32 teams started their season this week. 31 team will continue on, while the Miami Dolphins are getting immediately relegated to the Big East conference, where they will play University of Connecticut and Syracuse, and probably lose to the University of Pittsburgh.
Some things were expected, like the Chiefs winning and Jameis Winston being terrible. Elsewhere, the Chargers and Seahawks escaped with victories, while the Jaguars lost their quarterback, the Giants unfortunately still have theirs, and the Cardinals and Lions took turns trying to prove who deserved to win less. Let’s get into it!
1: New England Patriots
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 1
The Good: They scored 33 points on the Steelers and looked dominant on both sides of the ball. Oh yea, and Antonio Brown is joining the team next week.
The Bad: Antonio Brown joining the Patriots is bad for 31 teams in the NFL.
The Mike Glennon: Good luck figuring out the Patriots running game, fantasy suckers! Rex Burkhead, owned by nobody outside of the greater Boston area, was the leading rusher with 44 yards.
2: Kansas City Chiefs
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking
The Good: Like a great blues drummer, the rhythm didn’t change from last season to this one. The offense is still awesome, and it looks like the years of built up stink from playing in Buffalo didn’t affect Lesean Mccoy, as I had suspected.
The Bad: The defense, which was supposed to be improved, allowed a guy I’ve never heard of march up and down the field on them all afternoon. If they can’t stop a 6th round pick out of Washington State, they aren’t going to stop many teams.
The Mike Glennon: Everyone’s balls went up into their throats when Patrick Mahomes went down awkwardly with an injury. Thanks to Myles Jack’s prolonged tantrum though, Mahomes was able to get back into the game and looked fine.
3: New Orleans Saints
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 3
The Good: They played in the best football game of the season in the first week of the year. Drew Brees continues to be the benchmark for what all quarterbacks should be.
The Bad: They got jobbed by the referees pretty ferociously at the end of the first half. And yes, it was the same head ref as from the NFC Championship game last year.
The Mike Glennon: They needed the magic of Brees after their defense let the Texans score in two plays with zero timeouts and less than a minute left.
4: Los Angeles Rams
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 5
The Good: So much was made about whether Todd Gurley was toast during the offseason, but he looked explosive on the field against the Panthers defense. He averaged nearly 7 yards per carry on 14 carries, which is good load management by the Rams, who definitely want to have Gurley ready for another playoff run.
The Bad: The vaunted Rams defense had no answer for Christian McCaffrey, who carved the Rams up for 200 all purpose yards and a couple touchdowns.
The Mike Glennon: Jared Goff threw a ton, but not all that effectively. He had a QBR of 20, and only averaged 4.8 yards per attempt, which is anemically low.
5: Baltimore Ravens
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 10
The Good: They were in field goal range to put 62 on the board. No team has scored 60 or more in a game in twenty years. Lamar Jackson looked like the greatest quarterback in NFL history, and Holywood Brown looks like he is going to be an absolute star.
The Bad: They did this against the Dolphins, an amateur team that deserves to be relegated to the XFL. I moved them into the top 5 because there was some real performance that made your jaw drop for the Ravens, but with the obvious caveat they were playing a glorified JV team.
The Mike Glennon: When your team puts up 59 points, there really isn’t much reason to stress any low points for a team.
6: Carson City Chargers
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 6
The Good: Took care of business against a Colts team that showed up to prove they were more than just Andrew Luck. Philip Rivers continues to defy time long enough to play football with at least 4 of his sons in the NFL.
The Bad: Marlon Mack gashed this defense that was supposed to be a calling card for this team for nearly 175 yards.
The Mike Glennon: Jacoby Brissett was okay but the Chargers were unable to stop him when he was keying in on TY Hilton. Maybe double cover him and dare one of the other Colts receivers to beat you.
7: Dallas Cowboys
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 16
The Good: Ezekiel Elliott is back! The entire offense looked like they hadn’t skipped a beat. Two receivers went over 100 yards receiving, and even rusty, Elliott averaged twice as many yards per carry as backup Tony Pollard. All is well in Dallas.
The Bad: To me, for saying Dak Prescott was nothing but a glorified Jason Campbell last week, only to have him look like a glorified Aaron Rodgers yesterday.
The Mike Glennon: Saquon Barkley averaged 11 yards per rush. It’s not his fault the Giants didn’t bother giving him the ball enough, but the Cowboys are the benefactors.
