Our Complete NFL Week 2 Recap
New York Giants 19 Carolina Panthers 16
Another low-scoring, slug it out win by the New York Giants. Congratulations on being 2-0. Barkley came back down to earth and the opposing team gave Daniel Jones one too many chances. New York won’t be able to hang with any team capable of putting up 24+ points, but the good news is a lot of their schedule is composed of teams unable to do that. Baker Mayfield didn’t do a lot wrong today, his team just let him down repeatedly. Carolina started the game with 2 straight fumbles and then Shi Smith (who?) dropped a pass on 3rd and 9 from the NYG 13 that probably would’ve resulted in a first down. It’s hard for your quarterback to get into much of a rhythm when he’s getting no support. I’m glad I have a future on Matt Rhule to be the first coach to get canned this year because this team is looking rough to start the season.
New England Patriots 17 Pittsburgh Steelers 14
Mac Jones and this New England offense still look off-kilter. Maybe the back injury is still nagging at him because he just doesn’t look quite right. The Patriots’ run game came alive this week with Stevenson and Harris combining for 4.95 YPC. The Steelers defense is still good, but nowhere close to the same without Watt. If we can all agree his loss will mean Pittsburgh loses the majority of their games without him, why aren’t the Steelers starting Kenny Pickett? Trubisky has been horrible. Worse than what he looked like at the end of his Bears campaign. You can’t get any lower than Trubisky, so they might as well give the rookie a shot.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20 New Orleans Saints 10
Tom Brady finally got a regular season W against New Orleans as a Buccaneer. This game got a little chippy towards the end much to Tampa Bay’s favor. They ended up winning the game, but lost Mike Evans for next week’s game in the process. Word came out Monday afternoon he would be receiving a 1 game suspension. He will miss the Green Bay matchup next week (a big loss for Tampa Bay). Tampa Bay’s defense still looks like the best in the league. They sacked Jameis Winston 6 times. Speaking of Jameis, it has been really hard to evaluate him while he’s under constant pressure. This offense has weapons and the defense is strong, but if this offensive line doesn’t shape up, they won’t make it very far.
New York Jets 31 Cleveland Browns 30
Is Joe Flacco elite? Should Zach Wilson stay on the sidelines? Or is this Browns’ defense worse than we thought? We’re only kidding on the first two questions (kind of). In all seriousness, what is going on with the Cleveland defense? Supposedly one of the best squads in the NFL has allowed 31 to the New York Jets (2 touchdowns after the two-minute warning) and 24 to the Carolina Panthers. Brissett did enough to get his team the win and “Chunt” looked dominant as usual, but the defense needs to step it up if they don’t want to be out of playoff contention by the time Deshaun Watson comes back. This game was one of three on the week that went off the rails. The Jets were down two scores and had a 0.01 chance of winning, and did thanks to an immediate TD, onside kick recovery and another immediate TD. This was a disgusting loss for those who had Browns -6 or -6.5 but will be one of the few bright spots on a very meek season to come for the Jets. Enjoy this one New York.
Miami Dolphins 42 Baltimore Ravens 38
One of the greatest regular season comebacks/choke jobs of all time was witnessed on Sunday. The Dolphins scored 28 points in the fourth quarter to complete the 21 point comeback. As a Baltimore -3.5 bettor I am still sick. Two blown coverages leading to two wide open touchdowns. I wrote last week about how I believe the Dolphins are frauds and I am still a firm believer in that take. Tua has thrown for 739 yards through 2 games. 45.7% of those yards were YAC by his receivers. Miami won’t be able to move the ball like that all season. He’ll have to hit receivers deep without relying on broken coverages. When Tua is pressured, something Baltimore never did in the second half, he breaks down and makes poor decisions. He had 2 bad interceptions in the first half and that is the Tua we will see the majority of the year. Dolphins’ fans should enjoy it now, because they will be exposed next week against Von Miller and the Buffalo Bills. As for Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, this is a tough one to swallow. Jackson played nearly a perfect game and was let down to the highest degree by his defense. Fortunately for them, the rest of the division is underperforming currently and their playoff chances are still high.
