Taking a look back at the NFL’s Week 3

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

1. There have been many explanations for the decline in NFL ratings from protests to oversaturation to concussion concerns. But maybe the problem is that they’ve had too many boring games in recent years that cause the fans to lose interest.

Well, they solved that problem Sunday with one of the best weekends in recent memory. It was the kind of weekend that helped make the NFL what it is today.

It started with the Rams 41-39 victory over the Chargers Thursday night and then Sunday featured overtime games, games decided on the last play, wild plays and controversial calls.

The games were overshadowed by all the controversy over the protests, but the league could use more weekends like that one. The TV ratings were up three percent, although it is uncertain if the games were the reason or whether fans tuned in to see how the players would react to Donald Trump’s comments about the protests.

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NFL’s defense of free speech can’t be a short-term thing

Bret Stephens, a conservative New York Times columnist, recently lamented in a speech the shortcomings of civics education in the United States.

“Younger Americans seem to have no grasp of what our First Amendment says, much less the kind of speech it protects,’’ Stephens said.

The NFL stepped into the void this past weekend with a civics lesson on free speech with its protests during the national anthem about racial inequality and police violence against African-Americans.

The protests ramped up after Donald Trump criticized the protests, and many Americans agreed with Trump even though America was founded on dissent and sprotesting is part of our way of life.

Critics say protests during the national anthem are not American, but they are very American. The players aren’t showing disrespect, but respect for American ideals.

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It’s a start, but NFL needs to do more to stand up to racist bully Trump

Donald Trump has done the impossible now that he’s added the NFL to his list of bullying targets.

He’s united the NFL players and owners.

After his rant Friday night in Alabama calling for, among other things, “son of a bitches” who protest during the national anthem to be fired and for fans to leave the stadium if players protest, the reaction was swift Saturday from both owners and players.

They are together on this issue, arm-in-arm like brothers.

Commissioner Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith, the head of the NFLPA, both issued statements.

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Knock Manning, but two Super Bowl rings will always speak loudly

The legacy of Eli Manning is obvious.

He’s won two Super Bowls rings – two more than Hall of Famers Dan Marino and Dan Fouts and one more than Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers.

And he won both of them by pulling off fourth-period game winning drives against Bill Belichick and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. And he cost the Patriots a perfect season in 2007.

But Manning hasn’t consistently put up big numbers over his career, and he’s led the New York Giants to just one playoff game in the last five years since his last Super Bowl appearance in 2011. The Giants lost that playoff game last year to Green Bay 38-13.

And just last week, his second-year coach Ben McAdoo publicly called Manning out for “sloppy’’ play in not getting a fourth-down play off in time and taking a delay penalty.

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Five things to watch: NFL Week 3

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

1. Belichick vs. a rookie quarterback

The New England Patriots figure to have an easy one against Houston, but one thing to watch will be how rookie quarterback DeShaun Watson fares against Bill Belichick, who is 16-5 against rookie passers and 8-0 at Foxboro.

The five rookie quarterbacks to beat the Patriots were Ben Roethlisberger and Russell Wilson and three surprising players – Geno Smith, Mark Sanchez and Colt McCoy. The odds are against Watson adding his name to that list.

But can Watson at least be competitive against the Patriots?

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Cheapskate Brown family has the Bengals at a crossroads

I still remember the time I was waiting for an airport shuttle bus at a hotel outside Chicago a couple of decades ago after the NFL owners had just concluded a meeting.

The only other two people waiting were Paul Brown and his son, Mike Brown.

It was unusual to see NFL owners waiting for a shuttle bus since they usually travel by limo.

Paul Brown, though, said that wasn’t their style.

“We’re not limo people,’’ he said.

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Looks like union will remain a paper tiger against NFL owners

The NFL owners apparently can’t wait to get DeMaurice Smith back to the negotiating table.

After the players’ selection committee voted to extend Smith’s contract as the NFLPA head, league spokesman Joe Lockhart congratulated Smith (pictured) in a conference call and then talked about the 2011 negotiations.

“I think we had productive negotiations with him in 2011,’’ Lockhart said. “We believe strongly that it has worked for both parties, for owners and players.’’

Can you imagine a Major League Baseball spokesman ever making a comment like that about a deal that Marvin Miller negotiated for the baseball players?

The deal has worked out great for the football owners. The players? Not so much.

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Seahawks’ Sherman ill-informed about value of injury reports

Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks is a smart guy with a Stanford education, but he couldn’t have been more wrong when he said this week that the NFL’s injury reports “are for gamblers.’’

They aren’t for the gamblers. They are to prevent gamblers from getting inside information.

Sherman vented on the injury reports after he was listed questionable Sunday because he missed two practices during the week with a hamstring injury. He then played every defensive snap Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, as he’d done for 92 consecutive games after being listed as questionable.

“I guess from what I understand the rules are for gamblers, for Vegas to make sure the odds and everything are what they are supposed to be, which is apparently what the league is concerned about when talking about injuries and things like that,” Sherman said, according to the Seattle Times. “So maybe someone should look into that, because I thought we weren’t a gambling league or were against all of those things. But our injury report is specifically to make sure the gamblers get their odds right.”

Sherman also was listed as questionable the first weekt week after being listed as questionable in Week 1 because of a thigh injury.

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Taking a look back at the NFL’s Week 2

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

1. The New England Patriots are still the New England Patriots. As expected, the loss in the opener to the Kansas City Chiefs was just a blip on their radar screen. They bounced back by thrashing the New Orleans Saints, 36-20.

The opening-game loss prompted the Boston Herald to question whether the end is near for the Patriots. Granted, Tom Brady can’t play forever, but the end doesn’t appear to be near.

The Patriots appear a lock to win the AFC East (again) and make the playoffs (again). And the Patriots showed they’re still the Patriots when they benched Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler.

Butler still played 75 percent of the snaps, but they seemed to be sending him a message that what he did in the past doesn’t count for anything in 2017. “It’s all about this year,’’ said defensive coordinator Matt Patricia.

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NFL teams off to 0-2 starts shouldn’t kid themselves

When an NFL team loses its first two games of the season, it always downplays the slow start and notes, among other things, that it’s a long season.

So it was not surprising that when New Orleans was one of nine teams to start off 0-2 this season, the Saints played the “long season” card.

“It’s a long season, but 0-2 doesn’t make you who you are,’’ said wide receiver Ted Ginn.

Well, in many ways it does — and the Saints know it.

They’re 1-11 in September the last four years, and this is the fourth year in a row they have started out 0-2. New Orleans finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs the previous three years.

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