Pigskin Insanity

As Chris Redd in the SNL Men's Room sketch said, "Football is crazy."

Yes. Yes it is.

So, after the Patriots desultory trip to the Upside Down last week, I did not have them beating an always tough Steelers team in Week 2. In Pittsburgh.

It wasn't easy, to be sure. (Apparently, Mac Jones was only too right about Minkah Fitzpatrick.) Yes, I'm still worried about Matt Patricia's play calling (do the Patriots no longer have screen passes in their playbook?), but that's true of all armchair offensive coordinators here in the home of pumpkin spice, maple syrup, and blueberry pancakes. 

Apparently, I have only two pigskin settings; blind, apocalyptic panic or unbridled, unreasoning optimism. The latter feels so much better. Or maybe that was the vodka. Whatever. There's a crooked number in the W column and that's all that matters. Trust me, it's never how you play the game; it's whether you win or lose.

Monday Morning Pigskin Feels

The Patriots Defense is pretty good already…

Yeah. I did not see this coming. The D gave up 13 points to the Dolphins and 12 points to the Steelers (sorry, I refuse to believe that 2-point try was good). Their performance against the Dolphins looks even better after watching Tua and the Phins hang 28 on the Ravens in the 4th quarter alone in Miami's 42-38 win yesterday in Baltimore.

This already feels like a classic Belichick defense, in that "Do Your Job" sense of eleven guys playing together.  Well-defined roles and responsibilities. A tough, disciplined, keep everything in front of you style of play. 

The Offense is now a strong buy recommendation…

So, yes, it was just 17 points and McCorkle made some inexplicable decisions in his Sunday pigskin journey, but he also made some big time throws, and the running game looked like, well, a running game. 

The Nelson Agholor TD was Top 10 and even more impressively, when they needed to, they were able to run the ball when the Steelers' defense knew it was coming, essentially running out the clock to bring home the 3-point win. 

A shout out to rookie OG Cole Strange. As was noted multiple times by the broadcast team, Steelers stalwart Cameron Heyward had killed and eaten a rookie offensive lineman for the Bengals in Week 1 (I may be fuzzy on the details there). Strange got out of the game alive, and with all his fingers and toes.

Bill Belichick's teams tend to figure it out…

The trend lines do look good and yet the Pats still haven't gotten DeVante Parker into the offense and I don't know where Jonnu Smith was hiding last year but apparently Hunter Henry has joined him there. Put another way, they still haven't resolved their Red Zone issues. I'd be lying if I said I thought they'll have those problems solved in time for the home opener next Sunday against the Ravens but I do think the Patriots will figure out how to score TDs instead of FGs before Halloween. Okay, by Halloween. Shortly after Halloween. 

The point is the Patriots already seem to be figuring out who they are, what they do well, and more importantly, what they do not. Then keep doing the former, and stop doing the latter. Yes. That is pretty much the definition of genius.

Metrics, biometrics, and statistics…

Can we stop asking Nick Folk to kick 50+ yard field goals? 

Please?

Our moments of Pigskin Schadenfreude…

If you're the Baltimore Ravens, are you crunching the ROI on a massive Lamar Jackson contract today and wondering what you could get in a trade instead? Jackson put up a 21/29/318/3/0 slash line passing and ran for another 119, totalling 437 yards of offense (we do the math so you don't have to). And the Ravens still lost. 

The Super Bowl Loser Hangover? Apparently, it's real. What in the name of all things with pointy ends has happened to the Cincinnati Bengals? Joe Burrow, who has already lost a season to injury, has been sacked 13 times in their first two games. I believe that is a number that is often referred to as "unsustainable." As in, somebody's going to emergency. 

Show of hands for anyone who had the Jacksonville Jaguars in first place at any point in the season. Anyone? No? I didn't think so. And yet, here we are.

Also from the Rhetorical Questions Folder: Who thought things would actually get worse for Matt Ryan in Indianapolis? Yes, things are bad in Atlanta, too, but that was to be expected.

I saw my first "When does Josh McDaniels come back to the Patriots?" question on my morning doom scroll through Twitter today. I did not have Week 2 on my pigskin bingo card.

Absent Friends…

Admit it. You thought we'd only see Jimmy Garoppolo in Subway commercials this year. Now you're thinking you're going to take gambling advice from Subway commercials. You just need to reverse engineer the Jimmy G ad to understand the symbology. 

Yeah.

Where can I make a prop bet on Tony Romo coming out of retirement to lead the Cowboys to the Super Bowl?