Detroit Lions 36 Washington Commanders 27
The Lions are currently averaging 35 points per game. Who saw that coming? Everything about this team seems smooth and effortless. Detroit is loving every minute they get to be on the field and are quickly becoming one of the most beloved teams in the league. Goff looks like he did in his two Pro-Bowl years and Amon-Ra St. Brown is developing into a top wideout. Aiden Hutchinson even joined in on the festivities with 3 sacks. If this team stays healthy, it’s hard telling how dangerous they can become. There is nothing dangerous about Washington though. Their defense has holes everywhere and Carson Wentz is a roller coaster of great and terrible. The Commanders need to find more ways to get the ball to Terry McLaurin (their best weapon) because through 2 games he has only 6 receptions, 133 yards and 1 touchdown.
Jacksonville Jaguars 24 Indianapolis Colts 0
Trevor Lawrence looked amazing and Doug Pederson was playing chess while Frank Reich was playing checkers out there. Is it too early to pronounce the Colts dead? Their offense has been anemic. If Jonathan Taylor doesn’t rush for 125+ yards this team doesn’t stand a chance and that is not a recipe for a winning team. Everyone believed Matt Ryan was ineffective in his last season for Atlanta because he wasn’t going to try on a terrible Falcons team. Maybe he was ineffective because he’s old and washed up? The Colts don’t have any time to waste after an 0-1-1 start and Kansas City, Tennessee and Denver in the coming weeks. It’s possible they could have zero or one win at the conclusion of that stretch. Jim Irsay in the last few years has not been a very patient man and Frank Reich’s seat could be getting hot.
Los Angeles Rams 31 Atlanta Falcons 27
The Atlanta Falcons almost redeemed their 28-3 Super Bowl debacle with a come from behind victory where at one point they were down 28-3 to the Rams, but couldn’t quite get the job done. If you tailed our Mariota over 0.5 interceptions pick at even money, you’re welcome. This Atlanta team will be frisky and keep themselves in a lot of games. Closing those games and getting the win is quite a different story. Los Angeles’ offense looked a lot better, but too many mistakes took away their chance at a blowout. Stafford continues his trademark feature of throwing too many picks. His shoulder looked better than it did last week, but it is still worth keeping an eye on, as he will need to be fully healthy for them to be serious contenders.
San Francisco 49ers 27 Seattle Seahawks 7
Oh boy. What are the 49ers going to do about Trey Lance? Reports are he is out for the year with a broken ankle and Jimmy Garoppolo is now the guy again. The real question is, what happens if Jimmy leads San Francisco to another playoff berth and maybe a playoff win? Unless the 49ers believe Trey Lance can be a top 8 quarterback, they can’t give up Jimmy’s production. Their defense is undeniably scary. In the last 10 games, the 49ers’ defense has only allowed 16 points per game and 4 of those were 13 or less. Any quarterback can win games with that kind of production on the other side of the ball. As for the other sideline, Geno and the Seahawks came back down to earth after their huge win against Denver last week. He went 24/37 for 197 yards and 1 interception, and it is the perfect look into what Geno will likely be the rest of the season. I wouldn’t be shocked if Drew Lock was playing by Week 10.
Dallas Cowboys 20 Cincinnati Bengals 17
Joe Burrow is running for his life every snap. He is on pace to be sacked 110.5 times. More than likely that regresses back to the mean, but with what we’ve seen through 2 games, 50 sacks is definitely on the table. Seeing how Burrow handles the pressure is what I have found most interesting. Maybe this is revisionist history, but it seemed like Joe overcame the relentless pressure and made plays last year. We have not seen that so far in 2022. What can you say about Dallas other than they had a hell of a game plan and Micah Parsons is up there with T.J. Watt and Aaron Donald for best defensive player in the league. Also, isn’t it weird that Cooper Rush came out of the woodwork and played a great game against the Bengals? If you recall, last season the Bengals were massive favorites against the Jets and QB Mike White. White would put up over 400 yds and 3 TDs on 75% completion. The same team that defeated the Chiefs twice last year and nearly won the Super Bowl has now lost to Mike White and Cooper Rush, make it make sense.
