Taking a look back at the NFL’s Week 1

Five observations on the first weekend of the 2017 NFL season:

1. It isn’t a newsflash that the NFL is now a quarterback league. That’s why it is not surprising that of the 14 quarterbacks that had the best days, 12 of them won.

The only two losers in the top 14 were Drew Brees and Philip Rivers, who ranked seventh and eighth. Still, it was not a good day for scoring Sunday.

The NFL likes to average 41 points a game and they were at 46 last year. They were at 37 Sunday. But the low scoring Sunday probably isn’t a trend as the Thursday night game and the two Monday night games were high-scoring games. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the New England Patriots 42-27, the Denver Broncos beat the Los Angeles Chargers 24-21 and the Minnesota Vikings beat the New Orleans Saints 29-19.

So the Sunday results were probably an aberration as offenses are still tuning up.

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Colts suddenly looking hapless and hopeless again

It looks like the bad old days are back for the Indianapolis Colts.

After the Colts made their midnight move from Baltimore in 1984, they didn’t win 10 games until Peyton Manning’s second season in 1999.

They then posted seasons with double-digit victories 11 times and went to two Super Bowls, winning one.

When Manning was injured in 2011, the Colts went 2-14 — but that was a good year to get the first pick in the draft. It gave them a chance to start over with Andrew Luck.

Owner Jimmy Irsay released Manning, when went on to appear in two Super Bowls with the Broncos, winning one – and fired general manager Bill Polian and coach Jim Caldwell. He replaced them with Ryan Grigson and Chuck Pagano.

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Skinflint Kroenke continues to be the Rams’ biggest enemy

It is not exactly a secret that Los Angeles likes Showtime.

It is a market that craves stars. And wants its sports teams to win or it ignores them.

Not surprising the Los Angeles Rams don’t seem to realize that.

When personality challenged owner Stan Kroenke (pictured above) decided to move the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles a year ago to play in a new palace he’s building, he overlooked two things.

The first is that Los Angeles has a rather nonchalant attitude towards the NFL. It wasn’t particularly upset when two teams left two decades ago and isn’t exactly turning cartwheels over the fact that two teams are playing their now.

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LT and Chargers owners still clueless about jilted San Diego

Dean Spanos still doesn’t get it.

The Los Angeles Chargers owner, who ripped the hearts out of the San Diego fans when he moved the team to Los Angeles this year, still thinks the team has a lot of fans in San Diego.

“[We say] thank you,” Spanos said, when asked by ESPN about San Diego fans who still follow the team. “They’ve been great. They’ve been loyal to the team, and there’s a lot of them. I’m very appreciative — my family, players and the entire organization thanks them.”

I seriously doubt there are a lot of fans in San Diego who still follow the team. Some, but not a lot.

Spanos also hired Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson as a special assistant. Tomlinson is supposed to reach out to the San Diego fans.

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Arrogant Patriots got a well-deserved comeuppance

The Patriots didn’t do any deflating Thursday night.

Instead, they inflated five Super Bowl trophy replicas that looked like they belonged in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and rolled them onto the field before their season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs.

They put on the scoreboard: “Atlanta 28 NE 3 2:12 3rdQtr”

That was a reminder of their Super Bowl comeback, and the announcer talked about the greatest comeback of all time.

They unveiled their fifth Super Bowl banner.

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NFL deserves credit for checking Brady concussion allegations

When Gisele Bundchen speaks, the NFL listens.

The supermodel who is Tom Brady’s wife said on CBS This Morning last May that Brady has had concussions pretty much every year and suffered one last year.

“We don’t talk about it, but he does have concussions,’’ she said.

When Brady was finally asked about his wife’s comments, he said it was not anybody’s business, which is not exactly a strong denial.

The New England Patriots had never put Brady on the injury report with a concussion, but then the Patriots aren’t noted for being candid in their injury reports.

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Pursuit of Elliott is more nonsensical buffoonery from Goodell

Remember New Coke?

In one of the most bizarre marketing decisions in American history, Coca-Cola changed its century-old formula in 1985 to a more sugary taste, only to face a deluge of complaints from outraged customers.

Just 79 days later, the company brought back old Coke as Coke Classic.

All you could think of at the time was, what were they thinking?

Their explanation is that they were worried about losing market share to Pepsi. But nobody in the boardroom raised a red flag that changing the formula wasn’t the answer.

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Five Things to Watch: NFL Week 1

Five things I’ll be looking at in the first week of the 2017 NFL season:

1. How will Tom Brady play in the Patriots Thursday night opener against the Chiefs?

At age 40, Brady has shown no signings of slowing down in training camp. And if Brady is still Brady, they are three games – two home playoff games and the Super Bowl – away from a sixth Super Bowl title before they inflate their first football.

With Brady, they are a lock to make the playoffs again since they play in a division with the Jets, Bills and Dolphins. But sometimes aging quarterbacks can just suddenly fall off a cliff. Or decline slowly.

Brady will be under the microscope for any signs of slowing down all season. Oh, and the other thing about the opener is the reception the Patriots fans will give Roger Goodell. How many will wear the clown T-shirt that defensive coordinator Matt Patricia wore getting off the plane after the Super Bowl? What will their signs say?

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QB-less Texans’ continuing mediocrity is entirely their own fault

When the Houston Texans open the season Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars, it will likely be an emotional scene.

It will be the Texans’ first game since the city of Houston was devastated by the floods from Hurricane Harvey.

The Texans have already dedicated their season to Houston, and star J.J. Watt has done an amazing job of raising millions for the victims.

From a football standpoint, though, there’s another interesting storyline. Both teams have shown how it can take a team years to overcome a mistake at the quarterback position.

And both made a huge mistake in the 2014 draft when they both passed on Derek even though they both needed a quarterback.

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NFL’s arrogant L.A. experiment is already a disaster

The NFL wants Los Angeles more than Los Angeles wants the NFL.

That’s been obvious for years.

When the Rams and Raiders both left after the 1994 season, there was no outcry about losing the team and no interest in building a taxpayer-funded stadium to get one back.

The NFL even awarded Los Angeles an expansion team, but Los Angeles shrugged and the team went to Houston.

The first Super Bowl was played there, and the city was so excited that the Los Angeles Coliseum was half-full.

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