The early part of the football season has been defined by the protests in the NFL. Regardless of your thoughts and feelings about those, by this point I am sure that you are pretty set in this and I wouldn’t be able to change your mind about it no matter what my own standpoint was.
No instead I feel like it’s time to talk about football, because this season has started out with some surprises. So let’s talk football.
The overwhelming favorites to win the super bowl were, no surprise, the New England Patriots. Yes I copied and pasted that from something I wrote last year, and might as well have for the last decade. The Patriots have probably the best coach in all of football. They are stacked at wideout even before you add in Rob Gronkowski at Tight End. The only question before the year was quarterback Tom Brady. He is at the very least at home in any discussion about who the greatest quarterback of all time is. Winner of 5 Superbowls and a record 4 Super Bowl MVP awards. He has been the league MVP twice. So why is he a question? Well he is 40 years old. Just for contrast, Peyton Manning was 39 years old when he retired, in his last season going visibly downhill in his abilities. It was almost taken for granted that if Tom Brady didn’t have the same thing happen to him it would certainly be back to back Lombardi Trophies going to New England.
Through the first 4 games this season Brady’s completion percentage is right on his career average. His yards per-completion is higher than in any prior season. 9 yards per completion and 349.8 yards per game also a career high. I realize that we are only 4 games in, but the offence has set a high tone. So the Pats are on track to win it all right?
No, not really. The Patriots are 2-2. And lucky to be 2-2. Just last week in a game against the Houston Texans, New England trailed by 4 with under 2 minutes to go. They had the ball at midfield with no timeouts. The Texans brought an outside blitz that got to Brady and knocked the ball loose. For just a moment it rolled around on the ground holding the entire game hostage. One of the big men on the line who had gotten beat to cause the near catastrophe fell on the ball for the home team and Tom Brady made the Texans defence pay for not capitalizing on their opportunity. A late touchdown sealed the victory for New England and drew a cheer that was more out of relief than anything from the hometown fans.
The problem with the Patriots is that their defense can’t stop anyone. They gave up 42 points in the first game of the season. Most of the damage done by a rookie running back.
Speaking of that rookie running back, Kareem Hunt has led the Kansas City Chiefs to 4-0. It’s not only Hunt. As with any Andy Reid run offense they go to the air with quarterback Alex Smith regularly. However adding in the dangerous running ability, speed and strength of Kareem Hunt coming out of the backfield has made this team an aggressive contender. Even 4 games in it seems that the Chiefs may be the early best team in the NFL.
On the other end of the scale are the 3-1 Denver Broncos. The Broncos are hit and miss on offence under young quarterback Trevor Siemian. He has had good weeks, but in a week 3 loss he threw 2 interceptions in the final 19 minutes of the game. The second of which was on a ball that he tried to throw away and didn’t manage to throw the ball all of the way out of bounds. It was a mistake that seemed like the knd that even a college freshman should know better than. But he continues to be a consistently good passer and gets the job done. The erratic offence though comes with perhaps the best defence in the league. The Broncos shut down the Dallas Cowboys and their star running back Ezekiel Elliott. There is a lot of promise to this team early on. The saying is that defence wins championships and that has certainly been true for the Denver Broncos in their last super bowl win two years ago.
The best part of this NFL season though for me has been the Detroit Lions at 3-1 and just inches away from being 4-0. For you it may be the sudden life breathed into the LA Rams who looked lost last year. Maybe it is the high flying Eagles. Or perhaps just the fact that the Cowboys are rough 2-2. Either way football is back in earnest now. And man is it fun to watch.