Denver Broncos 16 Houston Texans 9
Nathaniel Hackett is butchering every call he gets to make. The play calling is coming in too slow, half the offense doesn’t know what to do on seemingly every play. The Denver fans even yelled out the play clock from 5 to the point of snap because they had taken multiple delay of games already in the game and didn’t want to see another one. Russell Wilson is playing timid on every snap. He’s looking to the sidelines for answers and no one has any. This team has a lot of weapons, so one can assume they will shift into gear soon. How long will it take though? The Texans have had a shot at a win 2 weeks in a row. They didn’t get the job done and Davis Mills showed why he’s still a backup level quarterback at the end of the game. Poor decisions and bad passes.
Arizona Cardinals 29 Las Vegas Raiders 23
What a tough loss for the Raiders who dropped to 0-2. Carr and the offense played well. The Raiders’ defense and Hunter Renfrow just let him down. Kyler and the Cardinals finally showed signs of life, especially Kyler’s legs. Arizona is miles better when he is mobile and it showed on Sunday. The problem is the play calling is questionable at best. For a supposed “offensive genius”, Kliff Kingsburry’s main play is called “I hope Kyler can make something happen”. The problem for Arizona is it works half the time and Kliff looks like he knows what he’s doing. This team is a roller coaster to watch and you just don’t know which version you are going to see at any given time.
Buffalo Bills 41 Tennessee Titans 7
Talk about a blow out. Tennessee gave it their all for 8 minutes and then Buffalo started playing. This is one of the best offensive stretches we have seen since the Kansas City Chiefs in 2018 (Mahomes MVP year). The difference between that team and this one? Buffalo has a top 5 defense. They’re the complete package and it’s going to take a perfect game from an opponent to stop them. The good news for Tennessee is it doesn’t matter if you lose by 40 or 4, it just counts as 1 loss. They’re have plenty of time to get back on track in such a bad division and most did not see them winning this game anyways.
Philadelphia Eagles 24 Minnesota Vikings 7
Nick Sirianni must read our blog. The Philadelphia Eagles shut down Justin Jefferson and won with ease. Kirk Cousins continued his streak of HORRIBLE play in prime time games with 3 interceptions. The real story is how great Jalen Hurts looked. At one point he was 10/10 and capped off a perfect first half with a tough 26-yard touchdown run. This thumping of Minnesota might have them as the team to beat in the NFC.
Week 2 Betting Recap: 3-2 +.82 Units / YTD 7-5 1.04 Units
We continue our winning streak this year. All week we were sweating putting San Francisco in our teaser when we should’ve been sweating Joe Burrow and Cincinnati. The Rams/Falcons game played out exactly like we said though and Marcus Mariota threw a couple interceptions. We cashed that prop at even money. We’re up a little over 1 unit on the season and will try to carry the winning streak into Week 3.
3 Stars for the Week
Amon-Ra St. Brown – 184 all-purpose yards / 2 TDs
What a day for St. Brown. This guy is quickly turning into one of the top wide receivers in the league. With Swift keeping the run game strong and Goff slinging the ball as well as he is, the lanes should stay wide open for Amon-Ra.
Lamar Jackson – 21/29 318 pass yards / 3 Pass TDs / 119 rush yards / 1 TD
The stat line you see above was all for naught as Lamar’s defense let him down. Still, after Lamar was hurt for the majority of 2021, it was great to see him back out there breaking ankles and putting up MVP like numbers.
Micah Parsons – 2 sacks / 8 tackles / 2 TFL / 5 QB Hits
Number 11 was all over the field Sunday afternoon. Parsons didn’t let Joe Burrow get into rhythm all game and he was the key piece in Dallas’ victory. He’s already tallied 4 sacks and is on his way to another stellar year.