Author Archives: Tyler

The NFL in back to back weeks looks like they will have disappointing thursday night football games with the Broncos and Colts game being such a slow, defensive game last week and this week we have the Washington Commanders and Chicago Bears in which both of these teams are considered to be bottom five teams in the league with below average quarterback play thus far into the season. With the Bears having a 2-3 record and the Commanders being at the bottom of their conference with a 1-4 record both teams look to get back on track in the NFC race for the playoffs. 

Let’s go through the biggest matchups and X factors for each team and what they can do to win this game. First for the Chicago Bears, their biggest matchup that they should exploit is their ability to put pressure on Commanders quarterback Carson Wentz, the Bears have a solid defense and some good defensive pieces in safety Eddie Jackson and middle linebacker Roquan Smith. Carson Wentz is one of the worst quarterbacks when it comes to throws under pressure and stats while being pressured in general, if Chicago can force two plus turnovers on defense they will have a good shot to win. 

Now for the Commanders their biggest matchup that they should exploit is the ability to get the ball in the hands of their wide receivers, if Carson Wentz can make good timely throws without turning the ball over Washington has a very solid chance to win this game and win in a big margin, with wide receivers like Terry Mclaurin, Curtis Samuel and rookie Jahan Dotson, this Commanders team can score rather quickly and then later run the ball to chew clock and force the Bears to play catch-up in the second half.

Overall these two teams have a way to win and if they want to win they should really stick to what they’re good at and limit the amount of turnovers. Hopefully this game will be a more exciting and explosive game rather than the 12-9 overtime game last week with the Colts and Broncos.

With one quarter of the NFL season done, there’s already been some movement around the league and teams are already adjusting to their likely outcome for the season. Let’s go through some of the biggest shake ups in the league thus far through the first five weeks.

First let’s start off with the Carolina Panthers, who fired head coach Matt Rhule in just his third season with the team, Rhule started this year 1-4 and overall Rhule’s time with the organization has been rather disappointing Rhule’s 11-27 record over his three years with the team was unacceptable in the eyes of Panther owner David Temper who hired Rhule out of temple in 2020, the Panthers gave Rhule a seven-year $62 million contract to rebuild the Panthers organization and culture. The new interim head coach for the Panthers will be defensive coordinator Steve Wilks.

Speaking of the Panthers Baker Mayfield will miss at least the next game and potentially a few more games with a high ankle sprain that he suffered and Sundays lost to the San Francisco 49ers, Baker and the Panthers have really struggled this year to get the offense going as Baker has produced one of his worst seasons of his career with a passer rating of 71.9 and a 4-4 touchdown to interception ratio, the Panthers also have one of the worst offenses in the league who are the first five weeks.

Pro bowl linebacker Deion Jones has been traded to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for a 2024 sixth round, the Browns will receive Jones and a 2024 seventh round pick. This is a great trade for both teams as the Falcons look to retool their defense and gain draft picks while the Browns look to bolster their linebacking core and defense overall. Jones is coming off a shoulder surgery, but still has flashes of stardom when he was playing in 2021 the Browns will owe Jones $1.39 million over the rest of the season while the Falcons now have a $12.14 million dead cap hit in 2023 from this trade.

The Kansas City Chiefs and the Las Vegas raiders faced off on Monday night football and what a show it was. With these two teams having played well against each other for the last half decade, we all knew this was going to be a shoot out. 

With the Chiefs coming off flat in the first half they really found their groove in the late second quarter and trail the Raiders 10-20 going into halftime, the Raiders in the first half did what they needed to do at the line of scrimmage and get pressure on Chiefs quarterback, Patrick Mahomes on every other snap. The Raiders did an excellent job forcing Kansas City in 3rd in long situations, including back to back three and outs and short drives.

The Chiefs completely turned around their second half scoring 14 unanswered points in the third quarter to take a 24 to 20 lead to start the fourth, with both teams not scoring a touchdown in the fourth. This game came down to field position and field goals, With Patrick Mahomes doing spectacular things once again, Mahomes threw four touchdowns and also rushed for 28 yards. The concerning thing is the Chiefs defense gave up over 150 yards to raiders running back Josh Jacobs.

