CONCUSSION PROTOCOL: NFL Week 4
We’re back and at least one of us is reporting LIVE FROM VEGAS which, fyi, is on Pacific Time, meaning I watched an entire Monday Night Football Game and STILL WENT TO BED BY 10PM. Say what you will about time zones, but that’s incredibly convenient! (football is a frickin brunch activity out West, it’s wild out there. wait is that why they call it that??)A lot went down this week, some good & some bad, but all of it bad because this sport is deadly and we do not have the safeguards in place to police the central governing body who happens to care wayyyyy more about money than they do the players. Color me shocked! More on this in a bit, but first:
The Games We Didn’t Watch
Vikings 28 Saints 25- A Report From our London Correspondent Alex: “The general vibe was great. Saint’s defense was not. Andy Dalton is…good? He should be our quarterback???? Lots of Vikings and Saints fans in attendance from America but also a lot of British Lads came out to be loyal to the bit.” She bravely embedded herself with a group of brits who started a cheer for Andy Dalton. Friendly reminded that British people are all alcoholics who can’t be trusted with booze: They had to have the rules specifically changed so they could have drinks in seats. As far as game play, despite not having any good players (Kamara, Thomas both out. As was Jameis Winston but I wouldn’t call him a good player), the saints remained competitive and alllllmost tied in the end but the FG was just too far away.
Seahawks 48 - Lions 45: Yet another Lions game with absolutely ZERO DEFENSE. I don’t think y’all understand that 45 points is like…6+ touchdowns? That’s a LOT! The Lions have scored like…a record breaking amount of points (there’s an opportunity for a stupid stat here but I won’t repeat it!). Now they just have to figure out how to…win the games? to be fair i bet they thought 45 points would do it.
Titans 24 Colts 17- Titans are working hard to keep their season on track, the Colts are boring, idk, no thoughts here.
Chargers 34 Texans 24- Despite being decimated by injuries ALREADY at this point, the Chargers are trucking along, recovering after a tough loss last week.
Falcons 23 Browns 20- I love to watch the Browns doing poorly!!!!!!!! They went down early in this game and managed to end up keeping it close (thanks mostly to the Falcons inability to keep a lead),
Cowboys 25 Commanders 10- Cooper Rush is 3-0 as a starter and has thrown 0 interceptions. People want this to be a quarterback drama, but Jerry Jones didn’t pay Dak Prescott an ungodly sum of money to not start him, so expect Dak to run the show again once his hand recovers. When will that be? He wanted to come back this coming week but lacks “grip strength” so stay tuned (insert dirty joke here)
Eagles 29 Jaguars 21- Trevor Lawrence continues to remind us he is a good quarterback with better hair, and the Eagles showed a little weakness (maybe laziness?) but they’re too good to lose to the likes of Jacksonville.
Bills 23 Ravens 20- In the most anticipated game of the week, the 2-1 Ravens faced off against the 2-1 Bills. A battle of two fearsome offenses and way too smart defenses was just as exciting as advertised, including a tie athrough most of the second half and a spicy end of the game drive that sealed the W for the Bills. Feels like one of those match ups where it was so closely fought that neither team REALLY lost, because they both played well it should count as a win. Apparently that’s not how it works, but whatever!
Cardinals 26 Panthers 17- Is Kyler Murray playing as well as he SHOULD be for the paycheck he’s getting? {Probably not. But as someone writing this blog during work hours, who am I to pass judgement on the work ethic of others? )
Raiders 32 Broncos 23- Raiders get their first win since I decided to stop disliking them! Shout out to my homies in Raiders country, shout out to me for being in Raiders country,. I saw the allegiant stadium and can confime it looks just as much like a roomba in person!
