NFL Week 2: After further thought
Well, so much for all 16 fan bases that thought their favorite team was going undefeated.
And so much for all of those rooters who felt their team was destined for the number-one overall pick in the draft courtesy of a 0-16 season.
We still have six unbeaten teams and six winless teams. Hence, Overreaction Week 1 is usually followed by Reality Week 2…sort of.
But here are some facts that may surprise those fans of the NFL’s parity. For what it’s worth, the average margin of victory in 15 games this week so far is a less-than-exciting 13.5 points per contest. Nine of the league’s 15 outings were decided by 11 points or more.
So here are some thoughts and some numbers regarding Week 2 of the 2014 season and entering Monday night’s game between the 1-0 Philadelphia Eagles and 0-1 Indianapolis Colts.
Enjoy…if you can.
–After looking pretty potent on the offensive side of the football in their Week 1 meeting with the Cleveland Browns, Mike Tomlin’s Steelers have done a disappearing act when it comes to reaching the end zone. Pittsburgh owned a 27-3 halftime last week and wound up holding on for 30-27 win. On Thursday night, the Black and Gold fell to the Baltimore Ravens, 26-6, and failed to score a touchdown in that contest. All told, Tomlin’s club has been outscored a combined 50-9 in its last six quarters of play…
–You know what cures whatever ails the New England Patriots every once in a while? It’s called squaring off against a team from the other conference. Dating back to 2001, Bill Belichick’s club is a gaudy 43-10 vs. NFC teams, the latest victory a 30-7 conquest of the Minnesota Vikings. And if you include the team’s five Super Bowl appearances over the span, the Pats are 46-12 vs. interconference foes—with exactly one-fourth of those setbacks to the New York Giants…
–What a difference a fourth season makes? Under head coach Ron Rivera and quarterback Cam Newton, getting off to a good start has been tough to come by. In both 2011 and 2012, the Carolina Panthers dropped eight of their first 10 games each season. A year ago, Newton and company became the first NFL team since ’08 to open 0-2 and still rally to make the playoffs. In fact, the Panthers were 1-3 last season and won 11 of their last 12 games to capture the NFC South title. This season, Carolina is off to a 2-0 start for the first time since 2008 and on Sunday, handled the Detroit Lions, 24-7…
–For the second straight season, the New York Giants are off to a 0-2 start. And for the 13th time in 18 games dating back to 2013, Tom Coughlin’s club gave away the football at least twice in a game, committing three turnovers in the team’s 25-14 loss to the visiting Arizona Cardinals. The Giants are now a very inconvenient 7-11 and have now committed 49 turnovers in 18 contests dating back to the start of last season…
–Following up on one of last week’s notes. With their 30-21 loss at San Diego on Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks lost a game by more than seven points for the first time since 2011, the season before quarterback Russell Wilson was drafted and became the starter. Looking for the biggest reason the defending Super Bowl champions’ setback was the fact that the Bolts did an extraordinary job controlling the football. Pete Carroll’s club watched San Diego run 75 offensive plays to the Seahawks 40, while the Chargers held the football for an impressive 42:15…
–Quarterback Peyton Manning remains a model of consistency. If you take his last seven games that he played with the Indianapolis Colts in 2010 and his first 34 regular-season contests with the Denver Broncos. That brings Manning’s streak to 41 consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass, one of the longest streaks in league annals. On Sunday vs. the Kansas City Chiefs, the veteran signal-caller threw three touchdown passes without an interception for the second straight week in Denver’s 24-17 victory.
Let’s do the math and play it conservatively at the same time by saying Manning throws just one touchdown pass in each of his last 14 contests this season. That would give him 511 aerial scores, three more than the NFL’s all-time leader in quarterback Brett Favre (508). And a touchdown pass in each game would extend his streak to 55 straight games, one more than the record currently owned by New Orleans Saints signal-caller Drew Brees (54)…
–Talk about putting a streak to an end? Entering Sunday night’s tilt with the 49ers, the Chicago Bears did not have good memories of their last eight road tilts in the series. Dating back to a 41-0 Monday night loss in 1987 and including a playoff loss in 1994 to the eventual Super Bowl XXIX champions, the Bears had lost eight straight games at San Francisco by a combined score of 271-49. Chicago was shut out in three of those contests and it looked like business as usual for the Niners last night when Jim Harbaugh’s team opened up a 20-7 third-quarter lead.
But the 49ers self-destructed in the fourth quarter and when Bears quarterback Jay Cutler was done, he had led his team to a 28-20 victory. The win by Chicago also snapped an 11-game overall winning streak by the home team in this series that dated back to 1989…
–Back to the Niners, who might petition the league to keep them off Sunday nights for the foreseeable future. Jim Harbaugh has now been the head coach of the team for exactly 50 regular-season contests. And the team has been simply sensational when it comes to taking care of the football, committing just 48 turnovers in those 50 contests. To compare, the New York Giants have committed 49 turnovers in their last 18 games dating back to the start of the 2013 season.
But who can explain the club’s performance in the spotlight in recent years? Since 2012, the 49ers are 3-3 in Sunday night games under Harbaugh. But it’s not so much the win-loss record but the uncharacteristic mistakes by the Niners in these six contests. All told, 14 of the team’s 48 turnovers since 2011 have come in front of the NBC cameras.
What does it mean? Who knows? But after Sunday night’s home loss to the Chicago Bears in which quarterback Colin Kaepernick committed all four of the team’s turnovers, perhaps all is not well for a team that has reached the NFC title game each of the previous three seasons.