8: Seattle Seahawks
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 17
The Good: They didn’t lose. That’s pretty much the best thing you can say about their game. They let an inferior team hang around for an entire game.
The Bad: They couldn’t get Chris Carson going all game in spite of the Bengals not being especially good.
The Mike Glennon: They let Andy Dalton throw for 418 yards. Andy Dalton can’t throw for 400 yards against the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
9: Green Bay Packers
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 12
The Good: The defense was everything the team hoped for when they invested big money in the offseason. They racked up 5 sacks, and 11 quarterback hits.
The Bad: Outside of one long pass to Marquez Valdez-Scantling, the offense was borderline incompetent and was completely unable to move the ball. They had nothing even remotely resembling a running game.
The Mike Glennon: Aaron Rodgers looked visibly frustrated over the course of the game. The Bears were able to pressure the middle of the offensive line, which won’t magically get better.
10: Houston Texans
Record
Last Week’s Ranking:8
The Good: Deshaun Watson looked like one of the five best quarterbacks in the NFL this week. That’s a guy you can build an entire franchise around.
The Bad: They got absolutely bailed out at the end of the game when Kiami Fairburn missed an extra point at the end of the game, only to have one of their players accidentally run into the kicker.
The Mike Glennon: The offensive line still sucks very aggressively.
11: Minnesota Vikings
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 14
The Good: Dalvin Cook looked great on Sunday, rushing for 102 yards and two touchdowns. His backup Alex Mattison netted 50 yards as welll.
The Bad: Kirk Cousins attempted 10 pass attempts the entire game, which really, really, really isn’t going to get it done when he has to play a good defense.
The Mike Glennon: The Vikings have a veteran tight end in Kyle Rudolph, and used a 2nd round pick on Irv Smith Jr. Apparently nobody mentioned that to Cousins, who threw to them exactly zero times on Sunday.
12: Philadelphia Eagles
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 11
The Good: They remembered they were playing a football game in the second half, which is convenient, because they looked like they were having a fucking taffy pull in the first half.
The Bad: They allowed nearly 400 yards on offense to a Washington team that was openly feuding with their coach because he had deactivated Adrian Peterson.
The Mike Glennon: Rookie Miles Sanders had a 19 yard run. In his other ten rushes, he gained a total of 6 yards.
13: Tennessee Titans
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 28
The Good: Boy, the Titans were sure prepared to shit all over the Browns parade. The defense looked like they were unstoppable, beating the hell out of an offensive line that all of a sudden might suck pretty ferociously.
The Bad: Corey Davis, Tajae Sharp, and Adam Humphries are their top three receivers. They combined for one catch.
The Mike Glennon: If Derrick Henry goes down, this team could be colossally fucked at running back.
14: Indianapolis Colts
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 22
The Good: Marlon Mack averaged seven yards per rush and racked up 175 on the day. He got where he wanted to go the entire game, and put the team on his back in stretches.
The Bad: They probably shot their best shot, and they couldn’t win the game, losing to the Chargers in overtime.
The Mike Glennon: Adam Vinatieri was 1 for 3 kicking field goals. It might be about time to take ol’ yeller out back and put him out of his misery.
15: Chicago Bears
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 4
The Good: The defense shut down Aaron Rodgers, and the Packers scuffled trying to get any offense going for an entire game. Gave the team multiple chances to win the game late.
The Bad: Oh man. Man oh man. This offense scored three points. It could have been six, but they were too gutless to let their kicker try to kick from 50.
The Mike Glennon: Matt Nagy deserves hell rained down on him for his spectacularly bad play calling in the game. Sometimes on third and one, you just run the ball up the middle, get first down, and reset. The situation doesn’t call for an RPO sweep out of shotgun.
16: Buffalo Bills
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 27
The Good: When they were way down in the game going into the fourth quarter, the team could have rolled over and died. Instead they pulled the most impressive comeback of the weekend, and at least for one week, find themselves tied for first place in the AFC East.
The Bad: Josh Allen look realllll shaky for three quarters. He was able to right the ship, but he was doing a pretty good impression of Nathan Peterman until that point.
The Mike Glennon: The team inexplicably kept giving Frank Gore the ball, and he did nothing all game, before they finally started giving the ball to Devin Singletary, who jolted the offense to life.
