While I was away on a mini road trip, sports seemingly always was nearby. Before I left NJ, Fan X and I went to the Meadowlands to watch the Bills and Jets. With some enthusiasm and much more trepidation, as these are the New York Jets, we watched Jets legend and Pro Football Hall of Fame player Joe Namath appear on the field and his magic might have led to the Jets running up the score to 16-0.
But within that score were some not so good things. The Jets kicker, acquired off of the waiver wire from the Minnesota Vikings, missed an extra point and horribly shanked a FG attempt (If he couldn’t kick indoors well enough to impress the Vikings, who would have thought he could kick well outdoors in the unpredictable winds of Met Life Stadium, a place he had never kicked in until game day?). Defensively, the Jets were doing okay until LB C.J. Mosley injured his groin and could not return in the pivotal fourth quarter. Mosley had an interception for a TD, led the team in tackles and sacks. He was the leader of the defense.
Meanwhile, the offense was stagnant. LeVeon Bell was a bit rusty in his first action of the year, but he did bail the Jets out with some key catches and short runs. WR Jamison Crowder was QB Sam Darnold’s favorite target on short routes into soft coverage offered by Buffalo. Darnold missed a number of opportunities with balls batted down by the Bills defensive line or overthrowing WR Richie Anderson on a deep ball when Anderson was wide open.
With their best defender gone, it opened up the field for the Bills. QB Josh Allen shredded the meager Jets defense for 17 uninterrupted points to take the lead. New York could not mount a comeback. What should have been a win instead was a disheartening one point loss.
With the season already looking drab, the news got worse this week. First, WR Quincy Enunwa suffered another neck injury; last season he was out do to neck problems. Then a reserve DL was hit for a 6 game ban for using banned substances. Mosley and first round pick DE Quinnen Williams remain out. To top that off, Darnold was diagnosed with mononucleosis, putting him on the shelf for a minimum of 5-6 weeks.
Now the season is left to reserve QB Trevor Siemian to resurrect. The one-time Denver Broncos QB out of Northwestern has a track record of starting and winning for John Elway’s team, but not well enough for Elway to be satisfied with his abilities. If Siemian can keep his predilection for making bad throws under control, and the Jets get more out of Bell in the upcoming game against Cleveland on Monday night, then they actually have a chance. Cleveland was battered by Tennessee in their opener and Baker Mayfield and Odell Beckham, Jr. will be coming to New Jersey to show a national TV audience that the opener was a fluke.
Make no mistake—this Jets team was flawed at the outset. Starting with the head coach. I was not enamored with Adam Gase when he was in Miami, and I haven’t been thrilled with him thus far. While defensive coordinator Gregg Williams comes with a reputation as a bounty hunter (New Orleans) and a proven track record with good players, he does not have that kind of roster in New York. The secondary is pitiful and the defense has taken a tough hit with the loss of Mosley for however long the groin is hurting.
The schedule is not easy—probably the only plusses in the early part were the Bills and Browns to open at home—with the Browns inaccurately anointed as Super Bowl contenders. Next up after Monday night is a trip to New England, who are 2-0 after a trip to Miami to play the woeful Dolphins. New England actually improved itself this season, even with the retirement of TE Ron Gronkowski. The acquisition of troubled and extraordinarily talented WR Antonio Brown makes the Patriots even more formidable. The defensive secondary is one of the best. Demolitions of the Steelers and Dolphins while surrendering only 3 points total is impressive—even if the opponents are not that talented. And oh, yeah, they still have the ageless wonders, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
In Miami, there is a disaster there, too. The Dolphins have been pummeled by Baltimore and New England, to the tune of 59-10 and 43-0. Key players have been traded away. Others, like DB Mika Fitzpatrick, want out of an untenable situation. Supposedly, the Dolphins are tanking the season, in order to have first crack at Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa, the consensus number 1 player in college football. It is a risky proposition to try this route, if indeed Miami is attempting such. History in Miami is trying to repeat itself—when the Dolphins needed to replace the aged Bob Griese, somehow they were able to secure the draft rights to Dan Marino. Although Miami never won a Super Bowl with him, the franchise obtained one of the greatest QB’s in the history of the game.
