check out the New England Patriots.

They are no longer the best team in the AFC, and certainly not in the NFL. There are three or four NFC teams that are better than the Patriots, including the Philadelphia Eagles, the team that beat them in the Super Bowl.

But they still made it to the Super Bowl last season, because the AFC is in a down cycle and the team that should have beaten them in the AFC title game was overmatched by Belichick and Brady.

Continue reading “Look for Brady and Belichick to have the Jags’ number yet again”

Five players to watch in the second week of the NFL season:

Sam Darnold

New York Jets coach Todd Bowles tried to keep things in perspective after Darnold’s impressive rookie debut at Detroit. Bowles said he would need 100 games to tell if Darnold is going to be a franchise quarterback. Actually, 50 should be enough to tell if he’s for real. Darnold now goes against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, and if he wins again, he’ll probably start off 3-0 because the Jets play Cleveland in their third game before taking on the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Continue reading “Five players under the microscope in NFL Week 2”

Five quick takes on the first week of the NFL season:

1. What else is there left to say about Aaron Rodgers? He’s a competitor and brings back memories of the line about Bobby Layne that he never lost, but sometimes ran out of time. Is there anybody better in a one-score game late in the fourth quarter than Rodgers?

Continue reading “Five thoughts on the NFL’s Week 1”