17: San Francisco 49ers
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 13
The Good: A win is a win. It all looks the same in the record books, even if you did beat the gawd awful dumpster fire that is the Buccaneers.
The Bad: Jimmy Garrapolo was…below average? I don’t even know what you would call that performance. He wasn’t good, and was probably one of the five or six worst starter performances of the week. He only averaged 6.1 yards per attempt.
The Mike Glennon: The 49ers are basically a MASH ward for running backs, and they can add one more to the mix. Tevin Coleman went down with an ankle sprain, leaving the running duties to Raheem Morris, Matt Breida, and Ricky Watters.
18: Oakland Raiders
Record: 1-0
Last Week’s Ranking: 23
The Good: For at least one week, the Raiders can hang their hat on a much improved offensive line who went out and completely neutralized star players Von Miller and Bradley Chubb.
The Bad: Jonathon Abrams spent most of Hard Knocks being the out of control player who didn’t know when to ease up on a hit. In the same play on Monday night, he got a 15 yard personal foul and nearly paralyzed his teammate.
The Mike Glennon: That field. Thank god it’s almost over. I can’t believe i’m saying this, but the Raiders deserve better field conditions than a converted baseball field.
19: Cleveland Browns
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 7
The Good: Maybe the idea of the Browns being good wasn’t even about the football, it was actually about the friends we made along the way.
The Bad: The Titans averaged around 5 points per game last season, and they casually put up 43 on this feckless mess of a tragic trainwreck.
The Mike Glennon: The Browns offensive line has more holes than a Donald Trump geography explanation. Baker Mayfield is gonna get murdered on the field.
20: Pittsburgh Steelers
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 20
The Good: The only good thing to come from this is the “Ben Roethlisberger’s fat head” meme.
The Bad: This team got their heads caved in by a team that just signed their best receiver who, 6 months ago, they thought they had banished to the land of misfit football players.
The Mike Glennon: The Steelers thought they were fine at running back without LeVeon Bell. James Connor had 21 rushing yards. The Steelers thought they were fine at wide receiver because Donte Moncrief had stepped up to be the number two receiver. He had 7 receiving yards.
21: Atlanta Falcons
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 9
The Good: They held the opposing team to under 100 yards rushing.
The Bad: Until they scored some garbage time points, they were on pace to get blown out by over 20 points.
The Mike Glennon: Seriously, how the hell does this team manage to find offensive coordinators that do their absolute best to minimize their best players value. Julio Jones is a guy who can be deployed downfield because he can go over the top of any defender and bring the ball down. So what did the Falcons do? You better believe they kept throwing Jones 4 yard passes.
The running game probably sucks, too. Maybe, just maybe, a team with two really good receivers and a former MVP at quarterback should be better at throwing the ball.
22: Carolina Panthers
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 21
The Good: Christian McCaffrey had over 200 all purpose yards, proving over and over that he is the best player on this team and one of the best players in all of football.
The Bad: The defense generated one sack and only 3.5 tackles for loss. If this team can’t generate any pressure on defense, their secondary will never be good enough to stop offenses.
The Mike Glennon: McCaffrey was the leading receiver, as always, because the Panthers have no idea how to draft wide receivers.
23: New York Jets
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 15
The Good: The defense was really good for three quarters, getting a defensive touchdown and making the Bills life hell on offense.
The Bad: Then the fourth quarter happened.
The Mike Glennon: Anyone who actually believed this wouldn’t happen never got the Adam Gase experience before. This is gonna happen a bunch more. Maybe next time your team will sign someone who knows how to be a head coach, and not a glorified Pac 12 offensive coordinator.
24: Jacksonville Jaguars
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 18
The Good: Gardner Minshew came out of absolutely nowhere to fill in valiantly as the Jaguars backup, leading the offense to scoring drives, and keeping them in the game against a superior team.
The Bad: This team is not gonna survive the season without Nick Foles. Nobody was expecting the Jags to go in and beat the Chiefs, but it will be tough sledding if Foles is out for an extended period with a broken clavicle.
The Mike Glennon: So much for the DeDe Westbrook as number one receiving bandwagon.
25: Washington Redskins
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 24
The Good: They gave it the old college try in the first half. Literally. They played like a small town college team who Alabama paid to use as a tune up game. The small town team gives the big school hell for awhile, before rolling over and dying. That’s what Washington did Sunday.
