Week 2 of the NFL season is in the books. Matt Drufke has questions. Fancy Boys Football experts Brandon Andreasen and Jack Baker have answers. Let’s mailbag.
So, we’re two weeks in. And while this isn’t the best metric for how teams will finish, you’d rather be 2-0 than 0-2. But let me try and ask this question in a more interesting way: Which 2-0 team (Bills, Ravens, Steelers, Titans, Chiefs, Packers, Bears, Cardinals, Rams, Seahawks) has the most to worry about? And which of the 0-2 teams (Jets, Dolphins, Bengals, Texans, Broncos, Giants, Eagles, Vikings, Lions, Falcons Panthers) should be the least worried and singing, “I won’t give up/No, I won’t give in”, as Shakira sang in her perfect song “Try Everything” from the Disney film Zootopia?
Brandon – Boy, you just shit the Shakira reference right out of the cannon in question 1, didn’t you? The obvious answer to the first part of the question is the Bears, because they have won two games by making stops on the final play to bad teams.
I’m going a different direction, though. The Rams look like a good team. The issue is, they play in a potentially great division. The Seahawks just announced themselves as the NFC favorite on Sunday Night Football. The Cardinals are really, really damn good and fun to watch. The 49ers just had their team step on a landmine, but are still the defending NFC Champions. Adding a 7th playoff spot in each conference makes it possible that the entire division makes the playoffs, but these teams all have to play each other. It’s gonna be a bloodbath.
The least concerned team should be the Bengals. Nobody was expecting them to be anything more than total ass, anyway. If Joe Burrow doesn’t get injured, the whole season is a win for them.
Jack – You were right the first time Brandon. The answer is clearly the Bears. They’re very lucky to be 2-0, and the Packers appear to be a real problem. Rodgers always kills the Bears and he’s once again killing the rest of the NFL as well. Now that they have a running game, they might just be the best team in the NFC.
The Texans are 0-2 but they’ve lost to the two best teams in football. It’s a rough way to start the season, but they play in the AFC South and they’ll be fine.
The Bears are doing a good job at beating bad teams (while not playing great themselves). What will their first real challenge be, and can this team win the NFC?
Brandon – It is almost stunning that the Bears did what they did, and now get to play the Falcons, who so colossally imploded on Sunday, their stadium is now sponsored by FEMA. After that, they have the Colts, who lost in Week 1 to the immortal Gardner Minshew, and then beat the Washington Generals of secondaries against the Vikings. At this point, Philip Rivers is an aging, noodle armed baby factory.
Week 5 though, on a short week, they get Tom Brady, his bogus night shade allergy, and the rest of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday Night Football. That’s gonna be the game.
Of course, knowing the Bears, they will be 2-2 going into the game.
Jack – The biggest challenge the Bears will face this season is week 7-10 when they play the Rams, Saints, and Titans in consecutive weeks. That 3-game stretch will define their season. If they go 2-1, they probably make the playoffs. If they go 1-2, they’ll probably watch the playoffs from home. The Bears have played 3 great quarters of football and 5 mediocre to poor quarters of football. That doesn’t sound like an NFC contender to me.
One more Bears question. Eddie Jackson seems to be very angry that his interception that he took for a touchdown was called back for pass interference. Does Jackson have a reason to be upset?
Brandon – Eddie Jackson Greedo’d him. He made contact first. That said, that play is not consistently called that way, and is rarely flagged when the opposing player makes the interception.
Jack – The way they officiated this call in particular in the game made absolutely no sense. Jackson is 100 percent justified in being upset and the CBS broadcast team’s reaction to Matt Nagy yelling at the officials shows how dumb you can be and still get paid to talk about the NFL.
Jackson made contact with the receiver, but that’s allowed because he was going for the ball. He has just as much right to go for the ball as the offensive player. That’s how the rule is written in the rule book and the refs know this, because James Bradberry contacted Allen Robinson on Trubisky’s first interception and there was no flag. Bradberry’s interception other
Nothing makes Jack happier than NFC East convo, so let’s talk about the Cowboys. Down 15 with less than eight minutes to go, Dallas pulled off the best comeback of the season so far. The Cowboys always seem to be the team that people think can redeem the NFC East, but then they kind of poop themselves in the playoffs. How good are the Cowboys? And how far can they go?
Brandon – At their best, they are the 4th quarter team we saw. The offense is other-worldly skilled and should be able to put up 40 anytime they want.
The problem is twofold. One, they spent so much money on the offense that they cut corners on defense and have the ability to give up 40 to any team in the league. The fact that they brought in Aldon Smith, a guy with such a checkered history that his Wikipedia page has an entire section called “legal issues” means that karma should cause them to go 5-11.
The other problem is coaching. Mike McCarthy is not a good coach but now lands his second straight head coaching job on a team that doesn’t fire coaches easily. This guy ruined Aaron Rodgers’ prime, and then was brought in to slobber like a giant fucking goober all over the Dallas sideline.
Jack – The Cowboys are a good offense, tied to a bad defense that will skate to the playoffs with an inflated record after going 6-0 in their division. Then they will be promptly destroyed by the Cardinals, Seahawks or Packers in the first round of the playoffs.
As always, we end with a dumb question barely related to football: A guy I know asked me why he hates Tom Brady so much. He knew he didn’t like the Tampa QB, but didn’t know why, and it led me to this theory: We don’t know a lot about the future Hall Of Famer besides that he’s good at his job, is married to a supermodel, and has some sort of friendship with the President. But besides that, Brady seems kind of closed off. Maybe it’s because he’s not personable enough to do a lot of press or commercials, but Tom seems to enjoy his privacy and not giving people a lot. Because of this, he seems to be a blank slate that we just kind of fill with our own personal issues and neurosis. He’s like an R.E.M. song. Basically, Tom Brady becomes who we want him to become. So, all that to ask this: What do you see when you see Tom Brady?
Brandon-Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features doesn’t mean that we still can’t not die in a freak gasolinefight accident.
-Derek Zoolander
Jack – Tom Brady is a future Kevin Trudeau who happens to be a great football player that’s been propelled into the GOAT discussion thanks largely to playing for the greatest and cheatenist coach in NFL history. Whenever he retires, he’s going to hauk his TB-12 method pseudoscience bullshit to sports programs around the country and hopefully end up in prison for fraud.
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