10 NFL Week 2 awards and superlatives that we'll be arguing about all week

Sunday was a lot. For some reason, the NFL decided to throw nine games in the early slate and only three games in the late slate, one of which was a Super Bowl rematch between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. Once you gave up trying to keep everything straight and just succumbed to the chaos, it was an awesome day.

As is the situation every week, there are a bunch of awards to give out. Did I miss some things? Maybe, but there was a whole lot going on, so cut me some slack. 

Kickoff flubs and every penalty ever

The first three awards are all coming from one game, and it’s a game that had no right being nearly as good as it was. 

Game of the Year of the Week: Giants and Cowboys

In Week 1, Sunday night football became a Game of the Year when Josh Allen threw for 251 yards in the fourth quarter and led a 16-point comeback over the Ravens. It was sick.

Week 2 gave us the Cowboys/Giants game that looked like it was going to be a real stinker. If these two teams were going to score a bunch of points, it was going to be by taking advantage of either defense's bad secondary… It took a minute, but that’s exactly what ended up happening. 

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Cowboys led 17-16. At the end of the fourth quarter, the game was tied 37-37; there were five lead changes, and they scored 41 total points.

It all got capped off when the Cowboys’ horse-legged kicker, Brandon Aubrey, bombed a 64-yard field goal to send the game to overtime. 

Then, in overtime, Russell Wilson threw an interception on the Giants’ second possession, which gave Mr. Horse Leg the opportunity to kick a 46-yarder as the clock hit zero. To no one’s surprise, he did. 

Who knows what next week will give us? If it’s the same as this week, it’ll be between the Falcons and the Panthers, and Bryce Young will somehow throw for 350 yards and four touchdowns, or something dumb like that. 

Forgot About the Rules: Giants and Cowboys

There were 26 penalties for a total of 266 yards in the Giants and Cowboys game, 14 and 160 yards for New York, 12 and 106 for Dallas. That’s absolutely bananas, but it doesn’t quite do justice to the chaos. Those are just the accepted penalties; there were 35 flags thrown this game. 

The Giants' left tackle, James Hudson, started the game with a fire in his eye. On their first drive, he had four penalties for 40 yards… and then Brian Daboll benched him. It would’ve been great if they just kept him in. Just let him keep doing his thing until the refs got tired of throwing their flags.

Later in the game, we got not a trifecta, but a quadfecta of penalties. Most of the time, when you see a bunch of flags on the field, it’s because multiple refs saw the same penalty. This time, each ref saw their own penalty.

The Giants had 12 men on the field, a defensive pass interference, and a roughing the passer, but none of that mattered because CeeDee Lamb started pointing and laughing at a cornerback and got called for unsportsmanlike conduct. That means that all of those penalties ended up offsetting each other. Football rocks. 

Old Guy of the Week: DangeRuss

There are four certified old quarterbacks in the NFL right now: Joe Flacco, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, and Russell Wilson. Of those four, DangeRuss had the best game, and by a lot. It was a ‘turn back time’ kind of performance. 

The one thing that never left his bag is his moonball, and based on what the Cowboys were throwing at him, you would think they’ve never seen him play football once over the past 14 years. 

He ended the game 30-of-41 for 450 passing yards, three touchdowns; that’s 15 yards per completion. The problem was the aforementioned interception in overtime that directly led to the loss. If it weren’t for that (and maybe despite it), this would’ve been one of the best passing games of his career. 

These old fellas fluctuate from week to week, so you have to imagine that this isn’t the Russell Wilson we’ll see every other week… let alone next week, when they get to play the winless Chiefs on Sunday night.

Rookie of the Week: Drew Mukuba

There were a handful of good rookie performances on Sunday, but no one had the impact of the Eagles’ second-round Safety, Drew Mukuba. His whole thing in the draft process was that he has a knack for being around the ball. That showed at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

The Chiefs were about ready to put a stamp on a mondo-sized drive. They took 13 plays, went 74 yards. On the 14th play, Mahomes threw the ball to Travis Kelce on a short crossing route. Mukuba was there to get a pick off a bobbled catch and return it 41 yards.

If Kelce catches that, he scores and the Chiefs are up 17-13. Instead, the Birds ended up getting a touchdown and extended their lead to 20-10. That means it was a 14-point interception. That’ll get you a Rookie of the Week award.

That’s not all Mukuba did in the game. He got half of a third-down sack to force a punt, and another big stop on a third-and-one on a drive that ended with a turnover on downs. 

Mukuba did get hammered by Mahomes on one play… But get him some peanut butter and syrup sandwiches and a year in an NFL weight room, and he’ll be a force in an already stacked Eagles secondary.

Congrats on your money, again: Myles Garrett

Until Myles Garrett has a bad game this season, he’s going to continue to get an award for getting what he signed up for. 