As a Raiders fan, you have to feel awful. As every game you watch the season has come down to the final possession, and all have been one score losses as the Raiders drop to 1-4 their playoff chances are looking slimmer and slimmer after every week. Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams was visually frustrated after the loss and pushed a cameraman, Davante was fined $100,000 and apologized after the game, with tempers getting high and losses piling up this raiders team is potentially one of the most underachieving teams thus far.

Week five in the NFL was nothing short of spectacular, some underdogs won and some teams are still on fire. Let’s go through my three biggest takeaways from Sunday’s games and why they should or shouldn’t be worried about their season.

        Is the NFC East good? 

With three of the four teams in the NFC East having a 4-1 record or better this division has been one of the most shocking talking points of the season thus far, with the Philadelphia eagles, looking like the best team in the NFL at 5-0 and the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants both being 4-1 this division looks like it’s going to be a top three division in the league this year. Despite the Washington commanders being 1-4 there’s still a very good team weekend and week out. The Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys beating the defending champion Los Angeles Rams. This division will have at least two playoff teams coming out. 

        Surprising teams this season

The NFL has had many surprising teams thus far from the New York Jets to the Seattle Seahawks in many other teams having winning records some other teams in the league have had surprising starts to the year, but not a good ones from the Tampa Bay buccaneers to the Tennessee, Titans, and Indianapolis Colts who have all looked bad on offense, these teams seasons are all circling, the drain rather quickly.

        Rams, Packers in deep trouble 

    The Green Bay Packers and Los Angeles Rams look to be in trouble as both teams are really struggling to start this season, with the Rams and Packers both losing yesterday to NFC East teams the Rams drop to 2-3 and the Packers drop to 3-2 and you may be think they don’t have bad records why are they in trouble? 

Well in the Rams case their offense has looked like a bottom 10 offense in the league as they can’t seem to get any running game going, outside of Cooper Kupp this receiver core looks underwhelming for opposing defenses, leaving all of the offensive load on Matt Stafford and Kupp to make key plays every drive. In the Packers case they also are having offensive struggles especially in the wide receiver room as well, rookies Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs aren’t getting targeted enough cause Aaron Rodgers isn’t comfortable throwing to skill players that aren’t veterans in this league.

Today is the best day for a NFL fan, as every Sunday is considered NFL day during the football season. Let’s look at each game in time order being played on Sunday, predict the scores and outcomes. 

    Green Bay Packers vs New York Giants

    When: 9:30 AM ET

    Score: 24-21 Giants win

    Pittsburgh Steelers at Buffalo Bills

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 31-20 Buffalo wins

    Los Angeles Chargers at Cleveland Browns

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 27-24 Chargers win

    Houston Texans at Jacksonville Jaguars

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 21-17 Jaguars win

    Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 24-14 Vikings win

    Detroit Lions at New England Patriots

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 28-24 Detroit wins

    Seattle Seahawks at New Orleans Saints

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 21-20 Seattle wins

    Miami Dolphins at New York Jets

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 24-20 Miami wins

    Atlanta Falcons at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 

    When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 20-17 Tampa wins

Tennessee Titans at Washington Commanders

When: 1:00 PM ET

    Score: 21-20 Commanders win

San Francisco 49ers at Carolina Panthers 

When: 4:05 PM ET

    Score: 24-17 49ers win

Philadelphia Eagles at Arizona Cardinals 

When: 4:25 PM ET

    Score: 28-21 Cardinals win

Dallas Cowboys at Los Angeles Rams

When: 4:25 PM ET

    Score: 20-21 Rams win

Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens

When: 8:20 PM ET

Score: 28-27 Cincinnati wins

The Thursday night NFL primetime game of the week was definitely one to forget, looking on social media last night to see how many fans and media members disliked this game and matchup in general. 

