XXXII: Super Bowl Part One, and the ugliest game of the year contender...
Two massive games between teams who fancy themselves as the big boys, plus one featuring the son of a world arm wrestling champion...
I’m a bit upset that it’s already week 7 - this season is flying by and it won’t be long before we see the first ‘playoff projection’ brackets and tables. Here’s the fixtures for the weekend:
As always, I’ll preview a couple of the big games this weekend, and we’re starting with one that promises to be such a Blockbuster that it will charge you £3.49 for a two night rental.
A potential Super Bowl preview, with the NFL’s best offense against one of the most complete teams in the league, bruised and with a point to prove.
Miami Dolphins top story: Can the defence start to match the offense?
Do you need another three paragraphs about how the Dolphins offense is great? I don’t think you do. Take it as read - they’re the best show in town right now. You know that, I know that, your dog knows that.
What we do need to see from Miami, though, is a big improvement on defence if they want to keep up with the hair-on-fire start from Tua Tagovailoa and the bois. And they’re going to have a massive test this weekend.
The Dolphins defence has been deceptively weak so far - they’re the 7th worst in terms of points allowed1, bottom third of the league for yards allowed and bottom half for Yards Per Play allowed. They’ve been bailed out in a big way by the ridiculously explosive offense that has outscored everyone in the league by every metric.
In fact, they went 14-0 down to the lowly Carolina Panthers on Sunday before their offense sorted their shit out, banged in 40 points and won the game.
Why is the Dolphins defence so bad? For one, injuries haven’t helped. They traded for superstar cornerback Jalen Ramsey in the summer, who then promptly blew his knee and had to have surgery. He’s just come back to training and so will be on the field soon, which should help their leaky pass defence.
It’s a new scheme, for another. They tried to fix their defence by sacking last year’s Defensive Co-ordinator Josh Boyer and hiring one of the best in the business, Vic Fangio. Fangio is a 44-year veteran of the coaching world and has run some of the best defences in the league in his career. There’s whole defensive ideologies based on the ideas he started in the 90s. Any new scheme, though, is going to take time to bed in.
At this point, it doesn’t matter that the defence is still trying to find its feet. The difficulties will come if and when the offense has a bad game and the opposition still rack up points. If one slip-up turns into a slide, the whole thing could become a lot more fractious.
Let’s not forget, the Miami Dolphins have only played three playoff games in the last 20 years and lost them all - there’s a fair bit of pressure to make a scene now they’ve got an amazing-looking team on offense.
Philadelphia Eagles top story: Are they actually good or just a massive fraud?
It’s been a weird one for the Eagles so far. They’re 5-1 and top of the NFC standings, but still haven’t put in a properly strong performance. Wide receiver AJ Brown just had four consecutive games with over 125 receiving yards, but quarterback Jalen Hurts has thrown as many interceptions in his first six games (8) as he did the whole of last season.
Are they sneaky good and just need to work out the kinks, or are they a load of Fraudley Harrisons who only beat shite teams and will be found out when the going gets tough?
Well, fresh off a gut-punch defeat to the not-as-shit-as-we-thought-they’d-be New York Jets, the Eagles will be out to prove they’re for real. And who better to prove it against than the Dolphins, top of basically every scoring metric you’d care to imagine.
The good news is (as you’ll read above) the Dolphins defence should be very accommodating. The bad news is the Dolphins offense could trample all over them.
Losing one game is fine, a blip. Losing two in a row is more cause for concern. After this one the Eagles play the Washington Commanders, but then after that - holy shit, does it get tough. From week 9 onwards:
Dallas Cowboys
Kansas City Chiefs
Buffalo Bills
San Francisco 49ers
Dallas Cowboys
Brutal. Without exaggeration, that could be five defeats in a row if things go badly.
It might not be a must-win game against the Dolphins, but they’ll want to show that they’re up for the challenge and make those teams coming down the pike think twice.
Recent history: It’s only once every four years for these two - most recent was 2019, when the 2-9 Dolphins beat Carson Wentz at QB for the Eagles. How times have changed.
Who’s the favourite? Currently the home side. Philadelphia favoured to win by a fairly narrow 2.5.
Two of the highest-paid QBs in the league, neither of whom have set the world on fire this year. Can the Chargers remove the gunsights from their own feet, and can the Chiefs stop fannying around and actually score some points?