Just a recap: Before the Super Bowl, he demanded a trade from the Browns and said that it was because his “desire to win and compete on the biggest stages won't allow me to be complacent.” Essentially, the Browns stink, and he wanted to be on a good team. Then, the Browns filled his front yard with gold bars, and he said, ‘Actually, my desire to win and compete isn’t all that important to me. I’ll keep playing in Cleveland.’ (or Something like that).

We see how much better the Packers look with Micah Parsons. Garrett would add that, and then some, if he went anywhere else. Instead, he’s wasting his career in Cleveland. If you like football, you should be mad at Myles Garrett for selling out, specifically to the Browns. 

On Sunday, Garrett got 1.5 sacks on Lamar Jackson, and they were pretty impactful. His first one set up a three-and-out, and his second turned a third-and-goal from the five-yard line into a field goal. 

Obviously, none of that matters because the Ravens ended up winning 41-17, in a game where Cleveland out-gained Baltimore 323 yards to 242 yards… 

Bad timing: Chris Jones

Two things here: If you’re losing a game, maybe just be chill about it. If you’re not going to be chill about it and you want to talk trash, come correct, or don’t come at all. The Chiefs' defensive lineman, Chris Jones, was not chill, came, and came incorrectly.

The Eagles were in victory formation… a victory formation that, A. gave the Chiefs an 0-2 record, B. marked the second Eagles win over the Chiefs in their past three football games, and C. ended the Chiefs’ era.

Chris Jones took that time to have a conversation with Jalen Hurts, and the mics picked it up. It turns out, Hurts has a little bit of a potty mouth, so don’t click play if F-bombs aren’t your jam.

Jones: “You didn’t even have 100 yards.”
Hurts: “We won the f--- game. Shut your a-- up.”

That’s the embodiment of Jalen Hurts: telling someone who is criticizing his stats that he won the game. That’s a pretty foundational piece of his personality at this point. You would think that a guy who lost to him twice in one year would know that. 

The other part of this is that Jalen Hurts did have 100 yards. As a matter of fact, he had 101 yards… so, yeah. In your face, Chris Jones. 

Stock Up: Lions

So in Week 1, the Lions looked bad against the Packers. They lost 27-13, but that's because they scored their only touchdown of the game with 55 seconds left; the real score was 27-6. It was ugly, and the Green Bay defense had them in hell.

How do you bounce back from that? Just drop a casual 50-Burger on your divisional punching bag. 

Jared Goff had 334 passing yards and five touchdowns. Amon-Ra St. Brown had 115 yards and three touchdowns, and Jameison Williams had 108 yards and one touchdown. Jahmyr Gibbs had 94 rushing yards and a touchdown. 

That offense looked a whole lot like their 2024 offense that was racking up 33 points every game. Their reward for playing that well? A Week 3 Monday night game in Baltimore.

Stock Down: Steelers

The Steelers pretty much went the exact opposite direction from the Lions. In Week 1, they shocked everyone by winning a 34-32 bareknuckle fight with the Jets. Aaron Rodgers looked comfortable and 10 years younger with his four passing touchdowns, but it turns out that wasn’t sticky.

Against the Seahawks in Week 2, that offense got gutted, and it all came crashing down on the Steelers’ last drive of the game, when they were trying to come back from being down 31-17. 

Rodgers got sacked for a nine-yard loss, had a weird intentional grounding that looked like a fumble, and then threw an interception on a fourth-and-10. It wasn’t all his fault because his receivers didn’t help him a whole lot, but it was still mega-ugly. 

For how good that offense looked in Week 1, they had an equally bad day. The biggest blunder was from their rookie running back, Kaleb Johnson.

Big Woof: Kaleb Johnson

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I know all of the intricacies of the NFL’s new kickoff… but I’m learning. As a person who’s not in the game, I would argue that I shouldn’t be learning the rules as a guy who’s actually playing the game. Enter: Kaleb Johnson. 

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Seahawks kicked a field goal to get a 17-14 lead over the Steelers. In the kickoff after that, Johnson cemented that he was going to have a very, very bad day.

Yikes. BIG yikes. I’m trying to convince myself that I wouldn’t make this mistake: if it’s an onside kick, the kicking team can just recover the ball if it goes 10 yards. This is no different than that, right? It obviously went 10 yards, and even if there is some kind of weird rule with this kickoff about the receiving team needing to touch the ball first, Johnson did touch it. 

A truly terrible, terrible play by the rookie. With zero seconds coming off the clock, Seattle got 10 points. YEESH.

Winners: All of us

Most of the time, Monday Night Football doubleheaders are staggered by 30 minutes to an hour. In Week 2, we’re getting the Buccaneers and Texans at 7 pm Eastern, and then the Chargers and Raiders at 10 pm Eastern. 

You thought you were done spending six hours on your sofa watching football for the week? You thought wrong. You’re a winner. I’m a winner. We’re all winners. 

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