You gotta feel for the Lions. They should have had their first win of the season a couple of weeks ago only to have their hearts ripped out by an NFL record long field goal as the clock expires. Now this week they score late in the game and say screw overtime, let’s go for a win right now with a successful 2 point conversion to take the lead with less than a minute to go. But the stupid Vikings had to rain on their parade and drive down the field for a game winning field goal. I can understand why Dan Campbell would be crying after this game, winning has got to start to feel pretty impossible in Detroit this year. Even when you do the right things you still somehow end up with a loss.
Now on a different note from this game, Kirk Cousins and Mike Zimmer really hate each other huh? This “celebration” below looks like it almost ends in a fight. I still think the Vikings stink this year and Zimmer will probably be gone at the end of the season because I don’t think these two can stay together for another year and they’re stuck with Cousins.
Could the Chicago Bears possibly be… good? Maybe I’m overreacting and getting a bit ahead of myself but I don’t think so. Obviously the offense didn’t put up crazy numbers or anything but they were moving the ball pretty well and looked at very least competent. Just seeing them take some shots downfield is soooooo nice, there’s finally some reason to believe that they might make some big plays again. Why did Nagy even take back play calling at all this year? They looked better last season when Lazor called the plays and they look way better with him calling the plays this year. And of course I love this defense, they are still an awesome unit and I’m sure having a decent offense has got to revitalize them.
Boy oh boy were there some scares early on in that game though with Fields getting hit left and right. If the Raiders committed one more roughing the passer I swear I was going to call the police. Then his knee hyperextending on that scramble looked BAD. I was praying it’d be something that only kept him out a couple weeks and not a season ending injury. So when he came back in just a few plays later I was elated. Thank goodness he was fine.
Packers at Soldier Field next week. Packers have looked pretty beatable this year and Bears seem like they may be starting to figure things out. I absolutely LOVE the Bears at +4.5 and will likely even end up taking them moneyline. Bear Down!
You may have seen the Barstool Sportsbook promotion this weekend where first time users in Illinois would get the Bears +7.5 at +1985 odds. I thought the Bears would absolutely cover the spread, in fact I thought they were going to win straight up, so I loved this bet. But I wasn’t a first time user and wasn’t eligible for the promotion. So at 7 am Sunday morning, after a long day at the St Charles Oktoberfest the day before, I woke up my girlfriend to have her drive 4.5 hours with me to register at the Hollywood Aurora Casino so at least she could make the bet and win some easy money. She asked that we just stay in bed and told me that it wasn’t worth the drive but I insisted that we go and that she’d be thanking me when she’s 2000 dollars richer for just 8 or 9 hours of driving. I was wrong. We should’ve just stayed in bed and maybe even just slept all the way through the game.
The Bears offense was incredibly bad. For some reason I believed that with a week of preparing a game plan specifically for Justin Fields starting at QB, Matt Nagy would be able to scheme ways to move the ball and put up points. He’s never really done it before, but I believed this week would be different. The only offensive play I can remember cheering for that game was a pass interference call that probably wasn’t even pass interference. They only had 1 net yard passing yesterday… ONE! Fields was sacked 8 times and they never really even attempted to move the pocket or call plays where he could use his feet to buy him a little more time. How can an offensive minded coach like Nagy is supposed to be keep his job after this? He said it himself, “You almost can’t even make it up; it’s that bad.” Well, after 3 seasons of an offense that is so bad you almost can’t even make it up, it’s probably time for you to go. Unfortunately I don’t think that’ll happen any time soon, I don’t even think it will happen at the end of the season. I think we’re still going to be stuck with him for quite a while.
Justin Fields will make his first NFL start against the Browns this Sunday and I couldn’t be more excited. Sure he didn’t exactly light it up against the Bengals when he came in after Dalton got hurt but he looked solid and had been practicing with the scout team all week. We saw some of the plays he can make with his feet and a couple of beautiful passes even if they didn’t end up as completions. I fully believe that after a full week of practicing with the starters and an offensive game plan tailored to him (hopefully, who knows with Nagy) he’ll be ready to put up big numbers against Cleveland. There shouldn’t even be a question of who will start once Dalton is healthy again, this is Fields’ team now and there’s no looking back. If things go so poorly that Dalton needs to be brought back in then it’s 1000% time to fire Nagy and Pace.
Sidenote: I saw some articles saying that with Dalton hurt the question of who would start was between Fields and Foles… was that ever really an option? I don’t even know how I would’ve reacted if Nagy came out and said Foles would start against the Browns, probably would’ve exploded or something. I think Nagy would’ve very literally been run out of Chicago at that point.