I don’t know if Miami will go winless this year. They do have two games against the Jets…and one in Met Life Stadium against the Giants. They play a Monday night contest in Pittsburgh, which is a team hard to gauge without its star QB. Washington visits on October 13; there are road games in Cleveland and Indianapolis; Cincinnati comes into Miami Gardens on December 22. The remainder of the schedule is rugged. I don’t know if Phil Simms’ prognostication of 3 wins is doable. I feel sad for such a proud franchise with a very loyal fan base.
Another disaster is the co-tenant at Met Life Stadium. The Giants are 0-2 after Buffalo defeated them 28-14. Absent Saquan Barkley, who scored his first TD against the Bills, the Giants simply do not have talent. The Daniel Jones/replace Eli QB watch in the media will be ramped up. For my Jets games this year, I took the Giants game on November 10. I would say that somebody has to win the game, but then again, I watched Arizona and Detroit play to a tie in Glendale last Sunday.
We landed at the Louis Armstrong International Airport and our Lyft driver took us past the Superdome about 3 hours before kickoff. Hordes of fans were heading to the stadium, wreaking havoc with the traffic on the old, narrow streets of New Orleans. Incredibly, we secured our daughter’s car, retrieved boxes from her apartment and escaped the Crescent City two hours before game time.
The Saints fans were ready for this game. Most were wearing Drew Brees jerseys, as expected. But we did see a number of fans wearing referee shirts (predominantly women) as sarcasm by telling the world that they did not forget what happened to the team with the horrendous non-call in the NFC title game.
Safely in our hotel room in Hattiesburg , Mississippi and after we had eaten dinner, we watched the exciting conclusion to the Texans-Saints game. The Saints converted a 47 yard field goal with :50 left. Deshaun Watson, an emerging talent in the NFL, took his team to pay dirt in 13 seconds. Which was too much time left for Drew Brees, who positioned his team for a the winning 58 yard field goal by Will Lutz. A great way to finishing the opening weekend in the NFL’s 100th season.
The rematch was on Sunday, this time in Los Angeles. It was one-sided, largely due to a thumb injury sustained by Brees, forcing a very rusty backup Teddy Bridgewater to face the Rams defense. LA cruised to the win.
I went 14-2 in my picks last week—losing on the Jets game and with Jacksonville, as QB Nick Foles suffered a broken clavicle. Had I picked Buffalo, we would have been in it to win the weeks’s bounty at FOX News, my daughter’s longtime ago employer.
I pick the games and she corrects me. We do it more for the fun, as I am no more an expert than any other gambler. This week, I started out with a loss when I went with Carolina over the Buccaneers. Cam Newton does not look very good right now. He has lost 8 straight starts and appears to be still not fully strong after shoulder surgery. Plus he gets hurt too much during games. What once was a very promising career could be on the downside if he cannot improve his throwing.
Conversely, Jameis Winston looked strong and the defense charted by former Jets head man Todd Bowles was spot on. With Bruce Arians at the helm, supported by a cohesive group of assistants who are among the best in the NFL, the 1-1 Bucs could be a sleeper. Forget the home loss to San Francisco to open the season—the Niners are a legitimately good team that can put up points—31 against the Bucs and 41 on the road in Cincinnati. The division is not that good—Tampa Bay and New Orleans were the top two teams until yesterday.
Buffalo had the scheduling oddity of playing the Jets and the Giants in the Meadowlands on consecutive Sundays. Behind QB Josh Allen and an improved defense, the Bills are the champions of Met Life for now. Dallas and Miami have the opportunity to also go 2-0 if they defeat both New York teams at Met Life Stadium.
