Typhoid Titans & Lover’s Quarrels: NFL Week 4
Starting off this week’s recap by welcoming a new addition to the NFL 2020 season, someone many predicted would make a move early on but it’s still too early to see the impact they’ll have on the rest of the season: Coronavirus has made it to the NFL! In case you were sleeping under a rock and you didn’t read last weeks recap, Tuesday morning the Titans announced they had several positive cases and then I’m not going to say the shit HIT the fan per se, but it was definitely a dicey week. Cam Newto`n also tested positive, meaning they had to scramble to reschedule the Patriots/Chiefs game to Monday (meaning we had 2 games keeping us up past bedtime), and the Saints/Lions game was in question until a player was retested and got a negative.
So you’re probably reading this like, girls, we are aware, COVID-19 is still a problem, but it’s a bigger deal that our PRESIDENT has it and the NFL is going to be fine they handled this perfectly. Well on the one hand you’re not totally wrong, the Titans shut shit down real quick and in general the past week went much smoother than you would expect. Luckily, the football schedule is built with byes and a two week pre-playoff window that could cushion the impact. On the other hand, this week just shows how easy it would be for the pandemic to rip apart this season. There are so many people (like yes, players, but coaching staff, facilities staff, equipment people, PTs, etc etc etc) that go into making a football team and none of them are required to quarantine and/or bubble themselves. Even with rapid testing, if you’re not in a bubble, exposure is inevitable.
Ok sorry we’re done inducing panic. Let’s talk balls. (tehe). Katrina faced off against her boyfriend in Fantasy this week, so we had to be on our A-Game. Despite dumb regional TV regulations we watched lots of games this week, but didn’t get to see: Odell kill it, the Cowboys play like shit, Joe Burrow win his first game, nice boy Teddy Bridgewater securing a W, or the Colts eke out a win over the Bears. I did watch a homoerotic kerfuffle in the Chargers/Bucs game (also the Stanley Cup made an appearance there?) and a loooooot of special teams mistakes on the Chargers side that bogged them down enough to let Brady win.
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Broncos 37 Jets 28
BREAKING NEWS: The Jets kinda suck. In this game, the announcers decided they would just say this over and over again, which tbh, is a little rude because it’s not as if the Jets don’t KNOW guys!! The game was downright UGLYYY to watch . Multiple sacks (many by Broncos’ player Bradley Chubb- the rule for this one is if he sacks, you gotta yell “YOU JUST GOT CHUBBED”) some helmet grabbing, some trash talking and a bajillion FLAGS ON THE PLAY. So so so many penalties. The Jets received 11 penalties and 6 personal fouls- Coach Gase was reported to have sent players straight to the locker room after to avoid a fight (much to my dismay). Broncos coach Vic Fangio (sounds like the name of a villian in a Disney Channel Original Movie), discussing the Broncos’ need for a win was quoted as saying “Winning has cured more ills than penicillin” which seems like a kind of insensitive comment given that we’re all fighting the biggest ill of all time (it’s corona. Corona is the Big Sick).
Bills 30 Raiders 23
Did I expect the Bills to be 4-0 at this point? No! But that just shows what I know! Very nice boy Josh Allen had a solid game, playing through a lot of tough hits and throwing some excellent passes to Stefon Diggs & Cole Beasley (who has a great name). The first half set up the Bills for success in this game, but the 2 turnovers and 7 penalties on the Raiders didn’t hurt. The Raiders are in a biiiiit of a crisis because their coach (who, in my opinion seems kind of like an asshole, but I prefer my coaches to wear masks so I guess that’s just me) isn’t performing as well as they want. Oh also, Derek Carr was in hot water for attending an event for teammate Darren Waller’s foundation that basically was a petri dish (no masks in sight, everyone just ~vibing ~). Big takeaway: Bills should keep up the good work, Raiders are underperforming.
Eagles 25 49ers 20
Patron Saint of Football Giuseppe Garoppolo is out still with an ankle injury, and SF is struggling in his absence. They started backup QB Nick Mullens, who ended up throwing a pick 6 (chug) and was promptly replaced with C.J Beathard (who definitely was made fun of for that last name in middle school). They didn’t play HORRIBLY considering they’re playing pretty much exclusively their B-Team, and actually did okay defensively. THANKFULLY my main man George Kittle (tight end if you know what I mean) was back in action, prompting the announcers to say things such as “KITTLE IS UNSTOPPABLE” and “ I CAN’T BELIEVE IT HE’S STILL GOING”. Call Miley because George comes in like a wrecking ball. I’m going to be totally honest here and say that I did not watch this whole game because once again, games last 5 hours and I go to bed at 10 otherwise I get CRANKYYYYY but what I did see gave me hope that the Niners would pull through. Alas, they choked at the end which even in my early days as a 49ers fan, I am starting to recognize as a pattern. Hopefully once the key players heal, they’ll be back on their game. It’s early guys!
Patriots 10 Chiefs 26
I don’t want to beat a dead horse here but all MNF games should start at 7pm. WAY easier to stay up for, the ONLY downside is that it’s a scheduling conflict with Jeopardy (not sure what that says about the audience bases…I’ll let you make your own assumptions). No Cam Newton (thx Rona) meant that the Patriots could not stop the steamroller that is Patrick Mahomes. Much was made of the fact that the backup QB Brian Hoyer AGE 34 has been all over the NFL with a losing record (lost 11 starts for 3 separate teams). If you were drinking every time they said “journeyman” in reference to Hoyer, you probably had a pretty rough Wednesday am. In other off the field news, there was some flight issue and the Patriots arrived like.. barely before the start of the game (call me a conspiracy theorist but I bet Covid has a hand in this delay too). I find it EXTREMELY questionable that they let this game move forward at all, but what do I know, I’m not an epidemiologist.
Finally, in Fantasy round up, it was a tense week in Crown Heights as I tried to determine whether the tips Boyfriend was giving me were true… or part of an elaborate scheme to sabotage my team in our faceoff(turns out, they were good tips, he seems to actually care about me doing well?? @Boyfriend you are very nice, and this was very sweet but perhaps not the best fantasy strat). Despite many injuries and backups being out due to…Covid, I managed to whoop his ass and come out the victor. In an incredible turn of events, I am…. you know what, I’m not going to jinx it. It’s too early and there could be like, 8 more COVID outbreaks before this season ends.