LA Chargers top story: When does concern become a crisis?
You don’t really appreciate how weird a team the LA Chargers are unless you’re watching them regularly. How can a group of players with this much talent keep screwing it up at every opportunity? It’s sensational to watch!
Just ask this woman who went through the full gamut of emotions as they tied the game late, then lost to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night:
It’s been like that the entire season entire history of the LA Chargers. QB Justin Herbert is still dividing opinion - some say he’s the bomb-throwing, lock-flowing future of the position while others say he’s as big a fraud as there comes in the league.
Monday’s game did nothing to dispel that notion, with two horrible overthrows and a game-losing interception putting the focus brightly on the guy they just paid $52m a year to win them games, not cost them games.
The Athletic summed it up:
Herbert is being paid to make those throws now.
He is being paid to lead winning and tying drives in crunch time.
He came up short in Week 1 against the Miami Dolphins. He came up short in Week 2 against the Tennessee Titans. And he came up short again Monday night.
The two overthrows were jarring because Herbert is typically so composed, so accurate, so unflappable, so reliable — even in the face of unrelenting pressure.
This performance came in prime time, in a game the Chargers really could not afford to lose. And so the criticism will come. That is how it goes when a player signs a contract like Herbert did.
Make no mistake, the Chargers could have beaten a still out-of-sorts Dallas Cowboys if they’d done the simple things right. Lose again against the Chiefs in a divisional game and the knives could really be out again for Head Coach Brandon Staley.
Kansas City Chiefs top story: Will the real Kansas City Chiefs please stand up?
It’s the return of the “Oh wait, no way you’re kidding.
He didn’t just do what I think he did, did he?”
The Kansas City Chiefs, like the Philadelphia Eagles, are 5-1. Like the Eagles, they’ve done it in a really roundabout way. And like the Eagles, they haven’t needed to play their best to get there.
So much so, that Head Coach Andy Reid is pulling out all the weird shit, like a bored child putting play-dough in the Playstation to see what happens. Nothing good is what happens. Cut that shit out.
No-one fell for that fake field goal, except the TV director.
The Chiefs had some serious good fortune with dubious refereeing decisions against the New York Jets, benefitted from the Minnesota Vikings and Jacksonville Jaguars both completely imploding, and beat two terrible teams in the Chicago Bears and Denver Broncos. There’s your five wins, and not a signature performance in any of them.
In short, even a ropey start and some batshit plays from Reid haven’t stopped them making a very comfortable start to the season.
Their schedule isn’t massively rough through the rest of the year but it would be good for their offensive belief if they could actually string together a solid game. That starts with the LA Chargers, a team in their own division who they should be putting away if they have hopes of back-to-back Super Bowl wins.
They have to start playing properly soon, right? Right?
Recent history: The Chiefs have won the last three and 15 of the last 18 meetings between these two, dating back to 2014.
Who’s the favourite? KC are forecast to win again, this time by 5.5.
A couple of other lines from games of note:
Detroit Lions (5-1) at Baltimore Ravens (4-2): Two of the dark horses to make long playoff runs have both made strong starts. Can the Lions do it without their impact running back David Montgomery, and how will the Ravens look after a trip to the UK last week to beat the Titans?
Las Vegas Raiders (3-3) at Chicago Bears (1-5): This one gets the award for the ugliest matchup of the weekend. Two teams who have looked patchy to say the least, and both will be without their starting quarterback (LV’s Jimmy Garoppolo and Chicago’s Justin Fields) due to injury. That means fifth round rookie Aidan O’Connell will start for the Raiders and undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent gets the nod for the Bears.
Bagent’s dad is a world arm wrestling champion. That’s about the best you can say for him.
That’s it for today! Hope you enjoyed and are buzzing for those two top games; I know I am.
See you next week for more of the same nonsense.
XOXO
The six teams with a worse record for points allowed are a who’s who of teams you don’t want to be in the same bracket as: Arizona Cardinals, New York Giants, Chicago Bears, Washington Commanders, Carolina Panthers, Denver Broncos. Oosh.
That Chargers “fan” is an industry plant and I cannot be convinced otherwise, even after the Pat McAfee interview. Periodt.