The rest of my picks were fairly good until the end—Houston escaped the Jaguars at home by 1; the Ravens survived against the Cardinals in Baltimore; Green Bay went to 2-0 with another division win, this time defeating the Vikings; Seattle, which had a losing record when at Pittsburgh, pulled out a 28-26 win over the winless Steelers and Big Ben, who suffered a season and possibly career-ending elbow injury; Kansas City won again, this time at Oakland; Dallas bested the Redskins on the road; I did not pick the Indianapolis Colts to have a comeback win at Tennessee, which had punished the Browns the week before, nor did I have enough faith in the Bears, who won at Denver with :01 left in regulation, or the Lions against the Chargers. It was totally fitting that my pick in the Sunday night game was Philadelphia on the road in Atlanta—thanks Matt Ryan for your late game heroics to completely obliterate my chance to win this week’s pool.
At the end of Week 2, there will be 8 teams with an 0-2 record. Nine teams have 2-0 records. How many of those losing franchises will be tanking, and how many of those elite teams will win at least 10 games?
With all these QB’s going down, do I believe that Colin Kaepernick is going to return to the NFL? Nah…Tony Romo stands a better chance for a comeback and he’d be foolish to give up his gig @ CBS. BTW—Nike’s commercial featuring the polarizing former 49’ers QB won an Emmy.
We stayed in three college towns on this trip. Which brought good luck to two—Southern Mississippi and the University of Tennessee. Our other locale, Pittsburgh, is home to the Pitt Panthers, who invaded Beaver Stadium and gave their former arch rival, the Penn State Nittany Lions, a real tussle. While we passed Tuscaloosa, they probably didn’t need any extra help in defeating South Carolina in the SEC opener. We couldn’t help UT Chattanooga much, because they played at Tennessee. Maybe we were also helpful for West Virginia, who won over NC State at home, and Washington and Jefferson College, who trounced Thiel. 0-1 Emory and Henry thankfully had a bye.
While I jest about our giving good luck to some teams by mere presence (and possibly bad luck on the pro level by being at Met Life, passing the Superdome and Heinz Field last week), the college football landscape is shaping up and becoming interesting. At all levels.
Clemson got revenge at Syracuse, easily handling the Orange. No. 3 Georgia ripped Arkansas State, but that wasn’t the real story. Fans came to the game wearing pink, in memory of Wendy Anderson, the late wife of ASU Head Coach Brian Anderson, who lost her courageous fight against cancer. Very poignant and classy.
There were oddities—Iowa defeated Iowa State when an Iowa punt accidentally hit a Cyclone player who ventured too near the play, giving the men from Iowa City the Cy-Hawk Trophy for another year (The trophy name is derived from Cy the Cardinal from Iowa State and Hawk the Hawkeye of Iowa).
Plenty of upsets. Number one was The Citadel’s triple option running for 320 yards and downing Georgia Tech in Atlanta in OT. The Citadel does pull some upsets of the big boys—they defeated in-state foe South Carolina in 2015 and Army and Arkansas in 1992. The Bulldogs received $400,000 from Tech for the game. They should have held out for more.
Another giant killer, although on a lesser scale, is Eastern Michigan. The MAC school went to Illinois and beat the Illini. This is the third consecutive year EMU has downed a Big Ten opponent on the road—Rutgers in 2017 and Purdue in 2018.
Herm Edwards’ Arizona State Sun Devils journeyed to East Lansing and knocked off No. 18 Michigan State which had a 42 yard FG wiped off the board via penalty and then the ensuing kick was missed. Didn’t Herm once coach in the NFL—for the Jets among others?
Surprising Kansas State went to Starkville and downed Mississippi State. The Wildcats are now 3-0. No. 17 UCF hosted Stanford in a true test of their strength. UCF passed with flying colors. Air Force won a rare battle with in-state rival Colorado, posting a 30-23 win in Boulder. I guess that Colgate warmed them up for the task. Kansas traveled East and returned home a winner at the expense of Boston College. What has happened to BC football?
