Weekly Takeaways

Sports are a funny thing. At one moment you thing you’ve got all the teams and players figured out and the next moment everything you thought you knew turns out to be wrong. At one moment you think the Oklahoma Sooners are a National Championship contender and the next moment they’re losing at home to Iowa State coming off of a bye week. (To be fair I did say in the last article that I thought Oklahoma would not make the national championship and that they’d lose but it just happened SOONER than we expected. Get it? Oklahoma SOONERs!) For example, I said last week that the Rams were the best team in the NFC West, well they just lost at home to NFC West rival Seattle at home. I also said the Buffalo Bills defense looks like a number one defense. Well, they lost to the Bengals led by QB Andy Dalton who throws an interception every other play and apparently Tre’Davious White forgot how to cover a wide receiver. So I was wrong a couple times. BUT I also said that the Giants stink and the Eagles are good and both of those turned out to be true.

With that said I’m still going to attempt to make sense of a weekend of sports that gave us some exciting finishes and upsets.

First, football needs to get its crap together regarding helmet to helmet hits. I spent a large part of my Saturday afternoon yelling at the TV and refs who couldn’t hear me regarding the so called “targeting’ penalty that these 3 blind mice called against Ohio State defensive back Denzel Ward. Ward delivered one of the cleanest, textbook, fundamental, vicious hits that I’ve seen since Sheldon Brown sent Reggie Bush back to college. Before I go any further please take a second out of your busy day to watch Denzel Ward’s hit.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

They called that targeting and subsequently ejected Ward from the game. If you can find any instance during this hit in which any part of Ward’s body makes contact with the receivers head please show me. I sure can’t see any. And neither does the Big Ten, who confirmed the call of targeting was incorrect. In a day and age where head injuries are so prevalent in the game of football we should be cracking down on dangerous hits. But when you start calling hits like the one Ward laid on Maryland WR Taivon Jacobs targeting, you lose all credibility in my book. Football is a contact sport and we can’t be kicking players out of the game because they make contact plays. That’s silly. Personally I would make two categories of the targeting rule. One in which the hit is a football play and unintentional in which case the defense is simply assessed a 15-yard penalty and the player is allowed to remain in the game. The second category is when the hit is over the top in terms of violence or the hit was intentional. This category of targeting would result in a 15-yard penalty as well as an ejection. It’s time to get this targeting rule under control and the NFL should jump on board as well. I mean seriously how is a player ejected from a game after this and not this??

Second, the Eagles are for real. I know I talk about the Philadelphia Eagles a lot but that’s because I become more impressed with the Eagles each week. First it was their gritty win over Washington, a team that’s proved they can play with some of the best teams in the NFL (Kansas City and Oakland anyone?). Next the Eagles lost a one-possession game to the best team in the NFL, the Kansas City Chiefs. The Eagles then showed they can win close games late as Carson Wentz drove downfield and put the Eagles in a position to win the game late with a game-winning field goal to beat the Giants 27-24. The Eagles then went on the road (not really), and across the country to play the LA Chargers where they were able to put the game away late and come away with their third win of the season.

And finally, coming into Sunday the Arizona secondary was only allowing 214 passing yards per game and had allowed only 191 passing yards per game in the team’s previous three games. Yet Arizona could not find a way to stop Wentz as the second year QB had one of the best games of his career, throwing for 304 yards and 4 TDs as the Eagles beat the Cardinals 34-7.

I said it during before the season started, I said it during the preseason, I said it every week of the regular season and I will continue to say it. The Philadelphia Eagles are winning the NFC East. They are the most complete team in their division and I fully expect them to advance to the NFC Championship game. These Eagles are for real.

Third, the AFC is about to have a new Super Bowl contender. Ok, get this. So the Super Bowl contender from the AFC has been quarterbacked by either Peyton Manning, Ben Rothlisberger or Tom Brady in 14 of the past 16 Super Bowls. The two exceptions are Joe Flacco in 2013 and Rich Gannon in 2002. (Fun fact, both of those QBs played college ball at the University of Delaware.) Alex Smith did not go to Delaware, but he’s about to join Flacco and Gannon as AFC Champion Quarterbacks. That’s right. The Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl. The Patriot’s defense is atrocious, a fact that will cost Brady his sixth Super Bowl, and their offensive line is just as bad, a fact that will eventually lead to the GOAT’s retirement. If you think Trevor Siemian is leading a team to the Super Bowl you’re out of your mind. Houston just lost its best player for the season. Oakland’s wide receivers couldn’t get open if they were being covered by Stephon Gillmore wearing sandals. Pittsburgh seems more interested in fighting each other than playing football. And Tennessee beats Seattle one week and gives up 57 points the next. That leaves the Chiefs as the only real Super Bowl contender out of the AFC in my eyes. Anyone have any reason as to why that’s not the case? No? Ok.

