Ten Thoughts on the NFL

1) Through the first quarter of the 2018 NFL season, my Super Bowl pick of the Los Angeles Rams is looking damn good. They won a shootout with the Minnesota Vikings back on Thursday Night Football, 38-31, with L.A. QB Jared Goff lighting it up with 5 TD passes and 465 yards.

I’m old enough to remember when he was going to be a bust.

2) My pick to come out of the AFC, the Pittsburgh Steelers (whoops), are stumbling along at 1-2-1. Their defense doesn’t look very good, but I wonder how much a good running game would help keep that defense off the field.

Le’Veon Bell continues to hold out for the Steelers, and the situation with the Seattle Seahawks’ Earl Thomas is exactly why. Thomas came back form his hold out, without getting the new deal he wanted, and on Sunday he broke his leg.

2a) Thomas’ season is over and he’ll be a free agent in 2019. Players only get a small window to maximize their earning potential, so I’ll never begrudge an athlete for trying to do that. Thomas’ teammate, Bobby Wagner, shared his thoughts on social media, and then Pittsburgh’s Bell chimed in as well.

3) The Philadelphia Eagles lost to the Tennessee Titans in overtime, 26-23, but I don’t buy the Super Bowl hangover talk surrounding them. I think the Titans are a solid team, and their other loss was to hot Tampa Buccaneers team when Fitz-Magic was still a thing.

4) And speaking of Ryan Fitzpatrick, he’s heading back to the bench. Bucs coach Dirk Koetter is turning to Jameis Winston to start their week 6 game after their bye.

That makes two straight teams that the Bears knocked a starting QB back to second string.

Also, the Bears have played 4 games and faced 7 quarterbacks.

5) A week after the Buffalo Bills pulled off one of the biggest upsets ever, shellacking the Vikings, the real Bills returned to get shut out by the Green Bay Packers, 22-0. The Pack improved to 2-1-1, a half game behind the NFC North leading Chicago Bears.

6) The Detroit Lions were riding high after taking it to the New England Patriots in their week 3 match-up, but a last second loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday dropped them to 1-3 and last place in the NFC North. The Cowboys were powered by league leading rusher Ezekiel Elliott’s 240 yards from scrimmage, and three sacks by Demarcus Lawrence who leads the league with 5.5.

7) The New Orleans Saints’ Drew Brees is just 201 yards away from becoming the NFL’s all time leader in passing yardage.

When you think about all time great quarterbacks in the NFL, does Brees’ name ever pop up?

Is it possible that someone who has been as historically good as he has is underrated?

8) After having a so-so opener in Kansas City, Houston Texans’ QB Deshaun Watson has settled back into the exciting player he looked like last year. In his last three games, in which the Texans are 1-2, Watson is completing 65.8% of his passes, he has 1,070 yards, with 6 TDs, 3 Ints, a passer rating of 102.6, 121 yards on the ground and a TD.

The 1-3 Texans have two winnable games up the next two weeks (Buffalo and Dallas), then a week 7 game against the Jaguars that could be a pivotal one in the AFC.

9) Patrick Mahomes and the 4-0 Kansas City Chiefs are a fun team to watch.

Mahomes faced some adversity in Denver, but he led his team back after being down 10 in the fourth quarter against the Broncos. Through 4 games, he’s a legit MVP candidate.

He also did this...

And he’s done thins too...

10) Not only did Mitchell Trubisky have a break out game on Sunday, but he did so while doing two things some analysts have questioned about his game. He threw to his left a few times as evidenced by his Next Gen Stats chart below.

But he also had plenty of deep shots in the game.

It’s almost like he said, ‘enough with your bullshit narratives.’

What thoughts do you guys have on the NFL this week?