Moreover, what has happened to USC and UCLA? The Trojans lost to BYU on the road and the Bruins were shellacked by a very good Oklahoma Sooners squad. I don’t think that the Pac 12 is a s good as the pollsters make them out. Utah is the highest ranked, at number 10, followed by Oregon, Washington, Washington State, California and Arizona State. I am willing to say that: 1) half of these schools are unranked in 3-4 weeks; 2) not one of them will be in the top 10.
My weekly update for the Patriot League is glum. Lehigh and Lafayette are now 0-3. So are Bucknell and Colgate. Georgetown is 2-1 by virtue of wins over Marist and Division III Catholic. Holy Cross is 1-1, with a blowout loss at Navy then a 13-10 triumph over a weaker than usual New Hampshire team. Fordham’s win is at Bryant, with a home loss to Central Connecticut State and a trouncing by Ball State. This is not going to be a good season, and the conference winner will be sent home in the first round of the playoffs.
In Division II, top-ranked Valdosta State opened its home slate with a big win over Ohio Dominican. That’s 17 straight for the Blazers.
Big news in the Centennial Conference. Susquehanna upset Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for the second year in a row. This does not mean that Hopkins is a lesser team than the one which reached the Division III semi-finals last year. There are some players at Franklin and Marshall, big winners over a Juniata team which is not very good, and #8 Muhlenberg, who has The College Of New Jersey and Dickinson as its victims.
In the NESCAC, Tufts downed perennial power Trinity in the opener. This is eye-opening. Middlebury downed Williams—the Ephs are a sad situation, far from their not-so-long ago glory days. Along with Trinity, they are in the second tier with the usual suspects—Bates, Bowdoin and Colby. Trinity is likely to escape, but is Williams?
Baseball now has two weeks left to complete the season. The competition for the best overall record is fierce among the Yankees, Astros and Dodgers. After Sunday’s play, Houston and New York are deadlocked.
Quietly, the Twins have accumulated a 4.5 game lead on the Indians. Cleveland is 1.5 games out of the second AL Wild Card berth, with Oakland 1.5 games ahead of Tampa Bay.
The Dodgers have clinched their division and the Braves have clinched a playoff berth en route to winning the NL East in a day or so. The NL Central and Wild Card are up for grabs. St. Louis, Chicago and Milwaukee are separated by only 3 games. The Cubs and Cardinals play each other 7 times in the remaining 13 games. While Washington has a 1.5 game lead over the Cubs in the Wild Card, Milwaukee, playing hard despite the loss of superstar outfielder Christian Yelich, remains 1 game behind the Cubs, with a much less rigorous schedule. And believe it or not, the Mets are still in the Wild Card chase, 4 games behind the Cubs after a horrendous loss on Sunday night. Will the season-ending series at home against Atlanta be meaningful?
The Yankees had some encouraging news Sunday. Lefty Jordan Montgomery pitched for the first time since rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He gave up 3 runs, looked more like a pitcher still in Spring Training. Dellin Betances looked sharper in his two batter debut. Luis Severino is expected to pitch on Tuesday. Slugger Giancarlo Stanton may be there on Tuesday, too.
Still, while Aaron Judge is starting to hit homers, Gleyber Torres is a budding superstar and Brett Gardner is having a career power year, the Yankees suffered more injuries when Gary Sanchez, Edwin Encarnacion went on the IL again and surprising outfielder Mike Tauchman suffered a calf injury which puts his season return in jeopardy. Then there is the question of what does C.C. Sabathia have left in his tank as an opener or reliever? There are many difficult decisions to make about the post-season roster, which will clear up by the time we reach the end of the season.
As for those naysayers about the disappointing finish by the USA team in the FiBA Championships (won by Spain), remember this—if we had a full squad of the top flight players, this would never have happened. At least we are qualified for the Olympics.
I end with this in mind—thankfully Rutgers didn’t lose this weekend. They didn’t play.
No comments:
Post a Comment