We have a football game to watch tonight. It may just be the pre-season, neither of the starting quarterbacks may be playing in this game, and it may just be real sloppy football throughout the whole game, but there is a football game tonight nonetheless. The NBA finals being so much later than usual actually ended up being kind of nice because the gap in sports where there’s nothing on but baseball felt incredibly short (of course the Olympics helped with that too). Betting pre-season games may not be the wisest of decisions considering you really don’t know who’s going to play for how long or how the 3rd string players will do when it’s their time to shine, but damn it I’m going to bet it anyway. With neither teams starting QB playing at all tonight, it’s all in the hands of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stringers; and since I recognize more names from the Steelers’ backups, I’m going to rock with them at -1.5. I feel like defenses typically look more put together at this point of the season which would make a smart man want to bet the under… but no one has ever accused me of being a smart man. Defenses can score points too and I don’t want to cheer against points in the first football game of the season so I’ll be putting my money on O 32.5. 7 o’clock (8 ET) can’t come soon enough, football is back!
#Rams QB Matthew Stafford has a swollen thumb after hitting it on a helmet in practice, but X-Rays were negative, source said. He’ll likely miss a few days, but nothing major.
It sounds like Stafford’s hand is ok which is great, but I want to know how the D lineman whose helmet he hit is doing? Obviously it depends on what the scenario in practice was at the time. If it was 1s vs 1s then obviously the D lineman probably got a stern “don’t get so close to the QB” and they moved on; but if it was 1s vs scout team then that guy must’ve been shitting his pants. Say it was a late draft pick or an undrafted free agent, he probably saw his NFL opportunity flash before his eyes. If Stafford had actually hurt his hand on that play that lineman would be cut right then and there, hell he still could’ve been without a serious injury. Hopefully if it was a 3rd stringer the lack of serious injury bought him some more time on the Rams.
I don’t think much has to be said about Justin Fields. Sure, Matt Nagy has said Andy Dalton will start the season but any NFL fan knows that once Fields gets thrown in he’ll be a top-tier quarterback right off the bat. The only question is how long will it be until he gets the reins because Dalton is looking awesome at training camp. The tweets below show the beautiful passes he’s been throwing, making me think he’s taken the next step and is about to have a breakout year competing with the best QBs in the league. I know you may be thinking “that’s just the Bears twitter account tweeting out highlights,it’s not indicative of any kind of big leap by Dalton” but I disagree. Why would the Bears tweet these if every throw hasn’t been this good? That would just be getting fans’ hopes up for nothing. Now let’s look at the other NFC North quarterbacks.
Packers: Aaron Rodgers is coming off of an MVP season and has consistently been among the top 3 QBs throughout his career, but this off season showed it will be a down year for Rodgers.He hates the Packers organization and simply does not want to be in Green Bay. He made them trade for Randall Cobb so that he can have a friend to just kick back and relax with while he goes through the motions for his last year in Green Bay. I have no doubt he’ll be back to MVP level play when he finds a team he actually wants to play for. Until then, he’ll just be in a holding pattern.
Vikings: Kirk Cousins has just entered the NFL’s Covid protocol and will have to miss at least 5 days of training camp before returning to practice. I’d put Dalton and Cousins pretty close to each other in terms of skill level so these missed reps are really going to cost the Minnesota QB. While he’s sitting in quarantine, Dalton and Fields will be continuing to get better and really separating themselves from Cousins.
Lions: Jared Goff is a decent QB but he’s no Matt Stafford. If the Lions still had Stafford they’d most likely have the best quarterback in the division this season but unfortunately for them he’s gone. Goff will do fine but I haven’t seen any clips of him making overly impressive throws in the first week of camp (I also haven’t looked for any).
That was fast. #Colts QB Carson Wentz will have surgery to repair his foot, per coach Frank Reich. He’s out up to 12 weeks, but could be much less. They will remove a bone in his foot.
What a brutal blow for Carson Wentz. It’s got to be disheartening to have an injury like this come up right as you’re getting ready for your fresh start with the Colts and to show everyone that you can get back to playing at a high level. That being said, deciding to go ahead and get the surgery on his foot is definitely the best decision. Why waste time with rest and rehab that probably will just lead to needing the surgery right before the season actually starts anyway? Hopefully the recovery goes well and we’ll see him playing again at the start of the season… unless of course he gets Wally Pipp’ed by Sam Ehlinger or Jacob Eason.
This really sucks to see. Apparently Tarik Cohen is still walking around gingerly after tearing his ACL last season. He’s an extremely fun player to watch and one of the guys I’ve been most excited to see on the field again this season. If he’s still not walking at 100%, then I guess we won’t be seeing him at the start of the season. Hopefully he’ll be back to dancing around defenders before the half way point of the season to provide a nice boost for the Bears offense.
Is it because Japan would dominate it? Surely it wouldn’t take long for an NFL offensive lineman to be ready to compete at a world class level right? You can’t tell me Quenton Nelson wouldn’t need more than a few pointers to be able to toss some sumo dudes out of the ring. Sure, they’d have to miss some training camp to go to the olympics but DK Metcalf was ready to for the 100m so the big boys would be able to as well. USA could take gold if they ever put sumo wrestling in the olympics!
The Mainly Sports Corner 