Packers 27 Patriots 24- The Patriots were winning for a good part of this game, pushing it to overtime, where Aaron Rodgers found a way to win. Unfortunate! One thing I’ll say about Aaon Rodgers is he’s very good at cxontrolling the flow of the game, even when his team falls behind, which is honestly as much as an important element as the whole scoring points thing. It’s really annoying when assholes are good at what they do smh. Anyways the Patriots are down to their 3rd string quarterback after thier back up QB got injured, and they only have 3 quarterbacks, so this was ALMOST really interesting. (key word almost)
The Games We Did Watch
Bengals 27 - Dolphins 15
A Thursday Night Football game to end all TNF football games- not because it was so good nothing will compare, but because Tua’s grim injury makes us question why we’re forcing short weeks in a sport that is already incredibly damaging to the players! Notably, Richard Sherman spoke out vehemently against the existence of “short weeks” thanks to TNF (i.e. you play a game sunday, you play a game thursday), and he has bravely continued this activism despite the consequences turned to giving commentary on the prime broadcast. The House wins again! (that’s a gambling joke I AM IN VEGAS). Anyhoo, you may remember us telling you LAST week about the scary hit Tua took against the Bills, wherein he tumbled to the ground, stood up to walk away, and then clearly blacked out and fell again (kind of relatable content; who amongst us, etc). Could it get worse? Yes! Early on in the match against the Bengals, Tua got sacked (The Bengals sacking rather than getting sacked? Would have been groundbreaking if not for this injury), not even like SUPER hard, but immediately had a fencing response- aka his fingers seized up in a distorted way, which is the body’s reaction to spinal trauma. Cool cool cool! Then the broadcast proceeded to show that…a lot more times. A choice! SO GROSS UGH. Tua was eventually carted off, taken to a hospital, and then flew home the next day (because if there’s one thing doctors always recommend with a potentially life altering spinal injury it’s taking a flight with multiple altitude changes- genius!). He remains injured with “a concussion” and will miss next week (as well as most of his memory, cognitive function, etc etc. Kind of a joke but not really because the NFL has completely blown this situation and everyone should get sued imho). They later fired the doctor who cleared Tua because, sure, it was definitely a one person issue and not a systemic problem. Bengals went on to win the game, but it’s clear that win didn’t feel good. (that being said, Joe didn’t get sacked as much though bear in mind the threshold for that is like 5 sacks, the Bengals offense looked more interesting, and their defense was looking pretty solid even before they switched to having to tackle my sweet sweet backup QB Teddy Bridgewater). (I maintain that name sounds like an old western character)
Jets 24 Steelers 20
It was honestly difficult to watch any football after Thursday night, not to sound dramatic but this is exactly why I didn’t like this sport for YEARS (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- why is it FUN for y’all to watch young men give each other Traumatic Brain Injuries!), but it was raining and I had two hours to kill so…NFL wins again (they’re bankrupting us tbh). Also always difficult to get excited about watching the goddamn Jets, but, here we are (here being in the New York metro area with local regional TV channels). All that being said, I DID watch, and turns out it was bout that time for the MILF Lover to return to the NFL stage- Zach Wilson is back as QB1 for the Jets, and despite Joe Flacco’s best efforts to make us remember him, Zach looked pretty damn good. The Jets came out to an early lead (10-6), which they then did their best to give away (allowing the Steelers to take it in the third quarter), but stuck it out (scored 2 more touchdowns) for a W. It means nothing in the grand scheme of things, because when you’re a jet you’re a jet all the way, but everyone deserves a win every once and awhile.
Giants 20 Bears 12
Two NY teams winning in one week? The Rapture is coming folks. OR, and now hear me out, the Bears are just goddamn awful. Could go either way! Honestly this is the Saquon Barkley the Giants have been waiting for the past few years, after his long road to recover after his ACL tear (again it almost seems like this sport is BAD FOR YOUR BODY). Rudely his stat card reflects 0 touchdowns on the day, but none of the G-Mens points would have been possible without him. He rushed and received on every drive, and though Daniel Jones did some good craftyt work (running for one touchdown, faking a punt and getting another), it’s only a good day for the Giants if Saquon is playing well. The Bears did their part by not scoring a single touchdown for the entire game (Field goals only baby! What a way to live. They said “we don’t believe in taking a three point shot, we’re only scoring free throws). Send patience and prayers to Justin Fields.
Chiefs 41 Bucs 31
All you really need to know about this game is
1) Tom Brady and Gisele have hired divorce lawyers. Does this affect the score of the game at all? No. But it doesn’t NOT affect it!! Tom is maybe getting divorced- a divorced man in Florida is extra terrifying to me. Personally I think they’ll find a way to work it out (mostly for money reasons, which btw- you should watch this video from the ringer that proves to you what a girl boss Gisele really is). This is like, all people want to talk about on NFL twitter right now, which is a welcome change from the usual spouting of stupid statistics so I for one am welcoming the drama.
2) Something that ACTUALLY impacted the game: Patrick Mahomes is UNREAL. Peep this play that tells you everything you need to know:
In case you didn’t catch that: this man outran multiple defenders, then underhand tossed the football like a goddamn hot potato (barely doing so beyond the line of scrimmage), to a receiver who didn’t even look open (surrounded by players from the other team), for a touchdown. The man makes it look like everyone else is playing with handicap mode on, what cheat code does he have that he’s not sharing???
Looking Ahead…
More London Action this week: The Giants play the Packers early sunday morning. Eagles / Cardinals will be a good game, as will Bengals / Ravens in prime time.