Fourth, the PAC-12 is the most exciting conference in college football. I don’t blame the media for not giving the Pac-12 the respect it’s due. After all, most PAC-12 games don’t start till 10:30 pm eastern time. But just because Utah plays Stanford at midnight doesn’t mean it’s not a match-up of two fantastic teams. The PAC-12 is the most exciting conference in college football and it’s not even close.

If I were to ask what team was winning the SEC, would anyone say someone else rather than Alabama? After all, the Crimson Tide have won the SEC five of the last eight years, including the past three. The Big 12 has one, maybe two good teams and the rest of the conference is garage. I mean c’mon, Kansas? Baylor? Texas Tech? Missouri? The ACC has some excitement, I will admit those Florida State vs Clemson games are intriguing. But were talking this year. And this year the Seminoles have won one game and Clemson has shown that no one else in the conference has a shot to win, no matter how good Miami thinks they are. The Big Ten has a bit more excitement with Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State all challenging each other for a spot in the championship game but when was the last time Indiana had a realistic shot at the championship?

That is why the PAC-12 is the most exciting conference in the country. They’ve got everything. They have NFL talent. Josh Rosen and Sam Darnold are highly regarded as two of the best NFL QB prospects in the country and they play in the same conference, in the same division and the same city! What other conference has two NFL caliber QBs? The PAC-12 has high scoring offenses. Who can forget the days when Oregon would score 60+ points per game? Now, not only does Oregon put up big offensive numbers, so does UCLA, USC, Washington and Washington State. The PAC-12 has tough physical defenses. You’d be hard pressed to find a more physical team (outside of the Big Ten) than Stanford, and Utah is no cupcake either. Both schools have had top tier defenses year after year and have put forth NFL talent. And the PAC-12 has parity. In fact, Utah is the only team in the PAC-12 South division that has yet to make the PAC-12 championship game since its formation in 2011, and the South division has seen a different team go to the championship since 2012. In fact, the Colorado Buffaloes went 4-9 in 2015 and won the PAC-12 South in 2016. When is the last time Wake Forrest won the ACC? Or Iowa State won the Big 12? When has Maryland won the Big Ten? Has Vanderbilt ever won the SEC? The PAC-12 is the most exciting conference in college football, no questions asked.

Fifth, the New York Jets are stuck in a never ending state of mediocrity. This was supposed to be the Jets year. The year they finally did so bad that they’d earn a top pick in the upcoming draft, get a franchise QB, and eventually start winning their division and possibly get a Super Bowl (haha ok that last part was a bit farfetched.) But instead the Jets are currently riding high after a 3-2 start. After all, they’re tied for first place in the AFC East with a surprisingly decent Buffalo team and a surprisingly (only) decent Patriot’s team. But I want you to say this out loud, “The New York Jets are going to compete for a division championship and eventually make the playoffs this year.” Sounds crazy right? That’s because it is. No team led by Josh McCown is going to the playoffs. The Jets so happened to run into the most winnable stretch a team could ever face. First they played a Dolphins team led by Jay Cutler, then they played the Jaguars coming off of a London trip. Then to top it all off, the Jets played the Browns. A high school team could come off of that stretch 3-0.

So now the Jets are 3-0 and there’s a good chance they might not win another game the entire year. But 3-13 should be good enough for a top pick right? Wrong. The Jets are playing in the NFL and as long as the Browns and 49ers are still in the NFL, a 3-13 team is not getting the top pick. And it doesn’t help that the 49ers and Browns are in need of the same position the Jets are, QB. It also doesn’t help that the winless Giants just lost their best two offensive weapons to season ending ankle injuries in the same game. So I’m sorry Jets fans. I’m sorry that there are some of you that think this team might actually have an outside chance at the playoffs. I’m sorry that you might be stuck with Josh McCown or Christian Hackenberg for the foreseeable future. And I’m sorry that your team is so bad that it doesn’t even know how to tank right. The Jets will forever be 5-11.