Ten Thoughts on the NFL - Wilson vs Watson, Gannon on Trubisky, and more...

1) The Houston Texans and the Seattle Seahawks put on a show on Sunday.

Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson threw for 452 yards and 4 touchdowns, and Houston quarterback Deshaun Watson went for 402 passing yards and 4 TDs as well. The sensational rookie Watson is also the first player with over 400 passing yards, four touchdowns and over 50 rushing yards in the same game.

After the game Seattle corner Richard Sherman, who had two of Seattle’s three interceptions, retold what he said to Watson on the field when the game ended. "You played the best game any quarterback has ever played against us, and we've played all the legends.” He recounted to Peter King of the MMQB, “I respect how you hung in there and kept battling and battling."

So far Watson is making a lot of NFL analysts look silly for doubting he could play at the NFL level.

2) I was a fan of USC’s JuJu Smith-Schuster last year after watching him play a few games. I thought the wide out’s size and athleticism would translate well to the NFL. He was fearless going over the middle and was a hands catcher.

He went with the 62nd overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he looks like a future Pro Bowler through half a rookie season. Here’s an interesting nugget I just found out, JuJu is the youngest player in the NFL.

3) In that Steeler 20-15 win against the Detroit Lions, Detroit quarterback Matt Stafford threw for 423 yards and his team did this.

The Lions have now lost three straight games after a 3-1 start.

4) With the Denver Broncos seemingly about to bench quarterback Trevor Siemian, I wonder why they just didn’t roll with 2016 first round draft pick Trevor Lynch in the first place. You drafted him, you need to see what you have in him. You have the defense and the running game to play a game-manager type of game plan, so roll with the kid.

5) The Carolina Panthers had a nice bounce back game with a win in Tampa Bay. Their offense was a bit shaky, but the defense was led by a returning Luke Kuechly, who had an interception, and 37-year old Julius Peppers who picked up the 151st sack of his career, which is fourth all time.

6) The New England Patriots pulled off a surprising trade by sending Jimmy Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers for a 2nd round draft pick. This trade had to happen, because there was no way the Pats would risk seeing Garoppolo walk as a free agent after the 2017 season.

7) This trade does throw a wrench into the Kirk Cousins to the ‘Niners dots that everyone had connected for this coming off season. Washington could give Cousins the rare third franchise tag, or they just may finally work out a long term deal.

I think Cousins stays in Washington next year.

8) There were a few horrible calls in the Bears vs Saints game, but that wasn’t the only game over the weekend were bad officiating riled up the players.

San Diego Chargers wide out Tyrell Williams was flagged for an offensive pass interference on a play where he didn’t make contact with any Patriot defenders. The flag negated a 41 yard TD pass, so you can imagine the Chargers were upset.

Here’s the play in question.

9) Matt Forte has never been a very outspoken player, so when he speaks, it’s surprising.

From the New York Daily News.

“I only had four carries this game, so I don’t really think we ran the ball enough with the weather being the way it was,” said Forte, who picked up seven yards on those few runs. “I think that kind of hurt us.”

“I’m definitely surprised by that, because we knew the weather was going to be like that,” Forte continued about why Morton didn’t dial up more runs for anyone wearing green-and-white. “It continued to rain the entire game. I think we only ran the ball 20 times. (There) should have been at least one person getting 20 carries — something like that — with the way the weather was. I thought we were going to grind them out on the ground like that, but it ended up not turning out that way.”

The Jets lost 25 to 20 to the Atlanta Falcons to fall to 3-5 on the season.

Was there a memo sent out by Jets management to t-a-n-k, tank, tank, tank?

10) In case you missed it yesterday, I tweeted out a couple takes from NFL Monday QB from. CBS Sports.

Here’s what Rich Gannon said about Mitchell Trubisky.

He’s not ready to play and the Bears know it. I think they [the Bears] are trying to protect him as much as they possibly can with the game plan and play calls. They try to be conservative and they should be… It’s a very conservative approach with a young quarterback who’s not ready for primetime.

I don’t think Gannon has had a nice thing to say about the Bears since they fired his buddy Marc Trestman.

And here’s Boomer Esiason on the Bears coaching situation in relation to Trubisky.

I don’t necessarily know that this is the coaching staff or the offense that is going to get the most out of him. This is a defense-first coach [John Fox]. I never like that. I always want to see an offensive coach, much like Sean McVay, handling a high draft pick, much like Jared Goff in L.A.

Co-sign.