The Bad: It’s not a good look to deactivate Adrian Peterson, then have your running back tandem shit the bed as hard as Derrius Guice and Chris Thompson did.
The Mike Glennon: Jay Gruden is gonna be the first coach fired, and i’m mad I didn’t get a chance to bet on it.
26: Denver Broncos
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 19
The Good: There is definitely talent in the wide receiving group, with Emmanuel Sanders looking fully healed and Courtland Sutton looking like he is already Joe Flacco’s favorite target.
The Bad: While he flashed the ability to still be a big play quarterback, Joe Flacco’s day of being an effective one are probably over. He threw behind receivers, at receivers feet, and refused to get rid of the ball too many times last night.
The Mike Glennon: Noah Fant, their first round pick out of Iowa, looked completely lost. I counted two occasions where the Broncos called time out because he wasn’t standing in the right spot in the formation, on top of having three total penalties, two which were accepted, against him.
27: Cincinnati Bengals
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 29
The Good: They nearly won the damn game. They took Seattle to it’s limits in a stadium that the Seahwaks barely lose in.
The Bad: They still lost and things aren’t going to get easier for them. The Seahawks inability to get a pass rush feels more like an issue with the Seahawks being undertalented on defense, rather than the Bengals being really good on the offensive line.
The Mike Glennon: Joe Mixon going down with an injury really underscores how thin this team is. Giovanni Bernard has many years of proof that he can’t be the work horse running back in an offense.
28: Detroit Lions
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 25
The Good: They didn’t lose to the Cardinals
The Bad: Somehow they also didn’t win in spite of the fact that Matt Stafford has one of his best games as professional quarterback. It looks like TJ Hockenson is a stud in the making at tight end. And they still couldn’t beat the goddamn Cardinals.
The Mike Glennon: The Lions should be retroactively forced to give the victory to the Cardinals because their gutless head coach was too big of a coward to try to win the game with 9 seconds left. Instead they punted and lost the game. They deserve to lose for shit like that.
29: New York Giants
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 26
The Good: Saquon Barkley averaged 11 yards per carry.
The Bad: They ran him 11 times.
The Mike Glennon: This team is destined to be a big dumb mess that will pull out a few games every year because they have the best running back in football, just like last year.
30: Arizona Cardinals
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 31
The Good: Kyler Murray didn’t completely crap the bed. He threw for over 300 yards in spite of barely completing 50% of his passes. I’m not sure if there are written rules about what to do with a quarterback in his first game, but i’m gonna go out on a limb and say “the quarterback should throw 54 passes” isn’t in the list.
The Bad: David Johnson was averaging over 4.5 yards per carry, and instead of continuing to give him the rock, they made Murray keep throwing.
The Mike Glennon: They allowed Matt Stafford to throw for 385 yards and three touchdowns. Nobody allows Matt Stafford to put up those numbers.
31: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 30
The Good: Jameis Winston and Bruce Arians came together as so many contrarians said they would, showing everyone that Winston is a good quarterback and Arians isn’t a flash in the pan who was only ever good because he had Andrew Luck….
The Bad: Oh man, good one! Yesterday was a victory lap for everyone like me who thinks Jameis Winston is a creep and a shitty quarterback and Arians was just in Tampa to work on his tan. In leagues that harshly penalize Interceptions returned for touchdowns, Winston was a negative value guy. Richard Sherman made Mike Evans irrelevant all game.
The Mike Glennon: They still haven’t figured out their goddamn running back situation. Ronald Jones flashed signs of competence, which means Peyton Barber will get 25 carries next week.
- 41: Getting your leg bit off by an alligator
- 65: A Malort Enema
- 98: Getting shoved penis first into a wheat thresher
- 119: Dating Taylor Swift
136th: Miami Dolphins
Record: 0-1
Last Week’s Ranking: 32
The Good: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The Bad: That we might legitimately not know if the Ravens are good because they are playing the biggest embarrassment in professional football.
The Mike Glennon: This team had two options: show all the doubters that they could come together as a team and put together a season they could at least be proud of. They chose door B, which was to shamelessly and pathetically and meekly and embarrassingly and egregiously get the piss kicked out of them on the field. After the game, reports came out that other players on the team were actively calling their agents to get traded. It took one week to have a mutiny of this team. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to chastise guys like Kenny Stills, then trade him to a contender if you are trying to build a “winning” culture.
Fancy Boys Club 