The Indianapolis Colts beat the Denver Broncos 12-9 in a battle of the bad offenses, with the game coming down to the last play Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson had a chance to win the game if he threw the ball to a wide open K.J Hamler in the endzone but ended up throwing a pick to Stephon Gilmore when attempting to throw to another receiver, Hamler looked visually frustrated and hit his helmet multiple times off the ground after the play, this Broncos team overall is starting to get very frustrated with Wilson and head coach Nathaniel Hackett.

    Penalties really cost the Broncos last night with their first six third downs all being 3rd and 17, 16, 15, 12, 10 and 7. With the Broncos offense looking this poor between bad coaching and Russell playing subpar this is getting out of hand rather quickly and unless something changes relatively fast this team could be changing up real quick. 

    Like Russell Wilson, the talk around the league is Matt Ryan looking cooked, Ryan has looked good for stretches of games but the overall consensus is the former MVP might be “washed” Ryan in five games this season has eighteen total turnovers including seven interceptions and eleven fumbles, which didn’t help his case last night as matty ice had four more turnovers last night which cost the Colts points. 

At the beginning of the year this was the matchup of the potential two best teams in the AFC but adversity is hitting these teams very hard as both quarterbacks are playing well below their standards and in the Broncos case their head coach looks way over his head and might be looking for a new job in the coming future. The Broncos will look to bounce back against the Chargers as the Colts get back to above .500 and will look to face the Jaguars next week.

The Denver Broncos will face the Indianapolis Colts on Amazon Thursday night football for a AFC showdown, these two struggling offenses will fight for an eventual playoff spot at the end of the year as most media members assume both teams will be in the mix. With both teams coming off brutal losses, each team is looking to have a bounce back a week and get in the win column, last week Broncos lost to the now 1-3 Las Vegas Raiders and the Colts losing to the helpless Tennessee Titans. 

        Let’s go through the key matchups for these two teams, and what they can both do to win this game. First, let’s start off with the Denver Broncos, the key for the Broncos to win this game is for Russell Wilson to scramble out of the pocket and force the Colts to have a spy defender and pass on mid yardage routes, with Javonte Williams suffering, a torn ACL, and missing the season. This Broncos offense will have to be more creative with the run game and in the short yardage passing.

        For the Titans, this all comes down to forcing Russell Wilson and the Broncos offense out of the end zone, with the Broncos, being one of the worst red zone offenses this season, this Colts team should definitely look to make Denver take three points instead of seven. The Colts have really  struggled on offense this year, but with key losses on both sides of the ball for the Broncos, with Javonte Williams, Randy Gregory, and others all missing time. This Colts team should work to get back on track and force Denver’s defense to stay on the field for an extended period of time. 

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Monday night football is always a treat and last night was nothing less than that, with the Los Angeles Rams taking on the San Francisco 49ers in San Francisco this has quickly become one of the greatest rivalries in today’s NFL football with Rams head coach Sean McVay and 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and once again Shanahan beat McVay.

The San francisco 49ers beat the Los Angeles Rams in a convincing 24-9 fashion with the 49ers making some spectacular plays, with niners star receiver Deebo Samuel breaking tackles to bust open a 57 yard catch and Samuel finished with a total of six catches for 115 yards and a touchdown, but the story of this game was the 49ers defense led by defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans who looks like the next great defensive coach in this league and if the 49ers defense keeps looking like this, Ryans could be up for a job in the next coaching cycle next offseason. 

Switching to the Rams, they have to be somewhat worried about this team due to the fact that in the majority of their games thus far the Rams have given up five plus sacks due to losses on the offensive line last offseason with the star center and left tackle departing from the team last offseason, this Rams offensive line looks like it’s in complete shambles. What’s more in shambles than the Rams offensive line you might ask? The offense in general, the Rams last night didn’t score a touchdown and was held to a total of 257 yards last night, between the O-Line, lack of run game and the once a stacked receiver core is now a weakness of the team with only Cooper Kupp being the only reliable wideout on this team. 

The Rams now fall to a disappointing 2-2 while the 49ers are looking good with their 2-2 record.